Gr.Adv.Debate #50: Did major movie studios like Time Warner and Paramount acquiring theme parks in the '90s help or hurt?

[29yrswithaGApass]

Feel free to vote and discuss.

 

 

[Medusa42]

I think Time Warner Entertainment helped the parks they owned outright, but it was proven in court that they caused a lot of harm to Six Flags Over Georgia in an attempt to undervalue the park.

https://www.butlerwootenpeak.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/1998-12-22.pdf

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-court-of-appeals/1315914.html

 

[Daved Thomson]

While I think there were both positive and negative aspects to the Time-Warner Aquisition of Six Flags, the positive aspects were very short term (mainly a solid parent company financially that could invest in the parks).  While TW certainly improved theming at the parks, those themes completely destroyed much of each parks’ uniqueness in architecture and characters.  I don’t think the individual parks needed to eliminate their unique characters when the TW characters were brought in.  And, despite the TW emphasis on improved theming and improved attendance that came with it, we have certainly seen an abandoning of themes in recent years. In fact, I don’t even think of Six Flags as theme parks these days.  They’ve become so much of everything that Walt Disney did not want with his creation of the first theme park. 

[Pineracer]

I feel Time Warner helped because I feel it got Six Flags interested in being first at everything (first invert, first floorless, etc).

 

But the parks Paramount had been picking up were family parks and ruined their MO, and Cedar Fair has done very well setting things right. Paramount was mainly following Six Flags so all those parks would have expanded greatly eventually.

[harry2004]

man i wish time warner get six flags again

that could be awesome plus they could build original coasters layout again

and maybe get the first ever rmc trex

and retheme cyclone bay area at six flags magic mountain to a warner bros studio lot

Edited June 11, 2018 by harry2004

[pashacar]

On 5/28/2018 at 1:20 AM, Daved Thomson said:

While TW certainly improved theming at the parks, those themes completely destroyed much of each parks’ uniqueness in architecture and characters.  I don’t think the individual parks needed to eliminate their unique characters when the TW characters were brought in.

 

Sorry to bring something back from so long ago, but bored for obvious reason over here....

 

This is a great point that I hadn't considered. The SF parks really did each have unique and often beautiful architecture, and Time Warner's acquisition began the step towards whitewashing and standardizing much of that.