The General Star Wars Thread (2024)

The fatal flaw is that space in Star Wars is associated with speed. You don't go to space in Star Wars without some fast pace action sequences. Really, space is just a loading zone. The real adventure and meat are the planets.

Think of Naboo. That's a place for a resorts. For daring adventures. For relaxation. For comfy beds. It has everything you want in diversity.

Think of a big Star Destroyer or Mon Calamari cruiser. It's big, simple, cold and boring. Everything is utilitarian with little to no luxury. Beds are simple. Walkways are simple. It's a military zone, so you can't be fancy with the place. Especially if you want that Star Wars aesthetic.

I feel like a good example to compare and contrast Disney's Star Wars hotel is the American Idol ride in MGM that closed down. The Youtube channel Defunct Land did a video covering the history of the ride, the general reception, and its highs and lows for anyone interested.

The American Idol ride like the Star Wars hotel emphasized that they were trying to create a similar feel to the property they were based off and give riders their own "experience." They both required Disney to have a set of cast and crew and organize everyone for the events. However from reviews, it seems like the American Idol ride succeeded much more than the hotel.

Part of the success of the American Idol ride, comes from the easier logistics. They basically took their own building and matched the furniture, stage, audience, and confetti to the actual show. Then they got some decently charismatic hosts and judges to match the quality of the show and the archetypes (Randy, Simon, etc). I think what really helped was that American Idol already had a well known structure so they basically could just tell people "hey were doing American Idol and you will be a contestant."

On the flipside, the Star Wars hotel wasn't really based off any one thing. It's a cruise ship which is something that the source material doesn't really engage with and filled with characters that aren't in the source material. It's also a pseudo-LARP but it's not based on any module or system that someone would be familiar with.

Funny enough despite the American Idol ride coming out in 2010 and the Star War hotel in 2020, they both seemed to suffer from some of the same problems. The schedules set in both meant that guests couldn't really enjoy the parks that much. And guests complained about having to be at the assigned areas so early.

I like Jenny's suggestion that they keep the Hotel but turn it into a restaurant and keep some of the characters with some of the performances.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

More than that, the iconography of Star Wars is rooted in the Used Future. Luxury hotels are not inclined to expose the machinery that keeps the place running and smear grease stains on the walls and floors for flavor. There are isolated places in Star Wars that is about wealth and prestige, but you're limited to things like Naboo, Coruscant and Bespin (and Canto Bight) and it seems Galactic Starcruiser didn't lean into any of that. Galaxy's Edge in contrast was pretty well received for being much better about brand targeting, and not costing thousands to experience.

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

Man you'd think that a resort that has died down would cease drama, but here we are. A screenrant article is making it look like her video is smacking on the cast members when in fact she only has praises for them and is attacking the higher-ups instead.

What is it with the need to defend an already dead product? And it's not just that article but (to my surprise) there's a subreddit particularly for that attraction that had the video thread locked. Is it sunk cost?

Edited by Ookamikun on May 24th 2024 at 12:23:52 PM

Most certainly a case of sunk cost fallacy as I suggested. No matter how much money was thrown at the sinking ship, it still sank, as what sometimes happens when you have business ventures. This could not have been fixed easily....

But... if I had to come up with some ideas on how to make this better? Here we go....

1.) Turn this into a standard luxury cruise. Make it one of the cruises Disney already has and keep it a fun cruise first with some Star Wars flare on the side.

2.) Base this attraction around the original trilogy, maybe Bespin, and have it retain its high class vibe while being something a lot more recognizable. The Cloud City Hotel probably has a better ring to it and sounds a lot cooler.

3.) Make this hotel based on the Jedi Temple. Admittedly with this one it might be hard to make a massive structure like a Jedi Temple, but hey, this is the sort of thing that would be super cool to stay at and would be a spectacle that would warrant attention. Plus it naturally lends itself to Jedi activities and the like, plus with its huge size you could do whatever you want.

4.) Simply another expansion to Galaxy's Edge, call it Star Wars land or the like instead. Provide a couple attractions and simply add more Star Wars content to existing Disney World.

5.) The best idea of all, just make a normal hotel with a couple fun Star Wars mini attractions like a dinner show, an arcade, maybe a mini museum and just keep it simple. Save a lot of money on practicality and make this something that most people could afford.

And if you say that any one of those would not be good at being immersive, then by that logic neither does a resort that requires a phone app to function.

Yeah, some of those are not perfect solutions and some are probably too hard to make. But if you wanna make a Star Wars hotel or the like, you gotta add something special. Why is this a glorified hotel for the Uber rich, because Disney wanted to make a glorified hotel for the Uber rich and maybe for some actors and production crew in their studios. That's it.

And God, maybe, MAYBE, I would be okay with Galactic Starcruiser if they made it this super exclusive technology based attraction that just focused on showing a bunch of experimental tech that only a select few people could access, but no, that's not what we got.

I discover my own destiny as I command the winds of life!

Pardon the gross analogy but this feels like a case of somebody getting caught trying to poop in the urinal. It doesn't matter if you apologize, they still tried to do it.

It's case of the awful mindset. They didn't see anything wrong with what they were doing until we did, until they saw that it wasn't going to be profitable.

I discover my own destiny as I command the winds of life!

George Lucas has been honored at the77th Cannes Festival with a Palme d’Or for his contribution to cinema.

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He talked a bit about his opinion of the criticism that the prequels got for being "too childish".

His response was, "It is a kids' movie. It's always been a kids' movie.'"

It was supposed to be a kid's movie for 12-year-olds that were going through puberty, who don't know what they're doing, and are asking all the big questions: What should I be worried about? What's important in life?" he said. "And Star Wars has all those things in there. They're buried in there, but you definitely get it, especially if you're young.

