Insights Into Entertainment: Episode 139 “A Whole New Show”

[INTRO THEME]

[INTRODUCTIONS] (2-3 minutes)
Insights Into Entertainment: Episode 139 “A Whole New Show”
My energized and revitalized co-host Michelle Whalen

[SHOW SUMMARY] (2-3 minutes)
When we started this podcast it was originally meant to be a deep dive into selected entertainment news and pop culture information that being die hard fans of a number of key areas of these topics we thought we could lend some unique perspective on
Over the course over 130 episodes we drifted away from that more to a reporting on current news and events with a little commentary mixed in
We’re hoping to get back to our original purpose starting with this episode
We’ll highlight a couple of significant events in the entertainment and pop culture worlds more from a deep dive and less from a reporting perspective
In today’s episode we’re taking a look at some interesting finds from the Disney Animation Research Library,
Then we’ll digest some of the feedback from the opening of the Galactic Starcruiser experience at Disney World.
We’ll also mark the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic film franchises in movie history before we take a peek at our experience at Nerd Fest this past weekend.

[Show Plugs] (2-3 minutes)
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[TRANSITION]

[SEGMENT 1: Disney Detective] (8-12 minutes)

https://nerdist.com/article/heres-what-its-like-to-visit-the-disney-animation-research-library/?utm_campaign=social%20flow&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR3mRPygN85ndlpsgC1AROY4cKI2hCUg5U60rjGeXenpD033IbbAE30N3Qw
https://bit.ly/3vLiMSf

Recently The Disney Animation Research Library (ARL) opened its doors for a group of reporters back in 2017.
They were going to be viewing original art from Pinocchio during the visit- nearly 80 years old pieces

The Disney Animation Research Library (ARL) is housed in a nondescript building in the vicinity of Disney‘s Los Angeles studios.
Inside its doors and temperature controlled vaults is a treasure trove of animation history. If an idea for a Disney animated film or short was sketched, designed, or put on paper (or even napkins) in any form, it’s inside the ARL.

The ARL isn’t accessible to the public, but they opened their doors to reporters to celebrate the January 31 home release of Pinocchio.
The film from 1940 about a puppet who longed to be a real boy was Disney’s second foray into animated features.

As the tour took place, they stopped by different departments in the library & they got close looks at pieces of Pinocchio’s past—art that was created before 1940, preserved and in front of our eyes.

They learned about the ARL’s purpose and processes as they all walked through the past.
The ARL is primarily about preservation. Their collection includes 65 million pieces in 11 vaults.
Drawings, concept art, cels, backgrounds, and even maquettes and puppets from films like The Nightmare Before Christmas are included in the number. They have items dating back to Oswald and stretching to Disney’s newest release, Moana.

Back in the day, most studios often threw out items after a movie was completed.
Thankfully NOT Walt Disney. He saved the work of his artists from the beginning in what he called a morgue.
He wanted to keep the art safe for decades to come and archive it for illustrators to reference in the future.
Now it is known that Walt would even hand out some Cells at Disneyland to passerbys. We know that not all the art was saved from the different movies, but it’s good to know that a good portion of it has been saved.

To that end, white gloves aren’t a fashion choice at the ARL; they’re worn by anyone handling the art in order to keep it safe.

One of the first places they went to on the tour was Walt’s Vault.
The secure room contains material associated with films and shorts made while Walt was alive, up through The Jungle Book.
The method of storage for items depends on the medium of the illustration; For example, anything done in pastels is kept in a special tray so as not to smudge the art when it’s stacked.
Binders lining the shelves are filled with story sketches in plastic sleeves. Large cabinets are home to vertically stored backgrounds.

Photographing or scanning the art and then going over the results for quality control isn’t the speediest of actions.
They met the group responsible for capturing the collection for computers, and they said they’ve tackled about one million pieces in seven years.
And it’s important to note: they don’t doctor or clean up any of the images unless the art is going out for media requests, etc.
In those cases, they’ll remove any extraneous things from the pictures, like cigarette burns.

The ARL isn’t a place anyone can visit.
The collection is a resource for film historians, researchers, and animators. Disney’s animators can visit in person or access the ever-growing digital database. A frame-by-frame look at a particular sequence or a study of any and all pieces related to characters dancing (it’s possible since every item in the digital database is tagged and searchable) might be just the spark of inspiration or reference an artist needs.

Pieces from the ARL are also pulled out for various events and exhibits.

ARL’s connection to Disney history is apparent in the lobby, which is the only place personal photos are allowed.
Over in the corner you can spot a piano.
It’s been played by the likes of Alan Menken and Richard Sherman.
And in the opposite corner, there’s the desk of Priscillano “Pres” Antonio Romanillos.
The animator worked on films such as The Little Mermaid and Mulan for Disney before his passing in 2010.
He etched the characters he worked on into the desk, which you can see in the above photo.

Take a tour with ARL manager of research Fox Carney in this video from Disney:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQoGpnLB6jg&t=3s

[AD 1: SSE]

[SEGMENT 2: Tales from the Edge of the Galaxy] (8-12 minutes)

https://nerdist.com/article/star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-review-immersiveness-activities-aliens/
https://bit.ly/3IH23mK
https://wdwnt.com/2022/03/honest-in-depth-review-of-the-star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-a-tremendous-groundbreaking-experience-at-a-bank-breaking-cost/
https://bit.ly/3ILdM3D

The Halcyon has finally launched to much fanfare
We’ve talked about the rumors, the accommodations, activities and most importantly the price
Now people are reporting back their first actual experience on board the fake star cruise to no where and the reviews are…interesting

It’s important to note that these first reviews are primarily from journalists who did not pay the exorbitant fee for “passage” that Disney is demanding.
So we have to take these reports with a grain of salt
I have to imagine if the person providing this information was actually required to fork over $4000+ for the experience they might have a different tone

One of the first reviews we digested was from noted pop-culture journalist Amy Ratcliffe
She notes, quite appropriately that as a single individual on the “cruise” it was impossible to experience everyone the Star Cruiser had to offer.

The first and not so insignificant feature is that upon your arrival you get “free” valet parking.
In light of Disney’s more recent nickel and dining tactic of charging resort guests for parking this is a bit of a pleasant surprise
However, given the fact that you’re paying the astronomical price they’re asking for such a short stay it’s really the least they could do

You also get a themed magic band upon check in
Again I can’t consider this “Free” since it’s obviously incorporated into the price
Trust me, Disney isn’t losing any money by giving you the magic band
In fact I have to imagine the margins they’re making on them are significantly higher than their normal upcharge for the annoying little pieces of plastic

Make sure you have your Datapad…I mean…your phone
As with most things in the parks now you’ll need to be toting you phone with you everywhere in order to do pretty much anything
Hopefully their cellular coverage is decent inside the enclosed experience, and I do hope they’ve got plenty of places to charge your devices you want to keep using it

There’s the pre-show video you watch.
Which is interesting since Disney typically uses these as a time burn so they can cram more people into a queue line
Hopefully it’s useful information and not the typical snoozefest of “Keep your hands and arms in the vehicle at all times”
I can’t imagine that applies in this case
But at this point you are now in the story apparently

By all accounts the rooms can sleep up to five, but would probably feel cramped with 5 and luggage
You get a queen bed, two bunk beds and a wall pull-down bed
You get a themed TV that has all the same Disney resort tv offerings
There is no room service
You do get your unusually bright window onto space that is synched to all other “windows” for realism
You can “shield” the window and turn it off for sleeping purposes
There’s a story based interface in the room for continuing quests with the ships logistics droid D3-O9

The Crown of Corellia Dining Room is where you’ll take your meals while on board
From what people have said so far it’s pretty good food
Breakfast and lunch are served buffet style with choice of blue milk and green milk just like in Galaxy’s Edge
While dinner is full tale service served family style with multiple courses but individually served desserts
Light snacks are available in the atrium but aren’t enough to impress
Grab and go breakfasts and light night snacks are available in the Sublight Lounge
The food is probably the higher end line of food with Star Wars themed names but mostly down to earth stuff outside of theming, typical Disney bland and neutral so everyone can enjoy style

Every Star Wars experience needs a cantina scene and that’s served up by the aforementioned Sublight Lounge
It’s a great place to meet up with friends at the end of the day and take in a few odd and perhaps unsavory characters
Your drinks are mixed at the bar, not prebatched like those at Oga’s in Galaxy’s Edge
Much like the food, the drinks are down to earth favorites themed and named to fit the experience
Then of course there’s the card games
There are holographic Sabaac tables, apparently a favorite of the kids

So what kind of immersive experience do you get for all that money?
Once you board the cruiser, you’re in your favorite galaxy far far away, at least that’s how the staff treat you, but that was supposed to be the same with Galaxy’s Edge and that promise fell flat in my own experience
If you come from Earth they treat you like an alien. It’s recommended to come with an in-universe back story of your own.
You’ll get unobtrusive history lessons about in universe characters like Shug Drabor if you bump into cast members
Cast members are reported to faithfully remain in character, not unexpected given rigid standards Disney imposes on their guest interacting cast members
Most of the story will flow through your “Datapad” (i.e. smart phone) so be prepared with extra batteries
The interaction with characters through the app is canned and an real on the rails feel without diversion, don’t expect any relationships from the app to translate into something meaningful with the cast
And it’s software driven, so expect bugs
Like repeated messages
Unsolicited or out of sequence messages
The immersion is itinerary driven and that itinerary changes depending on what missions you pick up
As a result it sounds a bit forced and their way of claiming everyone has a unique experience
Nothing described so far sounds like a natural reaction or a random encounter like you’d expect in a totally immersive experience
None of the things you do seems to have any impact on the outcome of the voyage or impact on any crew or other passengers which sounds rather isolating and disappointingly limited.
Without being able to influence the events the act of making choices seems pointless
One complication is that crew members are trying to accommodate multiple guests in different stages of their story so the interactions can be jarring and random

How about a rent-a-shuttle
So everyone’s heard there’s an excursion to Batuu (i.e. Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios)
This is accomplished via a box truck.
No really, it’s a box truck that you never see the exterior of
The inside is decorated to the 9’s, another nod to the magic of Disney and how effective they are at convincing us to give them so much money to ride in what is essentially the back of a U-Haul truck and thank them for it afterwards
You get lightning lane access to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Rise of the Resistance, very generous of Disney.
You’re setup with a meal from Docky bay 7 Food and Cargo, which is a fun experience while at Galaxy’s Edge
You can stop by Oga’s, but you don’t get an automatic reservation you’ll have to book that yourself
Anything you get at Oga’s is also on your dime too, Disney doesn’t include this in your astronomically priced package
Going on the two rides is tied to story missions from the “cruise” so they kind of auto complete just by doing what you’d normally do, and it sounds like the connect could easily be missed
Much of what you do on “Batuu” sounds like things that were originally promised with the opening of Galaxy’s edge but were never realized because there were just too many people to realistically pull it off
With a select few people from the “cruise” that started these missions in a more controlled setting you’re able to realize these things easier, when they work that is

Activities anyone?
You’ll have a few activities show up on your schedule automatically, these you don’t have much control over though you can try to reschedule
Given the number of activities available and the short stay you’ll have to make some choices as to what you want to do
Given the price tag, expecting someone to come back and do the things they didn’t have time to try is a bit of a big ask
Some of these activities like bridge and lightsaber training have been described as lackluster
There are invitations that take you on side quests pretty frequently similar to a choose your own adventure book or video game
There are unscheduled almost spontaneous things that happen that help to lend itself to the real life style feel they are trying to capture

The Story
Yes there’s a story, a very specific, very static and apparently very unchanging story despite any choices you make during your voyage
Sandwiched somewhere between the Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker you’re drawn into elements that might some disjointed if you’ve watched all the movies and are at the end of that story but it is inline with the story timeline of Galaxy’s Edge
It is “Disney’s Star Wars”, sadly it’s not “my” Star Wars so that’s a bit of a let down for long time die hard fans like me
The main story arcs resemble what Disney hand intended for Galaxy’s Edge but never fully realized it after launch, Resistance, First Order and Smuggler.
Compliments were paid for the efforts of the performers so that’s certainly worth mentioning
For being in a Star Wars Galaxy Far Far away apparently there’s an overall lack of two things you’d expect in that universe; droids and aliens.

