Six Flags took the title Dark Knight literally. Its new roller coaster based on the record-bashing, IMAX-thrashing, vehicle-smashing Batman movie is set entirely inside, in the dark.The ride, which opened in May at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, is an indoor ’coaster geared toward families, but it still packs plenty of thrills—largely because it happens in total darkness. Though Batman is hidden in there, watching over Gotham, “This is really the Joker’s ride,” says Six Flags’ Chief Engineer Larry Chickola. “He’s taken over, and things are out of control.”
The Specs
The 1213-ft.-long, three-level ride, which takes place inside a building disguised as Gotham City’s Wayne Central Station, is made of typical steel, but the construction challenge it presented was unique—even compared with the most extreme engineering it takes to build a roller coaster.
Because of the infrastructure surrounding the ride site, the building that houses the coaster had to be constructed first, and the ride was built inside it. “It was like building a ship inside a bottle,” Chickola says. “We had to come in with the cranes through a little spot, fish it in, and set it up. And we had to do it in perfect sequence—we couldn’t build ourselves into a corner. So we had to build from the outside toward the center.”
The Ride
Before our test ride, a pre-show played a simulated newscast on a large screen. The fictional Gotham traffic reports were soon interrupted by a press conference from newly elected District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, with noticeably longer hair than in the movie). It wasn’t long before the Joker hijacked the show. “Why so serious?” he asks as a masked man spray-paints a smiley face on the screen (other than numerous maniacal laughs, this is the only line voiced by Heath Ledger’s Joker in the ride). As we progressed through the ride’s line, evidence of the Joker’s presence was everywhere: graffiti and even a TV equipped with a camera and facial recognition software that overlays a Joker mask on your face. We stepped onto the 4-person trains, and were sent into the dark.
The two-minute ride is a wild mouse-style coaster, which means riders take single-car trains through hairpin turns and slow drops at a relatively low speed. The Dark Knight has six 180-degree turns and, according to Chickola, produces more Gs in certain directions than the Kingda Ka ’coaster (Ka currently holds the record as the tallest and fastest coaster in the world.) Exactly how many Gs, however, he wouldn’t say.
As you fly by, scenes of the Joker’s mayhem abound—including an exploding truck and two 3D panels. Batman is there, too, on an exact replica of his motorcycle-ATV hybrid, the Bat-Pod.
The Bottom Line
The ride’s hairpin turns are fun, and the unexpected drops are thrilling, even if they’re short (one relatively big drop, near the end of the ride, elicited “whoas!” from my train). And while it’s hard to take much in—I didn’t even see Batman in either of his two cameos—the ride certainly left me less “serious.” I didn’t stop laughing the entire time. —Erin McCarthy
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