Stop letting the Wookie win.

□ [“Why Did the Star Wars Hotel Flop? Disney Is Desperate To Find Out"]

I've had this article open for a few days, trying to ponder it.  I didn't even know there was a Star Wars Hotel at Disney World.  I might even have gone there if they paid me enough.  They are one of those hotels that pays people to stay there, right?

Oh.  Well, they must have been interesting to other people then, if they opened this hotel.

Oh wait...

$5000 for a two-night stay?  Right there, you're not going to get a lot of people who stay there.

And it's basically required to not let the guests out.  Apparently the hotel is supposed to be some galactic star-cruiser that wasn't in any of the movies I saw so people can't just walk outside and see... Disney World.

If you have a desire to go to Disney World, and enough money (and presumably someone else would want to go there with you) then the point would not be to avoid Disney World.  That's another mark against the concept.  If you want to not see Disney World and not go outside, there are many cheaper ways to do that.  You can stay home and watch a movie.

But ok, let's say you're a really really really big Star Wars fan and you've got tons of money to throw away.  You've got a spare weekend, not counting the travel time and expense, so why not?  Just to say you've been there.

What are you supposed to get out of this?  Based on the video, there's almost nothing that has any obvious connections to the movies.  Apparently the name of the cruiser itself came from some book.  Few people read anyway and the idea that anybody would be so fascinated in this concept is just preposterous.

There's a lightsaber training class.  Ok, that is connected to the movies, score one for the hotel.  Can you use the lightsaber to cut through the walls and leave like whatsisname did in that horrible Prequel movie?  I'm willing to bet you can't which means a lot of other details which keep this from having anything to do with the lightsabers we all loved decades ago.  And that's the closest to the One True Trilogy you're going to get.

As movies, yes, they're wonderful, a good time was had by all.  But they were really never any more than that and whatever success they've had anywhere else is incredibly minimal.  I read exactly one Marvel comic that wasn't an adaptation of the movies although I did spend a lot of quarters on the first two video games.  But those didn't build anything, there was nothing to build.

It's just a movie, likable main characters, fun adventures, little more.  You have to be seriously deluded to think otherwise, like you'd self-identify as a jedi or something stupid.

The lightsaber was a nifty movie weapon but they were rarely used in the original trilogy.  Yet ever since then, they've been thrown in everywhere, ruining everything.  And remember, Luke didn't even know what they were.  He asked what that was when old Ben took one out of an old trunk.

Luke didn't know what the Force was, he didn't know what Jedis were.  At most, everybody considered them some old myth, even though they were galaxy-famous in Luke's own lifetime.  It's like someone in his mid-twenties not believing that George Lucas made Star Wars movies, that's not how reality works, at least if you're sane.

But now the entire franchise, as a part of Disney's World, keeps imposing them more and more every year, insisting that everything they invent about them is some magical wonder.  What, are people going to hire a smuggler to get them into that $2500/night hotel that they're not allowed to leave?  [They can check out any time they like, but...]

Obviously there are some people who are dangerously-obsessed with this franchise.  It's tough to imagine how they could have gotten into positions of authority or influence over those in charge.  I wouldn't blame George Lucas for ruining my childhood - I blame Joe Chill for that - but it does look like the last several decades could be summarized as our self-appointed rulers thinking they could use the Star Wars franchise to imprison us all, and our younglings.

I know, if Lucas hadn't wanted to do a Flash Gordon movie, something else would have come along that would have been just as useful for our masters.  We don't know how much of this is planned and how much is just happenstance, but it gives us something to think about for a few decades while waiting in a desert for some kid to come along.

Hell, next they'll try to do a hotel where you can be in all the movies owned by Disney.  Now that actually sounds tempting but it won't be cheap, that's for sure.