Of course no Disney experience would be complete without the giftshop
There are two chances for Disney to wring more money out of your pockets
The Chandrila Collection is a small shop on board and then there is a small gift pop-up outside the terminal where you depart
You can pick up some Star Wars appropriate apparel and some Halcyon branded merchandise

Is it worth the price?
That’s the $4,809 question isn’t it?
One person who attended on a complimentary press preview doesn’t think so
After seeing what I’ve seen and reading what I’ve read I’d have to agree
Disney’s Non-existent cruise to no where at an astronomical price is a big ask, but it’s also inline with what seems to be the new target audience of 1 percenters that Disney appears to be aiming for
Short of hitting the lottery or getting a complimentary trip myself I’ll be avoiding this particular Disney money trap

[AD 2: TEENS]

[SEGMENT 3: Entertainment News] (8-12 minutes)

https://nypost.com/2022/02/25/talia-shire-on-50th-anniversary-of-classic-the-godfather/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter
https://bit.ly/3MoQF1c

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-godfather-coppola-anniversary-b2025549.html
https://bit.ly/3vHhsjw

It’s been described as the ‘Gone with the Wind of gangster movies’
It was cutting edge when it was originally released and still to this day stands the test of time
The movie that made us an offer we couldn’t refuse, The Godfather has turned 50
It’s also returning to limited cinemas to mark it’s epic anniversary and many of the stars of the movie have shared their thoughts on it’s legacy

Despite the anniversary you might wonder why a movie that is so ingrained in the American lexicon needs to be revived and celebrated.
It’s so popular today you’d think it was just released in theaters last year
But the landmark series has been released several times over its lifespan, and now it’s available in 4k.
Though given some of the intensely graphic scenes I’m not really sure we needed them in any higher definition, it’s almost gratuitous…who are we kidding, it was gratuitous from the start, 4k is just excessive.

To suggest that it reinvigorated the career of movie titan Marlon Brando is probably a bit of an overreach, but it certainly did help to bring him in from the cold and show a depth and side of his acting everyone knew was there but now it was in the spotlight
The Godfather saw the anointing of the next generation of greats with Al Pacino, James Caan and Diane Keaton filling prominent roles and springboarding into incredibly successful careers.

Despite the crime, violence and incredible one liners the Godfather was a movie about family
This was a theme that 29 year old Francis Ford Coppola took to heart when he cast his sister to play such a pivotal role of Connie Corleone
In a recent interview Talia Shire talked about the decision to cast her in the movie.
“I wouldn’t have had me on the set” she says
“…the last thing he needed was his sister at that time…it added one more tension for him.”
Speaking about a particularly violent scene she had to pull off in the movie Shire goes on to say
“It’s a rough thing to see a pregnant woman being knocked around.”
“…I had to move from place to place, and I was honestly terrified because you didn’t want to do another take. Another take meant everything had to be reset, and I just wanted to keep going and sometimes things wouldn’t break.”
“…I remember my shoes came off, and I kept running, hoping, ‘Feet don’t fail me now. An dI Don’t want to get cut’

By most accounts the movie was hell to shoot
There were reports of a running battle between Coppola and his bosses at Paramount and even his own crew at times.
Casting decisions and the dark style of the directing were constantly questioned and Coppola lived in constant fear he was about to be sacked.
Even in post-production his choice of Italian maestro Nino Rota was questioned, causing Coppola to bluff his bosses by threatening to have his name removed from the movie if they didn’t go along with him.

“…it was a waltz”
Talia Shire described her brother characterizing the movie as a waltz
“…this endless cycle of the family had the sense of a waltz to it”
It’s hard to argue that after having watched the movie.
It certainly didn’t strike you as the typical gangster movies we’ve seen up to that point
Which was the problem for Paramount, it was too much of a gamble essentially

The one liners
“Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me”
It’s hard to hear those words and not think of a man aged beyond his years through an incredibly artistic makeup job and a mouth full of cotton

“Don’t ask me about my business kay”
Even before Fight Club (which we don’t talk about) Michael Corleone set the precedent of how to handle things you don’t want to know the truth about.

“Take the gun, leave the Cannoli”
Some might say these are words to live by. For me, it’s the first line out of my mouth whenever I walk into a bakery.

“I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart”
If you’re ever looking for the most poetically perfect way to tell your brother you know his secret you couldn’t ask for a better line.

“Revenge is a dish best served cold”
While this is attributed to an old Klingon proverb, the Klingons probably got it from this movie.

“I believe in America”
In our current state of political upheaval this line is incredibly poignant and tell us that America is what you make of it. It was as true then as it is today

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse”
Yes, this line is so well delivered and so perfect in the movie that it appears twice in our breakdown. 50 years later, people dream of a chance to use this line any chance they get

The Godfather is so much a part of our culture that it’s hard to believe it’s just a movie
It was a self-reflective look at a country during some of its most formative years
It’s a shining example of how certain aspects of the population exploited their opportunities,and bent, broke, bought and rewrote the rules of the land to their favor
It’s not biographical, nor is it historical but there are enough grains of truth in the film to make us question reality and look at the world differently and we’ve never gone back to the way it was before the Godfather
There are few films that can stand the test of time 50 years later and still maintain their relevance
There are even fewer that can be so impactful on society and never miss a beat in telling and retelling the story of a nation through a fictional portrayal of a small subset of the population
I have little doubt that the Godfather will still be relevant in another 50 years

[TRANSITION]

After Thoughts

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[SEGMENT 4: Insightful Picks of the Week] (8-12 minutes)

Michelle
Severance
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11280740/
Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.
“Severance” takes as its starting point a unique solution to the work-life balance crisis, one offered by a veteran U.S. corporation called Lumon Industries. “What don’t they make?” asks one awestruck employee about this opaque organization.
Lumon has perfected a process that ensures employees never bring their work home with them, a surgical procedure that in effect turns a worker into two people: the “outtie” who turns up at the company daily at 9 A.M. and goes home at 5 P.M.; and their “innie” alter ego, who exists only in the workplace from 9 to 5 and has no concept of life outside the concrete complex where they work – no awareness of wars, politics, family tensions, social media.
For starters, the procedure that plants a device in your brain, separating your workplace and home-life memories, is irreversible. Then there’s the work environment on the “severed floor” (of course you have to descend, hellbound, to get there), which consists of a warren of never-ending white corridors and sterile office spaces a hospital would envy.
As for the work performed by the four members of the “macrodata refinement” department that the story is centered around, let’s just say that when someone calls it “mysterious and important,” they are half right. (One of the show’s great conceits is that no one actually understands what their work achieves.)
Of course, as with any workplace-set show, the dynamic between the four colleagues, plus their relations with their bosses, is integral to the success of the show, even one as lofty as this. And this is where it really scores, giving characters to care about, humanizing an inhumane concept.
Joe

00:00:01:23 – 00:00:07:26
Michelle
Insightful podcasts. By informative host.

00:00:11:09 – 00:00:16:25
Michelle
Of insights into things.

00:00:18:02 – 00:00:19:10
Michelle
A podcast network.

00:00:27:26 – 00:00:48:00
Michelle
Welcome to Insights into Entertainment, a podcast series taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Your hosts, Joseph and Michelle Whalen, a husband and wife team of pop culture fanatics are exploring all things from music and movies to television and fandom.

00:00:51:05 – 00:00:56:28
Joseph
Welcome to insights into entertainment. This is episode 139.

00:00:57:01 – 00:00:58:02
Joseph
A whole new.

00:00:58:02 – 00:01:07:21
Joseph
Show. I’m your host, Joseph Whalen, and my energized and revitalized co-host Michelle Whalen.

00:01:07:27 – 00:01:08:15
Michelle
Hi there.

00:01:08:26 – 00:01:09:26
Joseph
How are you doing today, dear?

00:01:11:23 – 00:01:12:13
Michelle
I guess I’m.

00:01:13:05 – 00:01:13:12
Michelle
Yeah.

00:01:14:23 – 00:01:19:29
Joseph
So we have been talking about making a change to the show format for quite some time now.

00:01:20:03 – 00:01:21:08
Michelle
Yes, we have.

00:01:21:16 – 00:01:30:02
Joseph
I wanted to wait until we got to a more momentous number. I thought 139 was kind of rather obscure, but that’s fine, I guess.

00:01:31:11 – 00:01:32:19
Michelle
Since we’re all about.

00:01:32:23 – 00:01:34:04
Michelle
Being obscure, right?

00:01:34:06 – 00:01:35:10
Joseph
That’s our theme, right?

00:01:35:10 – 00:01:35:23
Michelle
Right.

00:01:36:06 – 00:01:51:15
Joseph
So when we started the podcast, it was originally meant to be a deep dove into selected entertainment news and pop culture information. But being die hard fans of a number of these key areas of these topics, we thought we could learn some unique perspective on.

00:01:52:15 – 00:02:09:27
Joseph
Well, over the course of 130 episodes or so, we kind of drifted away from that into more of a reporting on current news and events with a little bit of commentary mixed in. So our hope is to get back into our original purpose starting with this episode.

00:02:10:25 – 00:02:28:00
Joseph
Will highlight a couple of significant events in the entertainment and pop culture worlds, from a more deep dove perspective and less from a reporting perspective. And in today’s episode, we’re going to take a look at some interesting findings from the Disney Animation Research Library.

00:02:28:29 – 00:02:40:02
Joseph
Then we’ll digest some of the feedback from the opening of the Galactic Star Cruiser Experience and Disney World down to your Star Wars segment case, folks at home didn’t know that.

00:02:40:20 – 00:02:42:04
Michelle
Just in case you were wondering.

00:02:42:06 – 00:02:46:13
Joseph
It’s not meant to be to Disney stories back to back. This is a dedicated Disney.

00:02:46:13 – 00:02:47:16
Michelle
Podcast, right?

00:02:48:14 – 00:03:08:28
Joseph
Will also mark the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic film franchises in movie history. Before we take a look at our experience at Nerd Fest this past weekend with a little bit of video footage. Before we do that, though, I would invite our listening and viewing audience to subscribe to the podcast.

00:03:09:20 – 00:03:28:24
Joseph
You can find audio versions of this podcast listed as insights in the entertainment, video versions and audio. We’re publishing both on our insights into things podcasts now. And you can find both of those listed on Google, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon.

00:03:29:05 – 00:03:45:15
Joseph
It’s important to kind of point out the reason that we do a separate audio. one is there are certain news, certain podcast feeds that don’t do a hybrid of video and audio, Spotify being one of those. But there’s a few others.

00:03:45:15 – 00:03:51:17
Joseph
So if we did just the hybrid, we couldn’t get listed on Spotify, so we have to do just an audio.

00:03:51:23 – 00:03:52:24
Michelle
Gotcha. That makes.

00:03:52:24 – 00:03:53:02
Michelle
Sense.

00:03:53:02 – 00:04:08:03
Joseph
Spotify. We would also invite you to write into us, give us your feedback, tell us what you like, what you don’t like, give us your conventions and shows you like us to plug. You can email us at comments and insights into things dot com.

00:04:09:02 – 00:04:26:02
Joseph
We are on Twitter at at what insights on the score? Things. I’m sorry. I’m looking at a monitor that’s black on one side. I’m trying to figure out why. We’re also on Facebook at Facebook Dot Com Slash Insights Into Things podcast.

00:04:26:17 – 00:04:41:02
Joseph
We’re on Instagram at Instagram dot com slash insights into things. Or you can find links to all those and much more on our official website at WW W that insights into things. Dot com, shall we get started? Sure.

00:04:47:27 – 00:04:50:04
Joseph
So what’s our first thing to talk about today?

00:04:50:05 – 00:05:09:04
Michelle
So the first thing actually came from the Nerdist, and this was actually an article that was from a couple of years ago. But it was interesting enough to to talk about because it’s an area of Disney that not a lot of people know about, and it’s something that’s actually not open to the public.

