#star wars galactic starcruiser
so Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser sure looks like an overpriced watered-down LARP experience (and I would argue that an experience can be highly immersive while still pretty watered down re roleplaying qualities), but one that I think is kind of meant to be experienced firsthand by sponsored or otherwise well-funded Internet broadcasters, and secondhand by the vast majority of people (which means it’s just more fundamentally revolting the more I think about it).
but never mind all that. having looked over some video footage from the experience, I have a very simple yet pressing question:
what are SK-62O′s pronouns?
astromech droids in the GFFA tend to have masculine programming (R2 and BB for example), but I noticed Lenka, the Cruise Director, actually uses they/them/their to refer to SK much of the time, including in the Datapad messages. given Lenka is clearly really attached to SK (her ‘right-hand droid’), it doesn’t seem like this is for lack of personality in SK. and a nonbinary astromech droid would be unusual in the GFFA, where droids often don’t even get the privilege of being referred to as anything but ‘it’ (including by the evil panto villain First Order officer in Galactic Starcruiser), but would also be really cool.
except.
Lenka’s Datapad messages aren’t perfectly consistent, and in the Batuu excursion transcripts Lenka uses ‘him’ in reference to SK. the merchandising for Galactic Starcruiser includes a figurine for SK-62O*, and the blurb on the card clearly uses ‘his’ as well. in addition, the official Star Wars website uses ‘he’ for SK in a November 2021 news post.
so what’s the deal here? I would be the first to say that ‘SK uses he OR they’ would be perfectly valid, but I genuinely don’t know whether Disney/Lucasfilm even ever properly defined this poor droid’s programming gender
[source for Datapad screenshots are this video (~43m40s) and this video (~17m19s); source for SK-62O card blurb is this eBay listing]
[* oh by the way it’s still not clear to me whether that’s a letter O or a numeral 0 at the end. the Cruise Director says ‘ess-kay six-twenty’ but not sure that resolves anything]
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oh gaya poster we’re really in it now
blame@croy-on-a-working-vacation for this
I take all the blame ✨
He runs a “secret” fan club on the Finalizer.
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This week is a very special episode for Most Things Kenobi, as LeeAnn and her dear friends Derrick and Corey review their amazing experience aboard the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. During this in-depth conversation (which DOES include spoilers!), they’ll describe what they thought of the experience, including hits and misses, how they were able to book the Galactic Suite, and even reveal some pro tips for the best experience if you ever decide to stay aboard the Starcruiser. And, of course, they’ll describe plenty of personal stories and even some tender moments shared between them over this truly one-of-a-kind adventure. A special shout out goes out to our other friends who joined us on the Starcruiser, including Leslie, Kristeen, Dan, and Greg. We couldn’t have had the amazing stay we did without everyone who made up our group and shared in the memories we all made during the stay. It’s one of our lengthier episodes, but we wanted to provide a clear, unbiased, and informative rundown of the experience for everyone to enjoy! To hear the full length interview, and to view photos and videos from the experience, join our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MostThingsKenobi
PODCAST EPISODE GUIDE:
HERE IS A LINK TO EPISODES 1-50
Episode 51: An In-Depth Review of the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser Experience
Episode 52: Our Favorite Bad Ass Kenobi Moments from Movies and Television
Episode 53: Our Thoughts on Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi Part 1 & 2 (SPOILER ALERT)
Episode 54: Excitement and Thoughts About Obi-Wan Kenobi Episode 3 (SPOILER ALERT)
OTHER PLACES YOU CAN LISTEN
I don’t talk much about my day job on this blog, but today, I’d like to talk about it. Since October, I’ve been on a temporary assignment with Disney Live Entertainment as a Show Writer. I started out working on a couple different projects, but then I was assigned to help with documentation for the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser immersive experience.
We had an event a couple weeks ago to celebrate the cast and crew of this experience, and the Disney company shared this picture to social media afterwards. You can see me if you zoom in on the far right, with my hands clasped in front of my goofy grin.
You know how when you’re networking or interviewing for jobs, people like to ask you, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” I’ve struggled a lot with that question. I have a very clear image of who I am and what I love to do – I’m a writer, a creative writer, my passion is in storytelling. But I have a hard time taking that passion and smushing it down into a simple little, “In five years I will have X amount of published works and be working for Y company,” or something like that.
