After months of speculation, hype, and anticipation Six Flags Magic Mountain opens Terminator Salvation: The Ride. Boasting many surprises and multiple pre-show rooms, this coaster features many elements that have never been seen before on a wooden coaster. Did all the effort pay off? Does Six Flags have a winner? Come with ThrillNetwork.com as we examine the new coaster from rumor to finished ride.

The Internet can be a harsh, cold place. Six Flags Magic Mountain closed and demolished Psyclone, and hardly a tear was shed. The park announced a new coaster would be built in the same location, and interests were piqued, curiosities and speculation aroused. The park announced it would be a custom creation by Great Coasters International, and joyful cries of glee gushed forth. However, when the park declared the name of the ride and detailed the theming to be applied, the Internet and blogosphere reacted with puzzled confusion. A custom wooden twister was being themed after the latest film in a franchise featuring time-traveling killer cyborgs from the future did not make a lot of sense. Six Flags Magic Mountain would build the new coaster Terminator Salvation: The Ride, and many on the Internet had already cast judgment before the first bent was erected.

Terminator Salvation: The Construction

The fans, fan boys and even some of the curious public kept track of construction progress on a variety of Web sites, including the park’s own. The coaster came together quickly, but questions lingered on just how the post-apocalyptic theme would work. The arrival of the trains, the first themed GCI Millennium Flyers, sparked further intense e-debates as surprises started to be revealed. Some loved the raw look of the trains with metalwork on the sides and a dark industrial feel enhanced by flat black paint and seats. Others hated it, preferring the natural look of GCIs. Speakers attached to the back of each car revealed a further surprise: This coaster would feature on-board audio. More confusion on the forums sprang up. Would you even hear the audio on a noisy wooden coaster?

More surprises were revealed as the vertical construction wrapped up with additional framing in some areas that were not shown before in preview artwork. There would be a station fly-through and a pair of tunnels in the layout. Framing also went up for the queue line. Speculation went crazy as to what the extra rooms prior to the station would contain. Moon Bloodgood and the rapper-turned-actor Common would reprise their roles from the movie to film new footage for the ride. Some old rusted and beat up vehicles came to the queue area, a bridge was constructed, and queue railings installed showed the path of the line and the exit path heading to a gift shop. The Internet discussed, dissected and complained on.

More debate centered on if the coaster would even be completed in time. The trains were not yet installed, and the media day event was to take place in just over a week’s time. How could the park possibly finish everything in time and get the various complicated elements tested and adjusted to work as designed? Would the theme make any sense? Online arguments raged on.

The day for the media preview arrived. The coaster had been testing for a solid week and had no trouble completing the layout with momentum to spare. The park had pulled off the impossible and even managed to keep one more secret quiet until the event. In yet another first for a wooden coaster, the park had installed a fire effect as part of the theming package.

Early reviews glowed about the ride, with the lucky few who were able to attend the media or local radio station preview event typing up glowing reviews, in some cases while still at the park. The opinions, debates and complaining continued unabashed, reaching a fever pitch. Some would declare the ride the best wooden coaster in Southern California. Others would write it off and declare other coasters better for this reason and that. Most offered their expert opinions without having set foot on either of the coasters being compared. Spoilers regarding the content of the preride show rooms was alternately praised and scoffed at, and arguments ranted on. The only truly universal opinion expressed was the displeasure at early reports of the park assigning seating rows to all riders. The volume of this innocuous chatter grew louder and more irritating, but it was still the only way an interested person could find out any new information about the ride.

On May 22 the movie opened to audiences far and wide. On May 23, the coaster opened at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Have the efforts of the design team, construction team and everyone involved in creating this ride paid off? Does it come off as a cohesive experience or a coaster with the latest movie theme tacked on? Skip ahead if you would like to avoid spoilers of what the preshow contains.

Terminator Salvation: The Queue

Your experience with Terminator Salvation: The Ride begins as you enter the queue. Themed objects and props have been placed in the queue to set the scene of an abandoned Skynet facility. The queue leads through what appeared to have once been a secure entry point, the guard towers standing empty. An old Jeep sits abandoned in the sand. You wander farther inside of, under and through a dense wooden structure and find yourself in a building with many surveillance monitors around. This is the first of three rooms where you learn the story behind the ride.

A female resistance fighter checks in with her cohort back at the base, reporting that there does not seem to be much left out there when suddenly a shadow runs by in the background. She reports on her location, a position to the west of the 5 freeway in Valencia. The man back at the base identifies the site as formerly Six Flags Magic Mountain, now a desolate no man’s land. As the woman investigates the shadows further, she comes under attack. Video cuts in and out, showing brief glimpses of the rides at the old amusement park and some machines still moving.

Once she reaches another safe spot she reports back what she has found. They decide to help you, the survivors, get to safety. Up ahead there is an abandoned transport system that they will guide you to. The man reassures us that he knows what we are going through, that they have all been there, but it will be OK. You are then led into a hallway. More monitors come to life, with the man providing further instructions to do what they tell you to do, when they tell you to do it.

You are now led into a more sinister room. This room appears to be a production factory, and the man and woman on the monitors confirm that this is an abandoned T-600 manufacturing facility. Four partially assembled torsos with heads attached hang from an overhead assembly line. The man mentions that the machines don’t just abandon things. The woman in the field gets into another firefight after security cameras reveal Terminators in the area and coming closer. She’ll hold them off allowing you to escape. Suddenly the eyes of the T-600 light up, and the assembly line springs to life with warning alarms flashing everywhere. The facility is no longer abandoned, but functioning again! You need to escape quickly! You head out of this room and a few sets of stairs to the abandoned transport system that will take you to safety.

