Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was designed to be a new sort of themed entertainment experience. Beyond simply being an attraction, with animatronic characters the Galactic Starcruiser has real people playing characters who will interact with you over the course of your two-night experience. And the Starcruiser is so successful at making you feel like you’re inside a Star Wars adventure it even surprised one of the people who wrote the story.
Matt Martin is part of the Lucasfilm Story Group and he’s one of the people who was responsible for creating the story that takes place on Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. During a recent trip to the “Star Wars Hotel,” I spoke with Martin who told me that even though he helped craft the story, the experience of having that story take control was something that blew him away during one of the early tests. He explained…
The first time I did a test, I interacted with a character, and then two hours later that character came up to me, put his arm around me he’s like ‘Matt, Matt, Matt, I need help with something, can you help me?’ I was like, ‘Whoa, I’m really in Star Wars, I’m really helping this person.’ It meant a lot.
Matt Martin talked to me about just how different an experience it was to craft a story for the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. While he’d been part of numerous other Star Wars stories, this was the first one where guests would become an active participant, and that the characters would essentially have a life of their own. This made it all especially challenging, though also quite fun to work on.
There are several characters being played by actors throughout a guest stay on the Galactic Starcruiser. Everyone is encouraged to speak with them in-character and they will remember you when they see you again later. Depending on how your conversations go, you may be asked to help some of these characters out by doing things on board the ship. If you don’t have the conversation, you may never see certain elements of the Starcruiser experience.
One can imagine just how strange it would be to create a character, and then to see that character come up and speak to you, to call you by name, and ask for your help. It’s exactly how the Starcruiser is supposed to work, and Matt Martin certainly knew this on a conceptual level, but clearly when he was confronted by it in person it was still an incredible moment.
While the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is certainly not inexpensive, it is unlike anything we’ve seen from a theme park before, and that makes it worth the price of admission. It is above and beyond what Disney World or anybody else has done before, and possibly only the beginning of what we’ll see in the future.
