SupremeClientele

TL:DR ALERT RE: the park at thematic - I think it was intentionally kept to the side. If anything, its a negative portrayal of working at a park. The main characters never seem to accept why they are working there. There's a general intonation that they are "better" than working there in spite of really offering no other reason than that they could roll spliffs and talk about how much they loved Velvet Underground and Nabokov. The other employees are all idiots or poseurs attempting to be like them (who says they jammed with Lou Reed to sound cool?). Working games is presented as amoral, like as if operating the ring toss is as inherently evil as skinning dogs or something. He dismissively departs at the end of the film to escape this life (which he is naturally better than) to go to NYC, live in a cruddy apartment/the YMCA with "that chick" (those who know know that character is an archetype and what happens when you date her), and bus tables or something that I guess is more socially acceptable for someone who writes bad poetry.

Adventureland was an excuse for the director and scriptwriter to spend millions of dollars to drop mid 80s post-punk names and talk about russian novelists. Way, way too much navel gazing as replacement for character development. The characters themselves are totally unlikeable. The female lead character feels totally inauthentic and for all the attempts to try and establish her as being wildly complex, comes across as shallow and equally superficial to the percieved villains of the film (who, in the case of the Musik Express operators, actually do the right things). Plus, there's some weird catholics-as-antisemite thing thrown in for no reason and lots of dudes being punched in the balls as replacement for jokes. The kind of thing self important freelancers for Rolling Stone and Village Voice would love and pretty much no one else.

We don't even know if she was fully conscious when she went to the hospital. I mean, its not like she slipped and fell. She could have been having a full bore stroke by the time she got to the ER.

If your brain starts to bleed, first instinct isn't to call up the state house and find out who's job it is to regulate amusement attractions. Its generally to seek medical attention. This isn't something they just give you a pill for and send you home. This is the kind of thing that gets your skull opened up. As for the lack of media attention - again, woman shows up to the hospital presenting severe headache and partial paralysis of face. Ends up undergoing surgery. Family may not have known immediately when she started to feel bad because they weren't present when she was at the park. They may not have known until she came to and was extubated. She probably rode the coaster, got a huge headache, didn't ride anything else, and then ended up at the ER sometime shortly before she would have ended up dead, and done so with no prior neurological issues. Pure guess on my part, but with the ride we're talking about, I totally believe the possibility.

The story is pretty clear apart from the engrish: OLC (who own and operate Disney's Tokyo Resort) admitted that they have had about 25 years worth of dealings with an international crime syndicate and apologized, probably because they were publicly outed or whatever. It doesn't really do anything to argue against my main point, which is that no one asks where the money comes from or cares where it goes (as you establish), and that the whole HRP was bought by INSIDERZ~! deal is basically meaningless, assuming the place opens.

The yakuza thing should be well known to any Americans traveling over there given the hard-on the Japanese have for covering up tats, but alas, it never is. Every once in awhile you'll get a story like this: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/weekly/news/nn2005/nn20050528a4.htm ...but most stories, if any develop, are probably not going to be of enough value to a western audience to justify translation to english. Anyhow, the point is no one cares where the money comes from to operate or how its spent so long as they operate. Posing over that issue seems absurd.

Well then you can talk about Mercedes, CHILLER. Its not like they were adverse to plugging tools in the hands of Jews/Catholics/Gypsies at gunpoint. Walt Disney was reputed to be an anti-semite, and whom openly dreamed of his totalitarian community of the future, yet I don't see many folks arguing that Universal is the more ethical theme park chain. This is nothing. The Cypress Gardens point larrygator makes is also valid. How do you kill something that was already dead by trying to resurrect it? Operating as a water park only is still more than what was there prior to their arrival.

The carnival industry is built on the backs of people working schedules that all but guarantee drug use, to speak nothing of the goon squads who enforce cash transactions among vendors and games. A good number of the parks in Japan are yakuza fronts, and even Disney Tokyo has had admitted past financial dealings with them. They almost certainly continue to have them so given how ingrained organized crime is in the country. I'd say paying off or contracting services from international crime syndicates is probably up there in terms of unethical things you might do. I mean, think of it this way: Would the fact that BMW used concentration camp labor unapologetically make you think twice about buying an M-Class? Then why would some Sheik losing money in a theme park worry you about returning? God knows wherever these Russian investors are from, they probably aren't nice either. If you prefer to imagine that this was a calculated plan on behalf of the the park's management to sink the park to buy it and manage it again, that's fine. Again, I remind you: It is not your money. Its not really the time for this sort of argument, but the wealth that has been lost was completely illusory. It did not exist. HRP, if anything, was merely part of the illusory economic growth bubble that has since popped.

You're not totally getting it. The creditors did own the park. They could have operated it if they decided to invest more money into it. They didn't, which is why it went from being in a restructuring (Chapter 11) to liquidation (Chapter 7). They decided not to because they felt that there was no money that could be made off of further investment. You may need to spend money to make money, but spending more money does not mean you make more, right? Its completely legal. And really, does anyone care who opens it as long as its open? Its an amusement park. Only the worst people alive would have ethical standards about visiting amusements, otherwise you should re-consider going to any funfairs, any facility in Japan, Six Flags, Cedar Fair, Busch, etc.

I understand people might have liked this thing, but I'd be surprised if it made any money in the last few years. If its going to Neonopolis, either someone really wants to lose money or it'll be on its way to filling space at Aliante within 2 years.

What do they stand to gain? Well, the park was closed and no matter who bought it at this point, they weren't getting their money back. It doesn't matter if Cedar Fair bought the place with sacks of cash, B&M wasn't getting their whole bill paid. So, what they can do is sell them parts and services for maintenance in the midst of an environment in which they're not gonna be getting a whole lot of orders, or they can take some ridiculous moral stance and make no money.

To put it bluntly, that is not how Chapter 7 bankruptcy works in the US. The $25 million represents the the amount of money going back to the creditors. They lost their shirts and its the subsequent owners (at least for now) won out, just as they did at Jazzland, Visionland, Bonfante, and good tracts of the Six Flags chain circa 2001.

Initially, the company went Chapter 11, which allows protection for the company from the folks it owes money as it "restructures"; business-speak for firing people and finding new investors. Big surprise, they didn't find anyone to help finance their restructuring and change of business plan, so HRP went Chapter 7. That means the assets of the company are liquidated to pay the creditors. Creditors hate Chapter 7 because they generally get no return on their investment, and if you need to see an example of that, look at what happened to real estate in this country and how it absolutely laid waste to the financial sector, so they won't pursue it except as a final option. What people made the mistake of assuming is that when the park didn't initially sell, that meant it *would be* broken up in Chapter 7/liquidation. Instead, you ended up with an array of folks coming in eying the place and its brand new insanely low price. The $255 million? Written off by the creditors, and the vast losses in the US are why you're seeing construction come to a dead halt in places like the UAE where the money was coming from to build the HRPs (and planned communities, and big box stores) stateside.

SFI doesn't have $25 million to spend. CF already has an Old Indiana, no need for another one. If they want a few cheap rides, all they need to do is look at the remains of Expoland, Camelot, Cypress Gardens, etc etc etc. They can wait till the end of '09 and there will probably be even more out there.

They could be trying to make it look as nice as possible for a sale. You know, like redoing the kitchen on a house before it ends up on the market.