ChrisFL
Premium Member
Well Yoda is there....if you pay for the $300 lightsaber experience...and it's just his voice. Another issue with Galaxy's Edge, too many upcharge things
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Well Yoda is there....if you pay for the $300 lightsaber experience...and it's just his voice. Another issue with Galaxy's Edge, too many upcharge things
I’m a little late to the thread but just want to hop in on a couple things:
- Great observation on what a Disney adult is in 2024 vs 2014 or 2004. I have never really given two thoughts to ever owning branded merchandise for one of the company’s movies or collecting high markup crap like funko pops or “disneybounding”. These people exist but i don’t know if this market has new growth in gen alpha.
- somewhat related, I really wonder what the plan is going to be for those BCV units in 2043. I can nearly guarantee anyone pulling down stock options in Burbank doesn’t really know what to do there either and I wonder if they even care. Oh well, those Poly tower sales will be getting someone a christmas bonus this year.
- also looking back on point one, my interest in the company has always been rather atypical. I guess when you come of age in the era of Home on the Range and Chicken Little, and your parents are clipping newspaper articles about Eisner’s ouster for you to read, you come out looking at the company a little different. I’ve been pretty concerned with the trajectory under Iger for at least a decade, but I felt like a crazy person when discussing it. The company was doing gangbusters, right?!
- the institutional rot grew out of laziness in investment in the Florida parks. Iger had a mandate to fix DCA, smaller mandates to fix HKDL and EDR, and launch Shanghai. The florida resort was treated as a mature asset that could be relatively ignored indefinitely. I think that Chapek was duller than Bob the Elder, but his brief time as chief mismanager over covid really seems to have allowed the true state of the Florida parks to break containment from corners like this board and into general public consciousness. this toothpaste isn’t going to go back in the tube.
- lots of children and adults with children’s minds think the company should build a fifth gate in Florida . Truthfully, they should have broken ground on a third castle park in North America 10 years ago. The fundamental problem with that idea ever happening outside of free cash flow, politics, climate change, etc., is chronic, deep seated mismanagement. Disneyland Dallas would open with 12 rides and be more over budget than the F35. The North American market wouldn’t accept it.
- Great observation on what a Disney adult is in 2024 vs 2014 or 2004. I have never really given two thoughts to ever owning branded merchandise for one of the company’s movies or collecting high markup crap like funko pops or “disneybounding”. These people exist but i don’t know if this market has new growth in gen alpha.
- somewhat related, I really wonder what the plan is going to be for those BCV units in 2043. I can nearly guarantee anyone pulling down stock options in Burbank doesn’t really know what to do there either and I wonder if they even care. Oh well, those Poly tower sales will be getting someone a christmas bonus this year.
- also looking back on point one, my interest in the company has always been rather atypical. I guess when you come of age in the era of Home on the Range and Chicken Little, and your parents are clipping newspaper articles about Eisner’s ouster for you to read, you come out looking at the company a little different. I’ve been pretty concerned with the trajectory under Iger for at least a decade, but I felt like a crazy person when discussing it. The company was doing gangbusters, right?!
- the institutional rot grew out of laziness in investment in the Florida parks. Iger had a mandate to fix DCA, smaller mandates to fix HKDL and EDR, and launch Shanghai. The florida resort was treated as a mature asset that could be relatively ignored indefinitely. I think that Chapek was duller than Bob the Elder, but his brief time as chief mismanager over covid really seems to have allowed the true state of the Florida parks to break containment from corners like this board and into general public consciousness. this toothpaste isn’t going to go back in the tube.
- lots of children and adults with children’s minds think the company should build a fifth gate in Florida . Truthfully, they should have broken ground on a third castle park in North America 10 years ago. The fundamental problem with that idea ever happening outside of free cash flow, politics, climate change, etc., is chronic, deep seated mismanagement. Disneyland Dallas would open with 12 rides and be more over budget than the F35. The North American market wouldn’t accept it.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
While I definitely don't agree with all of his takes, I do think there may be some truth to what Jim says in that tweet, though if it is what he meant it was not particularly well expressed.
