Podcast: The Ride - Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser with Andrew Barth Feldman

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Andrew Barth Feldman (No Hard Feelings, Dear Evan Hansen) joins us to discuss his stay at the summer camp-like Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. Warner Bros. Studio Store episode up at Club 3: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Tickets on sale for Podcast: The Ride's Big Vegas Groove Blender! https://thespacelv.com/event/podcast-the-rides-big-vegas-groove-blender Watch This Episode: https://youtu.be/epbp5Ssj4K8 Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forever Dog! Warning, the following podcast contains artificially dyed seafood, space faucet water pressure, personalized Jedi secrets, and a little play that somehow feels more real than real life. All this plus, Andrew Barth Feldman joins us to participate in the immersive experience that is today's podcast, The Ride. Welcome to Podcast the Ride, a podcast about tax write-offs. I'm Scott Gairdner, joined by Jason Sheridan. That's a lot of entertainment these days, are technically tax write-offs.

It's all what we're striving to do. Should we be so lucky as to give one of our favorite companies a big way to save money or rearrange money or you can do it at home. You can do it in a big corporation. You can do it anywhere. And it's its own themed experience if you're doing it right. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, you sometimes think of it more with movies and shows lately. But today we're proving the tax write offs can happen out in the world. Highly experimental, ambitious tax write offs that are physical experiences can happen out in the world, highly experimental, ambitious tax write-offs that are physical experiences can happen. And that's what we're handling here today is Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser. And we are still, you know, we had to take a little time, I think, to process, to deal with the news, the upsetting news that Star Cruiser is, if I'm going to use their terminology, that they are sun setting it. They are going to sunset this experience, I believe is what Josh Tomorrow said.

Really makes it sound like the Star Cruiser is cruising to a farm upstate, you know? Because it's close to the term sundowning, which sometimes you feel like is used when somebody is like maybe slipping away mentally or something. Sure. So the phrase is meant, I think, to be gentle, but it feels not gentle to me. It feels aggressive. Well, and then at the same time,

sunsetting is weird because a sunset, like then there's a sun up not long after the next day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this actually, it actually is not applicable because it will not rise again. a sunset like the then there's a sun up not long after the next day yeah yeah yeah this so this actually it actually is not applicable because it will not rise again right at least as of later in are there any stars that are destroyed did they sorry any stars destroyed in star wars i know many planets are destroyed but it's literally the ship is called star destroyer but i'm trying to remember our is a star itself i don't believe so it's considered the death star a star no no it's just a name it's a space station station

yeah there's no stars are destroyed in star trek okay a couple times and a couple of movies preference because that sounds more exciting well of course if star yeah it's a bigger thing it's a big ball of gas it's exciting when it blows up dr sauron of course in star trek generations blows up a sun to move the nexus ribbon so it goes in the way of the one planet so we can get taken yeah of course we know yeah oh yeah we know we were filling it we were auto filling the rest of that sentence as you were going so i'm just trying i was trying to figure out a star wars parallel for like a sun some sun setting but never rising uh-huh but star wars has never had anything as exciting as what you just described no not with dr saar not as exciting as dr saar uh they don't have a saar on

and i guess this thing didn't reach the heights of saar on in the eyes of the disney corporation and thus they are writing this thing off for 300 million dollars at the end of the year, they will no longer be doing this. What is, of course, a has been a immersive, ambitious, experimental Star Wars themed hotel, a two night experience that's part hotel and part immersive performance. I mean, a crazy thing that they tried. And they're kind of like with buzzwords admitting failure. They're ending the thing. It is flying its final mission. But that leaves us in a weird place because I think this thing is like selling out now that there's no more room left.

So we're not going to be able to get there. We're not going to be able to do it. We're not going to be able to do an episode about it with any experience. Probably not. Do I have confidence that I could somehow find us reservations? Yes. I could check my way. I check our way into the hotel somehow, but will we do it? Will we have time? We have so much on our plates. There's a lot of other, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's plates spinning in the air. How are

we going to juggle them all? Probably malls and stores to talk about instead. Correct. Yeah. So there's really only one option only one way that we could properly cover galactic star cruiser before it's closing we needed a a hero to rise right we needed a a halcyon veteran to to stand up bravely and to talk about their experience and what they saw and luckily that hero has risen and is with us today. And that hero, that Halcyon hero also happens to be a star of stage and screen. You may have seen him as Evan Hansen on Broadway. And now you can see him starring in the new movie, No Hard Feelings with Jennifer Lawrence, which Jennifer Lawrence, that was very graceful of me.

Correct me if I said that wrong. I'm not sure. But as you're hearing this, with Jennifer Lawrence, which is Jennifer Lawrence. That was very graceful of me. Correct me if I said that wrong. I'm not sure. But as you're hearing this, No Hard Feelings is in theaters today. Here now, the star of that movie, Andrew Barth Feldman. Hello. Wow.

I mean, I feel like my first credit is a Halcyon hero. I feel like before the other things, that's really who I am at my core we drove to the heart of it i'm really i'm happy to give you that uh that verbal badge there yeah that's i really appreciate i have my actual badge and this wasn't on purpose like i did and obviously there's a podcast you can't see it this wasn't on purpose that i had this ready this just sits on my windowsill so i don't forget they give you that or is that did you buy that is that an extra thing i think they gave it i think they give it to you it's like in your room i think they give you one and then like everyone else in

our room like went to the front desk i was like can we have more medals please wow what is the legal limit how can exactly if they if you ask they have to give you a dozen a night that's such a good question actually is there a limit to the amount of metals that they can give you i mean there's got to be kind of like maybe it's made out of carbonite and that feels probably a limitless resource the house seems very luxurious so i think it's probably fine i'm sorry that you're not gonna get even a drop of cynicism from me about this. Like, not even a little bit. It's not going to...

I wish I could maybe provide it for you. I'm incapable of doing it with most things, but with the Halcyon and the Galactic Starcruiser specifically, you're never going to hear it from me. It's just not going to happen. Wow. Well, then this... I think this will be a little, like, light side battle because we'll probably have these things where we're like we saw a video and that didn't look very good and then you can use your with your lightsaber of optimism we are

today we are first order and you are resistance to use the newer terms well again i a i have experience with this from the halcyon and B, I feel like the dramatic question of this podcast now is, can I convince you to take a voyage on the halcyon? I think that, and that's not, I'm not saying it's my goal. I'm just wondering if it's at all possible and it doesn't have to be if it

like, if that's not going to disappoint me, if it disappoints the listeners, there's nothing I can do about that. But this is this is big. Wow. And I have to say, to be the representative, I said this in my email to you, but to be the representative of the Galactic Star Cruiser here on podcast, the ride in perpetuity is very meaningful to me. So thank you for having me.

Oh, wow. So happy to give you that honor. And I think it's good too i think it's like this will be a a different perspective than we might i don't know there's a way this could have gone like grouchier unless i'm wrong and unless like uh um i i i don't know like maybe this was this just great and does everybody who actually did it think it was great? Is all the cynicism people who are judging it from afar. And if you went on it, it was just awesome. I don't think it's that all of the cynicism is people judging it from afar.

I think there's probably two things that are happening. And I could be wrong about this because of my sort of biased experience but one i think is that it was a lot of people who went really early and it what it just wasn't ready yet this is a crazy thing this is like nobody's ever done anything like this like by theater terms this needed a really long preview period and it is a theater show so like it it, it, it did, it needed a long preview period. It took time to get, uh, it's C or otherwise space legs. And by the time that I'd gotten there, I mean,

it was really, really great. Like really in terms of the actors and the actual running of the thing, it was so solid. And then secondarily, I think if you're expecting a, like relaxing in any way vacation a i don't know why you would go to walt disney world in the first place but b you definitely did not have a good time on the

you don't you do not there's no relaxing to be done you know it's not like a a crew an actual there's so much of it that is reminiscent of an actual cruise, except for ever being relaxed for like a single moment in time. And so if you go and you're not prepared to just keep saying yes to everything, like an improv comedian, but also somebody who's like wanting the immersion, then don't do the immersive experience.

If you don't want to be immersed. And I think that people were not prepared for just how much immersion there was going to be. Gotcha. Could I take your temperature? What your star Wars fandom before going onto this thing? What, what is it? What are your movies? Who are your guys? As far as your characters? Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty significant. I'll say that when I, when I was in

eighth grade i wrote with my with my very good friend at the time a star wars a new hope parody musical it was an all of a new hope it was a full musical we staged it then it did not go very well um and so then years later we took we didn't change a word of it and we handed it to professional broadway actors and we did it at 54 below because i just wanted to do wow wow great again so like this is like it is it is a very significant thing for me it's not as significant as most like i should clarify before i'm tested like i'm not uh like clone wars like the clone wars i have attempted to dip my toe in too many times and i bet if i had then i'd have a lot more kind of like uh background for this experience even not that i didn't have enough and in fact like you don't

really need that much star wars background um but it's more definitely more so like the central films uh and like the day i've watched most of the disney plus shows since but the cartoons i never really was able to get into myself. But yeah, it was really huge for me growing up, continues to be really huge for me. It always made me feel like I was sort of a part of something larger than myself. And in terms of what are my movies,

my favorites have always sort of like pivoted between five and six, but I'll watch any of the prequels any day. I really will. Yeah. Do you have a favorite non-Anakin pod racer? Is that too aggressive of a question? Is it Sebulba?

I mean, I like to think about Sebulba as an idea. Okay. Because I'm like, wow, so many people had to approve Sebulba. You know, like a lot of people had to be okay with Sebulba being on screen. That's true. And I'm pretty fascinated with him as a concept more than a character. I think Watto resonates with me. Of course, yeah.

Definitely. He's not a pod racer, of course, but from that sort of taste of Star Wars. That era, yeah. Watto's big, yeah. Sure. Can I ask a question? Because you mentioned 54 Below.

