SonofBaconator

I feel like KI might have to make alterations in a few years. There’s nothing wrong with the Opening Night story, but I feel like plot based rides usually have a shelf life, or at least the story does. Compare that to Mystic Timbers or Verbolten where there are multiple story possibilities that keep the experience feeling fresh. Then look at more ambiguous rides like the Haunted Mansion and the original Phantom Theater where the mystery allows for deeper lore building and immersion, which is part of what makes them feel timeless. For more context- for the original Phantom Theater: Maestro is the main speaker where he goes through 6 different spiels in the que, I believe 2 while he’s holding the curtain open, and I believe 3 when you see him before the prop room. There are other characters with minor speaking roles I’m sure @BryanJay can list but what I’m trying to say is that there was variety in the ride. Compare that now where you hear: ”Are you ready to be an usher?- it’s 10 minutes ‘til showtime” or “with one wave of my magic wand” on repeat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy the park brought back the IP- I just hope they look into adding more variety in the audio for future seasons to add to the experience.

I just wonder how hard it is to slap a PNG logo on shirt or hoodie as opposed to asking AI to make something that’ll be sold. I did this in literally 2 minutes without AI.

I’ll leave that to @DonHelbig to answer. I thought the name Splintercat was trademarked and the park actually did some lore building with the sound of buzzing bees and Don posting a picture of a stock splintercat on twitter. From what I remember it was all a diversion.

I know there’s dozens of Phantom Theater related topics out there but I felt like I needed to isolate this one for discussion sake. Is there a correlation between Mark Hamill’s Joker and Richard Doyle’s Maestro? When you listen to how each voice actor voices their respective characters, you can’t ignore the similarities. It’s also worth noting that Batman: The Animated series debuted in 1992, which was the same year as Phantom Theater debuted Kings Island. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, if both the characters’ voices were based off theatrical individuals, or if there’s something deeper to that. Thoughts?

Seeing what @BryanJay did makes me wish they went this route with the redesign:

I rode it yesterday and I was thoroughly surprised at how immersive the queue was as well as the ride itself. I do feel like the ghost note element was not distracting and you can honestly somewhat ignore them and just take in the ride itself if you wanted. A few critiques and some that I hope they fix as a season progresses: My two cents in the new ride vs the old ride: I would honestly give it a B+. There are a lot of technical things I still think they need to work out, but overall the ride isn’t bad – I think there are a few things that I mentioned in the spoilers that kept it from being an A+ ride. I went in knowing that it wasn’t going to be a carbon copy of the original, and I have to give credit to the park and Sally for reintegrating the original IP into a layout/concept that had been altered well over 20 years ago.

A follow up- I wonder how things would’ve been if Orion was built equal to or larger than Fury in 2020.

Local 12 shared some pics

From a thrill rides standpoint- the RMC makes the most sense. Even though KD has Twisted Timbers, what BGW is “proposing” is completely different enough to not rally draw any comparisons. A giga on the other hand doesn’t seem needed right now. Even though it would be a completely different experience from Pantherian, I think people would be quick to draw comparisons. I honestly think Tampa would get a giga first and is arguably more deserving of one: Florida’s tallest/fastest/longest coaster is extremely marketable in a state with so many large parks.

Orion is a fun ride but has become a meme in the enthusiast community. It’s safe to say most people expected Orion to surpass Fury 325 in some capacity, or at least have similar stats. I think Orion’s biggest flaw isn’t its stats but rather its timing- being built 5 years after a larger model was built in the same chain. This ultimately begs the question: How differently would Orion have been received by the community if it came before Fury 325?

I kinda wish we got this- we’re the only park to not have a wild mouse of any kind.

This move is somewhat on brand with how the timeline of this resort. I have my own opinions of it, having a hospitality background. There’s a reason why Cedar Fair never built/acquired any hotels/resorts when they bought KI..

CP ordered a small ride from Zamperla then got a large thrill ride from them soon after. KI ordered Snoopy’s Soapbox Racers from Vekoma so would it be a reasonable assumption that they might receive something large from them next?

During the Kinzel Era you had the generic copy and paste terms across multiple CF parks: “Kings Island: Where Else?” “Kings Island: The Fun and Only”, etc. Having a permanent slogan would be a good way at maintaining a marketable identity in this new chain as opposed to “hey, we’re big-we have rides”

Marketing experiences is better than marketing stats in my opinion. Disneyland and Walt Disney World are both marketed as “The Happiest Place on Earth” and “The Most Magical Place on Earth.” Cedar Point is often marketed as “A Place Like No Other.” These types of titles emphasize the experience rather than statistics. If you apply that same idea to Kings Island, you could have: Kings Island: Where Fun Reigns The message stays intentionally broad, but in a good way. When a park claims to be the biggest or the best, people often rush to critique those claims. A phrase like this focuses on the feeling of the place instead of something that can be easily disputed.

I 100% claim credit for this

With the merged chain, their reach is pretty limitless- with exception of Florida. Prior to the merger, neither chain had any active properties in the sunshine state. It makes you wonder if the merged chain would have a chance in Florida or not.

Possibly what’s quoted below They might bring the following busts back. IIRC, there were 4 originally (I thought 6 in the original ride’s concept art).

I have a question- are the stairs from the entrance leading down to the main que area level with the stairs that lead to the hallway before the turntable? I’m trying to figure out if- in theory- you could raise the floor in the show que and have it level with the 2003 entrance and the hallway. I can’t remember if there are energy exits at ground level or not- so much was changed between PT and SD.

I felt like the park could’ve taken this opportunity to “rebrand” the highlighted area of the park strictly to Phantom Theater. Rename Great Pumpkin into “Ghoster Coaster” or something that ties into the PT IP. For the Enchanted Theater, you could have a smaller PT show, live character meet and greets, or transform the inside all together into maybe a PT gift shop.

If anyone has 20 minutes to spare (or speed of the video 2x like I always do) it’s worth it:

Please, I’d love to be able to see what things look like at 50ft

I know that Holiday World and Indiana Beach exist but it’s crazy to me that Indianapolis doesn’t have some type of amusement park. They could reach 13 million people within a two hour radius. Like I said, other parks exist: holiday world, Indiana Beach, Kings Island, Cedar Point, Michigan’s adventure, Six Flags, great America and Six Flags, St. Louis, Kentucky, Kingdom, but it’s still mind boggling to me that there isn’t something. It wouldn’t even have to be something huge like Kings Island but I argue something the of World’s of Fun or Dorney would be enough.

From what I gather, in its current form it’s specifically a spacecraft that is meant to act as a transport to another planet- I believe the former form was a more vague experimental government project (sorta like how Firehawk was loosely themed.)

The story we know wasn’t the story it originally intended to have. IIRC the “meteor shower” and “distant planet” were part of the current “canon.” The original story, if I remember right, was more of XBase/A72 being a secret government base that investigated anomalies like Banshees, UFOs, Tree Monsters, Beasts, and basically all the wacky stuff KI was facing and Orion was just a secret government prototype. Correct me if I’m wrong or if I’m on the right track. Personally the current story is too…”specific” for my liking. The story we got focuses around surviving an oncoming meteor shower and rec colonizing a new planet. I feel like the idea of Orion just remaining a government prototype in a classified region of the park seems more on brand.