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Lucas compared the hate that Jar Jar Binks received to C-3PO.

Everybody said the same thing about C-3PO, that he was irritating and we should get rid of him. When I did the third one it was the Ewoks: ‘Those are little teddy bears. This is a kid’s movie, we don’t want to see a kids’ movie. I said: ‘Itisa kids’ movie. It’s always been a kids’ movie.'”

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His opinion about the sequels was:

I was the one who really knew whatStar Warswas … who actually knew this world, because there’s a lot to it. The Force, for example, nobody understood the Force,” he said. “When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost. But that’s the way it is. You give it up, you give it up.

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Finally Lucas explained the secret of his success as:

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/george-lucas-cannes-honor-star-wars-films-1235907998/

Edited by jawal on May 25th 2024 at 6:24:34 PM

Every Hero has his own way of eating yogurt

God this man is so fascinating to hear. The way he thinks. The way he talks.

George, I can’t say I agree with even half of what you said but damn do you have the right to speak your mind.

I discover my own destiny as I command the winds of life!

We weren't really that interested in making money. We were interested in making movies.

I know there are other film makers who believe this, but it's still good to hear.

Now if only we could drill this into the heads of executives.

One Strip! One Strip!

On one hand, George is a massive hypocrite. Because Star Wars was and still is a money making machine, whether Disney is attached or not. Look at all the toys, games, books and other merch that got pumped out by his company.

On the other hand, even a hypocrite can have a point. And behind all the money making decisions made there was an artistic expression. You could say “Yeah, that’s George Lucas for you. For better or worse.”

Edited by Patar136 on May 25th 2024 at 11:02:15 AM

I discover my own destiny as I command the winds of life!

If I recall correctly, Lucas only use the merchandise as a means to get funding to make more Star Wars movies since he had a bad experience trying to get a budget for the first Star Wars movie.

And really, The Clone Wars animated series would never have been made had Lucas not used his privately owned merch rights to fund every TCW episode. It would have been deemed too expensive for Disney and it's only because of TCW's longevity in popularity that Disney even green light a new season of The Clone Wars because they realized that Lucas was right on the mark.

He used pretty much everything he earned to turn around and put into more projects and more advanced tools to make them. Skywalker Ranch, Industrial Light and Magic, THX were all built to create better movies. Pixar was also indirectly started by him, same with things like photoshop and non-linear editing. It's not hyperbole to say at least 50% of Hollywood owes something to him.

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

Plus, it could be a case of Lucas wanting primarily to make a good film (as I imagine is the case), but also thinking "Might as well make as much money off this as I can", which also then links to 's point.

Yeah, Lucas is like Spielberg in that, as well as the films he made being extremely influential, his 'side projects' have also helped define modern cinema.

Edited by king15 on May 25th 2024 at 7:20:46 PM

The one thing I can’t get behind is the insistence of “It’s a kids movie.” Because that just translates as “turn your brain off, you can’t criticize anything.” And I just really hate this mindset. At best, it’s reductionist. At worst, it’s elitist. Basically saying that anyone who engages with this work at a deeper level is foolish.

I will always quote C.S. Lewis response to this reflective criticism.

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.“

Okay? Lucas is still just gatekeeping and avoiding criticism.

Edited by Patar136 on May 25th 2024 at 1:36:31 AM

I discover my own destiny as I command the winds of life!

Its not a children's film,correction it's a family friendly franchise

dur

New theme music also a box

Isn't "we shouldn't be worried about Star Wars doignt hings that are too childish because it is, ultimately, a franchise meant for kids" the opposite of reductionist and gatekeeping?

What he's saying is that the opinion that some things should be off limits based on the idea that they're too childish is, in itself, reductionist and against what Star Wars is about.

He's basically saying he doesn't want a single demographic (in this case, adults) gatekeeping what is acceptable for the franchise.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 25th 2024 at 2:29:08 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense."- Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

> Okay? Lucas is still just gatekeeping and avoiding criticism.

He's not doing either of those things,but I think some people's hatred of the man means they assume the worst of him

New theme music also a box

This is not deflecting criticism, this is directly responding to criticism, namely to the accusations of certain Star Wars movies (in this case ROTJ) being a "kid movie". His response is, yes it is, just like the other films.

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Isn't "we shouldn't be worried about Star Wars doignt hings that are too childish because it is, ultimately, a franchise meant for kids" the ''opposite' of reductionist and gatekeeping?

Pretty much - if there's any gatekeeping happening, it's coming from the people who throw a sh*tfit every single time there's a character in Star Wars that's supposed to give younger audineces a perspective.

That is, when they're not too busy whinging over female and/or POC characters again.

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

This does remind me of a discussion I raised on the Spider-Man thread about how new younger fans tend to come in from the Spider-verse movies, and relate more to Miles and Gwen, while not really vibing with the older stuff sometimes.

A guest in my house really doesn't like Spectacular Spider-Man even tho that's like the gold standard because of how it handles certain things like having an outdated jock vs nerd dynamic, or Peter's general attitude there.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone has had similar experiences in Star Wars since there's all sorts of new projects every few years.

We could even have fans who like Cal more than Luke or Rey, or Anakin.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

It happens to me, I grew up with the animated series, so I have more affection for Ahsoka or prequels Obi-wan than for the heroes of the original trilogy.

Edited by Luisdalas on May 25th 2024 at 2:29:51 AM

In George Lucas' biography, Skywalking, there's an interesting anecdote that he had to fire the guy he hired to be his money manager. The guy being one of the top money men in California as the guy had essentially started investing the Star Wars finance juggernaut into expanding into becoming a Megacorp that would own vast lines of other companies.

George said, "I just didn't want to do that. I just wanted money to make movies."

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.