Bad tropes in the industry.

[balrog]

I open this thread to collect you thoughts about widespread silly/plain bad concepts in parks, coasters and themeing.

I'm wondering why is there so many car-themed roller-coasters. And who came up with the idea, seen in many such coaster narratives/queue lines, that riding a roller-coaster is the closest thing to the experience aboard a race car. Let alone the fact that race cars don't usually go up and down steep hills, didn't they notice that simple fact :
Cars don't bank !!!
It amaze me how such a stupid theming idea can be that widespread. Moreover, racetrack don't really make pretty theming environment, so why even bother in the first place, and cars are already everywhere, it is hardly an unusual/exotic/extraordinary concept.

There are so many obviously better roller-coaster themes you can go through before ending up with something as uninspired as this : dragons, flying animals, spacecrafts, bobsleighs, planes ...

 

[Lofty]

We use cars every day of our lives and have a grounded understanding that cars can have high speed, and some have quick accelerations (hence why so many launch coasters have that theme), so to use a theme that guests are very understanding about is a great idea. It may not be your personal favourite, but it's hardly a 'stupid' theming idea to use an every day mundane idea and alter it to become a fantastical experience.

Also...

 

[Gazza]

Cars don't bank !!!
.

Pls.

 

[Ben]

U OK Hun?

 

[balrog]

Haha, yeah, sure, like banking is the norm is in racetrack. So, I guess that explains all the F1 themed roller-coasters with plenty of airtime and a "this is as close as you will get from experiencing a F1 race ..." video in the queue. Come on !

Don't get me wrong, I know my first message might be confusing and poorly written. The stupid idea is not themeing a coaster to cars, it is to sell the coaster as a simulation of car experience.

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

I actually quite like the theme of racing cars, sure it isn't the best but I still like it.

Also F1 cars have been to known to bank, slightly.

Personally I would love to see a WRC themed cred (I'm not aware of one). Perhaps featuring some airtime hills to replicate:

 

[balrog]

That I can agree with, wrc is much more coaster-ish than track racing.

The thing about track banking is that it does compensate for the centrifugal force only partially. The turn is ment to be taken at a variety of different speeds, the track banking only ensure that the range of speed at which the turn can be taken is higher. The driver would still experience some strong, sustained laterals the like of which are unusual in rollercoaster.
Things might be different for nascar however, as the speed is much closer to constant, the banking might be just right, I don't know.

 

[Jarrett]

Here's my biggest theming issue I think:

The mine train coaster is a good theme. The idea of riding in an out of control mine cart is almost an industry staple these days.

However...

If a coaster is themed to a mine, an underground piece of infrastructure, it should have at least a foot of track enclosed. It's just a theme and they can't build the coaster 100% underground obviously, I get that. But on coasters like Cedar Creek Mine Ride and Carolina Goldrusher, I'm sorry but there should be at least some sort of tunnel on the ride. Themed ride hardware and a wooded setting aren't enough to give it a proper theme. I think there are even a few that are built over concrete.

 

[sKrATcher]

I personally didn't dig the I305 theming, then again, the whole nascar thing is very redneckish and not my 0.02. (sorry if you're a nascar fan reading my reply).

 

[Howie]

Alton Towers has got to be one of the worst offenders with Rita, when it tried to combine a racing car theme with a dinosaur-land theme.
I mean, seriously? What was that about?
But it's ok now cos it's all been taken over by a dark forest, where racing cars make much more sense...

 

[Treybleed]

Alton Towers has got to be one of the worst offenders with Rita, when it tried to combine a racing car theme with a dinosaur-land theme.
I mean, seriously? What was that about?
But it's ok now cos it's all been taken over by a dark forest, where racing cars make much more sense...

You mean scaffolding the ride? aka Merlins favourite themeing piece

 

[Hyde]

Requiring rides to have an entire, dedicated section.

The former Paramount parks were especially guilty of this, building rides at a distance from causeways, in order to give the ride a "sense of place". The only problem? You are over glorifying lesser rides, and soaking up a lot of real estate in the process.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

I also hate car themes.

I think theming coasters on the most basic of levels is about obtaining the unobtainable - so, allowing you to experience what it's like to be behind the wheel of a drag race, for example. I tend to take issue with coasters where the theme is neither totally immersive not abstract, but rather lying awkwardly between. So like, on Big Thunder Mountain, the hardware is part of the theme, part of the storytelling, and it's a totally immersive experience. Where as, say, Superman: Ultimate Flight's vehicle isn't supposed to be Superman carrying you, for example, lol. The theme is abstract, you're meant to ignore the hardware itself in the same way as you ignore conventions of other media. And both are perfectly valid, but the later for me implies that roller coasters are a medium and not just a tool.

On Rita, for example, it's clear that the ride vehicle is supposed to be a car, but it's not convincing for multiple reasons. It's long, like a limo, but it's clearly a race car, it banks and takes hills and what not. Even exciting, unobtainable car-related experiences would be boring if translated into a roller coaster, so you either loose the connection or you make a boring ride, or both in Rita's case.

I wouldn't say car themes are a particularly bad or common trope though... My personal pet peeve is the "mysterious natives" trope in theming and the "bigger is better" trope of roller coaster design. I hate stories shoved in where they aren't needed, too. The special thing about theme parks is you live them in real time at your pace, so force-feeding narratives is often awkward. Disney himself believed that storytelling was impossible in the theme park medium, and whilst he was definitely wrong, I find it funny how much they've flipped to the opposite which is just as wrong.

You mean scaffolding the ride? aka Merlins favourite themeing piece

The Merlin trope if there is such a thing, for sure, is to theme stuff in this gritty realism. And it would work in other mediums, but the problem is that they constantly use signifiers that have other meanings in the theme park context.

My go to example is that if you had a themed office space with trash cans that are theming and not real, guests would still use them.

If you put scaffolding on architecture, people will assume it's being fixed. The problem here is that I'm not sure they even understand why this is problematic. You're not convincing people that your theming is real, you're drawing attention to the fact that it's not.

It's like those ripped posters in Derren Brown's queue - I've no idea if they are supposed to be ripped, or if guests ripped them, or both, and it doesn't actually matter because it comes across as just looking vandalised and poorly looked after. Which is a negative thing, regardless of whether the theme calls for it, because you don't ever want to convey to guests that the space is quite that real else what's the point of being there?

 

[Zek_Teh_Kek]

Requiring rides to have an entire, dedicated section.

Most defiantly. Cedar Point does a good job of doing this as all they do is make space (a la Top Thrill or Millennium) and put the entrance right on a midway.
KI on the other hand, Well, they have The Bat, Invertigo, and the X-base to deal with.
But mostly The Bat.