You did a show there called Park Map. That's right. Can you talk about that and your parks experience? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm thankful that you asked because I do have to speak for my own credits here. I have this show called Park Map that I did two summers in a row. And I do plan on doing it again, which is basically my one-man Disney adult musical manifesto. It's like a, it's like a defense of Disney adults,

but also an examination of said Disney adults. And I, and I sing some Disney songs. I sing some original songs and I talk about just sort of my relationship to the parks, the idea of being and, and, and becoming a Disney adult and the, the sort of desire for permanence and clinging to nostalgia that that comes with. Um, but also I, yes, I have like, maybe not the most encyclopedic that you've had on this podcast, but like near encyclopedic knowledge of the parks. One of the things I do

in that show is, um, people when they're walking and they write down names of attractions on their little, on like little pieces of paper and they put them in a Boba Fett Stein. And at three points in the show, I pull one out and I have 45 seconds to tell you the history of it. And I've, I've done so almost entirely without fail. I'm very proud of that. That's one of my,

it's probably my biggest accomplishment. Would you, could we put you on the spot real quick? Would that be crazy? Try. It's really scary. It's terrifying, but that be you could try it's really scary it's terrifying but yeah you could i'm i'm scared of specifically what you'll ask me i don't know that

i don't have to go hard i don't i'm just interested in uh do you have any do you have any like uh walls to put up or like like just generally walt disney world itself or not necessarily no i mean i definitely am probably like not as thoroughly versed in the international parks, but I'm still I'm still pretty well versed. Oh, OK. I mean, I don't want you. I'm not trying to stump you. I'm just interested. You can. If I said if I said Horizons. Horizons is one of the toughest ones, actually. Oh, my God. Because I like missed the boat so much. So that was like that nobody's ever put in Horizons. And I'm thankful for that. But I but I I can talk about the pavilion as a whole,

how it's become. That's already more pavilion. And now the play pavilion, if I'm not mistaken about this, then it wasn't something else, but I think that this is right. Horizons. I missed the boat on,

but I would, if I was given that one, I would talk more about Epcot as a whole and how like, right. Sure. It went from Walt Disney, wanting it to be a community of tomorrow and turn like an actual like urban community and you want to be an urban planner and turn it to like

an edutainment central now people are mad that it isn't edutainment anymore and that it's actually fun and this is this is always the battle yes on every every new announced well it's it seems like a good read but is it epcot yeah Yeah, Epcot was never Epcot. Like, people don't live there, so it's not Epcot. It doesn't count. That's true, yeah, yeah. But anyway, I guess if it's one I don't know, I can bullshit my way out of it exactly as I just done. That makes sense.

Look, that's improv suggestion. You don't have to have something to say about the word. You can turn it into another. Wait, I'm trying to think, though. What is it? Here, wait. I'm going to give though what is it here i wait i'm gonna give you an easy one because this was said in an email already uh an email exchange between us disney quest that's right i was really hoping that was my first sort of inclination was to come

on here and talk about disney quest because i am one of the very few uh i think perhaps ever in history that like every year when my family would go to the parks, we would do like a full Disney quest day. Like I loved Disney quest. I have like mountains of cyberspace mountain VHS is and toy and like radio Disney song maker things. So in,

in terms of the history, they wanted it to be like a, like one of their Chuckie cheeses. They wanted it to be like one of their Chuck E. Cheese's. They wanted it to be everywhere. But now we have virtual reality in our houses. The technology was instantly dated. And there was no reason to be there anymore. I mean, they barely ever touched it. And RIP to the NBA experience, of course. Yeah, that too. Oh, my God. Cursed spot, potentially. Now, wait a minute minute you want to stump me with one what is the like okay cyberspace mountain i assume that that means they they give you a vhs of you

writing the thing or and or and or that you would create yeah yeah yeah yeah um but then what's the what is the radio disney the radio disney song maker was this uh so this was all both of those rides are in the create section of disney quest which is where you like make things and get to take them home and that's cyberspace mountain sid's toy maker there's like a painting thing i think there's an animation academy and then radio disney song maker which is you pick a sort of like template of a song like what genre you want it to be and who what kind of person you want to sing you want to sing it and then it gives you like 10 options for every line and like some of them are very sincere

like love song lyrics and then some of them are like my dogs we're in a tutu or something like that and then uh and like you get to voice certain lines and stuff and then it plays the song for you and then it like shits out a cd that you get to take home and i have so many of them oh wow that's a i don't know that we covered that i don't think so when we did yeah we did an episode i never did it personally i mean i only went there really once so yeah jason you know about that um no not really i knew about sid's toy make i think matt cardona sent us he was there very early on where you could make a physical toy like a frankenstein right that's right a toy and that didn't last forever for sure i think basically what they did was like you design it

and then it like prints out like a receipt of all the parts and like a little picture and then you bring it to somebody and they actually make the actual toy i'm pretty sure they'd be like come back in an hour and they'd like go into a room and put all the stuff together right it was not a 3d printer 25 years ago or whenever it opened sure instantaneously yeah it's all okay so this whole thing was it's it's interactivity uh and make it your own but with some uh rules yeah a couple yeah there's some real constraints on it for sure yeah there is some 1996 restraints on it for sure which is a good creative thought exercise make it interactive but for 1996 uh if you had performed one of those radio disney songs in the show that

would have really like uh tied it all together wow that's a real i mean hey now you're giving me ideas for the next time we do it that very well may happen like because they have like a little lyric sheets on the inside oh wow you're like this is absolutely nonsense god i gotta hear one of these that's that's so bizarre um bizarre. Well, that's maybe an interesting place to compare contrast that. All right. So there's you were totally down for that. You were that was you early on doing non parks stuff in Disney World. And like, we need a whole day for this. I have to do all this interactivebeaten-path, immersive stuff. So then cut to Galactic Star Cruiser premieres last year. I don't know when you went, but you must have been so excited about this, just the notion of it when it was announced. So there was a moment where my camera test for for no hard feelings was going to intersect with our scheduled trip. And I was like, you have to move the camera. Like I can't, I cannot come to the

camera test. I will be in space. I cannot be there. Um, yeah, this was like, this was everything. So I just, and another example of just how excited I was about this is like, obviously, yes, it is a pretty large chunk of change that one's got to spend on the galactic star cruiser. And I, when the, when the sort of prices were announced in the rooms and like a lot of details were announced, I was making this, this, uh, show that just came out called foul play, which is this like immersive sort of interactive, uh, improvised murder mystery show. Um, and the cast was going to get their COVID tests. And this was a show that I created with a lot of them and prices came out. And one of them was like, Oh man, I just, I want to go.

But like, who's really going to stomach this? Like who's, who's going to be able to pay for this. And, and one of them was like, we're giving him the money to do it right now. Like that's what we're here doing is in doing the show that we are giving Andrew Barth Feldman the money to go to the galactic star cruiser. And that's what he's going to use it right now. Like, that's what we're here doing is in doing the show that he created, we are giving Andrew Barth Feldman the money to go to the Galactic Star Cruiser

and that's what he's going to use it for. This is generating that capital real time. Wow. Geez. This is great to know that it just like

and projects you do go straight into that and that it would potentially conflicted with you getting this great role. I'm so glad you could reschedule. it wasn't you didn't have to choose it was like i can't tell you how much i like thanked everyone and told them exactly what i was doing like there was a day on set where i was talking to gene stabitsky our incredible director and john phillips who wrote

it with him uh no hard feelings saying, saying like, just I started talking about it and I couldn't stop. And then we had to go film and they watched me walk away from this conversation because we were filming and turn to my co-star of this scene and be like, have you heard of the Galactic Star Cruiser? Like to start a new conversation about it as we were getting ready to film because I wasn't ready to stop talking. Like this is like, and this was months later too this is all I think about he seems a little distant I don't know he seems a little not in the moment he's talking about this some spaceship all the time is there any alien on the star cruiser

that if you needed them to like just run some lines with you and put yourself on tape that it would have been possible or is that not probably in their uh book they don't let them do that probably i i'm sure they don't let them do that but honestly like 100 that would happen so i've since this voyage like these actors they really are like we're we're standing there and i was there with my friend alex bonniella who was in dear evan hansen with me and we're doing this thing and we're in these intimate moments with these actors. And we're like, I think these are the greatest actors in the world.

Like, I think these are my new favorite actors. And so I've since, I've messaged a couple of them on Instagram and we have like little text exchanges now because they're so really brilliant. Jeez, you've made Star Cruiser friends. That's incredible. It's not an easy acting job

to be in character for 12 hours a day eight hours whatever it is oh my god not to mention like remembering everybody's name all right yeah three quarters of which are real and one quarter of which are made up right like i could go and be like i'm batman and they'd be like well batman welcome to the house do it it do it it's crazy that's wow that's like almost like a uh school teacher skill or a substitute teacher who has to come in and remember everyone's names yeah like they're only gonna spend a day with their two days yeah geez um okay so uh friend group is on board which seems essential it seems like you you you gotta go with people i think to to make this work um so but

then how do you like everybody is down is it tough to schedule like uh or are you going with like gung-ho cannot wait to do this any any day any time that's right yeah you gotta go with the people who are gonna say yes it's the same it's the same thing. And these were people who were like it was Alex, who's a big Star Wars fan, a big fan of this sort of thing. My brother, Matt, who's like on the same level with me of the parks, we've been going together our entire lives. And my friend Julia, who's a huge specifically Star Wars fan, but a little less eager to like engage. And so to watch her open up and like accept the thing she kind of became the star of the journey because she followed the first order I'm sure we'll get into all of this

she like became fully a bad guy so yeah no you have to go with people who are like yes I'm carving out three days of my life to be in space with you 100% on your YouTube channel I'm assuming it's your channel

uh it is yeah there you guys kind of made like a little video diary of your experience and all of you seemed pretty pretty all in on it yeah although going about it in very different ways i like that you picked fictional names that you gave yourself character names and pretty much stuck with it yeah yeah we i mean yeah 100 i think i think that's the move you come up with a character name you come up with a backstory but like you don't have to like go all the way into like emboss like i was still myself but my desires were gone dream weavers you know that was the that was the i had if you see at the beginning of the vlog i had like a mustache and i was doing this voice and i thought this was the guy i was gonna be the whole time but it was way too like engrossing for me to sacrifice my own like genuine enjoyment of the thing to to put something on so it wouldn't allow you to just

like uh laugh with glee yeah exactly exactly exactly i had to i had to still be myself but within the truth and the stakes of the galactic star cruiser and so sorry okay gorn dream weaver gorn dream weaver he's a gorgmonger from the planet glorindor which is a carpet planet which doesn't exist whoa whoa wait so the consistency like everywhere you step is just the that's great it feels physically like carpet oh my god my biggest complaints about those sequels is that that most of them are on sand planet. This is the kind of creativity I was looking for in those movies. That's perfect. Yeah, I mean, and hey, you get to bring it to the Galactic StarCraft yourself.

Oh, it's your chance to rewrite history to make it right. Sort of. Now, can I ask, do they own your intellectual property that you created because you said it to people on Disney grounds? Oh, that's a great, I would be okay with that. intellectual property that you created because you said it to people on Disney grounds. Oh, that's a great, I would be okay with that. Like if I, if I open a Star Wars dictionary next year and I see Gorn Dreamweaver, I would, I would die right then and there. I'd be beside myself. So yeah, I sell it. I give it to them for free. Absolutely. Okay, great. Wow. Wow. Okay. So I mean, I, let's just walk through the experience. Um, okay.

