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Does anyone know what Top gun was originally supposed to be themed to?
I've heard two stories about Top Gun. It was ordered under the vestiges of KECO (whoever owned the park between Taft and Paramount), and was going to be named The Swoops. I've also heard it was going to be named Thunder Road.

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15 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

I've heard two stories about Top Gun. It was ordered under the vestiges of KECO (whoever owned the park between Taft and Paramount), and was going to be named The Swoops. I've also heard it was going to be named Thunder Road.

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Ok well I'm glad they didn't go with The Swoops. That sounds like some kind of tropical disease you have to get vaccinated for before going to Southeast Asia or something...lol

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6 hours ago, flightoffear1996 said:

Maybe not as large as you might think. They could be planning to turn the inside of the Flight of Fear queue area into a haunt.

 

 

I hope not. Haunt makes the park looks so trashy. No need to ruin another perfectly good area of the park for 1.5 months of nonsense. 

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3 hours ago, Ben43065 said:

Does anyone know what Top gun was originally supposed to be themed to?

Before Paramount bought the park, there were a couple of signs near the Banshee toilets (pre-Banshee of course.) One “Coming next year, Swoops”. I suppose that was some king of bird theme for Adventure Village and became Top Gun underP-mount. The other sign said “who would have thought we’d ‘Resort’ to this”. I think this might have been the beginning thoughts for a resort that eventually became Great Wolf Lodge... way in the future.

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3 hours ago, KIghostguy said:

Nothing says “frontier Ohio settlement” like Tomb Raider...or “African village” like Top Gun...or “turn of the century amusement park” like The Italian Job.

Better theming? Please.

They were very good at making thematic messes.

Lol, you're right,  a lot of the times the rides were woefully out of place. But Tomb Raider was a well-themed ride at the time it opened, probably more so than any Cedar Fair endeavor. My home park was CGA growing up, so that Top Gun was clearly themed to the movie/fighter jets and had a much better queue than the coaster of the same name at KI or even Carowinds. I do agree that Cedar Fair has generally done better keeping themeing cohesive across zones of its parks, but that's not necessarily difficult when themes trend toward generic.

My main point is that Paramount was able to show and not tell with its themeing. Cedar Fair seems prone to cooking up some wild backstory that's only available online or can be read on posters in the queue, not adding to ride experience at all. And a lot of the time the attempted themeing doesn't make sense unless you read the backstory (and sometimes even if you do) - i.e. Copperhead Strike/Twisted Timbers. OR it's just incredibly ham-fisted a la Mystic Timbers. Paramount had its cop outs, but they did do a lot better with visual storytelling on a ride-by-ride basis. 

All this being said, I think Cedar Fair gets a lot right and they're definitely superior to Paramount in most ways. I think the approach with coasters like GateKeeper, Leviathan and Banshee is sufficient for a coaster theme, especially with their entrances areas being so nice (Fury makes less sense but it also looks great). And I'm hoping if Project X has much in the way of themeing it's more show than it is tell.

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I was thinking a nice day to announce the coaster is July 25th (Christmas in July). Mystic Timbers was announced late July. It's just my opinion. I could also see August 16th with it being national rollercoaster day. Just my opinion. I hope it's after 10 pm like the last two coaster announcements because that could make for a very fun day at the park with the hype. 

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3 hours ago, Gordon Bombay said:

I hope not. Haunt makes the park looks so trashy. No need to ruin another perfectly good area of the park for 1.5 months of nonsense. 

I don't mind the Haunt for what it is (although I mostly go to ride the coasters and the extra night rides are nice), but yes it should never be detrimental to the park during the regular season.

Shuttering a former arcade during the spring and summer because it now houses a Haunted maze is stupid and lazy.

I've never understood tolerating something as worse for the vast majority of the time for the purpose of making something better a small part of the time. (See also the new Royal Fountain).

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19 hours ago, Gordon Bombay said:

I hope not. Haunt makes the park looks so trashy. No need to ruin another perfectly good area of the park for 1.5 months of nonsense. 

Halloween is my favorite holiday and I do like the atmosphere of Haunt. But I am not a fan of old ride buildings taking up space along the midway to be used as a maze for a few weeks in the year and I personally don't think any of the mazes are good enough to justify keeping the Action Theater and The Crypt around. It seems that the real reason they keep those buildings is they don't want to spend the money to demolish and therefore would rather use them for storage for the majority of the year, which is understandable. However, repainting Killmart was a step in the right direction and I wish they could do something similar to the rest. 

(Personally, I like the idea of turning one of those buildings into a KI museum, with former ride remnants and such.)

 

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8 hours ago, aj74205 said:

Lol, you're right,  a lot of the times the rides were woefully out of place. But Tomb Raider was a well-themed ride at the time it opened, probably more so than any Cedar Fair endeavor. My home park was CGA growing up, so that Top Gun was clearly themed to the movie/fighter jets and had a much better queue than the coaster of the same name at KI or even Carowinds. I do agree that Cedar Fair has generally done better keeping themeing cohesive across zones of its parks, but that's not necessarily difficult when themes trend toward generic.

