The Sprog Blog: The postcard says "Wish you were here", but I'd rather I was there

Um, not much going on recently. I kinda walked out on the Jurassic Jumpers for a bit because I'm fed up of all the shit going on in the group and not enough bocking or changes happening. We've lost the gym, members are being really petty (Joe went to Lincoln without inviting or telling anyone), and as it's hitting winter the evening meets have finished. It kinda sucks, but I can still bock on my own which isn't too bad. And when the weather is dry I'll head back over to the field to relearn flips, haven't done any since my argument with the pavement...

Erm, booked in my NVQ2 for 25th November, so gotta get revising for that, and I've also got to have portfolio complete by the 11th. Also got an assignment in for the 1st December but that might be done after/during the NVQ exam, but I've started researching it now. Renal failure in a geriatric dog - causes, management and care of. In 500 words. How the HELL i'll compress that to 500 words I don't know, my past 2 essays have been 1000 words and I've gone over the limit on them.

So yeah, lots to do, eh?
Started doodling again on Friday night in a state of boredom, then remembered why I gave up. My arm killed, and I had real bad cramp in my hand. NO DOGEY JOKES, ALRIGHT!
I might go back to the old one piece a month though, working on it for like 30mins a day.

Other than that, not much going on. Went and saw How To Lose Friends And Alienate People with Rebecca last night. Was better than I expected but still... I wanted to see Eagle Eye, lets put it that way.
WHO WANTS TO SEE EAGLE EYE WITH ME?! The only vaguely-decent (That's Non-Cinema to you) source at the moment is a TS-Cam that is zoomed in on the screen to far and often flicks in and out of focus, with sound out of synch too... I gave up watching after 10 mins...

Also probably going to Wales for the weekend of Children in Need because Jono is going to attempt to break the world record Halfanimal set earlier this year. To see the previous "Record" watch the video below. The bizarre thing is if you contact Guinness, they have no record of it being set or recorded. Which is odd, and calls into question if there is actually a Record for Jono to Smash. Anyway, watch it. Then watch the video below it, that's of Jono. He's 15, and his record for backs is 15. The world record is 19, so he's pretty close to smashing it.

That's all really, so below is my rant on Thorpe Park's new coaster. It's also over on Sprog Review (sprogreview.blogspot.com) if you wanna look at anything there...

Bye =D

In the past 6 years we've seen 3 new larger-sized coasters open at Thorpe. An Intamin 10-looping coaster that took the world record for largest number of inversions, a Bolliger And Mabillard Inverted Coaster that's possibly the most compact design they've done, and a simplistic but none the less fantastic Intamin Accelerator Coaster.

It's pretty obvious to anyone that they've advanced from the smallest, more family-centred of the Tussaud's parks to the mid-size, thrillseeking park for those of us who live below the midlands and don't want to drive 5 hours to get to Alton Towers unless we've got a 2-day pass and are staying nearby.

They've all been pretty good rides, with nice layouts and some good thrills, but the theming has always seemed to be the tricky part at Thorpe. It's a small area (you can walk from one side to the other in under 5 minutes - Alton Towers takes about half an hour), so everything is pretty close to each other. However, they still manage to fit about 5 themed areas into that, so occasionally it looks like a bit of a mishmash of things and doesn't quite fit together smoothly. The theming is good, but it seems to slide around a lot and not be... as sound and clean as that seen at Chessington or Alton.

Colossus is nicely done, it's quite minimalistic but all fits together nicely and doesn't overpower the area or look out of place. It's just an Intamin 10-looping coaster surrounded by vegetation and some temple theming. It works nicely, and suits the idea of the ride.

Nemesis inferno is also themed well but... I have issues with the name. Nothing links it to nemesis other than the fact it's a B&M inverted, so why not just call it "inferno"? The volcano idea is cool, well built and the equally tropical setting is pretty good too. Just a shame you can see the amity island area whilst on it, kind of destroys the idea of it being in a tropical paradise area.