So you like you, you get to Disney World, you pull into this weird, it's like a, it's a backstage area kind of, and this odd, it's a building that looks like the, it's sort of the, the, the port that's going to take you. Yeah. Uh, uh, up to the Star Cruiser. I found it in just an odd detail that it's only valet parking. So you have to...

It's covered. That's part of that... You're getting things with that big price tag. The parking is free, but they do say bring a couple of bucks if you want a tip on the way out. Make sure you retain your Earth money. Don't convert them to credits and then just remember to convert them. couple of bucks if you want to tip on the way out make sure you retain your your credits credits don't convert them to credits and then but just remember and then not be able to tip the valet

on earth yeah yeah yeah i probably would not appreciate credits okay that's the exchange rate these days just awful um so uh but you get that like the what is what and i know that there's some like transport elevator kind of thing, but is there anything you want to tell us about just like the easing into the process? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, one of the biggest immediate surprises was that there's like a line of cast members standing in front of the space station, like waving at you, like, like they're like waving and they're like like you walk up to one of

them to check in on like an ipad and they like have all your information they give you a special magic band and all this stuff and they give you like water and stuff so right away it's like we're here on this weird thing and we're not pretending that it's not a weird thing um so so that was like a big shock but then yeah you walk in you watch a little video. That's like, this is a fake alarm. And this is a real alarm. That was kind of the big thing. Cause there's some fake alarms that go off during the voyage. And they're like,

this is what the real alarm is going to sound like, which is like a voice that's going like, this is a real alarm. Like it's very clear. It's not C3PO saying it though, to be more confusing. Yeah, no,

it's like, it sounds not like very decidedly, not though to be more confusing yeah no it's like it sounds not like very decidedly not star wars okay good and i will say and this is not in the vlog it did happen during our journey somebody i think did pull the fire alarm it was depressing like obviously it was nobody's fault but like to be in the middle of it and like really be buying in and then be like touching grass was devastating. Oh, you had to go outside.

Oh my God. Oh yeah. That's like getting, getting yanked out of the matrix. For real. That's exactly what it was. We were so sad. We were like,

what if we have to go home right now? Like, but if there's a real thing that happened, then we all went in and they were like right away. And this is all, I'm jumping around a lot, but right away, the,

the sort of like Lanka mock, who was the character, the assistant captain of the sort of like lanka mock who was the character the assistant captain of the ship was like um uh what a weird detour to coruscant like they were like well i like that yeah yeah that was great i i literally like my we were we almost applauded at that like yes coruscant looks a lot like orlando yeah yeah humidity um anyway then you go to yeah then you watch that video you go into an elevator which has screens It's a lot like Orlando humidity. Anyway, then you go to, yeah.

Then you watch that video. You go into an elevator, which has screens of much like Disney quest, actually of like, like, you know, like you're like a little pod that's like floating up to the, the halcyon.

And then the elevator doors open and you have the view of the main lobby. And there is a real, like, Oh my God, I'm in space right now like there is a real bodily moment of where am i what is going on there are cast members there who like are like already in character and they're like let me show you around that like they they'll bring different groups around to show them around the ship and all the different rooms and so right away we saw everything we were taking to our room um and this is like yeah a broad strokes overview of all of these things i mean i mean i think one of the big things to talk about is the climate simulator which is

just outside but they're like because our excursion is on batu this is what the weather this is a room that will show you what the weather is like on batu which is just like a very well-themed way of saying you can go outside this is where you can little outdoor if you freak out if you yeah if you get claustrophobic and have a meltdown go to the climate simulator and like sometimes the saja which are like jedi light because they can't have jedi because like this is like a post jedi world for whatever um they'll like they'll like yeah yeah well we're so we're squarely much like galaxy's edge in between episodes eight and nine everybody's favorite part of star wars

there's nine people left on the alliance or the good guys basically yeah that's right it's very very sparse yeah but sometimes the thing i don't know is whether I don't know where in that timeline we are in terms of have the dead spoken or not. They have not spoken yet. Or have they? It seems like before. I think the dead have not spoken. I think that's right. It doesn't really come up all that much. It's not important to this story. Palpatine is very important to the story of nine but not important here right um and the the other big thing i have to mention from this moment in time is that when you go to the room which everybody's seen the room it really does you're like i'm i am

in space this is space um there's like a little screen i had i don't see people talking about this as much as they should that is like basically alexa but it's not at all it's a droid that is like i'm your droid that is here to serve you what do you want to do on your journey and you're like uh go on adventures and they're like i love adventurous passengers and you're like what the fuck and then like you have all these interactions with the droid and the droid gives you little missions and julia who whose character was named esperanza mitsubishi oh wow she she who turned to the first order killed our room droid this is yeah you can like you can like use your credentials or whatever to like hack into the room droid thing and like send the stormtroopers there and like take her away and

then at the end it was revealed that she defeated the stormtroopers, which was pretty exciting. But we like couldn't access her for like a couple hours. Whoa. Because it was like, she's been powered down. Like it was, it's crazy. Wow. And could she like send the, can you be like, we need more towels?

Could she do that? I don't think she, I don't think she served any actual practical purpose. Okay. She's just part of the story mission. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. And also again, like there are not that many cabins here everybody's pretty close to the lobby where the stuff is so i i wonder if she could i don't think so i i'm pretty sure that's

not right i think you still have to like call or whatever maybe not maybe i'm wrong maybe we just didn't use her for that because like we were never in the room besides the towels never came up yeah um this that gives me a the proximity to the lobby just reminds me of just a question i i had and i don't know if you know the answer because maybe you didn't do this i've just been curious what happens if you go out into the main into the lobby at three in the morning what's going on if you're just in the middle of the night when probably not a lot of story is happening do you have any idea you're in space still like there's like there's screens in the lobby that are like this is space the lights are dim we did we did do this like after stuff was happening i think the bars open pretty late i feel like there was

one night it was open till like 2 a.m or something wow pretty good and so you could go there you could place a box you could order some drinks and get some get some bar snacks and there's kind of like a desolate late night that part yeah yeah i think i might play it late although you're gonna sleep during the day and wake up around 10 p.m yeah skipping missions and then i just sit solo in the climate simulator just have a moment to myself i think the climate simulator is also open pretty late. Like if you need to get some air late at night, you can. I'm pretty sure one of my friends like went out to the climate simulator, took a call and said it was extremely peaceful. And there's also like a water like you can go.

There's like a big water pump, I guess, that you can go and get like water in the main lobby. That's the main reason to go to the lobby in the middle of the night. So refreshments. Yeah, that's good. A game, something to do okay interesting interesting um these rooms i'm so curious about because i think a lot was made out of i feel like it seemed to me like photos make you think these are claustrophobic rooms but then people who did it seem to say it's not so bad where did you land on these rooms i agree i mean it was it was pretty comfortable for for four of us it was like two of us in one bed and then each of us had a bunk bed and like that's not like the number one most ideal sleeping

situation sure but again like everything was comfortable it's fun to be in space and you're not here to relax. Like by the time you get to bed, you are so tired from interacting with these people that like, it is comfortable. And it is like, it still feels like you're part of the story. I think night one, we like turned off the space viewfinder in our room and night two,

we left it on. We were like, we can't, we have to cling to, we have to cling to our phone. That's like kids like sleeping in the tent with like oh yeah with some mobile like flashing lights or so wow you kept the space on all night did you yeah that's right were you in the bunker in the bed i was in the bed alex and julia claimed the bunks pretty early on um and my brother matt and i shared a bed gotcha um and

that was that was fine for all of us you could a man at six that's six three fit in one of the bunks i i i mean listen i'm not the authority here but i would imagine so they're pretty long they're comfortable like everyone was really excited to sleep in the bunk beds actually like again if you're you're exactly right it feels like camp and like that is kind of part of the charm of it i think you're being told and tell it and and like being part of a really wonderful story at every second of the day like they they slip notes under your door and they're like we're sorry for the first order interference that's happening on the ship like you get like notes in your door and they're like, we're sorry for the first order interference that's happening on the ship. Like you get like notes in your room. Like it's crazy.

Yeah. I think I would try the book. Cause look, when my daughter was born, I slept in one of the worst chairs for like two nights in a row and I'm fine. I'm fine. And I, I'm sure one of these bunks are much more comfortable.

So I think I would go bunk. The bunks are great. I would, I, if I, if I get to do it again, I'm going bunk for sure. Jason's bunk. Jason, I think you, cause you wantks are great. I would, I, if I, if I get to do it again, I'm going bunk for sure. Jason's bunk.

Jason, I think you, cause you want your small spaces. I like, yeah, I like a cozy space. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. I oddly was eyeing those bunks. Like, yeah, these rooms look a little small, but I think that bunk, I think this is an all bunk,

or you, you would be next time. Andrew, I think you hit the nail on the head by calling it camp. Like, I feel like a lot of the marketing or early reviews of it referred to like, oh, it's like a cruise ship on land. Yeah. But the thing about that is, you know, there's a Star Wars bar on the newest cruise

ship, Disney cruise ship. Right, totally. And it seems like it's got a little bit, if you just want a little Star Wars, it's like the bar, you know, has big screens. It jumps to light speed. There's a lot of dry ice drinks. And then you can leave and then just be on a cruise. You can just go do whatever you want. Yeah, that's right. As opposed to this experience where it's like it is all encompassing.

It is a two, three-day immersive theater experience. So I think camp where it's just like, you know, when you're at camp, you're at camp. That's 100% right. I think that's a great way to put it. And might have helped them in the marketing, because I know some of the

marketing material started to get a little confused. Yeah, it's like Star Wars camp. You're at Star Wars camp for a few days. Star Wars fantasy camp. It's not rock and roll fantasy camp, which I keep getting ads for, where you can play bass with Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith or Pete Best, the original drummer of the Beatles. Are you going, Mike?

Come on, this is your galactic star cruiser. It's either this rock and roll fantasy camp or galactic star cruiser. And I think they're probably similar prices. No slight to Pete Best. I did not know he was still with us. Absolutely he is. You didn't know either? I don't think I knew that either.

I didn't know Pete Best was still alive. Guys, he's still rocking. No shade. No shade to Pete Best. So their ads should be Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, the best way to discover that Pete Best is still alive. Yes. He's the top guy, build. Pete Best is. rock and roll fantasy camp the best way to discover that pete best is still alive yes he's one of the he's the top guy build pete best is i mean honestly i'm like yeah i kind of want to go to rock and roll

fantasy game that sounds awesome yeah um yes it's like camp it emotionally and how engrossing it is it's camp in terms of like your brain really does kind of think of it as a cruise like when we did the excursion to batu we kept saying in total earnest and without thinking about it we should probably get back to the ship soon like and and like all of the all of the big story moments are kind of veiled in like cruise activities like they'll be like let's play this like we're gonna teach you this game on the bridge. Everybody come to the bridge, learn this game.

