Earlier this year we previewed the Star Trek: Operation Enterprise roller coaster attraction at Movie Park Germany. After a “soft launch” in May, today Movie Park officially announced the opening of what is the only licensed Star Trek coaster in the world.
Star Trek: Operation Enterprise is now open (Movie Park Germany)
Movie Park General Manager Thorsten Backhaus states:
“We’re incredibly proud of our new themed attraction. It’s a roller coaster that gives guests an adrenaline rush and much more, because it takes them right into the heart of the Star Trek universe before the ride even begins, making them part of the story.
The “Federation Plaza” for Operation Enterprise (Movie Park Germany)
Federation Plaza
Riders for the new attraction start at the newly built “Federation Plaza” which is a 1000 square meter Star Trek-themed area for the new attraction. There’s also a Federation snack bar and a Star Trek shop.
Outside the gift store at Federation Plaza (Movie Park Germany)
As you enter the main building, you’ll be greeted with Star Trek-themed imagery and as you make your way through the line, there are a number of Star Trek-themed replicas to view.
Entering the main building for Operation Enterprise (Movie Park Germany)
A Borg cube replica (Movie Park Germany)
Becoming A Starfleet Cadet
Inside the main building you will find a holodeck, two transporter rooms and a replica of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D bridge as seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The Holodeck from Operation Enterprise (Movie Park Germany)
One of the two transporter rooms from Operation Enterprise (Movie Park Germany)
USS Enterprise D bridge replica (Movie Park Germany)
The story of Operation Enterprise
As they move from room to room inside of Federation Plaza, guests are immersed into the story of Operation Enterprise while they are “trained as Starfleet cadets” for their first mission.
The storyline for Operation Enterprise is revealed as you move through the attraction (Movie Park Germany)
This is a synopsis for the storyline for the coaster which is revealed as you make your way to the coaster:
The Enterprise and its crew are on their way to a United Federation of Planets meeting when they are attacked by the Borg and taken aboard the enemy ship. The Enterprise is now unmanned and caught in a tractor beam. The only hope of rescue is the Starfleet cadets on the bridge of a nearby ship at the time of the attack. They are preparing to be launched out of their ship’s transporter room in shuttles on a rescue mission. This holodeck mission’s success depends on the cadets breaching the Borg ship’s deflector shield, destroying its main systems and saving the crew of the Enterprise.
The “cadets” as they board Operation Enterprise coaster after being briefed (Movie Park Germany)
The coaster
As for the roller coaster itself, it is a “triple launch coaster,” meaning there are a number of elevations where you are again launched as opposed to a single launch at the beginning. Operation Enterprise also features a twisted halfpipe which is the second highest element within Movie Park.
Riders on Star Trek: Operation Enterprise (Movie Park Germany)
This video released earlier (before construction on Federation Plaza building was completed) shows you what you can expect from the roller coaster portion of your experience.
The music
Operation Enterprise features a new soundtrack composed exclusively for the new attraction. “We wanted to do something very special, so we decided to arrange for the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra to play the soundtrack that can be heard both outside and inside the attraction,” explains the General Manager. The Budapest Philharmonic recorded both this new music as well as a number of pieces of Star Trek film and TV scores, all of which is provided as atmosphere around the attraction.
The new music was composed by IMAscore of Germany. MoviePark has released a video with a behind-the-scenes look at how the music was composed and recorded.
For those who don’t speak German, the video features IMAscore’s Managing Director Xaver Willebrand who states:
The collaboration with CBS as the licensor of Star Trek was basically very pleasant but a challenge at the same time, because we simply wanted to create music which fits perfectly into the Star Trek universe. On one hand we had themes you could adapt, but of course new material was needed for the attraction. This was intended to be a way of integrating itself completely into the Star Trek music universe.
Speaking specifically about the new track “Starfleet Academy,” Sebastian Kübler states:
It was important for us to keep the theme of Star Trek. The big known themes are often played with a lot of strings, very solid and we wanted to make the Academy audible. It should sound military. This is mainly due to the rhythm that drives the whole track forward, and we want them to feel like “We go on a mission and now we start.”
And lead composer Andreas Kübler explains why they made a specific theme for Operation: Enterprise:
The music for Star Trek: Operation Enterprise is very dynamic. This means we have epic huge tracks besides the Star Trek titles, but also some quieter music such as “Endeavor,” which is very quiet, almost romantic. But it still carries this Star Trek sound in it, where you do not immediately realize that this is a soundtrack for a roller coaster, but you still feel in the Star Trek universe. In addition to the original themes, we also gave the roller coaster its own identity with the Star Trek: Operation Enterprise Theme, which we also recorded with the orchestra. It also fits into this universe but has a very own melody and is played several times both on the outside as well as indoors. We were not quite sure whether the roller coaster should get its own theme because we had the well-known tracks from the Star Trek universe. But we decided to go for it since this is a special project and it deserves its own theme.
Warpface
Movie Park is asking fans who have experienced Operation Enterprise to show their ‘Warpface’ on social media using the hashtags #MoviePark and #WarpFace on Twitter and Instagram, as can be seen in examples below.
#Moviepark #WarpFace pic.twitter.com/wGPM6OBevQ
— Rollercoaster-Junkie (@_stoe_) May 30, 2017
Marina Sirtis event June 14th
Star Trek: Operation Enterprise is located inside the Movie Park Germany theme park in Bottrop, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. There will be a special event on June 14th with Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Marina Sirtis, which will include her signing autographs at 2:00 PM.