But in 2017, I was doing a heck of a lot of networking and interviewing, in the months leading up to that amazing day where I picked up the phone and the recruiter told me I was gonna be the next Disney Live Entertainment Show Writer Intern. People were asking me the “five years” question a LOT in 2017. So, I had to come up with an answer. Here’s what I would say:
“In five years, I see myself standing in a crowd. And the crowd is watching some kind of show – it might be a play, or a movie, or a theme park show, anything. Whatever it is, it’s something that I had a hand in writing. And I’m happy that the story has finally come to life, but I’m also listening to the crowd around me react. I’m thinking about their reactions – if they’re reacting the way we thought they would, or if there are unexpected reactions. And I’m already thinking ahead to how I can learn from those reactions to make the next story I write even better.”
Now, back to the above picture. I take confidentiality agreements really fricking seriously, so I don’t feel comfortable saying too much about this event in this blog post. Suffice to say that just off-camera, someone is standing on a stage and giving a speech. A speech that I wrote.
In this picture, you can see my smile, but you can’t see how badly I was shaking. I stood there in that crowd, right in the middle of everyone laughing, and cheering, and applauding long after the performer left the stage, and all I could do was smile, and tremble, and think that I had never been so proud of something I’d written before.
It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized why I was so verklempt – because in that moment – in this picture – I am exactly where, five years ago, I said I would be in five years.
And this might seem ironic, but… I am at a loss for words.
I found this pic via Google image search the other day and I was so surprised! Whenever I’ve seen video of Rey accidentally being spotted sneaking around the ship, it’s been by stormtroopers, and she obviously easily mind tricks them to forget what they saw. Croy has got to be a rare and more intense run-in. I’m sure that she’s still successfully mind tricking him in the photo because obviously it works (not just for the story to work in that he doesn’t know she’s there until near the end, but also because, well, it’s Croy we’re talking about here. ), but I’d loooove to know how it all went down!
a-land-of-shadow-and-substance:
You know how there’s infamously “meetings that should be emails”?
Galactic Starcruiser is a “resort that should be a video game”.
Like, it seriously missed its ideal medium there. An explorable ship with branching story paths where you play as your own Star Wars OC would have been awesome as a game, much more accessible to the public financially, and still would’ve probably raked in $ for Disney. Plus, the distribution of the game could also serve as a promotional tool to attract visitors to Batuu, which would certainly be a playable level.
I know that some of the appeal of Starcruiser is its “live action video game” aspect, but that really doesn’t seem sustainable. Not only is it expensive on Disney’s end to operate, but also, unlike a video game where parameters are easier to establish and maintain, I can easily see a bunch of jerk guests who don’t want to play along ruining the experience for others. And given the price of the experience in question, a ruined trip seems like a nightmare for both the paying customers and the poor customer service staff that have to field their complaints.
Early reviews are indicating that certain story moments and experiences are locked behind specific choices. That makes sense in a game. BUT some of these events are very desirable and it isn’t like you can just replay this $5000 experience like you would a video game. So that encourages would-be guests to spoil themselves and meta game or risk missing out, which seems like a bad outcome to me.
Exactly! This ties in to what I meant by “it’s not sustainable for Disney”. I think Disney purposely made different story-locked paths for “replayability”… but once again, this isn’t a video game anyone can pop into their console whenever they want another try, this is a $5000+ experience. The crossover between “people who want to experience every story path because they’re that die-hard of a fan” and “people who are willing or able to drop $5000+ per replay” is probably lower than Disney estimated.
You know how there’s infamously “meetings that should be emails”?
Galactic Starcruiser is a “resort that should be a video game”.
Like, it seriously missed its ideal medium there. An explorable ship with branching story paths where you play as your own Star Wars OC would have been awesome as a game, much more accessible to the public financially, and still would’ve probably raked in $ for Disney. Plus, the distribution of the game could also serve as a promotional tool to attract visitors to Batuu, which would certainly be a playable level.
I know that some of the appeal of Starcruiser is its “live action video game” aspect, but that really doesn’t seem sustainable. Not only is it expensive on Disney’s end to operate, but also, unlike a video game where parameters are easier to establish and maintain, I can easily see a bunch of jerk guests who don’t want to play along ruining the experience for others. And given the price of the experience in question, a ruined trip seems like a nightmare for both the paying customers and the poor customer service staff that have to field their complaints.
