Boing Boing: If Disney learns the very expensive lessons they've paid for in developing, running, and now apparently slowly shuttering the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser it'll have been well worth it. While Disney clearly fumbled the entire marketing and forecasting side of the equation and probably didn't understand what they were building — reviews of the experience for fans of it are fantastic.
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To my understanding, Galactic Starcruiser was incredibly enticing and exciting, but its price was just far too exorbitant in comparison to the experience’s offerings. It’s funny, this is reminiscent of Galaxy’s Edge opening. Disney was prepping for unprecedented crowd sizes, but their efforts backfired, and the opening crowds were unexpectedly smaller. At this point, Galaxy’s Edge (both coasts) has reached somewhat of a stasis, with one of the most complex dark rides Disney has ever produced, Rise of the Resistance. As far as the hotel goes, as mentioned, the price tag was not nearly on par with the attractions within the stay itself, and therefore, even those who would be remotely interested in that kind of experience would be turned away not only by the price, but also the reports of underwhelm from those who did stay. Another thing this article mentions is that the writer is not fond of the modern Star Wars trilogy which has contextualized most of Disney’s current Star Wars attractions. There is a huge market for Star Wars — that can be gleaned from any Comic Con — but as we know, the canon is large. It takes effort to appeal to every reach of it while also remaining faithful enough that fans aren’t disappointed.
I guess I am unsurprised that this Disney experience is failing in terms of interest. Disney (and star wars) fans may be crazy and willing to throw thousands of dollars at the company, but this idea always seemed more out there than I am used to the mainstream audiences going for. However, the fact that it is an all-encompassing experience, forcing guests to engage with role play in a dinner-theatre style, sounds quite exciting. It is interesting that this idea of dinner theatre is coming back. I have seen it come and go in theatre history, and I think that Disney holds one of the closest modern examples of it in character dining, but I still think it is a lost art form. As cinemas bring back dinner and a movie, I wonder if this will start a new wave of theatre dinner experiences (who doesn't love Ellen's, Stardust Diner).
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