The Decline Of Movie World

[Noll_57]

So I recently visited MW again and I have to applaud the park on what an amazing turnaround they’ve made. The place was looking the best it has in ages and the majority of issues the park had have been addressed. The place was absolutely buzzing and despite the very large crowds, ride operations were noticeably better. The staff overall seemed to be in a far more positive mood too and acted like they really wanted to be there (shout out to the cast member dancing down Main Street and cracking jokes with the public while preparing for the parade. They were an absolute legend and reminded me of a Disney cast member). Having the extra character performers was great too.

I’m still not sure what to think about the new character meet and greet “stage” by the tree in the Looney Tunes area. As others have mentioned, it’s a great idea, but could have at least received a better paint job that’s more fitting for the space. One nice addition I noticed is that they’ve added new speakers around the base of the tree which are now playing the old music loop that used to be heard all throughout the kids area.   

 
   
This has definitely helped address the issue of there being no audio in the land and it’s great to finally have it back after all this time. My only gripe is that it can only be heard around the tree itself and nowhere else, with all the in-ground mushroom and rock speakers that previously covered the area beyond Tweety Cages still abandoned and sitting in disrepair (one had even been ripped out of the ground and dumped on its side, not a great look).

   

It would be nice if they were able to reactivate these speakers to use alongside the new units to help liven up that area of the land too (or even just add a couple new speakers for this section). I also noticed the external music outside Superman Escape wasn’t working either, hopefully the park will address this too at some point. 

Apart from that (and of course Justice League and the Doomsday precinct, which clearly need desperate attention) everything else was really on point and the park had such a great atmosphere, one that it had been lacking for some time. Nice work Movie World! Hopefully this trend continues. 

[Brad2912]

What a disaster this park has become 

Superman

- water scene not working

Scooby

- screens in lift not working

- turntable room zero lighting or sound

- lights in disco room about 20% working 

- no ride photos 

Justice League

- Audio sync completely out of time with screens in loading area 

- 8 out of 10 physical targets not responding to being shot (no score, no vibration feedback and light doesn’t turn off) 

- 4 of the 5 screen scenes no image/projectors not working

- no fog curtain or associated audio

- as entering the spaceship scene the scores reset to zero, and the guns no longer emitted a laser for remainder of ride 

- no screen or Audio in final scene/photo 

- no ride photos 

- 2 ride vehicles on the track cycling roped off and not in use  

the ride seriously should not be operational. It’s literally pathetic.  
 

only positive of the day was my 9 year old having his first ever ride on Superman. He loved it, went to get the ride photo at the photo booth near park entry to commemorate the occasion as the kiosks were glitching out. Guy in the row in front of us had flipped the bird at the camera so we were told we’re unable to get the photo as they can’t give photos out if people are being rude… Asked if they could crop the photo to remove the moron, nope. No photo. FFS!!!

[Rivals]

5 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

Justice League

- Audio sync completely out of time with screens in loading area 

- 8 out of 10 physical targets not responding to being shot (no score, no vibration feedback and light doesn’t turn off) 

- 4 of the 5 screen scenes no image/projectors not working

- no fog curtain or associated audio

- as entering the spaceship scene the scores reset to zero, and the guns no longer emitted a laser for remainder of ride 

- no screen or Audio in final scene/photo 

- no ride photos 

- 2 ride vehicles on the track cycling roped off and not in use  

the ride seriously should not be operational. It’s literally pathetic.  

the sad thing is the ride (at least from my experiences) has been like this just before covid started, not as bad as it sounds now but practically nothing working and for a park with a small collection of rides, it shouldn’t be that hard to maintain it.

8 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

Scooby

- screens in lift not working

- turntable room zero lighting or sound

- lights in disco room about 20% working 

- no ride photos 

the sadder thing is, i’ve never seen Scooby in this bad of a state (excluding when the ride was gutted, which imo i actually enjoyed riding in the dark) i mean how do you go from the turn table room being ear shattering loud to completely silent? it feels like when this park takes one step forward, they take several back.

does anyone know if Green Lantern is at-least operational now? it’s been down for around a week, even though it’s closing until the start of October in 2 days.

[Brad2912]

44 minutes ago, Rivals said:

does anyone know if Green Lantern is at-least operational now? it’s been down for around a week, even though it’s closing until the start of October in 2 days.

Wasn’t open today 

[jjuttp]

I mean they did promise that the event was finishing yesterday, so everything appears to be back to normal now. 

Also, has Supermans water worked at any point in the last 10 years?