00:05:09:10 – 00:05:32:22
Michelle
But for this event that they had, they actually allowed some reporters in. So that was kind of how the story came to be. So recently, again, well, it wasn’t recently. It was back in 2017, the Disney Animation Research Library, known as the April, opened its doors for a group of reporters.

00:05:33:04 – 00:05:50:24
Michelle
They were going to be viewing some original art from Pinocchio during the visit. It was the special 80th anniversary of Pinocchio. They were going to be rereleasing it onto Blu ray at the time. And so that was why they had this event.

00:05:51:08 – 00:06:11:25
Michelle
So the Disney Animation Research Library is housed in a nondescript building in the vicinity of Disney’s Lord near Disney’s Los Angeles studios. So inside its doors, it’s temperature controlled vaults, and it’s basically a treasure trove of animation history.

00:06:13:00 – 00:06:35:01
Michelle
So there are things from sketches, things that are on paper, things that are even written on napkins that are in this, this whole archived area. And of course, like I had said, it’s not accessible to the public, but they open their doors to reporters to celebrate the home release of Pinocchio.

00:06:36:16 – 00:06:56:17
Michelle
So as the tour was going on in the article there, you know you see all these different departments and all these different areas, and they had laid out a whole area of different artwork from just Pinocchio. And what was interesting was, you know, this was original stuff.

00:06:56:17 – 00:07:17:09
Michelle
This was from like 19 4080 year old, you know, pieces of paper. And what’s you know, because excuse me, because of the sensitivity of it, you have to wear it. They don’t even want you touching it. But anybody that’s handling it, it’s just like any other.

00:07:18:17 – 00:07:41:28
Michelle
Archivist artifacts wearing the white gloves and being very careful with it, and what was interesting was to see certain scenes that weren’t in the movie that there was a whole musical number that they had wanted to do, but because of timing, they didn’t add it to the movie.

00:07:41:28 – 00:07:59:11
Michelle
But they have all this original artwork for it. You know that they’ve still, you know, held on to. So, you know, during the tour they were talking about what the purpose was and the processes that they go through.

00:08:00:01 – 00:08:25:00
Michelle
And it’s, you know, obviously, though, the research library, it’s mostly about preservation. Their collection includes 65 million pieces in eleven different vaults. So that’s from drawings, concept art cells, backgrounds, cats and even puppets from like the Nightmare Before Christmas are included.

00:08:25:22 – 00:08:47:13
Michelle
They have things going all the way back to Oswald, the lucky rabbit, and obviously even, you know, the current movies as well. There’s stuff there. So what’s interesting is, you know, back in the day, most studios threw out items once a movie was completed, but thankfully not Walt Disney.

00:08:47:13 – 00:09:06:06
Michelle
He saved a lot of his work so that the artists. And what’s interesting is they they actually started calling it the morgue where all these past projects were. But the idea was that his artists would be able if they needed inspiration or they needed to see something.

00:09:06:10 – 00:09:27:11
Michelle
They basically had their own research library to go back and look through. Now, one of the things that most Disney fans know is that back in the day, Walt actually used to give away certain pieces of art. If you went to Disneyland, if you know what happened to be there on a day when you were visiting and

00:09:27:11 – 00:09:35:18
Michelle
you were walking through the park, you might actually get an original cell from a movie. So it’s kind of funny how certain things were kind of given away.

00:09:35:27 – 00:09:46:03
Joseph
So is this something where there are they just responsible for preserving what they have? Or do they try to reclaim some of these things that got out into the public domain?

00:09:46:18 – 00:10:03:10
Michelle
In the article, it doesn’t. They don’t mention anything about that, and there’s actually a video that they had done a live stream of a tour of it. So they don’t talk about doing trying to get anything back. But a lot of what they do is they do.

00:10:03:11 – 00:10:24:03
Michelle
They are trying to digitalize a lot of it. But also what they’re doing too is in most cases, in the preservation of it, they’re not trying to fix anything. So if there’s any sort of mistake on something, they’re keeping that original mistake in it.

00:10:24:27 – 00:10:39:00
Michelle
They did say if it was something where it was going to be a rerelease of something, they might go in if there was like a coffee stain or a cigaret stain or or something, that would be the only thing that they would really kind of clean up.

00:10:39:06 – 00:10:43:03
Michelle
But everything else, they wanted to leave it as is.

00:10:43:04 – 00:10:51:18
Joseph
So now you had mentioned that they don’t the public obviously doesn’t have general access rights. Do they pull these items out to take them on tour?

00:10:51:20 – 00:10:51:24
Michelle
Yeah.

00:10:52:08 – 00:11:08:15
Michelle
And that’s one of the things that they they talked about is that they do from time to time for special events or things, you know, things will kind of be on loan that will go out. So I was thinking when we went to the one fan of grocery event.

00:11:08:16 – 00:11:27:06
Michelle
Now granted, that was so this is all animation stuff. So this isn’t even the the live action movie, but we know that they have their own area for all of that stuff as well, because the different shows that have come out on Disney Plus, talk about it.

00:11:27:06 – 00:11:45:27
Michelle
And that’s where you find, you know, the different collectors who have this and that and where when we went to a fan of nursery, they had Mary Poppins hat, and that was something nobody could touch it. It was only handled by one person and he was wearing the white gloves.

00:11:46:06 – 00:11:49:03
Michelle
You know, so that’s something that’s in a different vault. So.

00:11:49:15 – 00:11:56:16
Joseph
So to that end, I have to assume that when this material was originally created in the thirties, forties and.

00:11:56:21 – 00:11:57:15
Michelle
Fifties, yeah.

00:11:57:24 – 00:12:02:11
Joseph
It was never intended to be created with the the idea of preserving it.

00:12:02:12 – 00:12:02:25
Michelle
Right?

00:12:02:26 – 00:12:12:28
Joseph
So do they takes are there? Is there a scientific process they go through that they treat these things differently, like how do they preserve that stuff that wasn’t intended to be preserved?

00:12:12:29 – 00:12:28:12
Michelle
Well, and that’s the thing is, you know, I guess the idea. You have to figure going back, you know, so many years. He you know what was really the first person to say, Hey, let’s hold on to some of this stuff.

00:12:28:12 – 00:12:46:23
Michelle
This might, you know, be useful for us. So, you know, you figure he it was probably preserved, you know, in some way, but nothing like what they would have now. And I’m guessing, you know, they never thought, Oh, we’re going to digitize this or we’re going to.

00:12:47:03 – 00:12:47:22
Michelle
You know, is that.

00:12:47:22 – 00:12:52:14
Joseph
one of the techniques that they use? Are they actually taking the material they have now digitized?

00:12:52:15 – 00:12:54:01
Michelle
Yes, that’s consumption, right?

00:12:54:01 – 00:13:14:02
Michelle
And that’s what they’re doing with a lot of stuff just so that they can have it just as a, you know, a backup to something because obviously paper can only last, you know, so long. And and the idea is obviously they they try not to touch certain things over and over and over again.

00:13:14:02 – 00:13:29:25
Michelle
So a lot of the stuff stays in the vault, you know, unless it needs to come out or a certain artist can request, you know, to see certain things, you know, so it’s basically an insider’s.

00:13:30:04 – 00:13:30:24
Michelle
Lie.

00:13:31:03 – 00:13:41:03
Joseph
That they talk anything about the process of like, for instance, they’re going through and creating live action versions of a lot of animated films.

00:13:41:04 – 00:13:41:15
Michelle
Right?

00:13:41:16 – 00:13:46:24
Joseph
So do they happen to talk to anything about how the artists are actually going back and accessing this information?

00:13:46:25 – 00:13:47:20
Michelle
No, they didn’t lose.

00:13:47:25 – 00:14:09:01
Michelle
They didn’t mention that. And and I’m sure that that’s probably something that that they are doing to be able to go back and maybe even find scenes again. You know, they talk about in Pinocchio, the one scene, excuse me, that they they were showing that they were, you know, that they had laid out with something that pretty

00:14:09:01 – 00:14:27:18
Michelle
much nobody in the public had ever seen before. So I’m sure what some of these other animated movies, there’s probably some inspiration that you know, these moviemakers are getting from looking at some of the original art, but it doesn’t talk about that.

00:14:27:18 – 00:14:29:02
Michelle
And in this article.

00:14:29:02 – 00:14:33:02
Joseph
So I’m going to I’m going to run the slideshow we have of the art of.

00:14:33:02 – 00:14:33:18
Michelle
Sure.

00:14:34:05 – 00:14:35:13
Joseph
So that we can actually take a look at.

00:14:35:13 – 00:14:35:24
Michelle
Some.

00:14:35:24 – 00:14:53:20
Michelle
Yeah. So here are some of the original art. This was this was interesting. They mention that in the the area they have. This was a desk from one of the Disney artists who had so.

00:14:53:20 – 00:14:55:11
Joseph
They preserved his entire work.

00:14:55:13 – 00:15:12:15
Michelle
Right? He had, yeah, unfortunately, he had passed away and after he had passed away, they had moved his desk to this area. In this lobby area, there’s a piano, and there’s a little sign saying that the Sherman brothers and Alan Menken had played on this piano.

00:15:12:15 – 00:15:35:08
Michelle
So it wasn’t just, you know, a piano. It actually meant something. So here’s a vault with all of the, you know, rows and rows some of the original maquettes of Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. You know, it’s like that’s priceless when you when you, you know, think of of how much.

00:15:35:12 – 00:15:40:06
Joseph
So obviously they did this because of the pennacchio of it.

00:15:40:18 – 00:15:40:26
Michelle
Right.

00:15:41:00 – 00:15:45:14
Joseph
They opened this up in the past before. Are they planning on doing it again?

00:15:46:14 – 00:16:09:26
Michelle
In this article, it doesn’t mention anything about it. It sounded like it was kind of a once in a lifetime thing. But again, it’s been, you know, it’s been a number of years since this article came out. And, you know, being members, you know, having a Disney Plus subscription, there’s a lot of these different collectible shows that

00:16:09:27 – 00:16:29:11
Michelle
have come up and documentary type shows about the parks and about the movies and about certain animation. So I have a feeling it’s one of those things where, you know, maybe every now and then they’ll kind of, you know, let a little bit out kind of like with, you know, Skywalker.

00:16:30:11 – 00:16:39:26
Michelle
You know, with that with Lucasfilm, you know, they don’t do tours, but every now and then something comes up where they, you know, open it up.

00:16:39:28 – 00:16:43:28
Joseph
Speaking of tours, so they they they’re going through the process of digitizing all this.

00:16:43:28 – 00:16:44:10
Michelle
Stuff, right?

00:16:44:18 – 00:16:50:13
Joseph
Have they made any kind of digital tours available or anything like that online available?

00:16:50:18 – 00:17:09:01
Michelle
Well, the only thing that was available at the end of the article there is a YouTube video. And what was interesting was it was actually when the tour was was being filmed, it was actually live streamed. So Disney Parks well was live streaming this.

00:17:09:01 – 00:17:22:11
Michelle
And basically, I don’t know if he was the head or he’s like the top curator. He was the one that was giving the tours and kind of like, Hey, in this, this is, you know, this department and this is this department.

00:17:23:11 – 00:17:43:17
Michelle
And people could actually type their questions. And he was answering live questions as it was going on. So it’s kind of interesting. So they haven’t done anything since then. But to be able, you know, you can go and watch the video now and and learn about the the area and they talk about how, you know, we’re not

00:17:43:17 – 00:17:49:10
Michelle
open to the public. So this is a very rare opportunity to be able to enjoy.

00:17:49:13 – 00:17:54:01
Joseph
So I assume it’s more of an archival type facility rather than a museum.

00:17:54:05 – 00:17:55:21
Michelle
Yes. Yes. Mm-Hmm.

00:17:55:25 – 00:18:00:09
Michelle
Yeah, it’s really they’re their own research library, which, you.

00:18:00:09 – 00:18:00:27
Michelle
Know, you said.

00:18:00:27 – 00:18:02:11
Joseph
This is just the animation.

