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Star Wars General Discussion Thread

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March 2022 to September 2023, apparently. Lasted like a year and a half?

sweet fucking hell though 2.4k a night, minimum two nights, disney tourists tend to have some cash but that's a bit much
 
I love the idea of a Star Wars hotel. My younger, more Star Wars obsessed self would have gone nuts over the possibility of a fully immersive cruise. As for my present self it looks absolutely not worth the price of entry for what you get, and its clear why it ended up shutting down.
 
Watched the video last night while I was tooling around in videogames and such on the other screen.

I'm so angry on behalf of the cast and crew. To be putting yourself out there as essentially a Star Wars RPG NPC for hours at a time, some wearing full-head prosthesis or makeup, while getting no more pay for your time than an average Disney employee, and then one day to be told right before a shift that the place is gonna be closing. I'm angry on behalf of the customers as well, of course (my GOD who let that pillar in the dining room slip through the design process??) but there's no way in hell these people were getting adequately compensated for their time, and for whatever its worth I hope they were living their best lives doing the job.

What a shoddy game design, as well. Now I desperately want to see the production notes because it sounds like people on the design board had a fair idea of what LARP is, but between the need to keep it simple enough that anyone can participate and the amount of the budget being spent on SFX, plus the inevitable unreliability of phone apps (even the best will fuck up sometimes), the game really needed more time and playtesting - but that would probably require the Disney BOE to take a temporary 2% paycut so fuck that noise.

Add to that the little things like "you can't turn off the light strips around your window without turning off THE WHOLE WINDOW" and it just speaks to a rushed, inflexible design.
 
I think one of the biggest problems was making the story have paths. Adding more stuff to keep track of for everyone involved, technology that was clearly inadequate to reliably hold it together and the short time everything had to be crammed into all caused massive hassles for the hotels biggest selling point.

Streamlining it would hardly save the experience as a whole, but might at least ensure that all guests get the full story experience.
 
Genuinely a cheaper hotel built around a straight forward narative would have been so much more successful. You could basically make it like a longer, more elaborate version of the one of those murder mystery shows they do on trains.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
They do murder mystery shows on trains? The logistics of that seem challenging.
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The Englanderish said:
I'd assume it's one of the big luxury long distance routes, orient express kinda thing. In fact there's a book about that one which probably popularises the idea. :V
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It's usually done as special show that you pay tickets for specifically. The key is that you play out the same scenes in each car with a pretty simple story.
 
DracoDracul said:
Genuinely a cheaper hotel built around a straight forward narative would have been so much more successful. You could basically make it like a longer, more elaborate version of the one of those murder mystery shows they do on trains.
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They should've just spent the money on beefing out Galaxy's Edge even more, to like full blown Star Wars Colonial Williamsburg or Knott's Berry Farm's Ghost Town - maybe like daily events/stories/whatever that guests can participate in (maybe one or two lucky kids get picked to take part or whatever) and more interactive shops/restaurants/etc. I imagine it's the same problems that ended up plaguing Evermore (albeit without the ill advised Taylor Swift lawsuit) - it turns out a fully immersive real life RPG/Westworld-with-humans is, uh, really hard and actually kind've lame? It'd be less oppressive/more casual (because guests can wander in and out instead of being literally locked in) and probably cheaper in the long run.

I mean I can't believe people weren't lining up to be locked into an escape room with a bunch of Star Wars nerds and Disney Adults.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
They do murder mystery shows on trains? The logistics of that seem challenging.
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Yeah. The passengers participating all get a character to play, one of them "dies", and the others have to use the character details to figure out who the "murderer" is.

I've never been on one but they show up in pop culture a fair bit. Off the top of my head I know King of the Hill did an episode about a failed one, and there's an entire Sonic game with the characters going through one
 
Jcogginsa said:
Yeah. The passengers participating all get a character to play, one of them "dies", and the others have to use the character details to figure out who the "murderer" is.

