Since I was unable to attend the actual New Revolution tour on Thursday, Six Flags Magic Mountain PR was incredibly kind to offer me a personal tour of The New Revolution, the day after! Luckily a lot can change in a day, so I may have a few things in this report you haven’t seen before. The ride started testing Thursday night, and is testing as I’m writing this today (Saturday). In this tour report we’ll look at the new area, the continued repaint, the new trains, new signage, the VR system, and quite more. Let’s get to it! 

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The New Revolution… VR – Virtual Reality

Let’s start of with the piece of information that you hopefully were aware of already… The New Revolution, along with 8 other coasters in the Six Flags chain, will become a Virtual Reality Coaster experience. Which is OPTIONAL, so for those who do not want to ride it with a headset on, you do not have to 🙂  Though… after having tried out the new VR experience for the New Revolution on a spinning office chair in the marketing offices of Six Flags Magic Mountain, I have come to the conclusion that everyone in the online world making their opinionated statements about the VR experience, needs to calm down and wait ’til they’ve actually experienced it, before they make a judgement.

Because I was blown away by how fun, detailed, and mind-boggling awesome this VR preview was. And I didn’t even feel the forces of riding a coaster in addition to it. I’m really looking forward to riding it soon!

The headset is made of an anti-microbial leather, meaning that it’s easy to clean, and does not easily absorb sweat for example. The VR headset holds a Samsung Galaxy smart phone as VR visual screen. Currently they’re using the Galaxy S6 Edge, though I was told they will soon be using the new Galaxy S7s! (Yes, the one we ALL want to have).  The phone is securely locked into place, so stealing the phone will not be possible. In addition, the VR headset has a chin strap, and a head strap to securely place it on your head. This will be attached to a lanyard, so there’s no way riders will lose these while riding. The entire VR experience is powered by Oculus.

Not giving too much away, riders will be able to use a button on the opposite side of the headset to shoot targets as the ‘fighter jet’ is brought to the launch platform (lift hill scene), after which the interactive shooting and audio part is over, and the ride will be visual only (stunning beyond believe). More on this VR later. 

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Quick stop at Six Flags Plaza and Chop Six

The new Six Flags Emporium is coming along great! The refurbishment inside the store continues, and they’re currently placing merchandise back into the store. Including brand new merchandise. Note that the Six Flags Emporium was previously known as FLAGS, and is the chain’s largest souvenir shop!  Digging the details and new branding of the store!  The white and blue found around the store don’t only compliment the New Revolution ‘Americano’ feel, but also make this new interior look very modern and fresh!  I touched upon this in an update last week, the Cyber Cafe is now officially the Plaza Cafe. The interior, I’ve learned, will not change. The outside has received multiple red touches. Chop Six is open this weekend for Season Dining Pass previews, I will head out there tomorrow and meet with the person overseeing it, to try out the food! I will have a full special on Chop Six later this weekend, or early next week! 😀 

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The New Revolution Entrance and Line

Let’s move on to some New Revolution, shall we?

This new tall structure is replacing the old Baja Ridge sign, and will be home to a nice New Revolution sign!  Speaking of signs, this sweet new sign will be the largest The New Revolution sign in the area (or anywhere).  It will be surrounded by flowers and vegetation, and will have several small flood lights right in front of it to light it up at night. The other new sign is the metallic looking one on the bridge, with a good sun’s reflection it’ll quickly draw your attention from any angle.  The hill on which the line is located is filled with new plants and trees. In addition to which there are hundreds of irrigation lines, to keep it green for years to come!  Here used to be a water fall, now there’s a wide variety of flowers and plants under the bridge.  Here’s a look at the line, repainted bridge, new landscaping, and new sign!  With three trees that will become taller over the years, they did finally bring back trees. They cut a lot around the Screampunk District, so it’s lovely seeing some new ones here.  Notice that not everything has been painted the same blue yet. Everything guests will see from the moment they approach the ride, will have the same modern blue look.  Another look at that great new sign! It perfectly symbolizes the great upgrade we’re seeing. In addition to the colors, the ride’s really getting that modern touch with signs like these, and of course the VR upgrade that the park announced just a few days back!  I just mentioned that everything guests will see in The New Revolution area will be the baby-blue/light gray, that includes this structure right here.  The safety signs along the ride will receive these awesome white star-logos!   Moving on to the ADA line… These pink/salmon railings will be repainted black as well.  To match the rest of the black found on all other railings around the lines.  The ADA line has almost been completed, all there’s left to do is finish up the placement of the railings.  In addition, the line is also FILLED with new speakers, through which a new soundtrack will be playing soon! 

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The New Revolution Station!