^Who is this guy? If you'd never seen him before, you could still probably guess he's a Pirate. Given the name of the ride, you could almost certainly guess it by the time you get to him. Pirate is a pretty common word and looks similar in different languages, but also has iconography like the skull and crossbones that communicate beyond language. But those things aside, his look affirms it pretty clearly on its own - this guy's a Pirate. Given that he's got a speaking role and is placed highly and prominently in the scene, probably one of the more important ones.
What kind of Pirate is he? Well, what is he doing? He's running an auction - even if you don't speak the language of his dialogue, the layout and action of the scene around him support that story and communicate it with speed. Which is good, because in 12 seconds we'll be taking in the next scene, so this one has to register pretty quick so we can maximize enjoyment of the time we do get with it, and with him.
What's his name? What's his backstory? I don't know - and it doesn't matter. Disney doesn't provide you with that information and you aren't expected to know it. What you are expected to have is also pretty reasonable to expect from the guests - foreknowledge of Pirates, of auctions, and, failing the above, the ability to register well-organized visual information. And, they hope, the ability and desire to laugh at the gag of the scene once it registers.
^Who's this guy? If you'd never seen him before, it's harder to tell. He's humanoid, but clearly not human. Is he an alien? Given the context of Star Wars that seems likely, but do Aliens dress like that? Maybe, but the information is conflicting rather than clarifying. His costume doesn't really offer any clues, let alone ones that read at a glance. What's the name of the ride? Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run. The Millennium Falcon is famous, so those words do offer a pretty good clue to what to expect from the ride. Does this guy support the expectations you have from something called Millennium Falcon? Not immediately - he's not Han, he's not Chewie, and while there are good in-world reasons for them not to be present (Chewie appears briefly onscreen, at least) having this "new" guy appear in that queue once again confuses the information rather than clarifies it. It defies the guest expectation but only improves on it if you 1) Happen to know Hondo already, and 2) Think it's cool that he's making an appearance, despite seemingly coming at the expense of the more important and popular characters you might have expected.
Who is this guy and what does he have to do with the Millennium Falcon? You look to the space around him for clues, but there aren't many - it's him alone on a platform with a small control panel, a random droid below, and the rest is general Star Wars-y visual noise. Hard to deduce what he's doing. So at this point we have a lot to look at but little sense of what's happening - that is, unless you happen to know him already, which is not actually a reasonable assumption. Despite being part of something as popular as Star Wars, this character's a pretty deep cut.
Now what if you don't know what the Millennium Falcon is already? Those words alone don't tell you much, especially if you speak a language other than english. The word Smuggler might make some suggestions to english speakers, but it does not translate so literally across all languages. There is no real iconography that denotes what a smuggler is, that they're around, what you should think about that, or that you're technically about to be one of them. It's pretty language-dependent and that's not always the best tool for experiential communication. By this point you're through the queue having been given not much in the way of clues to what's happening beyond the Millennium Falcon out front. Which, again, is popular and iconic, but is also to some people just a spaceship. Having left it behind you some while back, by the time you reach Hondo it's reasonable to expect some clarity about what's coming and how this whole thing's gonna go. So far nothing about this experience has been particularly intuitive.
Hondo tries to tell you his name and what he does, but he's being somewhat decietful. That makes sense if you know the nature of the character and what he does, but to anyone who doesn't those things really haven't been communicated yet by this experience, so instead it's just more conflicting information that points away from why you're there rather than towards it. The character actually fills a trope that could serve as shorthand, but they obscure that in the name of being "authentic" - he is, in essence, also a Pirate, but the sneaky kind who gets away with it, so that's permitted to go over guests' heads instead of being explicitly stated. Imagine if everything in that room told you "This guy's a Space Pirate". But almost nothing does.
They spend some time making Hondo say things that justify the in-world reasons he's there, but it's hard for that to matter if you're still wondering if you're in the right place for the spaceship ride. When he tells you what he needs from you there's a lot of jargon and flowery talking that buries the lede of confirming what you're actually there for, which is to fly the spaceship. He does say it, but you'd better be paying damn close attention, sift through the exposition, understand english, and be able to remember the important parts of what he said once you're ushered into the next room. That's a pretty tall order for guests on vacation, taller if you only entered his preshow room after he started talking, which isn't unusual. As Eddie Sotto said in that Twitter thread, dialogue is usually lost on the audience. With exceptions of course, but no one remembers the Haunted Mansion Stretching Room spiel after hearing it the first time. And you don't need to - you're more likely to remember how words made you feel than what they were, and in the Mansion's case that's sufficient.
