Richard

I normally don't pay much attention to Dreamworld's occasional annual pass holder mailouts - they're full of everything we knew six months ago as the latest news and other stuff. However, this time they've got a new deal to get more pass holders. I like the idea of being able to bring friends, and just by being there they'll get 10% of an annual pass, seemingly for free. 36.4 days unlimited entry? I guess it shows how slow things are at our parks... this is the most exciting thing happening right now.

The company who purchased the land was ING Industrial Fund. If that doesn't give you enough of an idea of their intentions, then their two page ASX Announcement will. What they are allegedly doing does sound interesting, but I've accepted the fate of the park. Perhaps I wasn't as emotionally attached as some, but I've always been a realist, and I think some people are a tad too optimistic about it all.

Negligence is about a failure to do everything reasonable in a situation. From what rabid said, regarding a book case doing something other than what is intended, this would suggest negligence. The person who would have ultimate say over the entire set would be those in control of the fire - it would be their responsibility to say that the setup is safe and there is no apparent danger, prior to anything being ignited. The flame was a gas burner (I said above that it wasn't clear about what it was based on early reports), and wax has come into contact with it, causing it to ignite. Linking this in with the book case, it sounds to me like the bookcase has fallen, hit the vat and caused it to spill wax which would ignite on contact with a hot gas flame. The right thing was certainly done after the fire had become an apparent danger in evacuating the sound stage, and I've said a few times already that at the end of the day no one was injured, the studio can and will be replaced, and the production wasn't even significantly delayed. But I stand by my opinion that there was some degree of negligence, because accidents don't just happen. As for jumping to conclusions, albeit prematurely. I see no harm in it and as you said, everyone does it. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to admit it. I don't think it's anything to have a gripe with

Well yeah, that's exactly what Universal Studios did (I know the whole Universal vs. Warner Bros. thing is probably getting tired, but as with the Dreamworld/Cedar Point thing, it sets appropriately high levels to achieve). Come on, the Matrix was just dying to replace the Superman bit at the beginning. Probably replace the second set with your idea of mixing animation and actors or something, incorporating the Memphis Belle style section with the first room. put a new film in the third room and you don't even need anything more than that, just maybe upgrade some of the implements used for creating the sounds, and don't tell us two pieces of wood slapping together is the industry's way of creating a gunshot sound - even my good pals at Universal Studios used a capgun style system. I can't remember the exact system Universal Studios had, but I do remember their sound effects area had a far higher success rate than ours could ever hope for, thanks to a much better cue system.

The blue screen's really been changed in favour of the green screen. Same basic idea, but someone figured that green works better in recent years. They show the high building scene, where they say that artists hand draw in added details. Computers have long made hand artists redundant in that particular field. I'd also suggest that the technology that drives Movie World's blue screen isn't half as good quality as your average consumer video camera these days. I never understood the Memphis Belle segment. It adds absolutely nothing that you didn't see in the first room. And of course finally, the system they've got for the Lethal Weapon sound effects room results in a near 100% failure rate for the participating guests. Get a new movie and fix up the cue system so that people actually have a chance of hitting them at the right time. Ghost Ship was indeed filmed at Movie World. One of the stunt performers was of course Mr Vic Wilson, "one of the best in the business," as we're told in the Police Academy Stunt Show (where he was responsible for stunt coordination).

I agree, the Special Effects show is in dire need of a major facelift. The techniques displayed in it are so amazingly out of date that it's almost funny, especially how you're told all the way through how it's so cutting edge and innovative. None of the movies mentioned were anything special when they were first released, and now, 14+ years on, they're not getting any better, nor are the techniques used to make them anything short of laughable by today's standards.

