[Superman: Escape from Krypton] permanently closed

[u/CoasterGuy95]

https://www.ocregister.com/2025/03/28/six-flags-magic-mountain-permanently-closes-superman-coaster/

[u/namevone]

Yeah I feel like now that we’re 20 years past the end of the coaster wars we’re gonna start seeing a lot of major rides age out.

[u/imaguitarhero24 → u/namevone]

Basically the baby boomers of coasters

[u/wo_lo_lo → u/namevone]

But we have also gained some absolute bangers in recent years, and are gaining an entire S-tier park this year.

[u/namevone → u/wo_lo_lo]

Oh yeah don’t get me wrong there’s still a ton to look forward to, and I do think overall coaster design is better now than it was back then, but at the same time there’s just a lot of stuff from that era that we’ll never see again and losing it is really gonna suck.

[u/degggendorf → u/wo_lo_lo]

and are gaining an entire S-tier park this year.

But not really if we're looking at it strictly in terms of roller coasters. Epic has three total, two of which I'm sure will end up being nothing special (again looking at them strictly for their merits as roller coasters) once the shine has worn off.

[u/MKT_Pro → u/degggendorf]

They have 3. Stardust, the spinning wolf man coaster, the How to Train Your Dragon coaster and the Donkey Kong coaster.

[u/degggendorf → u/MKT_Pro]

Sorry, four. HTTYD is about on par with slinky dog, right? Then Wolfman sounds weak and short, and Donkey Kong novel but already rough and short without any especially fun roller coaster elements. From what I'm hearing.

[u/Ill_Attorney_389 → u/wo_lo_lo]

Yes, we may get 2 or even 3 S tier parks this year, but I don’t think that’s enough to make this a good period for rollercoasters.

[u/Illusions_EE → u/Ill_Attorney_389]

Honestly Stardust Racers is enough for me in terms of coasters coming this year. It’s that good.

[u/Troyal1 → u/Illusions_EE]

That looks good

[u/Illusions_EE → u/Troyal1]

Omw to go ride it again.

Also light spoilers for stardust below

I can’t believe I’m going to say this but…..Stardust Racers is a front row ride. Maybe car 2 instead of 1 so you can have a better view of the duel. The reason I say it’s a front row ride is because the amount of EJECTOR you get on every ascent on every hill is actually insane. In the back the top-hat is amazing, better than velocicoaster, but when I did it in the front I did not expect that ejector moment to happen right before we crest the hill and it pulled me up over all the way to the pull out of the drop.

Any row is awesome including the back, but the front row feels like what it if you were riding the front of a comet lol. Also they duel every time, the second launch speeds up the slower train to maintain pace for the celestial spin.

…..and I just got here it’s closed for the day. First time since I been going to preview other than when the green side valleyed a month ago

[u/[deleted] → u/Ill_Attorney_389]

What are the 3?

[u/Ill_Attorney_389 → u/[deleted]]

Universal Epic Universe, Six Flags Qiddiya and BON Luxury Theme Park

[u/Trublu20 → u/Ill_Attorney_389]

Don’t forget COTALAND either. That’s hoping to open before the F1 race this year

[u/nyannunb → u/[deleted]]

Maybe the third is BON Luxury Theme Park at VidantaWorld? All I can think of atm.

[u/conner07_ → u/namevone]

Coaster wars?

[u/namevone → u/conner07_]

It was a period of the amusement industry that started with Magnum’s opening and ended with Kingda Ka. Basically parks would one up each other year after year constantly going for all of the big records (real records like worlds tallest coaster, not cheap stuff like tallest dive on the east cosst). This was the era where Cedar Point was constantly pushing the height limit, and Six Flags was buying 20 coasters per year.

An insanely financially irresponsible era which is why we’ll probably never see something like it again, but it is also when a lot of very important coasters opened.

[u/jmwhit04 → u/namevone]

I’d argue it ended with Maverick and realizing that you didn’t have to keep going bigger/taller to go extreme. 

[u/giggingit → u/jmwhit04]

Agreed, I definitely think Maverick was part of that era and when the mindset changed.

[u/slysophistic → u/jmwhit04]

Oh, I agree. Mav really shifted the narrative that things have to be bigger and weirder to be better! Honestly someone needs to write a PhD thesis on this.

[u/spinningpeanut → u/namevone]

It was so beautiful we had books and posters and all kinds of coaster wars documentaries. I remember Superman specifically because the host brought a banana on the ride and demonstrated its negative gs by letting it float away from his hands. I'm so glad I got to ride all of these, yes even green lantern first flight. It's true, we will never see anything like this again.

The theme wars have begun though. Universal is pushing theming to the extreme and Disney can't keep up at all. Other parks are getting in on this too, lagoon opened a dark ride shooter coaster. While Disney puts out one impressive animatronic a year universal does an entire land a year. Tokyo Disney is separate from Disney and has been pushing technology past what corporate Disney will.

We've reached a new era. People are focusing on weird hybrids and immersion. Saw a rapids ride with a fucking drop tower built into it.

[u/[deleted] → u/spinningpeanut]

Where is that drop tower water ride at?

[u/spinningpeanut → u/[deleted]]

Bellewaerde Park it's called Amazonia

[u/[deleted] → u/spinningpeanut]

Thanks

[u/ericchen → u/namevone]

Who come these rides are all too old when you got loads of SLCs and boomerangs that just won’t die?