So, we've been told his name, we haven't really been told his backstory - should that matter? He pops up again on screen before you enter the cockpit, so it sure seems like it might matter. But by this point do you remember his name? Many guests probably don't, which actually is fine, but information overload can make guests feel like they're missing something, and we've been fed a lot already. Unfortunately a lot of the concepts that have played out up to that point don't speak clearly - your foreknowledge of aliens, smugglers, spaceships, and possibly Star Wars have all been tested, but if the math isn't adding up yet just looking around won't help you because the visual information has not been especially well-organized. Guests have to be pretty iniated to really get what's happening in the Smuggler's Run queue and preshows. And some are, but many aren't. It's fine to reward people who are initiated, but doing so at the expense of the uninitiated effectively punishes guests for wanting to have a good time without doing previous research. The queue itself should have been enough to get everyone up to speed, but despite being big, cool looking, and expensive, it fails at several levels of design that should be communicating clearly.
Follow that up with a ride experience like Smuggler's Run which is difficult to control, keeps plying you with dialogue from the mysterious man, is absent of many general Star Wars expectations, requires teamwork from strangers (often children), and what should have been a simple, home-run, dream-fulfilling ride turns into the unsatisfying, even frustrating attraction experience it has proven to be for many. The ride itself is almost beside the particular point we're talking about here, but with clearer setup that tells guests quickly and clearly what's important and sets expectations perhaps the actual ride might feel less overwhelming.
Point being, I obviously don't think existing IP is necessary for good storytelling - in fact, the IP stands in the way of the storytelling in Smuggler's Run - but in a fast-paced medium like theme park attractions visual economy is paramount, and a useful method for achieving that is playing on what guests know already. The Haunted Mansion creates a hundred new characters for guests to discover, but they all play on subjects the guests can be counted on to know something about. Even if you don't know about Mummies or Opera or Ballroom Dancing, you probably know enough about Ghosts in general to get what's happening. And if any of the characters or gags fall flat there are 20 more right behind that give you another shot at connecting with something. Meanwhile Hondo is one character, sparsely staged, densely scripted, and witholding by nature. If you miss the boat on him you may well miss the boat on the ride. Meanwhile, boiled down to its elements, going on a "Space Pirate adventure" sounds like a TON of fun. Had the ride been designed to fully play up that concept, comminicate it clearly, and then used Star Wars elements as the setting for that kind of experience, a character like Hondo could have stood alone as one who creates meaning even for guests who've never heard of him specifically.
EDITED To correct 2 different misspellings of Chewie
While I definitely don't agree with all of his takes, I do think there may be some truth to what Jim says in that tweet, though if it is what he meant it was not particularly well expressed.
View attachment 766236
^Who is this guy? If you'd never seen him before, you could still probably guess he's a Pirate. Given the name of the ride, you could almost certainly guess it by the time you get to him. Pirate is a pretty common word and looks similar in different languages, but also has iconography like the skull and crossbones that communicate beyond language. But those things aside, his look affirms it pretty clearly on its own - this guy's a Pirate. Given that he's got a speaking role and is placed highly and prominently in the scene, probably one of the more important ones.
What kind of Pirate is he? Well, what is he doing? He's running an auction - even if you don't speak the language of his dialogue, the layout and action of the scene around him support that story and communicate it with speed. Which is good, because in 12 seconds we'll be taking in the next scene, so this one has to register pretty quick so we can maximize enjoyment of the time we do get with it, and with him.
What's his name? What's his backstory? I don't know - and it doesn't matter. Disney doesn't provide you with that information and you aren't expected to know it. What you are expected to have is also pretty reasonable to expect from the guests - foreknowledge of Pirates, of auctions, and, failing the above, the ability to register well-organized visual information. And, they hope, the ability and desire to laugh at the gag of the scene once it registers.