I've never been on one but they show up in pop culture a fair bit. Off the top of my head I know King of the Hill did an episode about a failed one, and there's an entire Sonic game with the characters going through one
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I've heard about those but as dinner events, not actually set on a train with people moving between cars - the latter seemed like it could cause difficulties, but I guess keeping it linear does a lot to help with that.
 
I mean seriously, why this wasn't like a Star Wars themed VIP ticket to Disneyland/Disneyworld just boggles my mind.

Instead of being this big ass giant fake space hotel, have it just be an extra $50 (because this is the Mouse we're talking about) lets you come in costume/cosplay (albeit with like a badge or something you have to display so people don't get confused), get regular Fast Pass/ability to skip the line, maybe some light storytelling/role playing stuff that ties into the day's running story (I dunno the First Order's Disney La'and and they have to be stopped) and at the end of the day stunt spectacular that's how the "Vergence in the Force" (aka some lucky kid) is chosen to save the day.
 
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I don't know why (lol) people keep saying "why didn't Disney just do [insert more sensible course of action here]?"

We all know why.

The plans and pitches and ideas are not made with the customer in mind. They are made with executives and board members and shareholders in mind.

It's the techbro problem: a sustainable and profitable actual product is hard, investor storytime is easy.

What goes into production is not the product that will best please the fans/consumer or best grow the company but the product which is best coached in the logic of (short term) financial incentive for shareholders and executives.
 
Arthur Frayn said:
I mean I can't believe people weren't lining up to be locked into an escape room with a bunch of Star Wars nerds and Disney Adults.
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I mean I think a star wars themed escape room that like charge like 80 bucks a head could do gang busters, and be both cheap enough. It would also be small enough that you could reasonably using existing buildings and put them in any city with 500k+ people.
 
DracoDracul said:
I mean I think a star wars themed escape room that like charge like 80 bucks a head could do gang busters, and be both cheap enough. It would also be small enough that you could reasonably using existing buildings and put them in any city with 500k+ people.
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A Disney Imagineer-built Star Wars themed escape room that you have an hour to get out of sounds awesome.

A Disney Imagineer-built Star Wars themed escape room that I'm trapped inside for a weekend and my only respite is Disneyworld… does not.
 
DracoDracul said:
I mean I think a star wars themed escape room that like charge like 80 bucks a head could do gang busters, and be both cheap enough. It would also be small enough that you could reasonably using existing buildings and put them in any city with 500k+ people.
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Honestly I feel like an escape room would thematically fits Star Trek better than Star Wars.

Now a Star Wars themed laser tag…
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Honestly I feel like an escape room would thematically fits Star Trek better than Star Wars.

Now a Star Wars themed laser tag…
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I mean this was basically what Star Trek: The Experience (the OG Galaxy's Edge and Harry Potter World!) was - a TNG themed interactive ride where groups would go from the Enterprise to a shuttle to DS9 "seamlessly", and it ended with getting to walk around a replica of the Promenade that had a mix of restaurants, shops, and a few people "in character" as aliens or Starfleet crew. It ended up closing in the early 2000's (right as Paramount was rebooting the franchise/sorting out the rights with CBS), but I'm surprised no one's revived it in a post-Galaxy's Edge/Hogwarts/World of Pandora world.

You'd be hard pressed to find a fandom that loves buying memorabilia, dressing up in costumes, and committing to the bit more than Star Trek nerds.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Honestly I feel like an escape room would thematically fits Star Trek better than Star Wars.

Now a Star Wars themed laser tag…
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While Star Trek would have more options, there are definitely some iconic ones you could do for Star Wars like Death Star Escape, Jaba's Palace Escape, and Cloud City Escape. Then you bulk it out with Canto Bight Escape and Geonosis Escape that are a big cheaper. You brand the whole thing as the nice catchy Star Wars: ESCAPE!
 
WestOrEast said:
Actually did an escape room like that, somewhere in Virginia. My knowledge of Star Wars trivia came in handy for probably the first and only time in my life by letting me remember the ID number of the stormtrooper Luke was impersonating without having to solve the puzzle that came with it.
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Isn't that just the name of Lucas' earlier film? THX-1138
 
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