Stealth is again an oddly named ride for what it is, but that's mainly the coaster community's fault for calling it that when it was called "Project: STEALTH" and everyone simply came to know it as "Stealth" so the park decided to keep the name. So maybe more the management's fault. Who knows.
Anyway, stealth is nicely themed too, if a little weird. Amity Speedway? Ok, racing fits with the whole acceleration idea but... It could have been something else. I dunno, a rocket test. A jet. Something that isn't a racing car like every other accelerator coaster in existence. Except Kingda Ka. However, as Stealth is such a drool-worthy ride and completely awesome it just about gets away with it.

Which leads me to the new coaster. A Gerstlauer Custom-Layout Eurofighter. From the below photo you can see it's pretty nice. 97-degree drop into an immelman.

Why custom? Because they come in 3 other pre-designed versions that are a) Cheaper and b) Boring. These are the Euro-Fighter Model 320+, Euro-Fighter Model 500/8, and Euro-Fighter Model 670/8. If you're at all bothered about that.

Eurofighters. Possibly one of the best new-style coasters (along with the Maurer Söhne X-Car Coaster) to hit the market since 2000. The fact we get one in England is wicked.

They've got one at Oakwood in Wales and it's pretty shit. It's not great, it's not at all themed, and it's in the middle of a field on a block of concrete. If you want anymore info on oakwood, this basically covers it: Someone died on their giant flume, there are sheep roaming underneath megaphobia (The largest woody in the UK), and they have a skyswing.

So Saw: The Ride. They've been building this since about... Late August. Before that it was known it would be a eurofighter and it would sit on a new piece of land filled into the lake behind Samurai, off the side of Canada Creek. All looked pretty good, the designs looked really cool and it appears to have a new, bold intersting layout. It looked very similar to mystery mine at dollywood, which was exciting. But now they release that it's saw? (Yes, I've finally got to the point I wanted to make at the start, took a long time didn't it?)
Eurofighter? WOO
Custom layout? WOO
Saw? BOO

Ok, what's my problem with it being saw? I don't see it lending itself to a ride well. Thorpe is still a little bit of a family park. Which means there are going to be adults with kids there. They can't really make it an "18 only" ride, due to the park demograph. So, why pick a series that is gory, bloody and also well past it's sell-by date?

Saw I: Excellent Film
Saw II: Good
Saw III: Meh
Saw VI: WHY MAKE THIS?!
Saw V: Someone at twisted pictures needs to be shot.

I can't see it being scary, gory or anything vaguely like saw. What's the worst they can do? Have jigsaw telling you you're going to die and you must escape by riding this coaster? Ooh scary. It's not like you're going to be seeing people's heads torn off by bear traps or being shot in the face through a door. They could have based it on a new idea, not a slowly-dying franchise. Something similar, but not Saw.
Ok so places like Universal Studios work well because they're based on films and people like the "ride the movies". However, they do the rides WELL because they have so much more money to spend, making them genuinely scary due to the level of production. All "Scary" rides in the UK just seem cheap and tacky, they're not at all scary, simply because they don't have the same level of funding. Apparently this has the largest funding from any Merlin Groups Ride but it's still... Will it work well?

I'm hoping Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate are going to be putting some money towards the ride to theme it and make it as good as it can be, perhaps with a new original storyline, rather than just reaping royalties from it, because otherwise it's just not going to work well. The fact it isn't even in an area that fits with saw also worries me. If it was going to be built somewhere, I'd have picked the towers or the woods at Alton, not somewhere at Thorpe.

The ride may be really good. It's got a wicked layout with some nice inversions and it looks like they've put a lot of though into it.. It's just the fact it's... Saw. Doesn't fit with canada creek. Or any of Thorpe.

Maybe I was just excited over a Mystery Mine style ride in the UK. Maybe it's just because I'm dissapointed with what they did with the saw franchise (It's turning into something like Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, it's just getting ridiculous). Maybe it's because I don't think that "Saw" and "Rollercoaster" fit well together.
Whatever it is, I leave you to make your own decision, but mine is that I don't like the look or sound of this and I can't see it working that well.

And on a final note, does this concept artwork say "SAW" to you? To me it says "Mineshaft" or something similar, and fits alongside the loggers leap sawmill idea. It just doesn't Seem... Sawish. If that's a word.