View attachment 766237
^Who's this guy? If you'd never seen him before, it's harder to tell. He's humanoid, but clearly not human. Is he an alien? Given the context of Star Wars that seems likely, but do Aliens dress like that? Maybe, but the information is conflicting rather than clarifying. His costume doesn't really offer any clues, let alone ones that read at a glance. What's the name of the ride? Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run. The Millennium Falcon is famous, so those words do offer a pretty good clue to what to expect from the ride. Does this guy support the expectations you have from something called Millennium Falcon? Not immediately - he's not Han, he's not Chewie, and while there are good in-world reasons for them not to be present (Chewie appears briefly onscreen, at least) having this "new" guy appear in that queue once again confuses the information rather than clarifies it. It defies the guest expectation but only improves on it if you 1) Happen to know Hondo already, and 2) Think it's cool that he's making an appearance, despite seemingly coming at the expense of the more important and popular characters you might have expected.
Who is this guy and what does he have to do with the Millennium Falcon? You look to the space around him for clues, but there aren't many - it's him alone on a platform with a small control panel, a random droid below, and the rest is general Star Wars-y visual noise. Hard to deduce what he's doing. So at this point we have a lot to look at but little sense of what's happening - that is, unless you happen to know him already, which is not actually a reasonable assumption. Despite being part of something as popular as Star Wars, this character's a pretty deep cut.
Now what if you don't know what the Millennium Falcon is already? Those words alone don't tell you much, especially if you speak a language other than english. The word Smuggler might make some suggestions to english speakers, but it does not translate so literally across all languages. There is no real iconography that denotes what a smuggler is, that they're around, what you should think about that, or that you're technically about to be one of them. It's pretty language-dependent and that's not always the best tool for experiential communication. By this point you're through the queue having been given not much in the way of clues to what's happening beyond the Millennium Falcon out front. Which, again, is popular and iconic, but is also to some people just a spaceship. Having left it behind you some while back, by the time you reach Hondo it's reasonable to expect some clarity about what's coming and how this whole thing's gonna go. So far nothing about this experience has been particularly intuitive.
Hondo tries to tell you his name and what he does, but he's being somewhat decietful. That makes sense if you know the nature of the character and what he does, but to anyone who doesn't those things really haven't been communicated yet by this experience, so instead it's just more conflicting information that points away from why you're there rather than towards it. The character actually fills a trope that could serve as shorthand, but they obscure that in the name of being "authentic" - he is, in essence, also a Pirate, but the sneaky kind who gets away with it, so that's permitted to go over guests' heads instead of being explicitly stated. Imagine if everything in that room told you "This guy's a Space Pirate". But almost nothing does.
They spend some time making Hondo say things that justify the in-world reasons he's there, but it's hard for that to matter if you're still wondering if you're in the right place for the spaceship ride. When he tells you what he needs from you there's a lot of jargon and flowery talking that buries the lede of confirming what you're actually there for, which is to fly the spaceship. He does say it, but you'd better be paying damn close attention, sift through the exposition, understand english, and be able to remember the important parts of what he said once you're ushered into the next room. That's a pretty tall order for guests on vacation, taller if you only entered his preshow room after he started talking, which isn't unusual. As Eddie Sotto said in that Twitter thread, dialogue is usually lost on the audience. With exceptions of course, but no one remembers the Haunted Mansion Stretching Room spiel after hearing it the first time. And you don't need to - you're more likely to remember how words made you feel than what they were, and in the Mansion's case that's sufficient.
So, we've been told his name, we haven't really been told his backstory - should that matter? He pops up again on screen before you enter the cockpit, so it sure seems like it might matter. But by this point do you remember his name? Many guests probably don't, which actually is fine, but information overload can make guests feel like they're missing something, and we've been fed a lot already. Unfortunately a lot of the concepts that have played out up to that point don't speak clearly - your foreknowledge of aliens, smugglers, spaceships, and possibly Star Wars have all been tested, but if the math isn't adding up yet just looking around won't help you because the visual information has not been especially well-organized. Guests have to be pretty iniated to really get what's happening in the Smuggler's Run queue and preshows. And some are, but many aren't. It's fine to reward people who are initiated, but doing so at the expense of the uninitiated effectively punishes guests for wanting to have a good time without doing previous research. The queue itself should have been enough to get everyone up to speed, but despite being big, cool looking, and expensive, it fails at several levels of design that should be communicating clearly.