[Rivals]

18 minutes ago, jjuttp said:

Also, has Supermans water worked at any point in the last 10 years?

from my experience it works very randomly, most of the time right after it’s maintenance period it’s working, then after say a month it’s on and off randomly

[CR4ZE]

8 minutes ago, Rivals said:

from my experience it works very randomly, most of the time right after it’s maintenance period it’s working, then after say a month it’s on and off randomly

Last time I rode was in January '20 and the water was working. Maybe their plumbing miraculously starts working again for peak season?

[Ogre]

1 hour ago, jjuttp said:

Also, has Supermans water worked at any point in the last 10 years?

From my experience it was on most of the time last year.

[Dean Barnett]

I've been probably 5 times and this is the first I'm hearing of a water effect on Superman 😕

13 hours ago, Brad2912 said:

Asked if they could crop the photo to remove the moron, nope. No photo. FFS!!!

This is (again a common theme for our parks) stupid.. and I was surprised when I actually saw someone share a ORP to have it not cropped at all.. including empty seats etc.

Why are you paying for people to be there if they can't the photo? I'd  I've had six flags crop a photo even when I didn't have show any indication that I was interested in buying the said photo. It's also a weird privacy thing when you're making money off selling photos of random people.

12 hours ago, Rivals said:

Scooby in this bad of a state (excluding when the ride was gutted, which imo i actually enjoyed riding in the dark)

Scooby in the dark was 100% a better ride... like if you're not even going to bother to mask up a TV hanging on a wall.. why bother at all?

Edited July 16, 2022 by Dean Barnett

[rappa]

That’s sad to hear about Scooby. It was only a few years ago it had the upgrade to the disco room. Shouldn’t be hard to get that all up and running. 
 

As for JL, the ride is closed for months soon, could it be that there is an extensive refurbishment planned at that time to address all the problems mentioned? Why else would it be closed for so long?

[jjuttp]

6 hours ago, Dean Barnett said:

I've been probably 5 times and this is the first I'm hearing of a water effect on Superman

Go watch the TPR POV. It's just water gushing down the stairs .

[pin142]

Probably rain in the forecast for a few months shortly so closing it just to be safe.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 16/07/2022 at 7:10 PM, Brad2912 said:

- lights in disco room about 20% working 

Everything you said is appalling, and there is no excuse for the state of these attractions - but in the case of Disco room, not all the lights operate in every sequence. The sequence changes periodically and you may have just gotten a darker looking sequence.

I'm not the expert on this, but you'd have to do a couple cycles to see it all working from what i've seen of the install.

[rappa]

Thats a good point

[Brad2912]

4 hours ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Everything you said is appalling, and there is no excuse for the state of these attractions - but in the case of Disco room, not all the lights operate in every sequence. The sequence changes periodically and you may have just gotten a darker looking sequence.

I'm not the expert on this, but you'd have to do a couple cycles to see it all working from what i've seen of the install.

Yeh I am aware of that and have seen plenty of the cycles over time. But for instance the hanging strip lights that are in front of you immediately after the turntable room, they are usually all on regardless of the cycle - only 2 or 3 were on. 
 

if it was indeed a cycle I saw, then it’s a failure by management to accept a room with only a couple of lights in the whole thing as an acceptable “cycle”. 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Just to clarify, a 'cycle' is a ride, from start to finish. I think what you're trying to describe is what i've referred to as a sequence. 

I can honestly say that I still don't think i've seen every combination, and it's pretty hard to tell unless you're intimately familiar with the fixtures and show programming. I think I notice something new every time I ride - and with a kid at 116cm, there isn't too much else we go on.

While I have been out of the industry a long time, i'd be willing to bet that it's more likely you just didn't notice everything that was operating, that it felt 'darker than usual' and you've concluded that that meant it was broken, most likely because you haven't seen that particular program before. JMO. 

 

 

[Naazon]

There is also the highly likely chance its a combination of both, the darker sequence (I've been in one where it was super dark, and next ride, all lighter were on) and some lights weren't working which may happen to be the lights normally operating in the 'dark sequence'. Or you know, shits broke yo.

[rappa]

1 hour ago, Brad2912 said:

if it was indeed a cycle I saw, then it’s a failure by management to accept a room with only a couple of lights in the whole thing as an acceptable “cycle”

I can guess that comes down to an artistic choice and a matter of personal opinion 😛 

Given in that ride the turntable room and the hanging LEDs all work as one element, and the nature of those hanging tubes is they all work together it seems unlikely 'a couple' could be working unless there was a technical fault, which would be different to 'not bothering to do maintenance.