And then like Chewbacca shows up and it's like, Oh my God, that's a huge story moment. So that's the way that they get you to all these different places. But of course not everybody goes to all of those things. So different people get different points of the story. And like, it's a pretty smart way to like engineer people toward being in the right

place at the right time right wow and had you done galaxy's edge prior to this i had and and that's another thing that i i think about a lot is is how incredible it would be if it was my first time there yeah as part of the star cruiser because they really do it like deeply impressive job justifying both of the rides within the story of the galactic star cruiser like it is your mission to do the things that those rides are asking you to do and we were talking about it like we had all done rides of the resistance a number of times but the thought of that being like the first time in your story as a passenger on the galactic star cruiser that you

see kylo ren or that like you like this crazy thing is happening to you and you were just on the the house yet like and they really do make a whole thing out of it when you get back that like oh there were like it's it's part of the story hondo is part of the story with smokers when you have to get that coaxium that coaxium comes back It's wild. It almost seems like you have to do the star cruiser to complete the story of galaxy's edge. I going back to galaxy's edge since the star cruiser, which I've done a number of times. It's I love galaxy's edge. I've always loved galaxy's edge,

but in relation to how it feels in the star cruiser, it feels empty. Like it really does not feel, it like i'm i'm i am on this like weird planet we went to oga's cantina and we had like we like set a password to the bartender and he gave us coasters that had qr codes that we had to scan in our app that like gave us a new thing like it's if you really do feel like you're in a star war the special star cruiser stuff at the cantina that's i don't think i knew that yeah everywhere every and you can book it through like you can like when you're booking your star cruiser vacation or whatever you can be like hey we also want to do the lightsaber we want to do the lightsaber workshop and because you're like you wear a thing when you go to batuu that like

is like a halcyon pin and so all of the cast members know to like greet you knowing that you're part of the halcyon to like give you the halcyon stuff in different places that's going to help you later in your story like it really is a crazy it was always meant to be these two things together which is why it's so uh right and if those sort of sad and it feels like that's the the star cruiser is the place they didn't go from what we understand we're not insiders really but that was dark was the only place they didn't cut like the budget on having everything be crazy immersive i feel like matt might be part of it or yeah like you're describing this incredible experience and a lot

of that stuff was not it was kind of taken out of the actual land itself so that's the difference when you're feeling the difference you're feeling. Wow. Being there. Yeah. And I've got to say, like, I mean, I mean, because this is such a big thing, like in talking about the price, like worth it, quote unquote, is obviously such a relative thing from person to person and what you want to spend your money on, what kind of money you've got. But that is how much that thing costs. Like, that's just how much it costs to do the thing that the galactic star cruiser is for what you're getting. If you pay that money, it is an entirely reasonable price.

Yeah. There's a lot. I mean, there's so many performers just in general. Yeah. Like once in a lifetime, like all the, every experience on it is only happening then essentially like the way you're

doing it is only happening right there to you. It's personalized. So that seems worth, I like the way you're doing it is only happening right there to you it's personalized so um that seems worth i i liked the way i was reading uh the touring plans lintest's breakdown of is it worth it and he does a really specific breakdown of um these are parts of the country and world i think that you should see before doing Galactic Starcruiser. If I'm being honest, make sure Alaska is really remarkable, and Hawaii, maybe do this route, and then, just assuming all of that

is important to you, then... That's good. That's reasonable. It is excess. It's like, what do you value emotionally and creatively? And for me, I have dreams about the Galactic Star Cruiser. Sure.

Let me ask you this question. And now you're talking to an older man who feels like there's a little bit of a lack of some of his friends on the ship. A hypothetical older man. This could be any older man. Not necessarily you. And a cooler older guy, like a guy who you wouldn't really know he's an older guy. Oh, I just assumed cool as soon as you mentioned this.

Yeah, he sounded cool before. Guys, if we're talking, you hear his voice, you're like, ah, gotta be mid-20s or so. But when he sees videos of some of it and he's like I am missing visually some of my friends I don't want the sequel characters to go away or anything I just where

are my people like and you're like five or six really well just now that he doesn't want the sequel character I've been very good at hedging cool guy has been consistent he doesn't want the sequel characters to go away from Galaxy's Edge he just wants someone more of his friends that's all he was he's a cool guy has been consistent. He doesn't want the sequel characters to go away from Galaxy's Edge. He just wants some more of his friends. That's all he wants. He's a

cool guy. I hear you and I have to say that I really do think this is one of the brilliant things about the Star Cruiser because it's not about Rey and it's not about Kylo Ren. It's not about those guys.

They make a big appearance and they're a big payoff, but it's not about Kylo Ren. It's not about those guys. Like they make a big, you know, appearance and they're a big sort of payoff, but it's more about the like WWE phenomenon of seeing them do the thing that they do as opposed to like seeing those characters in the flesh. Right. And in fact, the fact that there may be

less sought after characters, I think lends to more urgency and more access. The characters that are like the sort of new made up characters on the Star Cruiser are so exciting because if you had a guy there dressed up as Luke Skywalker, I could look at him and I could know that that's not Luke Skywalker. But this gentleman standing in front of me and giving me one of the best pep talks of my life is Wraith Cole, as far as I'm concerned. I am Gorn Dream. I know that I'm Gorn Dream. You know what I mean? This is a story that I don't know, and thus it has a place for me in it, and it has a place for these spectacular actors. So I think if the thing you love about Star Wars is sort of like just the characters,

then no, it's probably not for you. But if it's the world and the feeling, I think this is one of the, for me and what I appreciate about Star Wars, this is like my favorite Star Wars story is that of the Galactic Star Cruiser. Is it still like, would you say, because like, I honestly, I mean, from everyone I've talked to who's done it, they all like it. So like, I'm, I, I assume I would have a good time doing it. I'm all kidding aside.

Um, is it almost something where like, if it wasn't even branded Star Wars, it would be just as cool. Like, is it almost just like the performers are so good and it's just the activities are so much fun. You're just like, ah, it's a cool space thing that reminds me of Star Wars. It's almost not even the point in some ways. Absolutely. A hundred percent. I think Star Wars helps to give it

that boost of recognition. But if you don't know Star Wars and this is all gibberish to you, that is totally, totally okay. And in fact, I know Star okay and in fact i know star wars and i don't know a lot of the stuff that they're talking about and that is okay because it's about this this sort of isolated story right and i think that it being star wars probably puts a lot of pressure on it to perform like a very certain and specific way just as everything star wars always

has like there's always this like precedent that people expect Star Wars to meet that it could not ever and has never met. Everything's so hyper-judged, which you see with this too. Like if they had invented from whole cloth a big immersive experience that you stay in and sleep in, but that you weren't viewing under this judgmental lens. Like the Space Mountain Hotel full of original Space Mountain characters.

It doesn't have nearly as much pressure as Star Wars does because all your friends don't have to be there or the version of it that you like doesn't have to be represented. Just one friend. That's right. The countdown guy. Ten, nine. There's only one friend in Space Mountain.

And then like somebody playing like Dick Dale playing guitar on the stage or something. You need to know where that, in which world where that sound is coming from. Yeah, yeah. I was just in London and they have a bunch of stuff like this. Like not as sort of long form as the Star Cruiser, but like things that are multiple hours long that are these immersive storytelling experiences this thing called phantom peak that i didn't get to do that i'm really hoping to soon um but they they know how to invest in those kinds of things and and i think it is true that this is where the future is headed and something we were talking about during it was like could this work with marvel and the answer is no because what would

i do would i become a superhero? I know I'm not a Marvel superhero. Like with Marvel, it is about the characters. And so this doesn't work. I think the reason it works for Star Wars is because as great as the characters are, it's about the world and the feeling and the sort of like thing that happens when Star Wars works. And Star Wars really works on the Galactic Star Cruiser. That makes sense i mean i will say this uh if there was an x-men's mansion i could just like sleep in wolverine's room for two nights i would absolutely do it and love it if i could just hang out that would be fine with me

you don't want your own i'm playing me sleeping in wolverine's room i am mike carlson cool older guy and i'm sleeping in wolverine's bed because he's away for a while. And I can just roam around, go down to the danger room, see what they're doing and go, ah, cool. And then I can go upstairs and like have a drink in Professor X's study. I mean, that does sound pretty great. But you wouldn't want that you have your own bed that's only your bed and full access to Wolverine's room. You need to know that it's his bed and that he to wolverine's room you need to know that it's his bed and that he slept there let's say within the week yeah i would like to know that he was there

i mean you could all but also that he's not going to be there like you also don't like this is a this is a whole an immersive marvel x-men experience where you're sleeping in wolverine's bed meaning he will not be appearing. The mansion's mostly empty. They're like fighting apocalypse overseas or something. Because if he finds an intruder in his room, you're getting those claws to your throat. Not a kill move,

but at least a threat like, who are you? It's an empty ex-mansion. There's no interactive elements other than you can just roam through the halls and see what's going on. And you've chosen a school setting where there's often any number of students that they could easily go like, you're a new student. Like, no, no, you're a guy. I don't want that pressure. Crashing.

Yeah. I'm just an older guy. And there's also no alcohol. Like, it's a school. Like, you're just sleeping at the school. I mean, hey, I'm on board we're just just brainstorming you have to have snuck it in it's got to be in a flask

alcohol into this school if you start opening drawers and secret cabinets and Wolverine's room you're gonna find some yeah yeah that's one of the missions professor X has some brandy short brandy oh that's that yeah right that's the room to go to yeah yeah Hank McCoy this beast drink do we

know i don't know um andrew full disclosure um on that excursion day when you went to batuu did any of your party did anyone cut out to go to pizza rizzo or do a quick tower of terror you know not one okay and people on our cruise did especially ones with little kids i personally advise against it for sure yeah sure my like i was on batu for the first time you know like i really was like this is i i you know you get on the bus that feels like a transport shuttle like it's like it's a crazy thing. So, no, we did not go to Pizza Rizza. We did not go to Woody's Roundup Barbecue.

We stayed in Galaxy's Edge. And it was also, like, a really hot day. So, we were like, let's go and do our missions and then. Yeah. Get back inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a simulator of a toy-themed barbecue. barbecue it's just it's the kind of thing they would do it's not real trying to in character explain like look i this was really stupid i

know the shuttle leaves at a certain time but i made a reservation for woody's roundup barbecue because i knew i knew it would you know what you know what you could have done you could have gone to uh uh we just talked about this the 50s You know what you could have done? You could have gone to, we just talked about this, the 50s primetime cafe. You could be, you could say, well, this is where Dexter Jetster has his famous diner.