Follow that up with a ride experience like Smuggler's Run which is difficult to control, keeps plying you with dialogue from the mysterious man, is absent of many general Star Wars expectations, requires teamwork from strangers (often children), and what should have been a simple, home-run, dream-fulfilling ride turns into the unsatisfying, even frustrating attraction experience it has proven to be for many. The ride itself is almost beside the particular point we're talking about here, but with clearer setup that tells guests quickly and clearly what's important and sets expectations perhaps the actual ride might feel less overwhelming.
Point being, I obviously don't think existing IP is necessary for good storytelling - in fact, the IP stands in the way of the storytelling in Smuggler's Run - but in a fast-paced medium like theme park attractions visual economy is paramount, and a useful method for achieving that is playing on what guests know already. The Haunted Mansion creates a hundred new characters for guests to discover, but they all play on subjects the guests can be counted on to know something about. Even if you don't know about Mummies or Opera or Ballroom Dancing, you probably know enough about Ghosts in general to get what's happening. And if any of the characters or gags fall flat there are 20 more right behind that give you another shot at connecting with something. Meanwhile Hondo is one character, sparsely staged, densely scripted, and witholding by nature. If you miss the boat on him you may well miss the boat on the ride. Meanwhile, boiled down to its elements, going on a "Space Pirate adventure" sounds like a TON of fun. Had the ride been designed to fully play up that concept, comminicate it clearly, and then used Star Wars elements as the setting for that kind of experience, a character like Hondo could have stood alone as one who creates meaning even for guests who've never heard of him specifically.
EDITED To correct 2 different misspellings of Chewie
*chefs kiss*
When ppl get so obsessed with “immersion” that they fall into this wormhole and obscurity and detail, you lose people.
And with respects to pirates, your starting point there is so broadly known in culture, that the story you dial in can be ensured not to sail over everyone’s head.
Huge chunks of “the point” are sailing over millions of heads. It’s a key problem that is playing out as it ages.
I will say tho, Batuu is a draw and it gets ppl thru turnstiles at Studios. Disney is pretty content to let that overcrowded poor service mess to stay as it is. It banks money. And they have other problems.
Actually I’ll throw a rumor in here for fun. I do know of some modest, motivated attempts to get some extra capacity into Studios. Just so they can sell more Genie+ into the scarcity they made for themselves.
I figure they’ll find a way to throw $30 million at something. Broke by Disney standards still means you got stuff to do something. It’s just… we can safely assume they’ll screw it up. Never get against the mouse? Lol, nah. They clowns now. A decade of unserious entertainment.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
I can't help but wonder how many people visit Galaxy's Edge for a Star Wars pilgrimage only to look and say it let them down. And it certainly wasn't for lack of funds. You can't afford to miss on a swing that big. Raise hopes like that and when you don't deliver guests feel burned. Trips are too expensive for that to work long-term.
It's wild to me that MK expansion is pitched with a straight face while the other parks have attraction counts in single digits. Someone buy these poor people a helicopter so they can see the big picture.
A lot. Tourists. Fans. Star Wars fans. It’s, still now, the biggest new thing in Florida too.
All the concerns that the critics have about the substance of the land are still valid. And when Batuu ceases becoming “the newest big thing”, its audience is gonna narrow big time. Now, Resistance is still gonna have huge lines! But all the revenue generating stuff mostly falls flat. Blue milk is made fun of for a reason. The gift shops and dining rooms are gonna get “okay seen it, bare minimum time, time done” treatment in 2025.
But a lot of people really like building lightsabers for $350 or whatever. Most everyone else on earth won’t. Disney says you have to or you don’t get the full experience of their product.
Idiots.
And that’s just one thing I can gripe about in Batuu.
Indy_UK
Well-Known Member
Galaxy's Edge can easily be sorted.