00:18:02:13 – 00:18:04:05
Michelle
This is just the animation.

00:18:04:10 – 00:18:06:07
Joseph
So resources, they’ve got dedicated.

00:18:06:08 – 00:18:25:14
Michelle
Yeah, so 65 million pieces of artwork. And like I said, I had always heard, you know, that Walt would hand out sell. So could you imagine all the stuff that he gave away and you figure they probably didn’t save everything from the movie?

00:18:25:14 – 00:18:37:15
Michelle
They probably, you know, saved a good portion of it. And, you know, so how much would it have been if they had saved everything? And even when you look at. So I don’t know, was it two years ago?

00:18:37:15 – 00:19:05:13
Michelle
I guess maybe there was the it was a documentary that they did on Disney Plus, and it was for Frozen two and the whole process that they had. And again, you know, nowadays the the the modern movies are 90% digital, but there’s a lot of stuff that gets printed out or whatever, and you see them going through

00:19:05:13 – 00:19:14:14
Michelle
like their dailies and they have, you know, this pile of of of scenes and we’re scrapping this and they just throw it out. And that’s.

00:19:14:14 – 00:19:22:23
Joseph
The thing. Like even even scripts, you know, you go through multiple revisions of scripts before you get to your final script and those edits are happening.

00:19:23:05 – 00:19:24:25
Michelle
You know, on the fly and shooting.

00:19:24:26 – 00:19:25:24
Michelle
Right, right, right.

00:19:25:26 – 00:19:31:24
Joseph
So even like a sheet that’s thrown away from that, you know, would certainly be.

00:19:32:01 – 00:19:32:15
Michelle
Yeah, it’s a.

00:19:32:15 – 00:19:32:29
Joseph
Fine.

00:19:33:00 – 00:19:52:29
Michelle
Right. So just seeing in that, you know, a stack of paper just. Yeah. Like, wow. Yes. So, yeah, it was it was like I said it was an older article, but it was again something that most people don’t know about and kind of an interesting peek behind the curtain, really.

00:19:53:03 – 00:20:02:13
Joseph
Very cool. But we’ll come back and we’re going to talk about a Star Wars story again, part of which was source from the Nerdist. So good resources week for.

00:20:02:23 – 00:20:03:03
Michelle
Yeah.

00:20:04:12 – 00:20:06:20
Speaker 8
Uh.

00:20:12:09 – 00:20:37:23
Joseph
For over seven years, the second Sith empire has been the Premiere Community Guild in the online game Star Wars The Old Republic, with hundreds of friendly and helpful active members, a weekly schedule of nightly events, annual guild meet and greets, and an active community both on the web and on Discord.

00:20:38:25 – 00:21:05:00
Joseph
The second Sydney Empire is more than your typical gaming group. We’re family. Joining us on the star forward server for nightly events such as operations, flashpoints, world boss funds, Star Wars trivia, job lottery and much more. Visit us on the Web today at WW Dot, the second surf.

00:21:05:01 – 00:21:09:10
Speaker 2
And fire dot com. What?

00:21:18:12 – 00:21:39:18
Joseph
So the Halcyon has finally launched to much fanfare. We’ve talked about the rumors, we’ve talked about the accommodations and the activities, and most importantly, we’ve talked about the price. Now people are reporting back their first actual experiences on board the fake star cruiser to nowhere.

00:21:40:08 – 00:22:01:02
Joseph
And the reviews are interesting. Hmm. So it’s important to note that the first few reviews are primarily from journalists who did not pay an exorbitant fee for the passage on this ridiculously expensive cruise. So we kind of have to take these reports with a bit of a grain of salt.

00:22:02:07 – 00:22:07:27
Joseph
I also have to imagine that the person providing this information was actually required to fork over the 4000 plus dollars.

00:22:08:16 – 00:22:08:22
Joseph
For.

00:22:08:22 – 00:22:18:16
Joseph
The experience. It might have a different tone to it. So they tend to be a little upbeat, but with the caveat of Hey, I didn’t pay for this in front of the pay for it. I probably like it a lot more, too.

00:22:19:13 – 00:22:35:26
Joseph
So one of the first reviews that we digested was from noted pop culture journalist Amy Ratcliffe, and she notes quite appropriately that as a single individual on the cruise, it was impossible to experience everything the star cruiser had to offer.

00:22:36:10 – 00:22:50:01
Joseph
And that was one of the probably more disturbing things here is that they take the same theme with the Star Cruises that they do with everything else that, oh well, there’s too much to experience here, and you just experience the rest the next time you come back.

00:22:50:03 – 00:22:50:15
Michelle
Hmm.

00:22:50:19 – 00:23:03:24
Joseph
And it’s like, we’re not coming back again. Like, like remortgage, the house to get here. So you need to give me everything at one shot because there’s just not enough. There’s no way we’re going to get back to this.

00:23:03:25 – 00:23:04:17
Michelle
Right, right.

00:23:06:01 – 00:23:24:00
Joseph
The first not so insignificant feature that you get is free valet parking, which you know, in light of Disney’s more recent nickel and diming tactic of charging resort guests for parking. This is kind of a pleasant surprise, but for $4,000, you really are paying for your valet parking.

00:23:24:00 – 00:23:24:25
Michelle
Aren’t you right?

00:23:24:26 – 00:23:25:17
Michelle
Exactly.

00:23:25:18 – 00:23:27:15
Joseph
So let’s not let’s not read too much.

00:23:27:15 – 00:23:28:08
Michelle
Into it, right?

00:23:30:04 – 00:23:42:01
Joseph
You also get a themed magic band at Check In, which is one of their big selling points here. And again, I can’t consider it free, since obviously that cost is incorporated in the price.

00:23:42:02 – 00:23:42:11
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00:23:43:00 – 00:23:46:21
Joseph
Not that I’m saying take these things away and lower the price because they won’t.

00:23:46:21 – 00:24:13:20
Michelle
But but what was interesting was I saw I happened to see. So I have a Disney Facebook friend who just went on it, so he paid for it. He wasn’t part of the freebie. And in their little pop up, they actually you could actually buy a magic band that actually was a little bit more decorative.

00:24:13:21 – 00:24:14:06
Michelle
OK.

00:24:14:08 – 00:24:26:05
Michelle
But it was after your trip had already finished, which I thought was kind of funny. Right, right? You would think, Oh, well, here’s the free one. You the free one you get. Can I bring it up? No, you have to wait till after you’ve gotten back.

00:24:26:05 – 00:24:26:18
Michelle
So I thought.

00:24:26:18 – 00:24:27:00
Michelle
That was going to.

00:24:27:06 – 00:24:28:05
Joseph
Say you had the bragging.

00:24:28:05 – 00:24:28:23
Michelle
Right? Right.

00:24:28:23 – 00:24:30:18
Michelle
Exactly, Luke, what I got. Yeah.

00:24:30:21 – 00:24:40:02
Joseph
The one thing I never saw, there were two articles I dug for on this, and the one thing that came out of both of these that was significant is you need make sure you have your data pad.

00:24:40:06 – 00:24:40:18
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00:24:40:20 – 00:24:41:14
Joseph
Essentially, your.

00:24:41:14 – 00:24:42:16
Michelle
Phone. Right?

00:24:42:20 – 00:24:56:06
Joseph
Because so much of what you do is tied to the app with your itinerary and your interactions and translations and scanning and all this stuff. The problem you run into is, is your phone going to last the entire time?

00:24:56:07 – 00:25:11:12
Michelle
Right. And that was one of the things I had read also was make sure you pack multiple battery backups. And I’m kind of surprised that they didn’t come up with something for you to use that wasn’t your.

00:25:11:12 – 00:25:12:07
Michelle
Phone, right?

00:25:12:09 – 00:25:14:04
Michelle
Like some sort of.

00:25:14:07 – 00:25:15:22
Joseph
Right like here, here’s a loner.

00:25:15:23 – 00:25:17:20
Michelle
Tablet or that or something, right?

00:25:17:21 – 00:25:23:15
Michelle
Something like that. So that this way almost so that you couldn’t access the outside world.

00:25:23:16 – 00:25:23:27
Michelle
Right?

00:25:23:28 – 00:25:25:10
Michelle
Like in a way like that.

00:25:25:11 – 00:25:27:08
Joseph
Right to kind of isolate you to that.

00:25:27:09 – 00:25:27:26
Michelle
And keep right.

00:25:27:26 – 00:25:44:05
Michelle
To keep you in the experience like hear something and that it would link up to other people that you were on the cruise with? Right. So that you could kind of mix and mingle, you know, with others if you were going to do any of the the adventures?

00:25:44:06 – 00:25:59:22
Joseph
Sure. So there is a kind of a they talk about a pre-show that you have when you check in, so you get valet park, you wind up going into, I guess, a spaceport type thing and you get kind of your pre-show video to get you into the mood.

00:26:00:09 – 00:26:04:09
Joseph
And from then on, you’re on the ship, you’re immersed.

00:26:04:13 – 00:26:04:24
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00:26:09:05 – 00:26:22:16
Joseph
I don’t know. I don’t know if I need that, that kind of. Because usually when Disney does their pre shows, it’s basically to make it more palatable, stand in line. So it almost makes me think, OK, all right.

00:26:22:25 – 00:26:39:13
Joseph
They’re bringing them in and twos and threes. We’re bringing all these people in. Am I literally just standing here watching this pre-show show so I can get into the next room because there’s people in there right now? So it kind of makes me think that it’s really just Disney’s way of throttling the the passage into the building

00:26:39:13 – 00:26:40:20
Michelle
. It’s okay. I could see that.

00:26:40:27 – 00:26:50:23
Joseph
But this is supposed to kick off your story, so give them a little bit of credit for that. Mm hmm. I hope it’s just not your typical, you know, snooze fest to keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times.

00:26:50:24 – 00:26:51:22
Michelle
Right, right.

00:26:54:04 – 00:27:10:00
Joseph
So the rooms, OK, so it’s worthwhile talking about the room. So the journalists themselves did not get to stay in the in the state rooms suites. They got to stay in the standard room, which as a non one percenter, we probably wouldn’t be in the state rooms either.

00:27:10:01 – 00:27:10:27
Michelle
Right, right.

00:27:11:05 – 00:27:19:27
Joseph
So they talk about the fact that you get the rooms can sleep up to five. They say it will probably be cramped with five in their luggage.

00:27:19:29 – 00:27:20:11
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00:27:20:17 – 00:27:24:10
Joseph
But you make the point of how much luggage you’re really bringing for two nights.

00:27:24:12 – 00:27:39:09
Michelle
Right? Because my whole point is if we were going down and we were staying, we would probably leave all the luggage that we didn’t need right in the car. Now, granted, if you were flying down, that would be a little bit different.

00:27:40:02 – 00:27:53:29
Michelle
You know, I don’t know if they have someplace where you can leave your extra luggage. But the other thing too is how much time are you spending in your room? You should really only be sleeping and getting ready for the well.

00:27:54:01 – 00:27:54:12
Michelle
You would.

00:27:54:12 – 00:27:57:25
Joseph
Think. But apparently the the room itself is part of the story.

00:27:57:25 – 00:27:58:20
Michelle
Itself because.

00:27:58:20 – 00:27:58:28
Michelle
It is.

00:27:58:29 – 00:28:02:04
Joseph
Criminal that you have there in the terminal, inside you, where you have to go and you.

00:28:02:05 – 00:28:02:19
Michelle
Write that.

00:28:02:19 – 00:28:03:12
Joseph
Communication.

00:28:03:13 – 00:28:04:08
Michelle
True, true.

00:28:04:19 – 00:28:16:22
Joseph
But the room itself, the standard rooms come with a queen bed, two bunk beds and then there’s a pull down. Similar to what we ran into when we at the contemporary one right there, just a little extra space for one of the kids.

00:28:16:24 – 00:28:17:17
Michelle
Right, right.

00:28:18:25 – 00:28:27:09
Joseph
You get a TV that steam. That’s basically just looks like a Star Wars style screen, but it’s basically a regular TV.