All reports suggest that this wasn't an explosion or an abrubt moment where the thing burst into flames. The lighted item (a large candle, not sure if we're talking "oversized" and fueled by a method other than a wick and wax, such as gas etc., but I believe not) somehow caused the surrounding props to catch on fire and it spread from there. This would have been a somewhat gradual process, not something completely out of the blue and requiring. Consequently, there would have been a window of opportunity, however small (could have been two seconds, could have been ten minutes, no one could say without reports, which are yet to come), where this unintended blaze could have been extinguished or taken under control. There was a fire control team on duty at this moment in time. Their training would go far beyond the standard fire training they give other employees - they'd be certified, accredited fire fighters. Their only job at this point in time was to monitor the fire and ensure it was under control at all times. Because this started out as a very small flame, despite anything the set is made of, I would assume that there was enough time for someone to safely act and extinguish the blaze. These people would be armed with fire extinguishers at the very least don't forget. It seems that the employee training for everyone did pay of, and the single minor injury is surely a testiment to that. I'm not saying criminal negligence, but I am saying that there was likely a degree of negligence from the fire marshals. I haven't see them personally, but I believe some news reports have made specific mention to the investigation, and that the actions of the marshals will be key to this. Remember, we're not talking an "Oh crap, the candles have tipped over and the wall is now ablaze! Call 000!" They were standing right there, and I believe that, given the scarce information available at this stage, there would have almost definitely been a window of opportunity where this incident could have been prevented safely and easily. As more information is released, I'm happy to come back and say I was wrong, because I'm simply going by what we've been told.

Why make it personal? I simply stated what my opinions of the situation are. I fail to see what "fire experience" would disprove anything I said. I simply stated that something's definitely gone wrong on the fire crew's behalf to let it do what has happened. If you want to make it a discussion about fire dynamics, combustibility of the materials involved, the design of the building etc., then bring it on. Until then though, there's not too many faults you can find with what I've said thus far.

Thankfully no one was severly injured, so I don't think there's any need to restrain personal opinions. Everything lost was material and easily replaced, so there's no harm in a bit of speculation. Well, as I suggested above, it has been reported that there was indeed a full fire crew on duty for the scene, as is the standard in the industry. I don't question at all that once it was well under way there'd be no real way of stopping it, but I'm questioning what these people were doing to let it get to this point. I think with little or no doubt that there was some definite negligence on the fire marshals' part.

Studio Eight is one of the new ones too, so not only have they lost a whole sound stage, bt it's also one of the most recently built ones that the Queensland State Government coughed up a decent chunk to build as an attempt to get the state's film industry back on its feet. My question is about fire safety and the setup they've got working there. All the studios would be fitted with the standard sprinkler systems, and especially if there is a scene being filmed using fire, there would surely be more than one fire marshal on duty. What were they doing at the time, or were there some dodgy cost cutting measures in place? I can't see this as looking too good for the film industry in this state. What Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddy Prinze Jr. started, it seems this fire has probably finished for them.

But if the trough on Snowy River Rampage has been redone, then it wouldn't be about getting a good sale price at all, because that ain't going anywhere. My personal action would be to sell the rides for what they're worth, and let the buyer bother about fixing them up rather than spend more fixing them in the hope that someone would actually be interested. I think it's a lot easier to stick a rusty, barely working ride into a multiskip than it is to stick one that's fully functioning and just had $10,000 spent on it. I'm leaning towards GoBoi's idea that they've got to keep the park presentable until the knocking ball arrives. Jaggie, I'm all for optimism, but just a stab in the dark on this one. I don't think that if that were the plan, they'd have announced that it will be demolished and replaced with an industrial estate.

There's plenty of land usable back there, certainly enough for something the size of the Revue. It did used to be in this area, but it was Road Runner if I remember correctly that took its spot. I guess they were faced with the choice between a completely unused plot of land that would require significant ground work, or just plonking it wherever they can on some flat land somewhere. Predictably so, they take the cheap option, even if it ruins the integrity of a section of the park. I'm pretty sure it's an all-plywood construction, and the tent roof hardly screams out permanent so I would say that perhaps it could rather easily be removed if need be. Talk about a useless show though. I've seen it once, and it just has no forseeable purpose. It is performed once a day, has a capacity of something like 40 people, and isn't that good. The old show used to be in the dining area for the Looney Tunes eatery and just had normal table and chairs, no stadium or anything. That provided nice entertainment over lunch or a snack, and that's all it was worthy of. There's one thing that park's can't afford to be in the long run, and that's cheap. Disney have tried that in recent years, and it's been anything but successful. Same thing here, and quick-fix here and there might do the trick now, but it certainly doesn't lead to good numbers in the future. I'd rather Movie World hold off from creating attractions such as Looney Tunes Musical Revue, Star Parade, Bat Attack, The Official Matrix Exhibit (love that name, so much better than Matrix Revealed ) etc., until they have a suitable budget to work with and create something that won't be cancelled a few short years down the track.