You could have at least, I feel like that one at least could have worked as far as that explanation. I guess this is the criteria is if you're going to do anything else in Hollywood studios, you've got to justify it in world. Like if you're going to go watch Mupp else in Hollywood studios, you've got to justify it in world. Like if you're going to go watch Muppet Vision 3D, you've got to be like, these are like, you know, the Ewoks and Yoda's like cousins and stuff. Yeah, that's good. That works. You can tell from the voice.

This is somebody Yoda's related to. Right. Yeah. Star Tours is like when you go on a cruise and then you need to take another shuttle to like the hiking through the woods. Yeah. And then you have to get back to the cruise ship. Sure, sure, sure. Right.

That's right. That's right. What has happened story-wise before? It's a second day thing that you go to Batuu. Just so that we get into some of the story of it. Yeah. What's happened thus far at that point?

What, what, what's kind of the initial stuff that you tackle? Yeah. I mean, obviously here we go. Spoilers ahead. Um, the first order has come upon the ship, um, because they, they, they're, they fear resistance sympathizers, uh, that on the ship and that there may be many of them. And so they're here investigating. The crew is trying to be welcoming.

But there are, and also Chewbacca, I believe, has arrived at this point. Chewbacca has, in fact, docked onto the ship. So those are kind of the big things. But that's like major main storyline. Maybe the, maybe the first order has already, this is a big spoiler, taken the central droid out of commission. This is a droid we're made to have great like sympathy for SK six 20, maybe something like that.

And, and they, they, they think the droid is having secrets. So they like kill the droid basically. And that's a big moment where we're meant to turn upon the first order or not as Julia discovered. But yeah, first day is really more tutorial

than anything else. Like those are the big moments, but we were like, wow, this first day was amazing. How could it become any more immersive than this? And then everyone was like, so today was basically your tutorial. Now you have to decide like which path you're going to take and it gets real tomorrow and it did it was crazy so that's everything that's happened i have to speak to my story particularly

i didn't decide going in like which sorry you hear the i didn't decide going in like which path i was going to take you can be resistance first order like jedi basically or like smuggler scoundrel um following gorn dream weaver's heart i fell in with the scoundrels um who is this character wraith cole who is uh gaia the the performer on the ship he's her manager and he is i love there's a space manager that's great pop star manager incredible we were we were pretty pretty obsessed with the concept of somebody in star wars having like a manager but it but it felt very like you know like grief karga in the mandalorian like he's like a bounty hunter manager except for talent and for gaia specifically um and uh they're trying to

make some kind of drop off they're trying to do this whole thing but basically the big thing is they're trying to steal this stone from the heart of the ship um the the hyena nea stone and this uh this this stone is made to feel like oh they're scoundrels so they're trying to steal it for money when you get to know them you discover that this stone was wrongfully taken from gaia's planet she's a twi'lek right and it was uh her plant oh god i can't remember what planet's called now but like the the hyena stone was taken from her planet by like basically colonizers and used for like on the ship on display like maybe provide some fuel or something and wraith on

gaia's behalf is trying to steal the stone back i found this cause very noble especially since gorn dream weaver's home was also perhaps under attack from the first order he was really worried about that people trying to get free carpet yeah exactly spilling stuff everywhere mining for carpet on the i mean you look at that you look at the the death star and it's and and the sort of star destroyers and they're just they need some rugs and there's one place to get them and it's the carpet moors of glorendor of course dampen some of that sound it's all it's very echoey and severe in there yeah yeah they need they could use a lot of rugs yeah yeah soften the landing when kylo ren's you know throwing people

all over the place um so so this has happened by this point. Now, I want to skip ahead because this is a story that I feel is urgent that it's told. This is sort of the big takeaway for me, I think. So we get to talking to Wraith Cole in person. Now, there is an app component to all of this. So we've been messaging, quote unquote, Wraith Cole on the app. But it's like preset responses to our preset texts that are like i want to hang out with you or like no i don't want to hang out with you and like getting a sense so we we go up to wraith cole

in the real world the actor whose picture is on the app by the way so we can like know who he is um and we go up to him we're like wraith we've been messaging with you um we're here for whatever you need um and it's notable that my brother matt his whole thing was like i love gaia going into the ship the one thing he knew was that he he knew that gaia was a character and he decided he was a big gaia fan so he goes up to wraith and he's like i love gaia i'm a big gaia fan and i'll do anything for gaia and wraith is like anything and we're like yeah yeah we'll do anything and he's like well then i've got an extra secret mission that's like not on your app like this is like a separate thing so they so so this

is just immediately one of the instances of like the the ship itself rewarding you for being like into it you know and like saying yes things he gives us this like qr code for us to scan on our app and tells us about this stone and all this stuff next day we run into him again he's like the heist is happening tonight at 3 p.m in the cargo bay don't let anybody follow you it's going to be a small a small group of people like this was and like we were one of the few people who was invited a lot of other people ended up being like what's going on in here and like came in and kind of screwed everything up but then then he's like, we're going to steal the stone back. We go up to the deck. So this is pretty deep day two. The first thing he says, he's like, we need a distraction. And he turns to me because we've now had a few conversations. He's gotten to

know me personally. And he says, this is where you come in. And he said, we need something lovey dovey, maybe some vows or an engagement. And I said something that is true, which is that I am an ordained minister. I am an ordained minister in the real world just kind of for fun. It's never been required of me. And so, as a distraction to get the stone, I performed the renewals of vows of two real married couples on the ship. Wow. This is in the vlog and I stand up there and I'm like yelling like, can I have everyone's attention

please? My name is Gordon Dreamweaver from the carpet moors of Corindor and I am here to celebrate the marriage of Jarek and Z and Liz and Matt because one of the couples was really into it and the other one was not. And from there,

all these other people and all these other kids had all these roles. And, and in the vlog, my, I think it was my brother and Alex were both recording. And you could see the way that like the stone passes hands and all these different people are intercepting different actual characters. Cause like the captain couldn't see about this.

So like we had to like alert rate that the captain was coming like it was like a whole involved thing that a hugely important device in it was that i was very very loudly proclaiming the renewal of these two real life couples wow which well i guess okay like a renewal i guess it's not so important if it's binding like what. But that renewal didn't count. And yet the actual ordained like it feels like it had some significance. It's crazy. You had that up your sleeve. Yeah, it worked out.

And I think it was my brother who reminded all of us that I was ordained. And then, yeah, that's the only time that's ever been useful, actually. Wow. You didn't do it to get friends marry you just did it to do it to hopefully one day get friends married you know like that one day i'd be asked to do that wow that was that's crazy i wonder what like they probably have some like prompts like regular like the things ideas that they would give to for a distraction and in a in a normal scenario but then they're also like oh if we got

something on the fly here let's just go with that yeah yeah yeah i think it's like a sort of bare bones idea for what what they're gonna what they're gonna do and then like let the guest kind of guide you and a lot of things they'll do is also kind of trick you into thinking that you guided them like the actor who played uh sammy at one point he comes up to us and he's like we need we need a way to get uh the stormtroopers away from this thing and i was like oh maybe you know like if they've got a if they've got to get to the brig or something and he was like wait you want to put them in the brig what and it's like oh that's what you need to do and you just kind of put those words in my mouth so like sometimes they like really need to find a way in but other times there's a lot of room for for uh for like play and and later that day there was another need for a distraction like we had

broken into the bridge to like get the coaxium or whatever and we were there with wraith cole because this was like this council track and he was he was like well if we need another distraction can't think of anything i mean i know my guy gorn has got it. And I was like, I'm healing father issues right now in real time. Like this is like really happening right now. Thank you, Rafe. It would be really great to hear from some of the performers because I imagine you did a hell of a job performing, distracting. You knew exactly what you're doing.

You're a performer. I would imagine there's some versions where they're like, and then you're going to be the one with the distractions and someone was like walked in the corner was like hey you hey you motherfuckers over here everyone look over here they're like what no no no no he's not like that no no no no he's pulling his penis out god no you're he's peeing in the corner it's like somebody stop me put the pretzels down put the bowl of pretzels down we need you uh you know what we got someone else we're gonna get someone else somebody has to have done a shitty job like that yeah yeah this this particular actor sort of uh later confided

through star wars terminology may i add uh he he like thank we we at on the last at the very end of the experience went to thank him and the actors like very much in earnest being like thank we we at on the last at the very end of the experience went to thank him and the actors like very much in earnest being like and we kind of said like we know you can't break character right now and we accept that and understand but we need you to know how much this has meant to us and and this actor in particular uh like thanked us in return because he was like it's good to know somebody who i can like really hand the reins to like, not like, and that was for our whole group.

Like it was like he, this guy is poor guy who is working so hard and you never see him sweat. He needs to, in order to us not see him sweat, find ways to pass the baton for even like two minutes. Like, and like give a, like holding court responsibility to somebody else yeah right um

so that he can continue to be like full battery you know right yeah whole um and also the the actress playing lanka mock who i think was like yeah cruise director last day we did the same thing and we like thank her very earnestly and she's like just so you know and i mean this if you ever want to come work here on the Halcyon, there's always a place for you. Oh, wow. That's the ultimate compliment. That's something I carry with me every day. I'm like, I could always just go do

that. You could. So it is possible. This was something we talked about on our Patreon, but we discussed the notion that if Jason was weird and rude enough at the 50s primetime cafe, maybe he'd get invited to play a permanent grandpa character. So I don't know if the same rules apply there,

but at least, hey, somewhere in that Dollywood Studios area, that kind of recruitment magic is possible. There's a headhunt. Some of the actors are also headhunters. Good to know. Ironically, you bring up renewing the vows uh i was at a wedding recently and only after the fact did i learn the officiant was in the original cast of galactic stark was one of the lieutenant lieutenant croys was one of the imperial

officers was a croy it was yeah i wonder which one because our lieutenant croy he's one of the few that i don't know his real life name is like one of my top three favorite actors of all time i think he's out of the game now i think he's retired from theme park acting yeah i think that's right which is pretty pretty uh pretty sad for me personally yeah all right so that's you're you're on this scoundrel track, correct? Yeah. What's what are your,

your friends are on others. What's going on? What's happening in the other, the stuff you're not seeing. That's right. We all kind of fell into our own thing. So, so Matt,

my brother was sort of on the scoundrel track with me, but ended up falling into a lot of resistance stuff. And so he was really close to the main story and would be asked to like, you're going to have to like pass uh suitcase of coaxium around to somebody else around the ship like he was like part of like bigger main story stuff that we weren't invited to because by the time day two rolls around this computers through the app and through the different relationships have kind of figured out who's the most into it and what track you're taking. So you get invited to specific things and they have a list of who

specifically is allowed into this room and they won't let you win unless you're on that list because of you following a specific track. And so, so Matt was invited to this resistance stuff. Alex went the Jedi path and he met Ray before the rest rest of us like he was in a room for like some kind of like force training or something that was kind of the guys that it was under but actually they discovered that the luke skywalker's uh hollow cube like a hollow cube that was luke skywalker's was was uh found on batuu now yes this was a mission of his he had to go on batuu find this hollow cube through the app and and scan different crates and stuff.