00:28:27:10 – 00:28:27:18
Michelle
Right?

00:28:27:19 – 00:28:39:02
Michelle
I think Disney Plus is included. Because the one person I saw was like, 00, look, cars three. Yeah. You know, exists in Star Wars or something. It was kind.

00:28:39:02 – 00:28:40:01
Michelle
Of, Oh, okay.

00:28:40:19 – 00:28:43:26
Joseph
There’s no room service. So that was kind of.

00:28:44:09 – 00:28:44:16
Michelle
That.

00:28:44:16 – 00:28:47:08
Michelle
Is weird because even on a cruise.

00:28:47:08 – 00:28:47:29
Michelle
You can get you.

00:28:47:29 – 00:28:49:00
Michelle
Can still get.

00:28:49:05 – 00:28:55:02
Joseph
So not sure why. I think maybe they were trying to keep people from spending too much time in their rooms.

00:28:55:02 – 00:28:56:17
Michelle
With maybe I could see that.

00:28:57:00 – 00:29:03:24
Joseph
Flashing because the venues for getting your food are large, the a lot of the story revolves around it.

00:29:03:26 – 00:29:04:08
Michelle
Right?

00:29:04:09 – 00:29:09:24
Joseph
The cantina and the restaurant. So they don’t want people sitting in their rooms, I guess, because you’re not right.

00:29:09:25 – 00:29:15:27
Michelle
I wonder if it was something where, you know, at 11:00 at night, if you wanted something to eat, could you.

00:29:16:19 – 00:29:18:00
Michelle
Do a snack?

00:29:18:01 – 00:29:18:28
Joseph
They’ve got snacks.

00:29:19:02 – 00:29:19:20
Michelle
OK, go.

00:29:19:20 – 00:29:35:05
Joseph
And get at. one of the one of the areas do have snacks. No. Talk about that later in the article. OK? You don’t get windows. So once you walked into the building, the only place you can see the outside world is either on your excursion to Bittu.

00:29:35:23 – 00:29:36:00
Joseph
Or.

00:29:36:01 – 00:29:38:19
Joseph
They have an environment simulator.

00:29:38:19 – 00:29:39:28
Michelle
Yes, I did, I.

00:29:40:08 – 00:29:45:00
Michelle
And that was and it was funny because my friend who was just there, I saw that I went.

00:29:46:04 – 00:29:48:26
Michelle
Oh, OK and environments.

00:29:49:24 – 00:29:51:07
Joseph
So a room with no roof.

00:29:51:29 – 00:29:55:02
Michelle
So and no, no, it had to. It was like.

00:29:55:02 – 00:29:56:06
Michelle
Glass. Oh, the.

00:29:56:06 – 00:30:07:02
Michelle
Pictures, it looked like, you know, you know, the area and then it had the glass and you’re like, Oh, but that’s not real. Even though it was real, right? You know, I’m thinking, Oh, you have this, but you couldn’t do a pool.

00:30:07:10 – 00:30:08:12
Joseph
Yeah, yeah.

00:30:08:13 – 00:30:09:23
Michelle
OK, whatever. Well, the.

00:30:09:23 – 00:30:14:08
Joseph
Thing that I thought was neat that they noted about it is you don’t get windows, but you get.

00:30:14:25 – 00:30:15:01
Michelle
A.

00:30:15:01 – 00:30:16:09
Joseph
Virtual window.

00:30:16:09 – 00:30:19:02
Michelle
Yes, so you can see the stars outside.

00:30:19:02 – 00:30:19:16
Michelle
And which.

00:30:19:26 – 00:30:28:01
Joseph
Is the all the room windows are synched. So if the ship goes into hyperspace, they all why.

00:30:28:01 – 00:30:28:22
Michelle
Not say, Oh.

00:30:28:26 – 00:30:33:01
Michelle
Okay, so everybody is right. So it’s not like this room sees this and this right?

00:30:33:10 – 00:30:35:09
Michelle
They all say, Oh, that’s right.

00:30:35:09 – 00:30:43:02
Joseph
one complaint that they had was, at night when you’re trying to sleep, it’s very bright so you can put your shields up.

00:30:43:09 – 00:30:45:00
Michelle
Oh, so you.

00:30:45:10 – 00:30:47:04
Joseph
Either turns it off or dimmed it down.

00:30:47:04 – 00:30:48:23
Michelle
So you OK? All right.

00:30:48:24 – 00:30:49:05
Joseph
That was.

00:30:49:05 – 00:30:49:18
Michelle
Interesting.

00:30:49:19 – 00:30:51:04
Michelle
Interesting. Interesting.

00:30:52:24 – 00:30:58:20
Joseph
And there’s like I said, there’s an interface in the room for. Continuing your.

00:30:58:20 – 00:31:00:00
Michelle
Quest right on.

00:31:00:00 – 00:31:02:27
Joseph
This air with the ship’s logistics droid is who you’re interacting.

00:31:02:27 – 00:31:03:15
Michelle
With. OK.

00:31:03:20 – 00:31:04:02
Joseph
Right?

00:31:04:18 – 00:31:08:10
Joseph
So the first dining area they talk about is the crown of Carelli. A dining.

00:31:08:10 – 00:31:08:28
Michelle
Room.

00:31:09:13 – 00:31:18:19
Joseph
Is where all the meals are taken. This is where one of the entertainment venues is right. From both articles, they said the food was extremely good.

00:31:18:24 – 00:31:19:01
Michelle
Hmm.

00:31:19:17 – 00:31:26:24
Joseph
Which you would expect. I mean, you’re looking at it being an upscale restaurant on any of the other words.

00:31:27:08 – 00:31:28:02
Michelle
Yeah, yeah.

00:31:28:27 – 00:31:31:00
Joseph
You know, I can never knock Disney for their quality of food.

00:31:31:01 – 00:31:31:23
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00:31:32:21 – 00:31:34:27
Joseph
Breakfast and lunch are served buffet style.

00:31:34:28 – 00:31:35:09
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00:31:35:29 – 00:31:44:04
Joseph
You can get your blue milk or green milk just like you can at Galaxy’s Edge. Dinner is full service, but it is served family style.

00:31:44:05 – 00:31:45:05
Michelle
Okay, interesting.

00:31:45:12 – 00:31:50:02
Joseph
That was kind of an interesting little take. Light snacks are available in the atrium.

00:31:50:03 – 00:31:51:05
Michelle
Oh, OK. But they.

00:31:51:05 – 00:31:54:20
Joseph
Say, you know it’s nothing to be impressed.

00:31:54:20 – 00:31:55:25
Michelle
With. OK. OK.

00:31:55:27 – 00:31:59:26
Joseph
So it’s probably the same stuff that you would get at like a fast serve or something.

00:32:00:09 – 00:32:00:12
Michelle
OK.

00:32:01:28 – 00:32:18:20
Joseph
They do have grab and go breakfast light snacks at the Sunlight Lounge. They said the food’s probably a higher end with the Star Wars team names, but it’s down to Earth stuff like we saw. You know, we’ll show you a slideshow of some of the pictures and.

00:32:19:18 – 00:32:22:11
Joseph
one of the meals happens to be shrimp, it’s just.

00:32:22:28 – 00:32:24:01
Michelle
Blew, right?

00:32:24:02 – 00:32:28:02
Joseph
So it’s, you know, it’s nothing crazy. It’s very much like what they.

00:32:28:02 – 00:32:28:17
Joseph
Did.

00:32:29:05 – 00:32:29:19
Joseph
At.

00:32:30:04 – 00:32:30:20
Michelle
Galaxy’s.

00:32:30:27 – 00:32:36:01
Joseph
Edge, where the food is just creatively arranged and decorated to look exotic.

00:32:36:02 – 00:32:36:12
Michelle
Right?

00:32:36:13 – 00:32:53:14
Michelle
The one thing that my my friend had posted was a picture. It looked like a green, blobby thing or whatever, and it was actually peanut. Well, it wasn’t peanut butter. It was sunflower seed and jelly. OK, so a PB and J.

00:32:53:20 – 00:33:10:14
Michelle
He said it was the most delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich he had ever had in his entire life. You know, so, but it just had this weird, you know, it almost it didn’t look moldy. It just looked like this green alien.

00:33:10:14 – 00:33:17:11
Michelle
Sure thing. So, you know, so it’s amazing that they’re doing all this like artistry really, right?

00:33:17:11 – 00:33:17:24
Joseph
Right?

00:33:17:29 – 00:33:30:24
Michelle
So, you know, and and again, like you were saying, you know, for the food, you know, they they’ll write what it is, you know, and it’s just a normal chicken, whatever. But they just put so much, right?

00:33:30:24 – 00:33:33:23
Joseph
And sometimes mac and cheese just looks like mac and cheese, right?

00:33:33:24 – 00:33:38:29
Michelle
But not Star Wars mac and cheese, that’s you know. So, yeah, just the artistry, right?

00:33:38:29 – 00:33:44:01
Joseph
And I’m very much like what they did at Galaxy’s Edge so as to keep you in that environment.

00:33:44:08 – 00:33:45:02
Michelle
Yeah, yeah.

00:33:45:14 – 00:33:51:15
Joseph
So no Star Wars experience is complete without a cantina scene, and that is what the Sunlight Lounge is.

00:33:51:16 – 00:33:51:24
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00:33:52:24 – 00:34:05:27
Joseph
They say it’s a great place to meet up with friends. At the end of the day, take in a few of the art and perhaps unsavory characters. The drinks are mixed at the bar. Mm hmm. So they’re not pre-made like they are.

00:34:05:27 – 00:34:10:23
Joseph
Apparently, if you going to ujas at Galaxy’s Edge, they’re all pre-mixed drinks.

00:34:10:24 – 00:34:12:17
Michelle
Oh okay, okay.

00:34:12:18 – 00:34:29:08
Joseph
These are made right there, so you can have them custom made to your liking, which is nice. Again, you know you can get the food there, but the one big thing is this is where you play cards. So one of the big events that you can do is learn how to place a bag.

00:34:29:21 – 00:34:38:21
Joseph
They have some back tournament so you can play playing those. Apparently, from everything that I’ve read so far, the kids love playing this more than the adults.

00:34:38:21 – 00:34:40:01
Michelle
To some guy.

00:34:40:10 – 00:34:41:27
Joseph
But it wasn’t intended for the.

00:34:41:27 – 00:34:42:21
Michelle
Kids, right?

00:34:42:22 – 00:34:44:03
Michelle
It was intended for the adults.

00:34:44:03 – 00:34:50:26
Joseph
So, you know, be careful if you go, you don’t want your kid turning into a compulsive gambler when you get out of there playing cards.

00:34:50:27 – 00:34:55:23
Michelle
I did also see that there was some sort of bingo that they played as.

00:34:55:24 – 00:34:56:11
Michelle
While.

00:34:56:14 – 00:34:58:07
Joseph
There was. That’s an event that’s just for the.

00:34:58:07 – 00:34:58:28
Michelle
Kids, right?

00:34:58:28 – 00:35:08:09
Michelle
So it was like, you know, just like on every other cruise, there’s there’s bingo, right? So it was kind of interesting to see, you know, the Star Wars version of it.

00:35:08:09 – 00:35:18:12
Joseph
So Disney bills this as an immersive experience. Mm hmm. So my I had two big questions one, how immersive is it? And two, is it worth the cost? We’ll get to the cost.

00:35:18:15 – 00:35:18:23
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00:35:19:01 – 00:35:36:20
Joseph
But how immersive is it? So they say that once you board the Star Cruise or you’re in your favorite galaxy, far, far away. At least that’s how the staff treat you. And we sort of encountered this in Galaxy’s Edge, too, where they don’t have references to the rest of the parks, they don’t have references to the real

00:35:36:20 – 00:35:43:07
Joseph
world stuff. But it kind of fell apart a little bit in Galaxy’s.

00:35:43:07 – 00:35:43:25
Michelle
Edge, right?

00:35:44:28 – 00:35:48:09
Joseph
This is their chance to redeem that and try to pull it all back together.

00:35:48:10 – 00:35:49:01
Michelle
Right, right.