Well, technically speaking it's not a backlot tour. A backlot is a typically outdoor area with building facades used for many studio scenes. It's too expensive (more so with TV shows than movies) to send the whole cast and crew out on location, so you have what's called a second unit who do location shots, and just make the backlot or frontlot (which is the sound stage) look like it for the close shots containing the actors. Seinfeld rarely, if ever, filmed from New York. Outdoor scenes were filmed in Universal Studios' "New York Street", which is visible in just about every sitcom and TV drama set in New York. Enough on that though. I don't doubt that the studio tour was underperforming, but I think it's their responsibility to tweak it to something that does work. Take Universal Studios' studio tour. It is fantastic - it's funny, informative and very much rerideable. Every time a major film is done up here (which is once every few years), instead of junking the sets, keep a few bits and pieces and set them up in odd corners of their land. Add a few minimal effects (fog, some moving parts etc.), and you're more up to the standard of Universal. And it's not as if it's expensive to do, and it would be a highly marketable point - think the marketing they did for Matrix. Setup the cars as Universal Studios does. Have a live "host" onboard along with a driver. Using video linkups to each car as Universal do, you get a much more personal experience than a standard narration. Every time a barely significant star's in town, get them to record a little segment describing something. Frankie Muniz described the props department to us at Universal Studios. Finally, tie in clips from movies, showing how the sets we're driving through comes together with "movie magic" to create the finished product. Seriously, not an expensive thing to do, and it would seriously be a decent attraction, and can be marketed very effectively and can "reinvent" itself constantly, which is what they should have done to bring its ratings back anyway. Skip the areas under use and there's no chance of disrupting the filming. That's what Universal do, and it allows for rides that are unique because they've got more "side attractions" than there is time allotted for each full ride, so based on where they're filming etc. you get a "tailored" ride. Regarding the cars, last I went (and it has been quite a while admittedly), they were still parked out behind Batman still. Unless they're no longer there, I'd say that Australia Zoo have their own set - I would think that there's a company somewhere out there who makes them. There's no excuse for the Maverick set going to waste either. Maverick had limited appeal, Superstars had no appeal, but they shouldn't just call it quits because a lack of creative development lead to two fizzers. It just strikes me as odd that there are effectively less or the same number of attractions as years gone by, yet the ticket price still keeps heading up with the other parks, who tend to have an increasing attraction count. I'm not sure I'd say that Movie World is a ripoff, but I would say that Sea World and Dreamworld give more bang for your buck, which I guess is a nicer way of saying it's a ripoff.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the ride selection there, but I was done with every ride there in an hour or so. There's only so many times you can reride a swinging chair ride or dodgem cars, and I believe that number for most people is once in any given visit. I don't think anyone in their right mind would actually buy tokens for these rides - you just do them because you've paid for the wristband, and they're sitting right there, and Wild Mouse does get boring after a while. Discussion of Warner Bros. Movie World and "value for money" has been moved to the Warner Bros. Movie World thread and can be seen here.

All signs point to yes.

This topic was split from the "Which ticket system is better??" thread in General Thrills. Discuss opinions on the ride and show selection etc. at Movie World and the value for money the park has. As for that excuse, that's all it is - an excuse, not a reason. I fully understand security issues that might be related, but on that same token Universal Studios in Hollywood have their studio tour, and have had for decades. Their studios there are the largest in the world and on one of our tours we counted no less than four separate crews working on blockbuster films, award winning TV series and I believe one group doing a commercial. Meanwhile our little studios (truth hurts, doesn't it ) and the filming of B-grade Hollywood flicks is concerned with security. If telling people that this is a tour of a working studio and that at no stage are they to exit the vehicle etc. isn't enough then restrain them. All that Universal has is closing sides on the cars, which does the job perfectly.