And then he's in this room, and Ray comes in, they open the holocube, and apparently, and I have not seen this with my own eyes, actual hologram of Yoda appears and gives advice. And this is something that only Alex got to see in 10 other people

that were on the voyage. Wow, that's on the voyage. Wow. That's cool. Is there, is there a interesting, is it, was there a comp, did the other paths have anything comparable to meet a legacy character such as Yoda? What are your friends? Any of my friends? Nobody else really gets to meet one of your friends. That that's, that is true. And in fact, Julia who took the first order path was hoping she'd get to have a

relationship with kylo ren uh which she did she did not unfortunately but she did have a very tight-knit relationship with lieutenant croy um yeah she was invited to like similar stuff as like matt in the resistance side of things but for the first order so like matt's team would go to the engineering room to like fix stuff and uh julia's team would go to the engineering room to like fix stuff and Julia's team would go to the engineering room to break stuff basically. Wow, that's fun. But she really was, there is this striking moment that I will never forget. Julia, who is the

biggest Star Wars fan, but like maybe the least into this kind of immersive storytelling going into it. It's the very big finale and a lot of the Galactic Star Cruiser is long and gorgeous monologues like characters delivering these huge monologues about like their ideas about the world and like frankly race and things like that race is discussed very much on the galactic star cruiser

and in this moment lieutenant croix um is responding to a speech of the captains which is saying like this is a ship of good people and these people will not let evil triumph. And Lieutenant Crow responds and says, you'll be surprised with just how many First Order sympathizers there are. And he starts to list them by name and like point to all the people in the crowd who are First Order sympathizers.

You realize just how many of them there are. And like the third or fourth one, he says, he goes, Mitsubishi, who's who B.C. Who's our, and we were like, she won, like she won the galactic star cruiser by having her,

her fake name said in the big finale of the galactic star cruiser. It was amazing. And earlier to, um, the actor playing Sammy, who's like, you know, uh,

one of the good guys found it, found out that she was hanging out with us and we were like, she's a first order sympathizer. She's got to go. And he was like, get out of here. And he looks at us and he's like, was that Mitsubishi? The captain warned me about her. Like stuff like that. It really is a, is a nutso thing that they do. That's great. Do the first order sympathizers get punished at the end of the experience at

all? Or. No, I think there is a sense of like, you know, obviously the bad guys lose. Right. But there is then a sense of like, look around. These people have shared this experience. Like, and then you go, like, it is very much like we all love each other and it's okay and then we go to the you you all go to the bridge and where the screen of space was is like a video of fireworks basically like it obviously is not real fireworks like a video of fireworks that we had bought into it so much by this point that we all four of us

cried at this like video that was playing of fireworks it fully worked on us i could see that i mean that's such a like you have to you have to be so much effort, emotional effort, I feel like, for a few days where you're like, almost just like the blowing off of that has to have some sort of like emotional reaction. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. there's there's discussion of of race in these big ideas in the in the experience do you feel like somewhere in the in the text in the narrative of galactic star cruiser is the solution of how to make everything better in this country and world of ours this this this was a very kind of curious thing like like like we're like we're like sitting in like the, the big dining room on the second night and, and kind of the big event that's happening is the captain and the

lieutenant are kind of having these dueling monologues. And you kind of see where both of them are coming from the good guys and the bad guys. Like, and that is sort of, I think one of the big ideas of the star cruiser is it's like, once you get, once you boil the first order down to an ideology and not like the

people who are working at the highest level, it's like, ah, there's some there's something there. Like there are people who believe this ideology and would follow the first order in the real world. But the captain's like says something at some point that's like, you know full well that I can't work on any other star cruiser because look at me. And we're like, oh, because she's blue. Like she's blue. Like that oh because she's blue like it's because she's blue like that's what she's talking like and like we they never talk about that in star wars and so like i don't i think it is an effective an emotional tool for empathy i don't think it's like you know the end all be all of sort of uh like racial analysis some of the like worst people in our

country or world into galactic star cruiser then have them like learn a lesson cry at the fireworks then they come out and they fix everything they're like we have to we have to give you know the stone back to the people like the proverbial stone back to the proverbial twi'leks joker carlson and ben shapiro their their ways are healed after two days i talked all the time and cry and now i'm different i've changed i'm nice now with desantis that's how they have to fix the desantis problem right just put them on the star cruiser the lawsuit's gonna go away it's gonna be fine yeah they have blue shrimp i've never seen such a thing that you knew what the human spirit was capable of oh um what have we well let's just do basic stuff like food drink oh yeah yeah like uh how was it so

great like genuinely good yeah yeah like and and not to mention all inclusive you know like you don't pay like blue milk is so good when it's free blue milk is so so so good when there's a fountain of blue milk and it's unlimited blue milk yeah unlimited there's they literally have like a like found blue milk fountain do you know that jason i did know that i think that's available 24 hours is it i'm pretty sure i think it's 4 a.m you could have a glass an hour yeah you could make money on the whole thing in terms of blue milk. Where are the refreshers? Where are the refreshers? Jason has a full body like suit that is actually just like a big,

some sort of big receptacle. Oh yeah. To get as much blue milk smuggled out of there as possible. What's Star Wars language for doggy bag? I wonder actually. Wookie bag. All like meat is bantha. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They always call it bantha meat. And like on night one, they came around. And again, we were just so bought in by this point. And we didn't even think about it. We were so excited to be there.

And the waiter comes around like, would you like more bantha? And we all look at each other like, oh, more bantha. Yeah. Well, yeah, we'll take more bantha. Like no, no like facetiousness about it i the second night the dining experience is a tour through different uh planets and cultures so the actual chef of the actual galactic star cruiser comes out and is like this next dish is from coruscant and like or like a mustafar and like the whole room turns like red and they like

light it lava colors and play like Mustafarian music and then he explains the dish and like how it was used with like fire and stuff like that and we were like wow this is from this all the way from Mustafar crazy and then it's I'm just guessing it is night

one a Gaia performance and night two is more like a story happens like you were describing. Yeah, kind of a back and forth. That's right. That's right. Night one is a big Gaia performance. And a lot of story happens in the Gaia performance as well. Like that is another like just great reason for everybody to get in one room. Chewbacca appears and like they're chasing Chewbacca around and Lieutenant Croy's trying to get Chewbacca while Gaia is performing. Partly as a distraction and partly just like that's that's what's happening um and she's amazing the songs

are really great you can listen to the album um and uh but yeah then second night is more story driven I think that maybe there was like it's part of a story that Gaia is supposed to have a performance but then it's canceled it can't go on for some reason maybe because of first order interference um and so then she does like an unplugged show that feels like a big protest like on the dot on the deck that's cool like she's like there and like one of the characters plays guitar and she's singing all the songs and everybody's singing along from the songs they learned the night before at the big concert oh you know them by then so you can't the kind of songs are second nature we are like part of the protest we're

standing there like going hi yeah hi yeah hi yeah not not not nay yeah like we're like so we're really really there and there's like a lot of call and response on this thing because like i think one of the resistance uh like terms is ignite the spark light the flame or something. And they really get this stuff in your head. They really teach it to you that by day two, you're saying a bunch of like, you're like,

somebody will say, ignite the spark and the whole ship will go like, they like, they like teach you all these star Wars words. It's crazy. Don't you? You're not thinking about it 48 hours in even watching a video of just here. We're getting on the elevator,

I just watched somebody's POV of doing this and hearing a bright suns on the way, which is like the greeting in Galaxy's Edge. And it really made me like, oh, yeah, remember that? Remember bright suns? That was sure something they did for the first 10 days and never again. But if you like the bright suns thing, there's so many more of them. You if you like the bright suns thing, it's there's so many more of you're living in the bright suns mentality.

I said when we did the Batuu trip, I said bright suns to every single cast member I had. I was so excited to say bright suns and I had the little halcyon medal. So they were all like bright suns. VIP on Galaxy's Edge. I have a couple quick more practical questions uh um did did you

see anyone trying to get hammered yeah like as far as like is it open bar there i don't think it is right you have to pay for those i don't think it's open bar okay so that's the prevent that's to prevent people from hammered getting hammered there were there there definitely were people who were substantially drinking and that was the thing that they decided to do and you could like you totally that is a star wars story of your own you know right i had to live a star wars story that's the star wars story outlet this is reminding me of something pretty important that happened actually there was a gentleman who was Obi-Wan Kenobi like, and he didn't work there and we were very confused, but he looked like old Obi-Wan like old,

like he had like white hair and a white beard. Old Ben Kenobi. Yeah. And he would sit and he was there definitely by himself and he didn't talk to anybody. And he would just sit in rooms and kind of like look wistfully at the room. And like, he was just, he was, we called him phobia one kenobi eventually like and we were like that story wise how do we justify this for ourselves

that's the force ghost of ben kenobi and then later learned that he doesn't didn't work for the hotel was there as a guest but does work for the disney parks as a photographer as a real guy and used to be a walt disney world ambassador wow and this guy that we just saw as obi-wan kenobi constantly walking around like walk being obi-wan kenobi was one of the craziest things i've ever seen anyway all that to say yeah you could get drunk. Hell yeah. Did you drink? How are drinks? I was 20 at the time. You were 20?

Oh, man. You could not. Wow, wow. I just turned 21 this past month. Oh, wow, wow. And you didn't arrange it to go back so that your first legal drink could be some bubble and blue. You have no idea how much i thought about like i i so i said it to like the disney influencer people i was like i want to turn 21 in the galactic star cruiser and they were like it's too last minute we can't get you on

the galactic star you actually try oh my god wow i i fully was like that's how that's what i have to do i have to turn 21 on the galactic star cruiser um i i still i feel like that's a big thing i have to be is 21 on the galactic star cruiser um but uh but i was told that the drinks were were stellar and that there's like a lot of fun really fun drinks and like those are also like from different planets and they have them in fun glasses and presentations and things like that so yeah no the drinks the drinks were given really positive reviews did here on earth did you get anywhere close to a a dumb star wars drink as the first legal drink you know what yeah there's a there's a bar not far from where i live that has it's like a tiki bar and they have this drink that's in like a a big whale and it's like a straw that was my that was my first drink that's great i'm happy to hear that um uh water pressure in the shower how was it very practical yeah it was

good no the showers and stuff were good and you do feel like you need to shower the star wars off of you a little bit yeah so no the showers the showers were positive experiences for us all yeah the bathroom's solid for sure okay did you use a thermal blower or what you what we on earth may know better as hair dryers i don't think any of us did no okay are there like do people talk about the thermal blowers i just i saw a photo and I think it comes in a little bag and the bag is labeled thermal blower. Fucking awesome, man. Awesome. I mean, I think other

things are just shampoo and conditioner. They don't go out of their way to invent new terminology there. But thermal blowers. Is there any prequel behind the scenes where George is explaining how Anakin gets his hair a certain way? There's a thermal blower and he just puts the thermal blower up to his head. You know what's wild actually?