More information on prices and packages can be found at movieparkgermany.de, and more info on the attraction can be found at operation-enterprise.de.
Keep up with all the Star Trek events and attractions news at TrekMovie.
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The main negative would be that they are going with the TNG motif. Would be a lot more fun if it were TOS style.
That said, it would have been cool to have something like this years back when Paramount owned the local amusement park in my neck of the woods.
@ML31,
> Would be a lot more fun if it were TOS style.
Only if you’re over 50! For everyone else the TNG motif looks amazing.
Ahmed, I am well under 50 and I would find the TOS style fantastic and a lot of fun.
I had no idea you spoke on behalf of everyone under 50. I’m sure they all appreciate it.
God you guys are awful. There is enough negativity in the world.
I can understand the decision. In Germany, TNG was much more popular than TOS. Also, with the reboots if feel there is an oversaturation of TOS right now. And speaking of TOS, the decision was probably influenced by the fact that it was CBS handing over licenses, not Paramount. It could not have been Abrams-TOS anyway.
Who says it has to be Kelvin TOS?
It’s just a subjective personal thing anyway. I enjoyed TNG overall. But I never warmed up to the uniform style nor the look and feel of the E-D.
I think that TNG is much more popular in Germany than TOS. At least, the TNG movies sold far more tickets than the TOS movies. Actually, the TNG movies except for Nemesis sold more tickets in Germany than the reboot movies.
Nowadays both are old series. If you ask non Star Trek fans in Germany about them, they will likely know more about TOS, because the characters and series are simply more often mentioned in the media. I guess because of their higher cult factor. So it is really hard to say, which series is more popular today. Among Star Trek fans it might be TNG, not sure though.
Overall the popularity of Star Trek as a whole went down a lot since the mid/end 90s. That is the main reason, why TNG movies were so successful. They came in the cinemas at the hight of popularity of Star Trek in Germany. Big channels aired every weekday at least 2 Star Trek episodes. TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY aired all the time. That is the best promotion Star Trek movies can have. Much better than a few 30 seconds trailers shortly before a movie gets in the cinemas.
Really? Why? It’s still a roller coaster at the end of the line, and lets face it, a TOS motif is going to look a little dated.
TNG started 30 years ago. It’s looking pretty dated too…
If we are going to be brutally honest, Trek (tech) as a whole looks dated. Something bearing a bit more of a resemblance to a futuristic tablet is going to be more relevant then a box with a flashing light on it.
You really want jelly buttons and cardboard? 60s are gone, pal. Long gone! TNG-tech is the future. We all like TOS for what it was (and still is), but when it comes to Trek tech, as well as Roddenberry’s vision of the future, TNG is the way to go.
Nice theme park. The bridge looks kinda cheap, but it serves the purpose. I hope I’ll pay it a visit. : )
Most TV and movie sets are made out of the flimsiest and cheapest materials. TNG was no exception. Not really sure what your point is there….
The German fans are having great time, hopefully we will get something simialr here in Toronto.
I really like the score that was composed. Would be great to have the opportunity to download it.
And wouldn’t it be great wearing a VR Headset during the ride which gives you the impression of beeing in real space?
Looks just like the ride from the now-dead Vegas experience at the Hilton.
Vegas was a motion simulator, similar to the Star Wars attraction at Disneyland. No roller coaster in Vegas.
Why go with TNG, why not the Abrams Trek stuff. The younger generation is more familiar with that.
Also, did anybody notice that the diagram on the transporter room wall is wrong?
Well the younger generation is not THAT stupid. It’s not like TNG was 100 years ago (*eye rolling*). It was only 30 years ago. TOS, on the other hand, was half a century ago. And abrams stuff is just plainly dumb anyway.
Yes, the diagram is wrong. It says engineering instead of transporter room.
“The collaboration with CBS as the licensor of Star Trek”
I guess this is the reason. They got the license from CBS so were restricted to their property.
And either way people who grew up with TNG are at the right age of having kids, who want to go to theme parks. And in the end the parents will decide, which theme park it will be. So this way they will not only get some Star Trek fans, but their families into the park, too.
Mel,
Re: got the license from CBS so were restricted to their property.
CBS OWNS the starship ENTERPRISE under both copyright and trademark laws. In the NYT 2005 reporting of the split, CBS retained ALL merchandising rights. This was later verified by JJ Abrams when he discovered CBS called all the merchandising shots.
Even IF Paramount contractually negotiated some sort of “new art” royalty retention from CBS for their designs, as you suggest, Paramount can’t license them as merchandise with the names “STAR TREK” or “ENTERPRISE” without a Trademark license from CBS. You can just take a gander at the bottom of this page to see “STAR TREK® and its various marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc.”
Paramount, being so hamstrung in merchandising by CBS, would be absolutely foolish NOT to make using their designs as attractive as possible to them. So if CBS is opting out there HAS to be some other reason than the one that you offer.
I just hope they build roller coasters better than they do bridges in the 24th century.
That replica of the bridge is terrible. Looks very cheap.
The bridge on the TV show looked that way too.
The bridge on the E-E was a vast improvement.
Man… you should have seen the one at the Starfleet Academy Experience, that was dreadful! Search YouTube for my video review, it’s bad. Very bad.
I’ve always thought that Jean-Luc Picard was an ‘Absolute Boy’; I hope that in years to come, I’ll be proven correct…
What’s with the purple uniforms? Ran out of red?