 

One reason you would run different lights for different cycles in longevity. Doesn't matter how good a unit you have, if it runs for 8 hours a day, every day, wizzing about like a trashy Surfers nightclub it will fail. By alternating things and giving lights a break it would certainly prolong the life of the equipment.
Plus some people will like a dark and moody coaster ride vs bright rainbow colours, and some the opposite. Different looks keep things fresh and appeal to a greater audience. 

 

Now if you rode it 6 times in a row and hated every ride then that's a problem. 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

1 hour ago, rappa said:

Now if you rode it 6 times in a row and hated every ride then that's a problem. 

Now that depends on the speed of operations and the queue time. I'm not sure how often scenes update but the wait time over the past couple weeks has been 45-75 minutes pretty much every time i've checked. You'd be hard pressed to get 6 rides in a day, let alone a row.

[rappa]

10 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Now that depends on the speed of operations and the queue time. I'm not sure how often scenes update but the wait time over the past couple weeks has been 45-75 minutes pretty much every time i've checked. You'd be hard pressed to get 6 rides in a day, let alone a row.

Hilariously I have tried to ride Scooby specifically get two different 'shows' and hilariously managed to get the same one twice, I did have a chuckle. 

 

...but I think you know what I meant in my original comment

[Spotty]

Was at Movie World on Sunday, the Superman Crew were honestly doing a great job. 2 trains running and they were running without a sorter too. Managing to get trains dispatched very quickly. Wish I could say the same for DC Rivals... 90 min waits with 1 train operations. Also, I think they have adjusted the seatbelts or the tolerances quite significantly recently. I have absolutely no issues at all on Steel Taipan and the seatbelt even has some give, on Rivals... not so lucky and I'm not exactly huge (Just tall mostly) which was a bit of a bummer. 

Was great to see the park so busy, I just really hope that it wasn't cost cutting for not putting the 2nd train on and it was an unexpected mechanical issue as they did have 2 loaders and a sorter rostered on. Staff were honestly doing the best they could do though.

[Rivals]

i’ve always found that ST’s restraints have somehow been better the Rivals as i felt more comfortable in them. will never understand how but they are a bit different even though they’re they have the same restraint system.

[Tricoart]

1 hour ago, Rivals said:

i’ve always found that ST’s restraints have somehow been better the Rivals as i felt more comfortable in them. will never understand how but they are a bit different even though they’re they have the same restraint system.

Maybe they've just got slightly better seat moulds or something? I feel the same, though, but I thought that it was due to a ride op having me push the restraint down full force every single time I went on DCR, but Steel Taipan being a breeze.

 

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

Was great to see the park so busy, I just really hope that it wasn't cost cutting for not putting the 2nd train on and it was an unexpected mechanical issue as they did have 2 loaders and a sorter rostered on. Staff were honestly doing the best they could do though.

My only hope is that this is them trying to finally 'fix' the back row, if not then that's a bummer cause AFAIK it's been inoperable for longer than the price hike.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

10 hours ago, Spotty said:

I think they have adjusted the seatbelts or the tolerances quite significantly recently. I have absolutely no issues at all on Steel Taipan and the seatbelt even has some give, on Rivals... not so lucky and I'm not exactly huge (Just tall mostly) which was a bit of a bummer. 

Can tell you there's been no adjustment to Rivals. Taipan IS DEFINITELY more forgiving. I'm right on the limit for Rivals and always ask to be stapled to be sure. Taipan never needs any extra effort.

 

9 hours ago, Rivals said:

i’ve always found that ST’s restraints have somehow been better the Rivals as i felt more comfortable in them. will never understand how but they are a bit different even though they’re they have the same restraint system.

Exactly. I think though that the RFID system in Taipan has something to do with it - clearly the mechanics behind the actual harness are different and that is why there is more flexibility on ST.

 

[Rivals]

Some things to note from today:

- DCR’s operations seem to be getting even worse with it dispatching every 4-7mins. The queue ended up getting to 90mins.

- Superman's operations were surprisingly fast with them taking around 1min to dispatch.

- (don’t know if this was already in place) but the exhibition is open from 11-4 however the only thing letting guests know is a sign out the front of the exhibit so guests that went there got sent back as WWF is also closed.

- i haven’t noticed this until now but the food quality is very poor especially for the price.

- the kids WB stage’s speakers are loud enough to bring a lot of life back into the area and surprisingly isn’t that bad of an eyesore compared to photos (however it could’ve been done better.)