Like one of the things they give you when you're there is these Star Wars comic books that take place on the Halcyon. That allege that Han and Leia had their honeymoon on the Halcyon. Yes, yes. Oh, I forgot this detail. They conceived Kylo ren right on the hellsia or is it anakin and padme is it that luke and leia i think it was i think it's han and leia i think it's han and leia i think they conceived kylo on the hellsia wow wow you're right is there a way to know which room and to ask for that room i mean depending on the performer there's a weird energy

at that room yeah yeah a bad energy i wonder i wonder if there's any way to tell in the comic book i didn't read it i just skimmed through and i was like wait are you alleging to me that they had their honeymoon here on this place you made up last year le, where's the thermal blower? I can't find a thermal blower. My poofy 70s do is really... I need to dry off my balls. Thermal blower. Here's a question. At the end of the night,

you guys are back at the room, you're winding down. Did anyone flip on that hotel room tbs or food network yeah watching shark tank watching cable i don't think so no i think we were all pretty committed to the bit okay like we were like we're gonna do this you can like they do show you like oh when you turn on the tv it's like you can airplay to the tv and you can and the specific example that they give you is it's like a you see like a screen cap from uh episode seven and it's like you should screen mirror star wars onto the star wars tv sure they're trying to suggest watch some tales i don't want it yeah it's like i don't want

to watch star wars when I'm in one. That's so not what I want to do. I know that it's a movie right now. It's like watching a Ken Burns documentary on some war. It's like in the universe. Who cares? It would have to be a documentary about when

the Empire struck back. You couldn't watch The Empire Strikes Back. That's too weird. Wow that that's that's too weird yeah burt like wow that's fun actually watching it as documentaries is a really fun idea or otherwise like dramatized versions of what really happened oh look some actors have taken it upon themselves uh some fellow named erwin kirschner i, has reenacted the events that we know from. Yeah. Oh, that would be fun though.

What's, just in the, sort of winding it down, I just want to make sure we get to big moments in the story. I guess on that last, how does it, where's night two? It's like, okay, our last night, we're going to bed.

What are you left to think think about is like is it hard to sleep because the story is weighing on you at that point yeah honestly yeah like it was really we had like we and this is skipping your question and i won't go back to it but like we would we woke up for three days after and texted in our group chat, like plug me back in. Like, I can't, I, I, I remember falling asleep on the plane and waking up from like my nap on the plane home. And somebody was walking by to go to the bathroom. And I thought it was a storm trooper that I had to like talk,

like genuinely my brain was like, you have to talk to them to get like your mission completed. Like I was still really in it. But yeah, the last night, this is the kind of amazing thing. And I, i had this year was my first year watching wrestlemania after this halcyon experience and i was told that i would like it because of my reaction to the halcyon experience because the last thing that happens is you're at this dinner and then the fake alarm not

the real alarm goes off and they're like everybody onto the deck and that's where this big sort of fight between the the captain and the lieutenant is happening and this really really incredible thing happens where they manage to in this one big moment tie up every single storyline that you could have possibly followed over the course of your time there like there were characters that we had barely ever seen that had like endings to their stories that still seemed meaningful enough to us like they really do it all and they tie it all together and emotionally and and fulfillingly um and and i could get into all that but i think the big thing to note is this fight between kylo ren and ray that happens which is really fun to to say that like oh so we're just deciding that between episodes

eight and nine kylo ren and ray were in the same room and had this like huge lightsaber fight um but this is where the like big lightsaber with the slap bracelet thing happens and all that stuff but one of the things that is not touched upon, I feel enough and people talking about the star cruiser is the different ways in which Kylo Ren or Ray interchangeably will use the force to slam the other's head into a railing. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I did notice this in a video.

Yeah. That's a little more brutal than the typical. It was amazing. Like we were like standing there being like, oh, they're and then that happens you're like oh my god this is brutal um but that was really amazing every story is tied up there's like all these surprises that happen i think the big payoff uh has to go to the character of Sammy. I kind of, I even don't want to say like how and why, but he really got all of us. Again, day one, we're like, wow, this silly Star Wars thing.

Like we're really excited, but come on, this is silly. All of a sudden we're standing here in the deck, on the deck, every single person on the ship going, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. Impromptu of nothing. Like no cast member was making us do this. And the actor playing Sammy is taking this in so in earnest. Like, wow, I did it. And integrating it into

the story. And then Lieutenant Croy's got to yell over it. It's so amazing. That's the other amazing thing about these big moments with everybody is that a kid could make it go haywire at any second. A kid could walk up to Lieutenant Croy. And this did happen during a big moment. A kid that a kid could make it go haywire at any second you know a kid could walk up to lieutenant croix and this did happen during a big moment like a kid walked up to lieutenant croix was like i think

you're a bad guy and the captain was like all right sit down we're having a real discussion he's like no i won't let him talk to you like that like like this whole thing and then lieutenant croix ended the scene early basically but said child, we have much work to do. And like gave him a special little experience in another room. Like they have to give full respect to everybody who wants to talk to them because what is the point of this thing? Otherwise they can't like ignore a kid. So it's pretty amazing seeing these actors navigate.

That's so masterfully. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. You say wrestling compared to wrestling because we went with a certain friend of ours Buzz Buzz once to a wrestling

event, but he put wrestling in probably the correct perspective. He said, it's like we're all in a little play. And he is right. And it's what you're saying. Yeah, what you're saying is we're all in a little play, but that's the fun of it.

That's why we're doing it is that we're all playing along. That's exactly right. And it's more fun when we're playing along. It is. If you like wrestling, you like the Galactic Star Cruiser. Wow. Wow. And then like, I mean, because I watched a video of the finale or maybe like a preview

they did of the finale for for vloggers or whatever and it you could certainly see how it ends on this high note and and the emotion you're all feeling uh like i i get all that but then how does it transition into okay get your bags like what is how do you how do you it seems like such a big come down yeah i think there is a moment to maybe like like a cruise like i think you can put your bags out in the hall and like tag them and they'll have them ready for you outside the next day or something it is a really big come down it's not it's not left to be like out of universe or anything like like i feel like the characters will be like because because again they're

running a cruise so like the characters will be like and you can like leave your bags outside and and our amazing crew members will come get them like it doesn't feel out of place for something like that to happen um but it is for real depressing like the the come down after was was very very visceral and we still text in our group chat about it once a week because now we keep tabs on the actors on their social medias. We're like, send their posts and be like, oh my God, they're dating or stuff like that.

Wow, you've kept it going. Did you then transition into more Disney World or did you go home? We transitioned into a bit more Disney World, which I would argue wasn't a mistake. I just wouldn't advise it. Like you feel like you're like, we transitioned into a bit more disney world which i would argue wasn't a mistake i just wouldn't advise it like you feel like you're like i i can't like you still feel like you're back on earth you know like you like we had like an extra day at like i think epcot and i i would i would

suggest that if you're going to do the galactic star cruiser just go and do the galactic star cruiser like don't like make don't don't pair it with a longer Disney trip, I would say. Because it really is like such a different, yeah, it really is its own thing. And going to Hollywood Studios during it, like you get some rides in there. I get, like if you don't go to Disney,

I go to Disney so often. Like if you don't go as often as one does and this is like your big trip and you want it to be part of it, I get it and do it. But I would advise the ideal star cruiser experience is is just doing that and like then it's just kind of you you're pretty drained going back into the parks like you if you've done it right you've given your all to the to the stars so at least do it at the end maybe of a trip you

gotta make it the finale yeah yeah yeah i think that's right wow yeah yeah go to go to the magic kingdom and do some rides it just it really feels like you're like oh all these people who are just here for today they don't know you know like i think that's part of it they don't know what you've been through you know you've you've been through something with these hundred somewhat specific people it's strange to then be in like you know a line community world community right well well uh um i so then so what's your reaction a few weeks ago or whenever it was that they're shutting it down now i'm like afraid to ask how you felt and how the group chat felt when this news broke yeah i mean i got texts

from multiple people who i have not talked to in a while asking if i was okay um one of them and one of them who i was talking to but but like out of the art gene stupnitsky the our director of no hard feelings texted me and was like like like i'm i'm so sorry you know this is like like they really it really was like a real uh point point of point of sadness like i i think obviously you know the writing on the wall was pretty clear like of the direction it was taking uh it was becoming emptier um it just wasn't wasn't selling the way they'd hoped and and like as a as an artistic risk you know my heart really does go out to it obviously like i i'm not going to sit here weeping that this big corporation's big money thing didn't play out but like as as this really

really incredible theatrical um thing not not succeeding in the way that it had hoped that is that is always going to be at least a little sad to me and and and i will always be very thankful that i went like i don't think i'd be able to i don't know how i would regret it forever if i if i didn't get to do it geez that's a well i think i think some listeners maybe some hosts are going through this right now. Maybe forever regret. Because if we can't, I think we're boxed out, right? Unless Mike works some magic. Unless you do some hacking.

If we chat about it, there's no way I couldn't do it. Okay. Well, I think you could do it, and I really want you to do it. Maybe you got to prioritize now. We got to talk about it. You just got to, and really, this is the number one piece of advice to everybody who's going, you just you just got it like and and and really this is the number one piece of advice to everybody who's going you just have to say yes to the whole thing like obviously it's can't be obviously it's silly you have to set your kind of ego and cynicism

aside a little bit but like you have to say yes to everything and like seek out more immersion because i will say like you can't it's not that you can't escape the immersion. It's that there isn't anything else. So like on day two, this, like my brother and I were running around and doing all this stuff and this dad and his like poor younger son came up to me, came up to me and my brother. And, and they were like, the dad was like, excuse me. Um, do you know about any secret stuff happening? Uh, we can't seem to find the secret stuff. It's like, Oh buddy, you had to earn the secret stuff it's like oh buddy you had to earn the secret stuff yesterday my friend i don't know what to tell you too late oh man oh what a

sad tale i i have one more question that this is i don't know if we're gonna find the answer and there's just one thing everybody's wondering at this point, which is what happens to the building. They made a weird spaceship hotel that is in the backstage of the park. I mean, you know, in theory, you could retheme this or do something else with it, except that it requires an odd little bus ride. It's not right next to the park. The rumors are that they thought about other things to do or make it a day trip or something, but it's just they're not going to do it. Like supposedly it's over. Like, apparently, they were trying to figure out other things to do, Mandalorian overlays or something. Yeah.

