12 Comments

This was great! Loved your thoughtful analysis, too. I'm honestly disappointed this concept wasn't given more time by Disney to work.

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Thanks for a really great piece. You captured so many of the details from the Starcruiser, but your analysis of what did and didn't work was even better. I've been slowly writing up my own long piece on it but you captured so much of what I wanted to say!

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Thanks - let me know when your piece is out, would love to read it!

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Here you go Adrian: https://reasonwhimsy.substack.com/p/what-the-star-wars-hotel-can-teach

You said it so well I had to quote you.

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Thank you - and nice post!

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Hello from a fellow Trinitarian! This was a lovely read - I really enjoyed your review and experience, especially since you followed a different path from my family when we went on the Starcruiser last week. Thank you for sharing! Just to add a couple of interesting points from my own journey: first, you wrote about the lightsaber training: "I can’t fathom why it was included." But for my family, the lightsaber training was one of the most important story moments for us. It was the inciting incident to our path following the Saja, which led to my daughter being chosen by the Saja to develop her force ability and then she *moved a rock with the force* (an incredible trick they pulled off in the climate simulator). This was delightful - and it also culminated in a deep story line about gathering artefacts to help train a new generation of Jedi. This storyline was central to why Rey and Kylo were onboard at the end. All of this is just to say that the negative story points of your post were all central to the plot points in my family 's experience - and your blog illuminated several gaps and events that we didn't understand (like the random first order meetup we heard taking place in the engine room, of all places), which we thought were superfluous. It's incredible to now put the pieces together and see how the story was interwoven, and how one person's plot gaps was another person's inciting incident or climax. Very fun! Thank you again for such a lovely post.

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What a fantastic read, and from a great perspective. I'm upset that I'm basically priced out of the experience, even if, it turns out, the value wasn't as absymal as it seemed from the initial marketing. But comprehensive retellings like yours help to keep it alive, both an aching "what-if" and a satisfying moment kept in amber so it's not totally lost. Thank you for sharing.

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I love this walkthrough! So good. It makes me so sad to think about all these sets being demolished--like every expensive movie, no matter good or bad. All this work, all these dreams. Sigh.

I keep hearing/reading about how much people loved this experience, even in context of the price. So glad to have a long read.

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Thank you! Hopefully something will be saved.

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Fantastic long read, thank you so much for writing and sharing it. I hadn't read all that much by way of detailed account of the experience and it is brilliant to read it from a game designer's point of view. I'm a little jealous to not have gone on the Starcruiser, and at the same time glad to read the whole detailed voyage. And I'd totally discounted the possibility of going when the prices were announced - too far, too expensive, lots of other things going on at the time. Now I'm curious to read or find out about how this ridiculously ambitious venture was greenlit in the first place.

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I won't be writing it myself, but I would love to read an oral history/deep dive on the making of the Starcruiser!

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Aug 8, 2023
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Not exactly like this, no – but there's plenty of things that involve elements, e.g. immersive theatre, Meow Wolf, Galaxy's Edge, etc.!

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