4 hour video about Disneys failed Star Wars hotel

I've seen AI used to summarize comments on threads, which is interesting. I kind of wish I could do that with this video. Though to be fair, all I need to do is scan through these comments.

I'm getting lazier every day, and my memory is going to $4!t. ;)

By the time you'd be done watching that video, think about how much older you'd be!

NBC picked her up too, and they mercifully gave a summary. She concluded that its closure proves that it wasn't worth it. My understanding is that the problem was the economics of having so many people in- character for much of the each day. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth it to some audience, it just means it was too expensive to operate.

Fun:

I wonder if this would have been more successful as a "wing" on a Disney cruise ship.

One of the things I found highly refreshing about the two ships on which I’ve sailed (the Dream and the Fantasy) was the lack of Star Wars-themed locales onboard. With all the attention Star Wars and Marvel have gotten elsewhere, the lack of shipboard experiences on the Dream and Fantasy themed to those was a huge selling point for me.

Jeff:

She concluded that its closure proves that it wasn't worth it

Never would have guessed that.

I promise I'm not Jenny Nicholson, though you may not believe me based on the defending of her I'm about to do, but it's very clear that so many people, including

1. journalists writing news articles about this,
2. people reducing her video to simple quips like "Her conclusion was [insert an overly simplified likely only half-accurate summary of her multi-pronged conclusion here]," and,
3. most especially, the screenrant account of a former employee,

did not watch this video in its totality.

The video is not attempting nor trying to be a detailed history of the entire history and existence of Galactic Starcruiser. It's simply one fan's account of their experiences of the marketing for this experience, their expectations, their actual experience at the location, and their thoughts about why it didn't live up to what they were led to believe they were going to experience.

I'm mostly seeing a lot of people complain about how long the video is and then try to knock her down for not living up to historic journalistic standards, even though that's simply not what she's trying to do.

The entire video is interesting, and I say that as a person who watched the original Star Wars trilogy exactly once and decided that was enough of that universe for me.

That being said, here's a great tl;dr from the Galactic Starcruise subreddit for those of you who aren't willing to commit 4 hours of your life to the video:

GDdashROM:

...did not watch this video in its totality.

I think that was the point.

Getting hung up on the rooms is dumb. You're not there to chill in your room and watch The Lion King. Rooms on cruise ships are even smaller, and you don't spend a ton of time in those either. The vast majority of reviews were positive, so while it may not be "worth it" to everyone, it doesn't mean that it sucked.

OhioStater:

Jeff:

She concluded that its closure proves that it wasn't worth it

Never would have guessed that.

Keep an eye out, my 10 second video concluding this drops today. I expect all the major news outlets to pick it up.

Everyone stand by for my even

more in depth 6 hour video about this hotel

coming soon! You won’t want to miss my end conclusions!

I’ll bet this girl is loving all this attention.

GDdashROM:

but it's very clear that so many people, including...did not watch this video in its totality.

Is it? I mean, several of us said we didn't. I guess we need to wake up early in the morning to sneak something by you.

GDdashROM:

here's a great tl;dr from the Galactic Starcruise subreddit for those of you who aren't willing to commit 4 hours of your life to the video:

I'll be honest, I'm not even willing to commit to reading the tl;dr version.

Yes, that's mostly how media literacy works today, so I'm not surprised.

GDdashROM:

I promise I'm not Jenny Nicholson, though you may not believe me based on the defending of her I'm about to do, but

I assure you that no one in this room cares about any of this as much as you do.

I believe that.

It's just not very fun to watch a bunch of middle-aged men **** on someone simply for sharing her experience in a way that specifically caters to the over one-million subscribers she's accumulated herself by saying it isn't worth anyone's time.

But I'll divest myself from this thread now, so you all can continue to make yourselves feel better through patting yourselves on the back for passing judgment on something without interacting with it like it's some sort of accomplishment to have NOT watched this video.

A random side note (because I don't have anything to say *at all* about the main topic):
One of the worst questions I see in the Disney blogosphere/forum-sphere is "Is X worth it?" Like, what the heck does that even mean? Obviously there are costs (time, money, opportunity cost of doing something else, standing in the heat, subjection to motion, etc.) and there are benefits (you get to ride the ride or do the thing or see the show or feel superior to other people), but it's completely absurd to think that everyone places the same value in the same places on those...sliders.

Like, to suggest that a middle aged single mother of four who watched Return of the Jedi once in the 70's and saved for years to take this trip and an affluent young adult Star Wars nerd who just got $20,000 from a rich uncle "because" would come to the same conclusions about what is and isn't "worth it" boggles the mind.

GDdashROM:

like it's some sort of accomplishment to have NOT watched this video.

Eh. In my world there’s no accomplishment in watching or not watching a video of even the most interesting person on the planet spending four hours talking about even the most interesting subject in the universe. But who knows, maybe I’m an anomaly.

If your video is four hours long, you probably need to edit it down a lot. Remove some of the weaker stories. Remove some of the points that are repeated over and over. Kill your darlings, as they say. Most people don't have the time or interest to watch a video that long. I know I won't click on a YouTube video any longer than an hour.

There has been a lot of discussion over the years here (and on pointbuzz) about the "different people find value at different price points for different things" issue. Seems to me those discussions are less common now which I see as an indication that more people now understand the issue. But there still are people who do not. I still think part of the issue is many people tend to see things through their eyes from their perspective only.

A lot can be said in an hour. But I think there are a lot of people who won't watch/read anything that is longer than 2 minutes. Tough to share much info/have much of a discussion in that little amount of time.

I can say with 100% confidence that I would feel the same about this regardless of the author's age or gender. And to Travis's point, edit. I can guarantee that the number of people who actually watch this for four hours is small.

"Longer" video is actually good, I think, but it has to have substance. I've said this before, but there is a lot of great science stuff from Veritasium, Smarter Every Day, Cleo Abram and others that can frankly be better than anything from 90's Discovery Channel.

I haven't watched Oppenheimer or Avatar yet because of the runtime, and that's generally highly regarded art made by hundreds of talented people. A rando on the Internet going on for four hours about whether or not a vacation is "worth it" doesn't even enter the realm of something I want to use my remaining time on.

GDdashROM:

I believe that.

I'm not sure you do.

Yeah, a bunch of crusty middle aged men are ****ting on a silly YouTube video because a girl that makes weird overly long videos (no matter how popular outside the middle aged male coaster enthusiast demographic) slid into a lane we frequently travel with a Disney/Star Wars video.

To step into that circle and pontificate about this girls popularity is a weird flex.

She has over a million subscribers and this video alone has almnost 5 millions views already. No one is denying her popularity.

But coming here and trying to convince this room would be like extolling the virtues of Taylor Swift's music in a forum for extreme metal fans or telling the Chicago Bears forum that Green Bay is objectively a better team, or any similar sort of scenario where you walk into the room and completely miss the point and tone.

We happened upon a point in space and time where this community's interests and this girl's videos overlapped in the Venn Diagram. Result were predictable. Middle aged men don't often have four hours to devote to girls in their bedroom feeling slighted by Disney World.

I'm sure her videos are lovely for people with the interest and time. Those people are not here. And in a room of similar interests like this, is there much harm in confirming that information with each other as a matter of discussion?

And to everyone proud of their inability to watch this video? High five!