And then day trips to it. And it feels like, no, it's just that building is going to rot until they need the land. Wow. Yeah. I mean, us there, we were like, oh, man, it's, you know, in three years, God willing, this thing stays open, which obviously it has not. And they like make a sequel story for people who have been before, because honestly, the biggest audience for people going on the Star Cruiser is people who have already gone on the Star Cruiser. Like, like, they kind of I feel like the people who were going to do it did it at the beginning. And so to do like a follow-up story and it's like oh you can have the same cast which obviously you can't have because a lot of them don't work there anymore like it's like it was this sort of wonderful dream which the star cruiser always was like it's this wonderful wonderful idea that i think was executed very well but in uh in the time we're

living in the society we're living in the place that it was etc etc etc it just it just didn't hit i think sorry that sucks no that's it that's i was just gonna say i think that the issue with living in the place that it was, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It just didn't hit. I think. Sorry. That sucks. No, that's it. I was just going to say, I think that the issue with it is that nothing visually or video wise can convey what you just did for like an hour and whatever, 45 minutes. Yeah. It's like the video doesn't show me the experience.

You have to feel the experience, which is very hard to convey, even when in a written review or even seeing things. Because obviously video makes things look less cool in general, unless it's a very high quality video. But you just did a better advertisement than any of the social media posts we've seen for this thing in a year. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that was something we were really feeling, too. the social media posts we've seen for this thing in a year yeah yeah yes yeah i mean i mean that was something we were really feeling too because like you you you watch those videos you're like

i'm paying you know six thousand dollars to do this you know lightsaber training where i'm holding this stick and it's like no of course not like that's not that's not the thing you're paying for you're paying for like what that means to the thing as a whole and it's it is a really really hard difficult thing to convey like i this is the first time i'm even bringing up the lightsaber training which was really really fun and amazing and like led alex to be like i want to follow this this jedi journey like that's what it's about it's about the story as a whole not you know how cool is this very one lightsaber thing if they just had that you know as like its own thing it would be lame but it's because it's part of this whole story that you know as like its own thing it would be lame but

it's because it's part of this whole story that you're being told um and you're you're part of unfolding it in real time and that fractions are never going to tell you the story and some piece of video is never going to do it or some right weird promo video starring a goldberg's cast member that is yanked within 48 hours hours because it makes it look less than good that was so tough that was so so tough seeing all that stuff play out the way that it didn't and i listen i i understand we just did this doing trying to convey these immersive experiences you you just can't because that's the very nature of it it's supposed to be very ephemeral and only exists in the moment. So it's impossible to, I think, as soon as it's figured out how you can market something like this, it will open the floodgates for so many more experiences like this. I think literally

the biggest problem with doing an immersive risk like this is that nobody has yet figured out on the planet or how to market it yeah i remember when sleep no more opened in new york and all of the marketing for that was very vague it was like yeah it was building a mystery and hearing people who went and they tell you bits of it's like oh it's kind of there's little shakespeare bits and it's jazz age and you don't really get, you don't get it hearing about it as opposed to the people who saw it. And they were like, yeah, if you go on a really good night, it's amazing. Yeah. And I think sleep no more,

which this could absolutely be very easily compared to, it just has the luxury of being sexy. Like it's amazing, but you're like, oh, I'm gonna like, I think something about it being this sort of secret speakeasy kind of thing, as opposed to this thing that from the outside seems so corporate and false, as opposed to Sleep No More, which seems very like dirty and intimate.

This is not, obviously, the Star Cruiser is not dirty, but it is very intimate. Like anytime that we would kind of like want to play, we'd like go up to, you know, one of the actors and be like, hey, you did a great work back there when you, you know, like got the coaxium or whatever. And they would like see us trying to play, but like keeping a distance. And they literally like I remember Justin, the actor was playing right on our voyage like grabbed me and like leaned over and whispered in my ear like hey thanks for having my back i really appreciate you and i see what you're doing and uh you're you mean so much to me thank you and he like walked away and i was like a tear a single tear rolled down my face like it like

it they really like if you are willing to be pulled in by it they are so desperate to pull you in it's like the end of the transformers ride over and over and over again for a couple times a day a couple times in a week yeah yeah if you know i don't know mike thrives on being told by optimus but optimus prime saying that he's proud of him right yeah yeah when when they pull into the station at the mummy and they're clapping, that's what it is. Like, oh my god, I did it. But it really is just for

you. But it's a human reaction. Yeah, it's a human being saying it to you. It's an actual connection that I had with an actual person, even though he was Wraith Cola and I was Gorn Dreamweaver. Right. Yes. But it's so much more than names at that point.

Exactly. It's a living amount. 100%. You have taken us on a journey of optimism and a journey of hope. One that I will not forget anytime soon much as you will not forget your Star Cruiser

journey and I feel like i should uh be respectful to the mythology and say gorn dream weaver you survived podcast the ride um i uh uh it's this this has been such a pleasure really uh uh fantastic we're proud of them we were we're proud of you uh um i take of you. I take it in. It's in a single tier. We say for the listeners, we watch, I think a bunch of single tiers are streaming down Andrew's.

Yeah. No. For those of you who can't see my face, I'm really crying a lot right now. Yes, it's a, no, thank you so much for having me.

Oh my God. I hope to never use my platform to talk about any good causes and only talk about the Galaxies. The best cause. Well, I insist that you use it briefly to talk about your current, the cause of the day, which let me say, let's exit through the gift shop. And is there anything that you would like to plug? I don't know. Anything that anyone can go see in a movie theater right now as they're hearing this? I don't know what you're talking about. I can't remember. Yeah. No. Hey, listen, there's this little movie that just came out, I guess, by the time this has

been released called No Hard Feelings. It's very, very fun. And I had a really great time filming it. It's me and Jennifer Lawrence. She's trying to sleep with me. How silly. It's a very, very special movie. And I really think I really think that you're going to like it. Please check it out. Oh, my God. I know so many people who are who are really rooting for

it. And that, you know, that a big at a crazy R rated comedy with with a big movie star and a burgeoning movie star. Everybody wants to do well and we're all so excited to check it out especially knowing that you are a now knowing you are a theme park fan and a halcyon hero you'll be able to tell you know it did impact my performance for sure yeah well you did it yeah you were but you you came from that you've you undoubtedly you brought something from space back to this your performance in this film yeah that's right that's that's exactly correct i did i was like i now that i've been gone i can be percy i think that was really what i felt i had to be like that was my hero's

journey to be able to film that movie geez that's that's amazing. How do you think Percy would have fared? Any choices he would have made? If you had to guess his experience? I mean, honestly, it's so funny. Where we find Percy at the beginning of the movie, as you can tell from the trailer, the reason that he goes on the journey that he does in the movie and why Jen's character Maddie is trying to seduce him is because his parents are really concerned that he hasn't been brought out of his shell journey that he does in the movie and why Jen's character, Maddie is trying to seduce him is because his parents are really concerned that he hasn't been brought out of his shell and that he's about to go to college and he's very antisocial.

And I genuinely think instead of the whole plot of no hard feelings, he could have just gone to the galactic star cruiser and like come shell there and then been ready to go to Princeton. Like then, then he'd be after being, you know, I feel like he'd probably, I think, Oh God god i don't know actually he might have been first order like i think he kind of needed to get something out i don't know i really don't i i i bet he would have had a really good time though yeah he would have surprised himself the exciting world of the halcyon would prepare him for the wilds of north jersey you know that's it i mean

i honestly yeah 100 like i i mean it's true in total earnest like so much of no hard feelings is about needing to kind of break out of one's bubble before you know and and grow and grow up and kind of evolve into a different version of themselves and the different steps that one takes to do that. And I think in a very microcosm way, the Star Cruiser, much as any sort of immersive experience as much as any theme park is, but more so is that opportunity

to like escape yourself for a second and come back having like learned something about yourself in any small or large way. And I obviously like as somebody who performs and I wasn't so surprising that I behaved the way I did on the Star Cruiser that I like really, you know, took the reins. But I think for somebody to go and do that for themselves and having not done it before, I think it can be a pretty addictive experience and like something that really does does change them and there were people there who were on their third

or second voyages like who like this was something they did because this was their opportunity to do exactly that so um i i do think it's a special thing and and as sad as it is as it's leaving i really hope it's not a sign that things like this can't succeed. Yeah, yeah. Creatively, you got to root for this, for sure. Disney, whatever. Yeah, they need to work out their books differently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, hopefully the spirit of this moves into something else. Yeah, so we can one day sleep in Wolverine's bed.

We're praying for this opportunity. Well, thank you for joining please come back anytime this has been such a blast uh andrew uh and we're rooting for this movie kyle mooney's in there too right he's did you did you have scenes with kyle or is that a different thing i did i did have scenes with kyle kyle is amazing yes and oh my god of course i meant to bring that up he like told like we we were in a so we filmed together in montauk which we shot most of the movie on long island like just outside of manhattan but we filmed for a week in montauk and kyle's scenes with me were in montauk and we shared a van to montauk together wow and i don't know how it came up but it always

comes up to me i was like do you like rides like you know like like what do you think about and he was like i was just on the with my friends Podcast of the Riot and he talked about you guys. Wow. Wow. Yeah, for real. Oh, geez. Love connecting these dots. Oh, it's a movie with both of you guys.

Big theme park fan credibility in the cast of this film. Rooting for it so much. You're going to like him in this movie a lot. It's very, very silly what he does. Great. Oh, great. Oh, excited. Awesome. very, very silly what he does. Great. Oh, great, great. I'm excited. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us. Thanks to Carly Weisel

for playing matchmaker and setting Andrew up with us. Really glad to connect the dots here. Appreciate it, Carly. Thanks, Brett Boehm, for producing this episode at Forever Dog. Come, hey, if you want to come see us in Las Vegas, please join us at Podcast the Ride's Big Vegas Groove Blender

Saturday, July 22nd in las vegas tickets available at the space lv.com uh a and for three bonus episodes every month check out podcast the ride the second gate or get one more bonus episode uh every month on our vip tier club three all of that at patreon.com slash podcast the ride uh how's that for a plug pile uh it's a big pile cool stuff fun stuff people to thank things to do uh but go see no hard feelings as well and Guess the Ride has that for a plug pile. It's a big pile. Cool stuff. Fun stuff. People to thank. Things to do. But go see No Hard Feelings as well.

And I guess try to hack the system. Get to Star Cruiser before you can't anymore. And if you figure out any tips, tell Mike. But I think Mike's probably going to figure it out before you, whoever is hearing this. Save your tips. Who am I saying? Who am I talking to? Forever. Dog.

This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.