Coaster Conversations: John Burton - Merlin Creative Lead

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

Episode 3 of Coaster Conversations sees us sit down with John Burton Creative Lead at Merlin Entertainments to discuss the brand new World of Jumanji expansion at Chessington World of Adventures

[@wrenzul]

Loving the coaster conversations series and the insight each person gives!

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

I'm glad you're enjoying them! Thanks for watching

[@TheLilyGraceLife]

How come tobin's interview went missing?

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

Was a movie interview mainly, not enough coaster content so we dropped it

[@Feathers_McGraw_0]

Its weird that 2 of the 3 coaster conversations eps are Johns, clearly lots of Johns in the industry

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

If you count Tobin's character in the Saw movies (John Kramer) that's three! aha

[@knightrider2738]

Did you ask John Burton if the three new jumanji ridesd have will be on any oh the reserive & list.? when it open on the 15th of may or by tne 26th of may

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

These are the only questions I asked him, I'm not sure even John will know the answer to this, it's a park decision and not a John (creative) decision

[@knightrider2738]

@@LiftHillsandThrills thank you for your reply 👍👍

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

@@knightrider2738 My pleasure, enjoy the rest of your evening. If I had to hazard a guess to your question I'd imagine Mandrill Mayhem would be but not the other 2.

[@knightrider2738]

@@LiftHillsandThrillsthank you for your reply and I will see after the 15th of may if they are on any of the reserive & ride lists wouid be good if alll there were but I wouid be happy mandrill mayhem was on there has me and my two younger daughters are going there in the half term holiday in may for 2 days with hotel to

[@carmenparker1880]

Cool

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

Thanks for watching :) Completely forgot this chat was on here! aha

[@ENSŌ_fangirl]

So, what's the height restrictions of Mandrill Mayhem? Asking because I know someone who is 6ft 7, and probably wants to ride it!

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

I’m afraid I don’t know that information yet. Crossed fingers you can ride it 🤞

[@kaydnmitchell6512]

U wouldn’t be able to ride unfortunately cause ur Iver 1.95m :)

[@Feathers_McGraw_0]

[EDIT: First!!!!!]👍👍👍Where did you film this?? Also, I wonder what other rides will come from the sony partnership?? Project Horiozon???

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

I hope Project Horizon is an original idea and not an IP I really do and we filmed this in one of the boardrooms at Chessington World of Adventures Hotel

[@aliosullivanuk]

Brilliant this mate, great watch

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

@@aliosullivanuk Thanks for checking it out :)

[@iMizzy777]

Coasters!

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

John!

[@nickdijcj1]

This is def too short

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

Only a certain amount of time unfortunately allowed but glad you enjoyed it and wanted more!

[@nickdijcj1]

@@LiftHillsandThrills loved it man keep em coming!

[@nickdijcj1]

Would love to have more improvised questions based on initial questions rather than just using the written ones

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

@@nickdijcj1 None of these were written in this interview, I was told last minute about 5 mins with him and had nothing prepared 😊

[@nickdijcj1]

@@LiftHillsandThrills oh awesome you killed it then bro

[@Corks-ti4vz]

How much self restraint did you need to not ask anything about Nemesis? 🤣

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

Easy, but I know more than I should about that already 😂🤣🤫

[@Corks-ti4vz]

@@LiftHillsandThrills Ooo you tease

[@mirkozanda]

Amazing that someone can be proud of something like Mandrill Mayhem which is the most uneventful coaster ever existed, a wild mouse has more elements and thrills. I can't stand the guy and can't understand how people are supportive of him, anything he touches he destroys

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

I respect John, can't be hard to be filling such boots of a legend that preceded him and whilst there's still a LOT of wiggle room in that boot I'm sure he'll just get bigger and better when Varney's final projects are wrapped up and Scott can finally be let loose with the chequebook. Mandrill is a lovely little coaster for young ones, especially as a debut coaster. Wild mouses are trash (yes even this new RMC one I'm sure will be equally as bad) you've commented a lot about poor John online on Instagram before, do you work for a rival company? Did he sleep with a partner of yours? What's the crack.

[@mirkozanda]

@@LiftHillsandThrills nothing of the sort 😂 he ruined the best dark ride we had in Italy, and bragged about it. He completely disrespected my home park and I will never forgive him for that honestly. I want to see the Jumanji brand gone and forgotten and him along with it. Those boots are way too big for his gimmicky approach to design, I don't know that in our generation there are designers at the same level of previous one. Tighter budget may be a serious constraint, but then you build smaller with more creativity to reach where money doesn't, you don't make a fairground ride and call it "the first in the world for..." followed by some silly stat.

[@LiftHillsandThrills]

@@mirkozanda I agree that the ride you're speaking of is well... trash BUT maybe that is a budget issue and I can't imagine that when that ride was being worked on there was much room in budget and with too many cooks in the kitchen (as is the case with all Merlin projects) it certainly all shouldn't fall on one mans shoulders to blame for any attraction. We have Curse At Alton Manor over here which is beautifully in places and disgustingly lazy and half arsed in others. I can only imagine various departments sticking their oars in and somewhat dampening the room for creative control in many areas. Too many cooks in the kitchen over at Merlin and that's why most attractions being released under the Varney era are so scaled back from their concept art that they're barely recognisable at times.

[@mirkozanda]

@@LiftHillsandThrills I do understand that the work is done in team, but as the creative director, and particularly if you brag about it, he does have most of responsibility here. How do you take an Egyptian monument facade and cover it in (fake) vegetation and place a hippo in the middle? And then maintain the Egypt storyline inside with the queue. This is not too many inputs, this is a badly conceived idea. Surely they did not have much room with money (nobody believes the 20M budget that was declared) but in that case leave behind the projectors, screens, don't buy your ride system from Oceaneering (great systems, just expensive for what the final result was supposed to be), don't order animatronics and theming from Turkey but build in-house (we have great artists in Italy too, and they would be considerate when it comes to Gardaland as it's a huge opportunity to work with such a well-known park). I do believe that most of the decisions came down to him, even though I do have some leftover hate for the people who built it - I remember very vividly seeing a video of a worker spraying the façade green and I don't have any nice words for them either 🌧️

[@mirkozanda]

PS as for Alton Manor, I am sorry you guys got excited for it and then it was mainly a black tunnel with handwritten text on it 😢 but of course money was best spent on that London stunt they did for promo 😂 they really put more effort on "how are we going to let people know" rather than "what will people experience in the ride"