00:35:50:06 – 00:36:07:07
Joseph
So if you come in from Earth, they treat you like you’re an alien. You know, it’s they recommend that you come in with an in-universe backstory and immerse yourself in that backstory. As far as you know, you can dress up, you can come in from I’m from all terrain.

00:36:07:20 – 00:36:10:22
Joseph
You really can’t be at this point in time for this, this rock style.

00:36:10:25 – 00:36:11:14
Michelle
Yeah, but.

00:36:12:01 – 00:36:13:23
Michelle
My family’s originally from all around.

00:36:13:24 – 00:36:14:29
Joseph
There you go. See.

00:36:15:11 – 00:36:16:26
Michelle
But we move to tattooing.

00:36:16:26 – 00:36:20:05
Joseph
But they encourage you that and they try to they try to stoke that.

00:36:20:05 – 00:36:21:12
Michelle
As you go through, okay.

00:36:22:09 – 00:36:39:07
Joseph
You’ll get some unobtrusive history lessons while you’re there for the cast members. A lot of the a lot of it’s just talked about as being ad hoc, where you’ll run into a stamp of a cast member who’s doing something and they’ll give you a history lesson of something.

00:36:39:25 – 00:36:40:10
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00:36:42:02 – 00:36:46:08
Joseph
They faithfully remaining character. At least they did on this, this press tour.

00:36:46:08 – 00:36:46:26
Michelle
So OK.

00:36:47:05 – 00:36:56:24
Joseph
Again, it’s one of those I don’t know how they’re going to deal with real world stuff. The people in the press were kind of given instructions on on what they can and can’t do and type stuff.

00:36:56:28 – 00:36:57:11
Michelle
Okay.

00:36:58:04 – 00:36:58:14
Joseph
Soon, as.

00:36:58:14 – 00:37:01:23
Joseph
You open that up to the the regular public, you’re going to get all kinds of.

00:37:02:05 – 00:37:02:14
Michelle
Strange.

00:37:03:07 – 00:37:18:22
Michelle
And I guess you have to kind of if you’re paying for this. No, you know, and obviously, we’ll get more into the cost. But I would think you’d want, you know, you’re spending all that money.

00:37:18:28 – 00:37:20:05
Michelle
To do this.

00:37:20:06 – 00:37:25:28
Joseph
But there are circumstances that that occur that they even mentioned in the articles that will get to.

00:37:25:28 – 00:37:26:02
Michelle
The.

00:37:26:10 – 00:37:29:08
Joseph
People you or certainly me out of character.

00:37:29:21 – 00:37:30:04
Michelle
OK.

00:37:30:24 – 00:37:45:08
Joseph
So they talk about the fact that the story flows through your phone, so you’ve got to make sure you have that with you all the time. Make sure you bring extra batteries. You can interact with some of the famous characters through the app, but they’re canned responses.

00:37:45:08 – 00:37:47:29
Joseph
It’s not like they’re typing text back to you or anything like that.

00:37:48:00 – 00:37:48:12
Michelle
Okay?

00:37:48:17 – 00:37:51:20
Joseph
And then when you interact with them in person, they’re not going to realize.

00:37:52:00 – 00:37:54:13
Michelle
That you just message them or anything.

00:37:54:13 – 00:38:06:29
Joseph
So it’s sort of like playing a role playing game where they know what the script is, but they don’t know where in the script you are. So you may know things or have done things, and they’re not aware of it yet.

00:38:06:29 – 00:38:11:25
Joseph
So when you interact with them, it’s kind of disjointed is how it’s been described.

00:38:11:26 – 00:38:13:08
Michelle
OK, I can see that.

00:38:15:00 – 00:38:19:19
Joseph
They also say that the app is very software driven, so there’s lots of bugs in it. We’re still working a.

00:38:19:19 – 00:38:20:11
Michelle
Lot of things.

00:38:20:11 – 00:38:22:15
Michelle
You figure it’s only been a couple of weeks, so.

00:38:22:20 – 00:38:40:18
Joseph
The couple of biggest problems are get repeated messages, the same messages over and over and you get messages out of sequence, which from a story standpoint that can be done texting. You know, you got a message that you shouldn’t have gotten for three messages ending and you know.

00:38:40:23 – 00:38:41:22
Michelle
OK, spoilers.

00:38:41:22 – 00:38:42:29
Joseph
Confusion and so forth.

00:38:43:00 – 00:38:45:17
Michelle
OK, so the itinerary.

00:38:46:04 – 00:39:02:24
Joseph
The immersion is very itinerary driven, but they say itinerary changes based on the missions you pick up. So when you get there, there’s a couple of missions you just get by default, OK? But there’s a whole ton of side missions that you can do depending on who you interact with and what you scan and all that stuff

00:39:03:16 – 00:39:13:06
Joseph
. So the advantage that they say here is it will the next time you come back, you can have a completely different experience. For four grand, I’d expect a completely.

00:39:13:06 – 00:39:14:26
Michelle
Different experience when I come back.

00:39:15:11 – 00:39:19:15
Joseph
I mean, you’re not giving me something that’s that’s a selling.

00:39:19:15 – 00:39:20:08
Michelle
Point, right?

00:39:20:14 – 00:39:29:24
Michelle
They really should be marketing this as this is a once in a lifetime thing. You might never come back, right?

00:39:31:22 – 00:39:45:06
Joseph
From all accounts, it seems like some of the story is kind of forced down your throat. And we’ll talk about that later when you get to to Galaxy’s Edge and how the missions continue, there may not even be aware of it.

00:39:47:01 – 00:39:58:06
Joseph
None of the things that you do impact the outcome of the voyage or your trip or anything, so you make all these choices, you feel like you’re involved and the same thing happens at the end of the day, no matter what.

00:39:58:08 – 00:39:58:18
Joseph
Okay.

00:39:58:29 – 00:40:08:08
Joseph
So to me when it comes to an MMO online game and I’m playing through that story and my choices don’t matter, it’s very frustrating for me.

00:40:08:09 – 00:40:08:29
Michelle
OK, it’s.

00:40:08:29 – 00:40:09:24
Joseph
Why do I make these.

00:40:09:24 – 00:40:11:02
Michelle
Choices right first place, right?

00:40:13:19 – 00:40:32:06
Joseph
So the one the one thing they do tell you is that the crew is trying to accommodate so many guests at once. So each of those gas earn a different stage in their story. So you may go to a cast member to try to interact with them to advance a quest, and they may be interacting with someone

00:40:32:06 – 00:40:49:25
Joseph
else who’s earlier in that quest. Further in that quest on a different quest. And you have to wait your turn, interact with them. They say, sit there and listen because what they tell them might be wrong. So what you say, OK, but this is where I could see people getting frustrated quickly because you’re trying to run, you’re

00:40:49:25 – 00:40:51:01
Joseph
trying to do everything at once.

00:40:51:03 – 00:40:51:15
Michelle
Hmm.

00:40:51:23 – 00:40:55:15
Joseph
And if I have to sit here and wait for five people to talk to this guy before I can get to him.

00:40:56:29 – 00:40:59:00
Michelle
I could have gone and done something else.

00:40:59:01 – 00:41:08:29
Joseph
Exactly. I got two days here and I’m wasting my time trying to talk to advance. This is where I would get frustrated and come out of character at that time.

00:41:09:01 – 00:41:10:01
Michelle
Right? OK.

00:41:10:04 – 00:41:27:18
Joseph
That’s what I’m saying. There are situations where even a diehard like me who can go in there and be in character will get frustrated and you kind of have to have patience with these things. Right? They they kind of target that towards the kids more than the adults, but the adults are the ones that are paying for

00:41:27:18 – 00:41:29:04
Joseph
this. So you don’t have a whole lot.

00:41:29:04 – 00:41:29:17
Michelle
To be sorry.

00:41:29:20 – 00:41:35:17
Michelle
And I and I guess it really also depends on your level of fandom, too.

00:41:35:24 – 00:41:38:22
Michelle
Are you just doing this to just.

00:41:38:22 – 00:41:52:20
Joseph
Being, you’re not going with us? I don’t think who’s going to spend $4,000? Your daughter? She hates Harry Potter. She would never spend $4,000 to go to Universal Studios and go to Harry Potter. She just wouldn’t, right? No matter how cool it is.

00:41:52:21 – 00:41:53:01
Michelle
Right?

00:41:53:08 – 00:41:56:11
Joseph
So you got to be a fan at some level to do this right?

00:41:56:11 – 00:42:09:22
Michelle
But again, you know, going back to my friend who was just there, people asked, Oh, did you do a lot of the quests? No, not really. He was really going just to kind of, yeah, like for, you know, and he doesn’t.

00:42:10:03 – 00:42:11:05
Joseph
And that’s what I would do.

00:42:11:05 – 00:42:11:24
Michelle
I would go.

00:42:11:24 – 00:42:15:18
Joseph
For the immersion and a nice, leisurely walk through one or two of the stories.

00:42:15:18 – 00:42:16:11
Michelle
And that’s right.

00:42:16:18 – 00:42:16:25
Michelle
Right.

00:42:17:10 – 00:42:21:06
Joseph
I don’t want to go there and it be a job to have to do everything right.

00:42:21:10 – 00:42:21:19
Michelle
Right.

00:42:22:01 – 00:42:32:18
Michelle
And I’m sure for the kids, it’s more so, you know, I got to do this quest and I, you know, I want to do all the quests where the parents are probably so what drinker we try in today.

00:42:32:23 – 00:42:33:19
Michelle
In the lounge.

00:42:35:07 – 00:42:36:15
Joseph
So how about a run, a shuttle?

00:42:37:06 – 00:42:37:22
Michelle
OK.

00:42:38:00 – 00:42:40:11
Joseph
So everyone’s heard there’s an excursion to bad.

00:42:40:11 – 00:42:41:08
Michelle
To right.

00:42:41:09 – 00:42:43:02
Joseph
Galaxy’s edge at Hollywood studios.

00:42:43:03 – 00:42:43:12
Michelle
Right?

00:42:44:08 – 00:42:47:08
Joseph
This is accomplished via a box truck.

00:42:47:08 – 00:42:51:02
Michelle
Yep. No, really? Yeah, it’s a box truck. Yep.

00:42:51:12 – 00:42:53:04
Michelle
But it looks really cool on the inside.

00:42:53:05 – 00:42:56:03
Joseph
You never see the exterior, so you don’t know you’re in a box.

00:42:56:03 – 00:42:56:27
Michelle
Truck, right?

00:42:56:28 – 00:43:02:08
Joseph
But they decorate up the inside, and that’s how they transport you the distance over to the thing.

00:43:02:11 – 00:43:02:22
Michelle
Mm hmm.

00:43:04:04 – 00:43:20:27
Joseph
I thought that was interesting. Mm hmm. So you do get Lightning Lane access to the Millennium Falcon Smuggler’s Run and Rise of the Resistance, which again, very generous for Disney to do that. However, part of your mission on the ship are tied to these rides.

00:43:21:00 – 00:43:21:16
Michelle
Hmm.

00:43:21:17 – 00:43:22:00
Michelle
Okay.

00:43:22:13 – 00:43:26:05
Joseph
It was unclear how obvious they made that aware.

00:43:26:12 – 00:43:27:05
Michelle
To the people.

00:43:27:06 – 00:43:32:27
Joseph
OK, because just by going on the rides you accomplish, though, you complete those missions.

00:43:32:28 – 00:43:33:12
Michelle
OK?

00:43:33:17 – 00:43:50:29
Joseph
one happens to be stealing Huaxi, and we’re smuggling axiom for someone or something like that. But you don’t need to know that because they try to integrate it into the story right itself. But the story right itself is the same story, right as when it launched, which had nothing to do with the halcyon.

00:43:51:00 – 00:43:51:24
Michelle
Right, right?

00:43:51:29 – 00:44:08:20
Joseph
So it’s kind of quirky how he kind of talked about it. And they also say that you can stop by ogres, but you don’t get a reservation automatically. It’s not included, and they do tell you to let someone from the cruise know that you’re there because I don’t.

