As a kid, I grew up going to amusement parks like Kings Dominion, Action Park and Great Adventure.
As a full-time adult, I had worked in and around the various permutations in the live event / location based experience (LBE) space. Whether a brand-sponsored pop-up event, a theme park or an amusement park, LBEs are shared experiences that invite more people in, to fall in love with and connect to stories and characters personally. From a business perspective, LBEs are foundational to the user-centric spoke of the franchise wheel as it allows the participant/attendee/guest/etc to create a personalized experience.
But it wasn’t until I started working at Lucasfilm that I saw how the interplay between story and three dimensional space can further extend a storyworld. In balance, space and storytelling welcomes people to fall in love with and connect to stories and characters personally, to express their enthusiasm and imagination however they wish.
Though I was long gone from Lucasfilm when the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was unveiled, as a board member of The Immersive Experience Institute which exists to create a sustainable future for immersive and experiential arts and artists worldwide, I was curious to see it as it seemed to be a leap forward in narrative live entertainment.
The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is unlike anything that currently exists in narrative, live entertainment. This is not to say that there are not other creatively innovative immersive experiences throughout the world to enjoy – some with known IP and others creating their own storyworlds. But the Starcruiser was more than just an immersive experience.
It was a “cruise” (you are a guest on the Halcyon starcruiser with a view of space as you “cruise” through a galaxy far far away….), hotel (home base to rest; 4 star service from the food to the rooms), traditional theater (passive; watch a story unfold), immersive theater (transforming passive audience into active participants), interactive (gameplay & puzzles; personalization; actions rewarded based on participation), costume party (dress as you wish), role play (be who you want to be) and true to its DNA, a theme park (a “cruise” excursion is offered to the planet Batuu, equating to an IRL backdoor pass to Disney’s Hollywood Studios).
This is not to say that there aren’t other creatively innovative immersive experiences throughout the world to enjoy – some with known IP and others creating their own storyworlds. But the Starcruiser was the sum of many and varied moving parts that all moved together.
And all of these component parts signaled back to one mission: an invitation to come in. It let the guest know that they matter, regardless of what they do or do not do. Guests were able to live and be in a Star Wars story how they wanted to live and be. Mission accomplished.
Creatively the Starcruiser understood the assignment. There has to be care first and foremost for that person walking through the door. What do they see, do, and feel. What is the designed journey and where to leave room for their own discoveries. How to create a safe space for all levels of play as well as for disengagement. How are all five senses authentically activated, as well as touch the brain, heart and eyes through the story (they are being told), the art (visualization of that story) and the experience (how they engage with it, process it and express it out). This is the joy of innovation.
And no one does it better than Disney Imagineers. There was care, precision, wonder, story, and room to breathe. In addition to the Imagineers, there were other craftspeople, technicians, creative technologists, narrative designers, chefs, musicians, etc., who came together to create an all-encompassing experience that welcomed everyone. Whether a casual observer or hardcore fan of Star Wars, people were swept up and just enjoying themselves. It all worked because excitement and fun, surprise and delight are infectious.
A different point-of-view pokes into the notion of what it means to endeavor to not only be the first in the pool, but the first to invent the pool, or specific to the Starcruiser, to innovate on what else the pool can be. As I previously notated “The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is unlike anything that currently exists in narrative, live entertainment.” And this is the dilemma of innovation.
How do you model something that is everything but doesn’t exist yet? How do tried and tested business operations adjust? What’s proforma on the unknown? What’s the marketing? What would a 30-second TikTok sound and look like? What’s the catchy phrase for bus ads? The whimsical photo on a billboard that conveys everything you can do once on board? With grace I think it is fair to say that none of this is easy.
A character on the Starcruiser, Captain Keevan, delivers a soliloquy about the act of creation, how we are driven to create. “And even though that creation may not stand the test of time or may be destroyed or forgotten, what you have created, what settles in your heart, what lives in your soul, can never be undone.”
Many will analyze the Starcruiser for years to come like a Zapruder film, looking at it from every angle. But in this time of shakeup across every form of entertainment this should also be a moment to appreciate all that had to happen to make an idea into a reality and all who came together as one to make it happen – from the creatives to the decision makers to the production crews to the performers to the guests. Taking a big swing can be both rewarding & terrifying. But if we don’t take the big swings, we don’t move forward.
9/28/23 Update: This post was adapted for the Variety Intelligence Platform (VIP+) and published Sept. 28, 2023 as “Innovation Lessons from Disney’s Ill-Fated Star Wars Cruise Experience”