My main point is that Paramount was able to show and not tell with its themeing. Cedar Fair seems prone to cooking up some wild backstory that's only available online or can be read on posters in the queue, not adding to ride experience at all. And a lot of the time the attempted themeing doesn't make sense unless you read the backstory (and sometimes even if you do) - i.e. Copperhead Strike/Twisted Timbers. OR it's just incredibly ham-fisted a la Mystic Timbers. Paramount had its cop outs, but they did do a lot better with visual storytelling on a ride-by-ride basis. 

All this being said, I think Cedar Fair gets a lot right and they're definitely superior to Paramount in most ways. I think the approach with coasters like GateKeeper, Leviathan and Banshee is sufficient for a coaster theme, especially with their entrances areas being so nice (Fury makes less sense but it also looks great). And I'm hoping if Project X has much in the way of themeing it's more show than it is tell.

It's tough comparing Top Gun at CGA and Top Gun at KI because in all honesty a B&M Inverted is by far a better ride than an Arrow Suspended roller coaster. I know some on here may not recall it (some may), but when KI's Top Gun first opened I vividly remember waiting 3 hours in line for it. When I tell my own kids this they seem shocked, but it was a long queue. It use to be well themed with posters, movie music and scenes over speakers, they had several aircraft carrier theme throughout the queue. Then when you got to the station underneath the deck you had various radar and theme's that were lit up all the way up to getting on the top deck. Unfortunately like most things with Paramount as ownership of the park the theme parts was never taken care of and it eventually went into disrepair. The absolute greatest thing about Cedar Fair buying the Paramount owned parks was the great deal of care put into cleaning up the parks. Bringing KI back to looking like it did prior to Paramount ownership. 

This ride will be great number one because Cedar Fair will keep it in much better shape than Paramount would have. Paramount could come up with some great theme's they just didn't focus on taking care of anything in the park except for their profits. I totally enjoy being at Cedar Fair Parks and finding a trash can almost everywhere I look rather than having to walk from The Beast to the Eiffel Tower to find 1 trash can like the Paramount days!

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WGT's 9th update for the construction site. Not much different than the recent aerial images we've seen, but his video does show some active concrete pouring for one of the footings (if you're into that kind of thing). 

I'm guessing all piers for this area are done being drilled (the drilling machine has been parked off to the side for a while now). From the video, you can see rebar sticking out of the drop's main backbone piers, but cannot tell if concrete has been poured into those piers yet. 

http://www.wildgravitytravels.com/kings-island-2020-update-9/

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13 hours ago, KIghostguy said:

Nothing says “frontier Ohio settlement” like Tomb Raider...or “African village” like Top Gun...or “turn of the century amusement park” like The Italian Job.

Better theming? Please.

They were very good at making thematic messes.

SV’s backstory does not count as theming to me. MT has a little bit, but I still think Top Gun’s aircraft carrier queue has that beat. The phantom theater was one of the best themed rides outside of Disney/universal that I’ve ever ridden. The animatronic maestro was probably my favorite theming piece. I can’t see CF ever doing something that good.

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1 hour ago, AdventureExpress35 said:

The phantom theater was one of the best themed rides outside of Disney/universal that I’ve ever ridden. The animatronic maestro was probably my favorite theming piece. I can’t see CF ever doing something that good.

Phantom Theater was under Great American Financial Company/Kings Entertainment Company.

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1 hour ago, SonofBaconator said:

Knotts has been excellent in terms of theming and animation. Cedar Point also has cool little bit of theming here and there.

+10

My wife and I recently went on vacation to Southern California, and made the trip over to Knott’s (we bought Platinum Passes for the first time this year). I have to say... We were absolutely blown away at the amount of theming and attention to detail in that park. Ghost Town was incredibly immersive, and both the Timber Mountain Log Ride and Calico Mine Ride, which were both recently gutted and renovated by Cedar Fair, had incredible, some may even say Disney levels of theming. The scenes were huge and the animatronics were very life like. 

So, if you think Cedar Fair is incapapable of pulling off excellent theming, you really should try and visit Knott’s. This park, more than any other, really shows the company’s changing priorities. It will change your perspective of what could happen here at home.

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18 minutes ago, KIBOB said:

So, if you think Cedar Fair is incapapable of pulling off excellent theming, you really should try and visit Knott’s. This park, more than any other, really shows the company’s changing priorities. It will change your perspective of what could happen here at home.

Remember that Knott’s is in Southern California near Disney. 

Most of the theming (or expectations of their being theming)  already existed at the time Cedar Fair took over. Cedar Fair has done a great job with that park, but I don't think you'll see that level of theming at their other parks. Knott’s is influenced by Disney and the prospect of catering to at least some Disney cross shopers.

Ohio market vs the Socal market is why we get Mystic Timbers and they get a renovated Calico Mine Ride. Both cool, different markets.

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It only makes sense the worst giga has the worst college’s colors!

I’m of course being facetious... about it being the worst giga. Love the color, can’t say the same about the University of Kentucky...

DB, being as controversial as ever


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It only makes sense the worst giga has the worst college’s colors!

I’m of course being facetious... about it being the worst giga. Love the color, can’t say the same about the University of Kentucky...

DB, being as controversial as ever


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Haha, good one! Anyway, I cant wait until we get an official announcement and then we have to wait until 4/20 to see just what we have, I am hoping we will be pleasantly surprised!

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