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.
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^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.
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^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