00:44:09:00 – 00:44:18:28
Joseph
And it was unclear why. It’s almost like they try to keep you on a very strict regimen while you’re there and in ogres is not included in that.

00:44:19:04 – 00:44:37:14
Michelle
Well, I’m guessing because you’re only there for so long a period of time and they probably don’t want you wandering off to other areas of the park because you have to get back to your shuttle to get back to the ship by a certain time.

00:44:37:20 – 00:44:53:11
Michelle
So I’m guessing maybe that’s, you know, because I’m guessing probably most people go go on their two rides, maybe walk around a little bit and then head back to the ship because there’s other things.

00:44:53:19 – 00:44:56:18
Joseph
Right? Because you’re paying to be on the ship, you’re not paying to be at Galaxy’s Edge.

00:44:56:24 – 00:44:57:15
Michelle
Right, right.

00:44:57:24 – 00:45:08:18
Joseph
But you the last shuttle back to the ship is 4:00. So they take you in shifts there and then you can come back as you need to.

00:45:08:19 – 00:45:09:03
Michelle
Right?

00:45:09:04 – 00:45:12:29
Joseph
So you’re one of the earlier ones there. You literally can spend the whole day there.

00:45:13:01 – 00:45:14:03
Michelle
Right? Right.

00:45:14:07 – 00:45:15:12
Joseph
Whether or not you do or not.

00:45:15:14 – 00:45:16:08
Michelle
Right up to you.

00:45:17:01 – 00:45:32:28
Joseph
So how about the activities every cruises can’t be isn’t complete without a. So there’s a few activities that show up on your schedule automatically. These you don’t have much control over. It’s like orientation, bridge orientation, light saber training, stuff like that.

00:45:36:04 – 00:45:55:19
Joseph
I’m not sure I like them just sticking stuff on my itinerary and making me do them. And that’s fine. You know? Some of the activities were kind of lackluster. They talked about the bridge training where they sit you down and you do something at a console itself.

00:45:56:02 – 00:46:03:14
Joseph
He said it was very similar to to flying the Falcon. You had one thing push this button over and over, lift this lever or whatever it is.

00:46:03:15 – 00:46:03:25
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00:46:04:10 – 00:46:22:17
Joseph
So you weren’t really doing anything, nor did it have any real effect on the ship itself. So it was a very isolated experience. OK. Other things that they talk about, don’t show up on your itinerary, and that’s through interactions with different people around the ship, different cast members and stuff like that.

00:46:23:03 – 00:46:36:20
Joseph
So they said there was a lot of opportunities to interact with other people and get story that way for so as much as Disney tries to tie you down to the itinerary. You don’t have to follow it on if you don’t want to if you really want to immerse yourself.

00:46:38:10 – 00:46:57:01
Joseph
And then there’s the story, so it’s a very specific, very static story that they do. Everyone experiences the same story. It’s set. It’s sandwiched between Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker. So it’s Disney Star Wars. It’s not my Star.

00:46:57:01 – 00:46:57:15
Michelle
Wars, right.

00:46:57:16 – 00:47:01:05
Joseph
Which is the biggest drawback of Galaxy’s Edge entirely.

00:47:01:06 – 00:47:01:15
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00:47:03:05 – 00:47:13:11
Joseph
They said the story arcs resemble what Disney had originally intended for Galaxy’s Edge, but it never they never really fully realized it because it was there was too many people.

00:47:13:15 – 00:47:13:26
Michelle
Right?

00:47:13:28 – 00:47:17:08
Joseph
You could not cater that kind of personalized story to everyone.

00:47:17:13 – 00:47:17:25
Michelle
Okay.

00:47:18:24 – 00:47:27:10
Joseph
The The Star Cruiser is really their second chance to do that, and by all accounts, they’re doing a much better job of it here, but it’s costing.

00:47:27:10 – 00:47:28:11
Michelle
You, right?

00:47:30:16 – 00:47:45:15
Joseph
There were they couldn’t be more complimentary for the performers. Whether it’s the cast members, you interact with the actual performers at the dinner show, they said they were fantastic. That alone was worth going just just because of the professionalism of their OK.

00:47:46:19 – 00:47:58:18
Joseph
The one complaint that they had from a story standpoint is for being in a Star Wars galaxy far, far away. Apparently, there’s an overall lack of two things you’d expect in that universe. Droids and aliens.

00:47:58:21 – 00:47:59:07
Michelle
Hmm.

00:47:59:17 – 00:48:09:23
Joseph
So they there was like one astronomic droid that was going around the ship that was OK. Couple of people that were done up as aliens, not very many at all, but they were lead characters.

00:48:09:24 – 00:48:10:14
Michelle
Are you OK?

00:48:10:20 – 00:48:18:06
Joseph
You weren’t bumping into people in the hallway and stuff like that. So they said that kind of killed the effect of it being, you know, an alien.

00:48:18:06 – 00:48:19:11
Michelle
World. OK?

00:48:20:21 – 00:48:24:07
Joseph
And of course, no Disney experience is complete without a gift shop.

00:48:24:20 – 00:48:25:01
Michelle
Yep.

00:48:25:07 – 00:48:33:27
Joseph
So there’s two chances that Disney can ring a little bit more money at it. So you have the Chandrika collection, which is a small shop on.

00:48:33:27 – 00:48:34:11
Joseph
Board.

00:48:35:00 – 00:48:35:28
Joseph
That’s targeted.

00:48:35:28 – 00:48:37:14
Joseph
More for.

00:48:39:12 – 00:48:41:08
Joseph
Buying things to fit.

00:48:41:08 – 00:48:43:02
Michelle
In. Yes, they were willing.

00:48:43:02 – 00:48:44:09
Joseph
And and stuff.

00:48:44:10 – 00:48:48:16
Michelle
And some collectibles because again, my friend had posted the photo.

00:48:48:16 – 00:48:49:04
Michelle
So again.

00:48:49:04 – 00:48:50:11
Joseph
Non-branded collector.

00:48:50:11 – 00:49:01:03
Michelle
Non-branded collectible, like there were some glassware or jewelry, clothing, things, you know, things that you would expect at a high end boutique.

00:49:01:04 – 00:49:01:14
Michelle
Right?

00:49:01:21 – 00:49:02:14
Michelle
That was what.

00:49:02:16 – 00:49:08:01
Joseph
Now you can buy the more tchotchke style stuff on your excursion, too.

00:49:08:02 – 00:49:08:14
Michelle
But to.

00:49:08:15 – 00:49:26:07
Joseph
Put you, there is a pop up shop that and the little kiosk area that you board the shuttle and get off the shuttle. Right, the rent, the U-Haul and you could buy you star cruiser specific stuff there and some of the bragging rights stuff.

00:49:26:18 – 00:49:45:23
Joseph
But they don’t they don’t overwhelm you, which is what really kind of blew me away, right? And then finally, we come down to the price. So is the $4,809 for the standard room worth it? one person who attended on a complimentary past doesn’t think so.

00:49:46:06 – 00:49:48:15
Joseph
And they were there for free. Mind you.

00:49:48:17 – 00:49:49:12
Michelle
Right, right.

00:49:50:15 – 00:50:08:06
Joseph
After seeing what I’ve seen and reading what I’ve read, I have to agree. Disney’s nonexistent cruise to nowhere at an astronomical price is a big ask, but it’s also in line with what seems to be their new target audience of one percenters that Disney appears to be aiming for.

00:50:09:05 – 00:50:24:03
Joseph
So short of hitting the lottery or getting a complimentary trip myself, I’ll be avoiding this particular Disney money trap. So what do you think? You think it’s it’s worth it as a once in a lifetime, you know, you turn 50.

00:50:24:04 – 00:50:29:10
Joseph
We’re going to go on to that will be our Disney Cruise. I don’t think that’s true.

00:50:29:10 – 00:50:51:03
Michelle
Yeah, I think if I had my my choice of two days doing that or going to Disneyland Paris for the same amount of money, I would choose Disneyland Paris. You know, as much of knowing how much of a Star Wars family we are.

00:50:51:17 – 00:50:55:09
Michelle
I just for half the price.

00:50:56:01 – 00:50:57:16
Michelle
See, you know, only.

00:50:57:16 – 00:51:11:08
Joseph
Could I not justify paying that money for that limited an experience. I refuse to support what really is Disney slap in the face to every Star Wars fan out there.

00:51:11:12 – 00:51:11:22
Michelle
Right?

00:51:12:11 – 00:51:19:20
Joseph
Because your average Star Wars fan is not going to be able to afford this, right? And you’re deliberately pricing out that entire fan base.

00:51:19:22 – 00:51:20:05
Michelle
Right.

00:51:20:07 – 00:51:41:03
Michelle
And I think that that’s that’s the biggest thing if you slash that price. And that was even when we were still DVC members, there was the option of, OK, how how much of points do we? And for the amount of points that we were going to have to use versus taking a seven day cruise, it was just

00:51:41:15 – 00:52:10:03
Michelle
it didn’t it didn’t equal it. There was no comparison to two either. Or so I would rather spend $5,000 and go to Paris than just say, you know, like it would be nice if you could just do like a one day walk through of it or something, you know, for, you know, $200 for $200, you get to

00:52:10:03 – 00:52:20:00
Michelle
, you know, spend the day on the ship. Yeah, I could see that would be, you know, with maybe, you know, you get one meal, you know, I’ll even say 300.

00:52:20:00 – 00:52:21:17
Michelle
But you know, that’s the thing.

00:52:22:00 – 00:52:26:21
Joseph
You can get the the environmental experience at Galaxy’s Edge.

00:52:26:25 – 00:52:27:07
Michelle
Right.

00:52:27:07 – 00:52:30:10
Joseph
Here. They don’t have some of the light saber training. Well, that’s.

00:52:30:10 – 00:52:31:24
Michelle
What I was saying. So you bring.

00:52:31:24 – 00:52:34:19
Joseph
That stuff out so the general public can have some rights to.

00:52:34:19 – 00:52:36:02
Michelle
That stuff too, right?

00:52:36:08 – 00:52:48:23
Joseph
So I don’t know. It’s it’s to me, it’s not worth it. Anyway, we’ll be back. We’re we’re pushing up on the clock here, so we’ll we’ll do a quick review of our next story.

00:52:48:27 – 00:52:49:26
Michelle
Sure. Sure.

00:52:57:18 – 00:53:21:28
Michelle
Insights into teens. A podcast series exploring the issues and challenges of today’s youth. Talking to real teens about real teen problems. Explore issues from braces to puberty, social anxiety to financial responsibility. Each week we talk about the topics concerning today’s youth.

00:53:22:16 – 00:53:47:01
Michelle
We look at how the issues affect teens, how to cope with these issues and how parents, friends and loved ones can help teens handle these challenges. Check out our video episodes on YouTube.com Backslash Insights Into Things. Catch our audio versions on podcast insights into teen XCOM.

00:53:49:05 – 00:53:52:17
Michelle
Or on the Web at insights into things dot com.

00:54:02:27 – 00:54:16:09
Joseph
So it’s been described as the gone with the wind of gangster movies. It was cutting edge when it was originally released, and still to this day stands the test of time. The movie that made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.

00:54:16:10 – 00:54:33:03
Joseph
The Godfather has turned 50. It’s also returning in limited theaters to markets Epic Anniversary, and many of the stars of the movies have shared their thoughts on its legacy. What are your thoughts on on The Godfather and when did you see it?

00:54:33:03 – 00:54:34:02
Joseph
How old were you when you saw it?

00:54:34:03 – 00:54:35:16
Michelle
Oh gosh, I am.

00:54:37:26 – 00:54:48:03
Michelle
Well, I was probably too young when I first saw it, but then probably didn’t see it again until probably high school.

00:54:48:05 – 00:54:50:03
Joseph
That’s what I saw on in high school.

