Batman Adventure - The Ride

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Batman Adventure: The Ride is a Batman-themed attraction at the Warner Bros. Movie World theme park on the Gold Coast, Australia. The ride opened in 1992 and was a motion platform simulator-style ride, much in the vein of Disneyland's Star Wars-themed attraction Star Tours. The ride contained screen images synchronised to movement of the simulator base, and was based upon Tim Burton's Batman films, the second of which was also released that year. Each car seats 20 people and utilises military style fight simulator motion bases, which allow six degrees of freedom.

The ride was revamped in 2001 and renamed Batman Adventure: The Ride 2. Despite the addition of the "2" in the ride title, this new ride is hardly a sequel to the 1992 original, and retains the main components including the motion simulator base. A new ride video comprised of computer generated imagery, instead of live-action was added. This new ride is only very loosely related to the Batman films, with altered design features to make the city seem more "exciting".

The storyline revolves around Batman's quest to prevent the Joker from spreading his deadly laughing gas from an airship around Gotham City. At the same time, the Caped Crusader has to foil the schemes of Catwoman and Mr Freeze, the two of which are teaming up to steal the Whitney Diamond. Riders follow Batman's Batplane winding tight corners around the Gotham cityscape. However, some riders thought that the original version of the ride was better, and felt the ride to be not exciting enough [1].

Reprising their roles from Batman: The Animated Series, the 2001 revamp featured Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as the Joker, Adrienne Barbeau as Catwoman, and Tara Strong as Batgirl.

The ride closed down for the better part of 2006 due to the revamping of the theme park's "Batman Area", as well as the addition of another Batman-themed ride, Batwing Spaceshot.