1. Immediate win. Stop the stupid fixed timeline and add more authentic roaming characters
2. Medium Term win. Incorporate the Starcruiser even if it means building the land out in that direction.
3. Longe term win. Add a 3rd attraction, full sit down restaurant and SW version of the bibbidi bobbidi boutique
1. Immediate win. Stop the stupid fixed timeline and add more authentic roaming characters
2. Medium Term win. Incorporate the Starcruiser even if it means building the land out in that direction.
3. Longe term win. Add a 3rd attraction, full sit down restaurant and SW version of the bibbidi bobbidi boutique
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They gotta go Ministry level scale and investment to get this Batuu thing good for the long haul. All your stuff is solid. And there’s so much more to expand.
Except the starcruiser. I wish they’d bulldoze it and use the land with a clean slate. That thing failed beyond hope.
Indy_UK
Well-Known Member
I would keep it, incorporate it into the land but keep it as an upcharge event. I still believe there would be demand for the 6 hour cut down adventure they gave to press when it opened.
It gets money in short term. Why not. But that’s a lot of land that can hold classic Star Wars attractions to keep ppl captivated for the long haul. Makes the pilgrimage for the SW fans more worth it and more compelled to spend big money.
duncedoof
Well-Known Member
This could work for about 2 years while they decide what they actually want in that spot
(But we all know if they did something like that it would overstay its welcome)
That’s why I argue the case to just raze the site to shovel ready. Bring in the land with cool stuff we know works.
Pulled that place up on Google maps. So much potential with the land they already set up to be used.
bmr1591
Well-Known Member
I literally brought one at the beginning of January. He’s not a Disney guy, but was looking forward to Galaxy’s Edge. He left whelmed.
Personal rambling.
I been looking at my old posts from when I used to be here. Oh my god! It’s so cringe! I’m not even sure I regret it because the way of expressing views was a product of its time.
Man; I also noticed I screwed so many predictions up. Shooting from the hip as it happens has consequences. I’m gonna have a greatest hits screenshot post where I roast how bad it was. But also how direct ways that those posts… mattered. And some stuff I said really has come true in the most hilarious ways.
Btw. The Tiana ride will be quite elaborate. Lots of animatronics. Most are not cheap. They did some follow thru on using all that ride path to tell a story of… something. It’s gonna have some cool tech. The big drop is still there.
The technical prowess and production value I anticipate will be very good. Ppl who say it’s a cheap overlay are wrong. To a point. I’ll touch that one later.
I been looking at my old posts from when I used to be here. Oh my god! It’s so cringe! I’m not even sure I regret it because the way of expressing views was a product of its time.
Man; I also noticed I screwed so many predictions up. Shooting from the hip as it happens has consequences. I’m gonna have a greatest hits screenshot post where I roast how bad it was. But also how direct ways that those posts… mattered. And some stuff I said really has come true in the most hilarious ways.
Btw. The Tiana ride will be quite elaborate. Lots of animatronics. Most are not cheap. They did some follow thru on using all that ride path to tell a story of… something. It’s gonna have some cool tech. The big drop is still there.
The technical prowess and production value I anticipate will be very good. Ppl who say it’s a cheap overlay are wrong. To a point. I’ll touch that one later.
In fact. Here we go. Self own number one.
The post itself… man. They were broke then but the old management borrowed just an unreal amount of cash to weather the storm. A lot of bombastic proclamations of doom are just fun. Most don’t happen. Whatever.
Something else about that post. See the time stamp? See how long ago that was? You notice I also said this ride is going to see some money and it will be elaborate? Even lots of AAs?
Being a bit of a troll here. But receipts are fun
The post itself… man. They were broke then but the old management borrowed just an unreal amount of cash to weather the storm. A lot of bombastic proclamations of doom are just fun. Most don’t happen. Whatever.
Something else about that post. See the time stamp? See how long ago that was? You notice I also said this ride is going to see some money and it will be elaborate? Even lots of AAs?
Being a bit of a troll here. But receipts are fun
Attachments
GhostHost1000
Premium Member
I wonder if the Tiana ride was always planned to be elaborate or was that changed and pushed later due to backlash and knowing they had to get this right or it could get ugly
networkpro
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
What's amazing is the difference in experience that they roll out for the new openings for the press verses what they retained for the customers. Its the difference between a fully dressed canape topped with a healthy dose of caviar vs a soda cracker topped with grocery store cheese.