Station time!! The station has entirely been repainted, and is about to receive some more new signage.  But most importantly… there are a few changes coming to the station that the park didn’t anticipate before. With the addition of the VR experience to the ride, there’s now a pick-up station for the VR headsets where guests enter the station. Here VR headsets will be adjusted to personal needs, so it fits on each rider perfectly. After which they will be heading to the boarding area.  On the opposite side of the station, there are new bins for guests to store their belongings, this is also where riders that used VR headsets will drop their VR headset off 🙂 Back to the entrance of the station, there seem to be two ‘counters’ where the VR headsets will be handed out.  Sadly for the employees, the employee break room is now a VR headset power house, where they’ll be stored and charged. Each VR headset will be securely locked into a holder when not in use, and the room will feature additional security to prevent any headsets or Galaxies of going missing.  Here’s one of the multiple height-requirement signs you may find throughout the station.  And here’s a look at the new operator’s booth. Which has yet to be repainted. 

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The New Revolution Exit

Let’s move on to the next exciting part of the makeover of this classic coaster! The entire exit path (besides the stairs on the opposite end) is new concrete and railings.   The exit path also passes under the awesome looking, repainted maintenance bridge.  The park is very busy adding lots of landscaping to the exit area.  It looks very neat so far! I particularly like the run-off rock trail.  Here’s a fun shot of the track, seen from the exit.  The opposite side of the path will get filled with plants as well. Once they completed the placement of the new fence.  Here’s a start to the crazy amounts of new vegetation we’re expected to see!  And some more! 

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The New Revolution Repaint

Let us take a look at the repaint of the ride, which is very close to being complete. Close enough to run trains on the track. I got the chance to walk under Tatsu and take some shots of the repainted supports and footers of the track below Tatsu and near the tunnel.  Here’s the slope of the track leading into the iconic loop!  Speaking of which, the base of the loop has been repainted now too.  Here’s the drop that leads into the ascent into the tunnel of the ride. (Describing all this really makes me want to ride it again).   Note that The New Revolution is one of the first coasters ever, to have the footers repainted as well! Here’s a shot of some repainted footers and great-looking white track on top of it!  Tatsu’s supports sure do look faded when you see them next to the freshly repainted New Revolution track. As you may have read on our site Tatsu will not be repainted this season, as you may imagine it’s one of the most challenging coasters to paint, on earth. Sure makes The New Revolution pop though!   The blue ring around The New Revolution’s loop will hold the LED lights that will light up the loop in all sorts of cool lights. Let’s also take a moment and appreciate how great the loop looks now it’s been repainted white. 

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The New Revolution Train!

And the highlight of the tour was of course… the new Train! Oh and I walked all over the transfer table, so that was pretty awesome.  BUT TRAIN! It’s a real beauty I must tell you! The train is very similar to the original, and has been made from scratch by re-manufacturing the parts of the train at a local metal shop, which (with the parts from Six Flags’ own fiberglass shop) was put together in-house. The details of the trains look seriously impressive.  The trains have about as much room as before, so tall people do not sit in the back rows of cars. There’s no OTSR’s, of course, and the new lap-bars will be accompanied by seat-belts. Pretty much the same as those found on Twisted Colossus, Full Throttle, Goliath, and Superman Ultimate Flight (for those of our readers that are more familiar with Discovery Kingdom).  Notice the headrests, these were not found on the original Revolution trains back in the days. Since the train is able to run backwards, and has been tested to do so, these headrests allow for the park to run the trains backwards.  The front of the train has yet to be added and revealed, which will happen later (Media Day most likely).  Now let’s incorporate that VR! Each car has a sensor in the back of it, which will run by black boxes along the track (positioned right below the track, so the sensor runs directly above it). The sensor will then correspond with the the rider’s headsets to make sure they experience what’s happening exactly at that moment at which their seat passes by the sensor! So each seat will feel like the front seat! Each rider has to calibrate their headset by looking directly at the headrest in front of them, and the technology will make sure everything matches for the individual car of the train! Last but not least, they just placed the logo of The New Revolution on the train before I arrived! And it sure looks awesome! Note that there will only be two trains on the ride, no third train is planned.

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Let me finish with this shot of The New Revolution’s loop, and a HUGE THANKS to Sue, Connie, and Alex for the much appreciated opportunity to provide me with my own tour!!! 🙂

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Thank you for checking out this personal tour of The New Revolution I took! The ride is coming along nicely, and testing is already in full swing. Don’t forget the VR experience will be available to pass holders starting March 26th, more information is available here. Make sure to check out the newly refurbished Jurassic Park- The Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, which reopened the same day, we have a report showing off some great upgrades the ride received.

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