Terminator Salvation: The Coaster

You leave the dark hallways behind and enter a warm wooden station, typical of GCI coasters. Trains periodically thunder overhead along the station fly-through track. In a change from the park’s typical automated spiel system, the operator at the main panel gives you your boarding instructions. The trains are familiar, yet different at the same time. The now modern classic Millennium Flyer profile is there, with the familiar T-shaped lap bars and seatbelt combination to keep you safe. The flat black paint applied to the train, decorative side panels that resemble machinery, black seats and speakers mounted to the back of each car immediately stand out. In a change from the traditional 12 rows of seats, the last car has been modified to carry the audio amplification equipment instead of giving riders 23 and 24 a place to sit. This lowers capacity a little, but the crew is fast about loading trains. Most often the only delay is waiting for the other train to complete the layout. Music designed to set the mood and enhance the excitement and tension plays through the speakers while you wait to be dispatched. The moment comes. Clear signals are acknowledged, and the train slides out of the station.

Percussive music pounds out of the speakers. You hear someone’s voice saying something about the resistance, though it is difficult to make out. A pair of left turns with small dips lead to the lift hill. More music and some nice views of neighboring Déjà Vu distract you during the climb. Cresting the hill the action starts right away with a small drop into a left-hand, slightly underbanked turn. Roaring through the end of this turn the train plunges down, twisting to follow the track to the right through the lift structure and over a low airtime hill. Diving under the exit bridge the train flies up a banked tall turn to the right. A double-down waits on the exit from this turn, providing more airtime as the train twists to the left again. Fire erupts from the hood of an abandoned truck as you fly through a low turn and hill. Up into the next right turn around you are swallowed by a tunnel wrapped around the structure for the turn after the lift. This tunnel hides a double-down surprise partway through the turn.

Bursting out of the tunnel the train drifts left without banking, then flies through a low right turn, climbs up into a hole in the side of the station, roars through in the blink of an eye, then falls into the second tunnel’s left turn in very rapid succession. Another hill with some airtime and a sudden change of banking gives another float to riders before a wide right turn circles around the bulk of the outdoor queue. Changing directions again another turn passes under the final brakes, then up a hill and into the final underbanked left turn to a smooth stop on magnetic brakes. To spice up the finale a bit, the final brakes are banked several degrees to the right. The train glides around a curve into the transfer track/maintenance building, and then returns you to the station, safe and sound. The operator congratulates you on evading the Harvesters and encourages you to purchase your on-ride photo or enjoy a Cold Stone ice cream on your way out. The exit path takes you through the inevitable gift shop.

Terminator Salvation: The Analysis

Six Flags Magic Mountain has put a large effort into theming this ride and attempted to create a full experience rather than just install another coaster. To some degree it has succeeded in this endeavor. This is the grandest attempt at a theme the park has ever undertaken, with Batman: The Ride being the previous winner. The preshow elements are not as lavish or immersive as Disney or Universal would produce, but it is a new best for Six Flags. There remains one problem: At the end of the day, the ride and the theme still do not actually fit together.

Some have argued that plenty of other coaster names do not fit the ride. How many Vipers, Ninjas or Goliaths are out there that have any real theming? While there is a valid point that a wooden coaster in Gurnee has nothing to do with a snake, there is a difference. Six Flags Magic Mountain was not merely trying to put a name on a ride, but to create a complete ride experience. The following discussion will center on how well the park has accomplished that goal.

A bleak, post-apocalyptic future in an abandoned theme park does not fit with a terrific GCI wooden twister with graceful curves and an aesthetically pleasing support structure. The flashing alarm lights, the sense of urgency and the general mood established in the preshow rooms ends at the entrance to the station. The train has theming on it and speakers, but we run into a clash of personalities between the theming and the actual coaster. The illusion that this abandoned transport system will be taking you to safety is destroyed when a cheerful operator is giving you the normal riding instructions and further wrecked when you are returned to the same spot you left from. Note that this last criticism can be applied to the various Batman coasters and to any coaster or ride that is claiming to take you to safety, but only brings you back to where you started. A separate unload is best for this approach.

The theming is dark, dread inducing, designed to enhance fear and apprehension. The coaster has none of this. It has been designed for joy, fun, speed, excitement and thrills that the whole family could enjoy. It does not contain giant scary vertical drops, extreme ejector forces, intense inversions that leave riders hanging and disoriented or any other elements that truly induce fear in the riders. There are no large intimidating robots firing guns or using other weapons to attack the passing train. The roar and rumble natural to a wooden coaster is drowning out the sound from the speakers on the train, leaving riders unable to hear the music, effects and even a line or two of dialogue provided during the ride.

Terminator Salvation: The Verdict

Six Flags Magic Mountain’s most ambitious ride experience project to date both succeeds and missteps. The coaster is outstanding and is another feather in the cap of this park’s world-class collection. GCI and Six Flags Magic Mountain can be proud of bringing a great and unique wooden coaster to Southern California. The effort put into the theme is the best seen at a Six Flags park to date, and future rides would benefit from this level of detail.

The park’s management has stated that while they were very proud of X, the transformation to X2 suited the ride’s personality better. X is one of the most frightening, adrenaline-filled coasters out there, and, in the words of the park, they had painted it DayGlo happy colors. The dark red and gray track is a much better match for the intense personality of the ride and the experience. In an interesting twist of irony, the park has built a fantastic wooden coaster that would be great for the whole family and applied a dark, intense theme. There is nothing wrong with the theme itself. It is just attached to the wrong coaster.

Still the coaster is great. Go ride it.

Rating: 9/10

Photos and text by: Tom Zeliff

Tags: GCI, Great Coasters International, SFMM, six flags, Terminator Salvation: The Ride