In Conversation With… Movie Park Germany
It’s been a while since our last ‘In Conversation With…’, so we’ve made it another good one! We’ve been chatting with Movie Park Germany’s Deputy Marketing Director, Manuel Prossotowicz, about their brand new Star Trek™: Operation Enterprise coaster. Enjoy!
P.S — you can expect to see some Movie Park Germany merch in future CoasterCrates in 2017!
Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule working on the ride to talk to us Manuel! Can you tell us a bit about what we can expect for the new coaster?
Star Trek™: Operation Enterprise will be the world’s only Star Trek™ roller coaster with two unique elements and a stunning track layout without break sections after several elements. One of the unique elements is the transfer-track, which transports the train from the station into the launch section with 1 meter per second and 8 meters in total. This part will be inside the station building, not outside. Once transferred into the 25meter long launch element, the train will be catapulted up to the top hat, which is 30 meters high. From there we will have a backwards fall back into the transfer building and up a 40 meter high unique element with a 180 degree twist. Once at the top of this element, the train will fall back again and get a third intense launch to climb up the top hat completely and dive into the whole layout, which includes an Immelmann loop, a Heartline Roll, a 100° Dive, three Airtime Humps, a Helix and a Zero-G-Roll! The maximum speed of the ride will be approximately 90 km/h and the maximum g-force will be 4.2g.
In cooperation with CBS we created our own storyline for the coaster, which refers not only to the coaster and some elements, it refers also to the queue line and the entrance area of the coaster.
What made you choose Star Trek™ for the theme of the ride?
We had several options in mind for strong IPs, but in the end there are three important points, why we had chosen the Star Trek Franchise:
- A wide target group, due to the fact that Star Trek has been well known for over fifty years through several generations.
- Option to have a long term relationship and contract (normally in the license business a contract is made for about three or four years. We have a ten year contract with CBS).
- New genre in the park. Within our market research we had extremely positive feedback on a science-fiction related attraction.
Will the ride be heavily themed?
Yes, the ride will be themed! This is our main approach in this project. If you are on the track, you are traveling through space, so we focused our heavy theming on the new area, the queue line and on the station and the indoor transfer part, but there will also be some themed elements outside.
What made you decide to work with MACK Rides on this project?
MACK Rides is one of the pioneers in coaster construction and works on a high quality level, which was also our approach within this project. Due to the fact, that we have a kind of prototype coaster, we definitely need to have a contractor which is highly experienced in engineering and having a good reputation. That also means that we expect to have less downtime of the complex ride system. We also spoke with several parks in Europe about their experience with MACK Rides, and that was finally the icing on the cake.
IMAScore have just announced they’ll be working on the soundtrack, can you tell us any details about it?
We have now worked together with IMAscore for several years and have had a very good relationship with these creative guys. Since we talked the first time about the Star Trek coaster, it was pretty clear to us that the soundtrack and also the sound design needs to be done by IMAscore. Within the whole project we will have several parts of music, which will include parts of the original soundtrack, our own theme for the ride and also sound which ensures a high recognition of the Star Trek universe. We are really proud to announce that main parts of the soundtrack will be created by the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, which again reflects the high quality approach we have.
When will the ride open?
Our approach is to open the ride in April/May 2017. But due to the fact, that we will have a prototype coaster, it is always hard to define an exact opening date yet without having completed the first test rides. Another impact will be the outside theming, which can be only done if we have constant temperatures without frost and ice. Actually it’s freezing in Germany…! Our approach is to open a full experience without any compromises in theming or the ride itself.
Thanks again Manuel, we look forward to experiencing the ride when it opens!