It depends on the park and what it has to offer really. I think the Gold Coast parks would ideally be $10 or so cheaper to get into, but that's what tourists do. Now, a park like Scenic World in the Blue Mountains I consider to be an absolute ripoff. You pay $14 per ride. Go on all three (the Skyway will be back soon enough) and you've paid nearly $40.00 for three rides and no more than about 45 minutes of entertainment - whereas an hour away at Wonderland you paid about the same for a day's entertainment. On the other hand, if it were say $20 for unlimited rides all day at Scenic World, I'd probably be less tempted to purchase one, because to me they're only worth a single ride, maybe two at the most. In this situation, it's a matter of lowering the price to something more reasonable - $5.00 per ride would be pushing it I pesonally think. For $14 per ride I'd expect Orphan Rocker to be an Intamin mega coaster. Then there's Merimbula's Magic Mountain. This park is around a $30 entrance fee. The only rides terribly interesting are the Diamond Python (nothing great and wears off after only a few rides) and the Mountain Slide, which is genuinely great. I went last time and paid the $30 entry fee to spend all of two hours in the park. I don't feel I was ripped off, but I think in this situation pay-per-ride and wristbands for unlimited rides are the ideal way to go. I liked it, but I'm passing through there again in about a week's time yet I'm not tempted to visit again. The Luna Parks both offer tokens but there is a wristband option. Given these parks are reasonably large, if you're spending more than an hour or so they are definitely the way to go, meaning that I think these parks are ideally "wristband" parks. You'll get your money's worth and feel satisfied having effectively paid an entrance fee. Aussie World on the Sunshine Coast offers tokens and wristbands. I've been there using both, and I can confidently say that this again is a token park, because I just didn't feel that I really got my money's worth. The wristbands are around $25 and only last three hours, which had me running out of things to do after little over an hour, including a round of minigolf. I might think differently if their pseudo-toboggan style ride were included in the cost, but it's not. Go tokens here I say, because the Wild Mouse is the only ride worthy of really riding. At the end of the day, I think it's entirely subjective, and varies from park to park. Some parks work better with one and not the other. In regards to your circumstance at Movie World with your family. I personally don't think the complaint for me would be that guests who don't or can't ride shouldn't have to pay as much, it should be about why there isn't enough for them to do in the park. Once upon a time Warner Bros. Movie World was a park full of shows and street entertainment with some tame rides thrown in on the sides. These tamer attractions seem to be disappearing at a reasonably quick rate to make way four the "easily marketed" thrill rides. I can name two shows/tame rides right off the cuff that there is no reason for them (or a modernised replacement) not to be operating - the western stunt show and the studio tour. Cheapness on Warner Village Theme Parks' behalf is responsible for this, because there is no genuine reason that either of these can't be operating as we speak.

If you go every year, yet haven't done Disneyland Paris in a number of years, as tempting as skiing would be, I'd say take a year off from that to do Disney. There's also a brand new park right next door - Walt Disney Studios, which despite being not nearly as large as Disneyland, is home to some great rides. Think of Warner Bros. Movie World here, only to Disney standards, so in other words better. You'd be able to spend between three and five days at the Disneyland Paris Resort no worries, especially with a family you'd always have something to see and do. There's always next year for the skiing, but with how Disneyland Paris' financials are currently going, I'd personally do it sooner rather than later (I personally think it'll never close, but you never know). If your family needs convincing (don't know why they would - it is Disneyland afterall!), you can order a brochure via their website (make sure you visit the International section, not UK).

