My comments on the Jenny Nicholson Starcruiser review...
About 5 minutes in, I thought the review would be a bit of a struggle to get through 4 hours. I watched it in bits and pieces. It felt kind of annoying and towards the end it almost turned into a hate video. I can't believe she actually has a joke / hate song for the credits. But I guess she likes Star Wars as she has a bunch of items in the background and does cosplay during the review. The sad thing is I still haven't seen Rise of Skywalker or a few other Star Wars shows but I watched this 4 hour review. So maybe it's time as I'm sure I'll enjoy Rise of Skywalker more than this Starcruiser review. I'm kind of looking forward to seeing Keri Russell's character and seeing how cool Rey will be since I continue to debate getting a Hot Toys figure of her.
Anyway, the review seemed to be structured like those Red Letter Media Plinkett Star Wars reviews without the dark humor plus made for views with the title "The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel." Very attention grabbing words which she even says is on purpose. Personally, I don't think anything is truly a failure. You can always find some positives. I don't like the Prequels or first two Sequels. They were financially and artistically successful. But as stories, they were failures to me even though I can still give moments from each that I like.
However, it seems like negative stuff gets more traction online and it's popular not just to hate Star Wars these days but want whatever project to fail. It's very polarizing in some places that I check. Even calling the Starcruiser the "Star Wars Hotel" is a bit negative, even though she mentions why she calls it that and why that's in the title. But if Disney simply wanted a Star Wars Hotel it would have been bigger and more dramatic with an exterior designed like a building in Star Wars to go near Galaxy's Edge. I'm not going to give easy ideas either.
She did point out my obvious thing with the drive up to the Starcruiser noticing the building and back of Galaxy's Edge. But unless you aren't that creative, you shouldn't need any sort of design or art degree to realize that. Plus she mentioned a few other ideas I didn't mention here which I thought was good.
Too many people talk about the cost. She mentioned money a lot in the video and even breaks down her per minute cost. Which honestly, I don't think I've ever done a per minute cost with anything except old phone bills and certainly not something that is entertainment. But financially everyone sees things differently.
I remember someone not wanting to pay .25 cents in the arcade for Street Fighter and thought it best to just save the quarter to put towards a future home version. Also back in the day, I went to a popular live magic show dinner in Las Vegas and the ticket price was like $100 per person. Someone I met there thought that was a lot. However, around then I would also pay like $100 for import videogames. I didn't really think about how the value or time spent would compare. Also, I got my first yearly Disney pass in college and didn't consider it a big financial strain.
I see people online with armies of $20+ Black Series Storm trooper / Clone trooper figures and I think Black Series figures in general are too expensive. Anyway, when I looked at a few Starcruiser reviews and cost breakdowns it didn't seem that bad. The experience seemed to be made for families or really close friends that love Star Wars and enjoy playing dress up. Kind of like the people that look forward to dress up during October for Halloween. However, she either slipped or just said that her videos will pay for the trip. That just feels wrong to me with people talking about costs and this 4 hour review with a person basically talking to a camera for the majority of the time, will most likely cover the cost of multiple Starcruiser trips. Plus, I guess she'll be a VIP at whatever next Disney park experience because of the number of people she can possibly "influence." It doesn't make any sense to me.
She did seem a bit bitter and even said she was frustrated and stressed while making the reservation. Actually many times in the review she mentioned being frustrated. I've never been frustrated making any sort of trip reservation. Or at Disney Parks in general as that's a happy place. But I'm good at picking the time I go as well. She should have asked for a supervisor before taking the trip. Especially since she was an early participant and from what I gathered from other Starcruiser videos, Disney was still working things out. But some things about her experience definitely were upsetting like her dinner table location and that she couldn't get the story to work.
Another thing, if you really want to enjoy something you shouldn't watch more than a few seconds of trailers, nor listen to corporate hype, or whatever news sites or "influencers" (a term I despise) masquerading as unpaid marketing. Many times it seems like some companies put just as much if not more effort selling something than designing it. I believe in enjoying experiences as blank as possible. For example, I still haven't fully watched the commercials for Starcruiser just clips that were shown in various reviews. Unless something is closed, I don't understand watching someone else on a vacation. But perhaps I'm just old fashioned and remember the days of travel agents and small paper brochures. And even then I would only get a Disney map when I arrived at the park.
About the games on Starcruiser, I enjoyed spinning my first realistic lightsaber prop, which I assume many others did as well. So a somewhat interactive lightsaber game still looks cool to me. Plus, with the bridge shooter, I played many on rails shooters back in the day including this big one in the arcade. I still listen to the soundtrack. So the Starcruiser bridge shooter seems like something with really good graphics.
The Jenny Nicholson review once again proved that a lot on youtube is a personality test and about finding an audience. I saved and watched one of the I think two Ordinary Adventures Starcruiser videos that someone posted here. That was the only youtube channel clip that I recognized in Jenny Nicholson's review. I only check a handful of channels monthly. Also, I found this Walt Disney World News Today (WDWNT) channel and website which made three Starcruiser trips with reviews plus videos of a lot of stuff on the Starcruiser. All the rooms, items, etc. This was the review where I learned that Disney started giving everyone iPhones to use on the Starcruiser because of something going on with different app versions on the various personal phones.
The WDWNT reviews don't add up to 4 hours. Also the views of those three reviews added up don't come close to the views Jenny Nicholson is getting for her review. Which honestly confuses me although I suspect I know the reason. I saw mention of her review here and on a videogame site I check occasionally. But personally I found the WDWNT stuff better since it's not just the reviews but a guide with the photos and videos. I liked seeing all the rooms, food and drinks. Perhaps some of that was shown on the official Starcruiser site but I don't know as I never checked it.
Complete Guide to the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser - WDW News Today
In the end, Jenny Nicholson's review didn't change my mind in wishing that I took a trip to the Starcuiser. It's strange too as I've only been on a few cruise ships when I was young and tend not to like them. But this was Star Wars. So I'm still hoping that it will get some kind of re-release.
PS - I did find her Spider Quest video more entertaining than the Starcruiser one. In the Starcruiser video there is a clip of her with a scary giant spider stuffed animal in an old West town. It's almost as big as she is.
I have a thing for stuffed animals like many kids growing up. I still have a big stuffed animal from FAO Schwarz, which she mentions in the video. Plus my first Mickey and Figment stuffies. So her trip to acquire the spider, which turned out to be from Harry Potter was fun. I'll probably take a trip to check out that Western town as well as it reminded me of Westworld and an Old West Park which doesn't exist anymore. Which I mentioned before that I thought the Starcruiser was an attempt at close to a Westworld or Star Trek holodeck experience. We are still far from that but still these attempts are building towards some thing really cool one day.