Boomerang Bay was a water park themed to Australia installed at two US Paramount parks. Here's Paramount King's Island's: http://www.pki.com/attractions_water.jsp. I think given the trend with Dreamworld attractions in recent years, it'd hardly surprise us. I just hope they put a little more thought into it than Paramount seem to have done. Some of their ride names are just plain stupid: "Tazmanian Typhoon" - Not sure what the whole "Z" thing is in Tasmania. Typhoons are an Asian (Northern Hemisphere) type of storm. "Great Barrier Reef" - A wave pool, yet in reality the Great Barrier Reef does a pretty darn good job of blocking out any waves between Fraser Island and Cape York Peninsular. "Didgeridoo Falls" is an open slide. The least you could have done was name one of the enclosed slides this, because that might just make sense then. "Bondi Pipeline" is an enclosed slide. Given the waste disposal that goes on down there, I can't think of a more ironic enclosed body slide name. The rest of the rides are just randomly pieced together Australian names which can't have involved anything more than looking up Encarta. Wouldn't it be great to think Dreamworld could do any better, given its home soil, but something tells me not to hold my breath on that one. Good to hear Sea World's allegedly on the cutting board too. It's great for the park and all, but it's so redundant with Wet'n'Wild owned by the same company and their big push for the three park passes. How'd the park cope without it on the whole while Shark Bay was being built? I think if they survived the year without it operating without splitting at the seams too much then scrapping it for a new major attraction or two wouldn't be a bad plan in the near future. Of course, use the little patches of free land they've got first, but I think when it's time for Shamu to arrive, there won't be too many other places they can stick her aside from where the water park would have once been.

I've kept to parks I've been to. I don't think it'd be any surprise to say that if it were of all parks, all ten would probably be Disney. Epcot Magic Kingdom Animal Kingdom Disney's California Adventure Disneyland Disney-MGM Studios Islands of Adventure SeaWorld of Orlando Universal Studios Orlando I've kept it to nine, because of the remaining parks I've been to (around 10 or 20 or so) I can't honestly put any of them above the others to make this list. For instance, a park might have great rides, but if they operate at abysmal capacities then I don't see how I could put that on a list that more or less praises parks. stdragon, funny you should mention Busch Gardens. At the Tampa Bay park I left with much the same opinion. Excellent rides, pretty good theming, delicious food, excellent operations and a great park because having every ride as a walkon is a welcome change from the Orlando parks. The problem is the attitude of the staff, which brought it down to "average".

The "fancy" look of Total Thrills comes really at the cost of easy-of-use. As it is, I think it's easy enough to get around, but there wouldn't be much room to expand on that, such as into what Roller-Coaster.com.au is. I know Roller-Coaster.com.au ain't gonna win any awards for outstanding web design anytime soon, but on that same token I think it's as effective as it possibly could be given the depth and large amounts of information it needs to display. The most important thing to note is that none of the content is actually stored in the site. It's all in a database so the design can be changed at any stage and all content will remain. Given the time invested into this current design, I can't see it being significantly changed for a good few years yet. There are some web designers out there who could make a site as pretty as Total Thrills with as much content and as easy to use as Roller-Coaster.com.au, but I don't think that I'm quite talented enough to be able to pull that off. Usually those that do pull it off are paid tens of thousands by companies to do so anyway.

This topic, and Gazza, are referring to the specific water park attractions Sea World and Dreamworld have, not the parks on the whole. I also agree with his opinion on this one. Blue Lagoon looks reasonably nice, but in terms of rides it doesn't really match Sea World's water park.

After literally tens of hours over the past six months, I've finally got the new Total Thrills site up in some sort of working form. It's fair to say that it's quite a lot different from the previous site, and Roller-Coaster.com.au. It'll focus more on "me" (without being too overly vain) - my travels etc. rather than Australian parks as this site does. Content's still a bit bare - I'll work through my photos from my USA trip over December/January (there's 3,000+ of them to sort through) over the next few days in my spare time. www.totalthrills.com is the url in case anyone's forgotten. As always, feel free to give comments, suggestions etc. (And to clear one that I might otherwise get a few of - yes I'm aware some image popups don't work and that will be fixed soon. )

I'll just say getting wet on an Australian water ride and getting wet on a US water ride are two totally different things. Ours are all designed to splash, theirs, bar none I've ridden, are designed to leave you head to toe soaked to the core wet. The large 12 person ones are notorious for it - the rafts are so heavy that when it comes to a wave, rather than going over it, they just cut straight through it splashing water everywhere. We got on SFMM's the moment it opened one day, and by the time we got back to the station we were completely drenched, and there was about eight inches of water on the floor, which is quite a bit, especially considering the floorspace of these things. I'd say this is the reason they've gone back to eight-seaters for the modern ones - 12 is just too bulky.

They are very easily downloaded if you go click on a specific video, where there's a nice link down the bottom saying "Can't Stream? Right-click to download it to your computer."