00:54:50:04 – 00:55:08:19
Michelle
And because and when I was in high school, that was actually when Godfather three came out. And I remember in our one English class, we, you know, we had been talking about it. So there were a couple of us that actually went to go see the third one because we were talking about the impact of the first

00:55:08:19 – 00:55:31:03
Michelle
one. And really, when you think about it, it was kind of the the start of, you know, there had been gangster movies, all you know throughout, you know, cinema. But really, that was kind of the one that led the way for, you know, some of the more modern gangster movies like, you know, they kind of look at

00:55:31:03 – 00:55:33:29
Michelle
that and kind of go from there.

00:55:34:00 – 00:55:42:16
Joseph
Well, it’s funny you mention that because in a recent interview, Talia Shire described her brother, Francis Ford Coppola, characterizing the movie as a waltz.

00:55:42:22 – 00:55:43:11
Joseph
Hmm.

00:55:43:21 – 00:55:50:03
Joseph
She says the endless cycle of the family had a sense of a waltz to it, and it’s hard to argue with that it.

00:55:50:12 – 00:55:50:22
Michelle
Yeah, it.

00:55:51:03 – 00:55:57:20
Joseph
Did have that. And I think that’s really what scared the studio’s more than anything because it was so different.

00:55:57:29 – 00:55:58:06
Michelle
Right?

00:55:58:08 – 00:56:00:21
Joseph
Then the gangster movies, you had up to that point.

00:56:00:24 – 00:56:01:08
Michelle
Right?

00:56:01:27 – 00:56:06:18
Michelle
Everything was family, really. It was all about taking care of the family.

00:56:06:19 – 00:56:25:10
Joseph
It was a huge gamble for Paramount. And by most accounts, the movie was hell to shoot for Coppola. They said there were reports of a running battle between Coppola and his bosses at Paramount and even the crew at times because of creative differences, casting decisions.

00:56:25:18 – 00:56:34:04
Joseph
You know, they brought Marlon Brando in, who at that point in time was kind of obscure at that point right here. Nobody wanted to touch him at that point.

00:56:34:05 – 00:56:34:15
Michelle
Right?

00:56:35:00 – 00:56:37:24
Joseph
And it kind of reinvigorated his career.

00:56:37:25 – 00:56:38:16
Michelle
Yeah, yeah.

00:56:39:08 – 00:56:58:25
Joseph
They said that he Coppola was in constant fear of getting sacked by Paramount during this whole thing, even in post-production, when he made his choice of Italian maestro Nino Rota. That was questioned Coppola bluffed by threatening to have his name removed from the movie before Paramount finally gave into his decision.

00:56:59:12 – 00:57:12:18
Joseph
So there was this constant strike he was running into with this movie, and in the in the interview with Talia Shire, she says, I wouldn’t have had me on the set. She said the last thing he needed was his sister.

00:57:12:18 – 00:57:13:23
Michelle
Isn’t that true?

00:57:13:26 – 00:57:15:25
Joseph
Well, I got a one more attention for.

00:57:15:25 – 00:57:17:17
Michelle
Yeah, exactly. Thank you.

00:57:17:29 – 00:57:29:03
Joseph
If you think back to the movie where there’s the scene where she and her new husband are fighting and she’s pregnant in the scene, she says it’s a rough thing to see a pregnant woman being knocked around, right?

00:57:29:08 – 00:57:43:16
Joseph
She says I had to move from place to place. It was honestly I was terrified because you didn’t want to do another take because another take meant everything had to be reset, she says. I just want to keep going because it was it would have cost money, the driver.

00:57:43:18 – 00:57:44:11
Michelle
To have to.

00:57:44:11 – 00:57:58:10
Joseph
Shoot some of that stuff. So yeah, even when it was being made, it was such a different movie. Well, even the novel itself, the novel was written in the sixties and and was a huge hit, which is why it’s on the.

00:57:58:10 – 00:57:59:09
Michelle
Movie, right? Right.

00:57:59:19 – 00:58:03:27
Joseph
But it was so different than, like the Cagney style gangster movies.

00:58:04:06 – 00:58:04:13
Michelle
You were.

00:58:04:13 – 00:58:05:04
Joseph
Used to.

00:58:05:06 – 00:58:05:16
Michelle
Right?

00:58:05:24 – 00:58:20:08
Joseph
And I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that it was very reflective of of our country at that time. Yeah, you know, the power struggles, the politics, the, you know, do whatever it is you need to do.

00:58:22:09 – 00:58:32:01
Joseph
And it came out in some of the some of the quotes, you know, you got some of the best one liners. I wrote a couple of these down. Yeah, you know, there’s one.

00:58:32:01 – 00:58:32:16
Joseph
Line.

00:58:33:04 – 00:58:42:17
Joseph
Where Michael Corleone says, Don’t ask me my best. Don’t don’t don’t ask me about my business, Kay, you know, even before fight club. But know we don’t talk about that either.

00:58:42:18 – 00:58:43:14
Michelle
Right, right?

00:58:43:16 – 00:58:48:14
Joseph
You know, it’s set the precedent on how you handle things that people don’t want to know the truth.

00:58:48:14 – 00:58:49:09
Michelle
About, right?

00:58:49:10 – 00:58:54:11
Joseph
You may ask about it, but don’t ask me about it. You know, take the gun.

00:58:54:11 – 00:58:55:14
Michelle
Legally, Connolly.

00:58:55:26 – 00:59:01:00
Joseph
Some might say these are words live by. For me, it’s the first line out of my mouth whenever I walk into a bakery.

00:59:01:01 – 00:59:02:14
Michelle
Yeah, it is.

00:59:03:19 – 00:59:09:16
Joseph
And then you have the really personal lines like, I know it was you, Fredo Fredo. You broke my.

00:59:09:16 – 00:59:10:11
Michelle
Heart. Yeah.

00:59:10:16 – 00:59:11:28
Joseph
You know, if you’re.

00:59:12:03 – 00:59:23:29
Joseph
You know, if you’re looking for the most poetically perfect way to tell your brother, you know, a secret, you couldn’t ask for a better line. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

00:59:24:05 – 00:59:24:13
Michelle
Hmm.

00:59:24:18 – 00:59:39:23
Joseph
While it’s a tribute as an old Klingon proverb, the Klingons probably got it from this movie and the one that I think really kind of speaks to why the movie had such an impact was very early on in the movie, Don Corleone says, I believe in America.

00:59:39:24 – 00:59:40:04
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

00:59:40:25 – 00:59:42:09
Joseph
And he does, right?

00:59:42:09 – 00:59:42:21
Michelle
But it’s.

00:59:42:21 – 00:59:44:05
Joseph
His version of America.

00:59:44:05 – 00:59:44:16
Michelle
Right?

00:59:44:29 – 01:00:04:03
Joseph
You know, and in our current state of political upheaval, this line is incredibly poignant. And tells us that America is what you make of it. If you’re America is. Gun to your head, going to take your money if you don’t do what I say, make demands, then that’s your America.

01:00:04:05 – 01:00:04:14
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

01:00:05:01 – 01:00:12:05
Joseph
That’s not everybody else’s America. So it’s that distorted that ability to distort things in such a way.

01:00:12:12 – 01:00:13:19
Michelle
To be how you want it to.

01:00:13:19 – 01:00:15:10
Joseph
Be to make yourself feel good.

01:00:15:15 – 01:00:16:06
Michelle
Yeah, yeah.

01:00:16:28 – 01:00:30:28
Joseph
And then, you know, the most famous line from the whole movie and he gets this line is so well delivered and so perfect in the movie that it appears twice in our breakdown here. 50 years later, people dream of a chance to use a line any chance they get.

01:00:30:28 – 01:00:48:11
Joseph
And that is, I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse. And that’s like everyone knows where that line from. They know who said it, and it’s fantastic. But culturally, though, and we talk about the careers and the impact and stuff like that.

01:00:49:12 – 01:01:02:11
Joseph
It was a self-reflective look at the country during some of our most formative years. The movie portrays and it’s a shining example of how certain aspects of the population exploit it, their opportunities.

01:01:02:12 – 01:01:02:20
Michelle
Mm-Hmm.

01:01:03:11 – 01:01:25:16
Joseph
They bent, broke, bought and rewrote the rules of the land to their favor. And it still happens to this day, whether it’s happening in business or politics or crime or whatever. What Don Corleone represented in the movie is what so many people aspire to, that power, that ultimate power, that ability to manipulate things and be in control

01:01:25:17 – 01:01:25:26
Michelle
. Mm-Hmm.

01:01:26:22 – 01:01:48:17
Joseph
And so many fortunes into these businesses have been made on that. It’s not biographical. It’s not historical, but they’re grains of truth in the film that make us question reality and kind of look at the world differently. And we’ve never gone back to the way it was before Godfather that kind of opened our eyes to a reality

01:01:48:17 – 01:01:52:17
Joseph
that a lot of people didn’t want to ask about, I think.

01:01:53:01 – 01:02:12:01
Michelle
And I think what’s also interesting is it’s it’s probably one of the top movies of all time, and Godfather two is revered also as one of the best movies that you know, normally sequels. You know, after you do the first one, they kind of go downhill from that.

01:02:12:04 – 01:02:25:23
Michelle
Yeah, but you know, Godfather two kind of stands alone, you know, on on its own as being a really great movie. And it’s interesting because it takes you. It’s a prequel to The Godfather, so.

01:02:25:23 – 01:02:28:02
Michelle
You kind of see everything that.

01:02:28:02 – 01:02:32:16
Joseph
Concept that was interesting at the time because you didn’t have that sort of.

01:02:33:04 – 01:02:33:18
Michelle
Right.

01:02:34:01 – 01:02:38:23
Joseph
Where it’s like, OK, we drew the line in the sand, and let’s go back and show you how we got to that.

01:02:38:24 – 01:02:39:07
Michelle
one, right?

01:02:39:07 – 01:02:51:02
Michelle
Where normally you never did that, you always went forward. So it was an interesting take on it and it was so well received. On top of the success of the original.

01:02:51:02 – 01:03:00:13
Joseph
Absolutely, I have little doubt gunfire is still be relevant 50 years from now too, so we’re going to take a quick break. We’ll come back and we’ll get some of our after thoughts to come.

01:03:00:14 – 01:03:00:26
Michelle
Sure.

01:03:06:16 – 01:03:08:09
Joseph
So what do we have for our afterthought?

01:03:08:10 – 01:03:25:09
Michelle
So going on, fortunately, if you’re watching us live and not on, you know, after the fact Zullo Khan is going on this weekend, it’s going until 6:00. So if you’re in the area, you got until six to today.

01:03:25:29 – 01:03:47:08
Michelle
Tomorrow, it’ll be from nine to 430. We’re actually planning to to be there tomorrow for it. That’s in Warminster, Pennsylvania. Then in a couple of weeks after that, we have the Delaware train show and the April Fools Toy Show that would be April second and April third.

01:03:47:12 – 01:03:51:08
Michelle
And that is in New Castle, Delaware, at the near shrine’s center.

01:03:51:15 – 01:04:09:23
Joseph
And before we go, we did attend our nerd fest this weekend here. I’m going to run some footage of that real quick. I’ve described it was a typical local pop culture event here, right? A lot of local artists were there was kind of surprised at how many artists that they have.

01:04:09:23 – 01:04:27:28
Michelle
Yeah, it was. It was. It was a pleasant surprise to to see how many local artists were there, local vendors. Were there a nice mix of different types of of artists? You had a lot of people selling handmade things.

01:04:28:03 – 01:04:28:19
Michelle
Yeah, which.

01:04:28:19 – 01:04:37:03
Michelle
Was nice to see along with your different vendors, obviously selling your pops. Not as many collectibles.

01:04:37:12 – 01:04:40:06
Joseph
Yeah, a lot of it was much more handmade.

01:04:40:08 – 01:04:41:05
Michelle
Right? It was much more.

01:04:41:05 – 01:04:43:00
Michelle
Turkish, right? Which was kind of cool.

01:04:43:00 – 01:04:47:03
Michelle
Because, you know, better to have that. Obviously, we had the fivo first was there.

01:04:47:28 – 01:04:50:05
Michelle
Then Ghostbuster local.

01:04:50:05 – 01:05:16:14
Michelle
Ghostbusters were there as well. A couple of cosplayers, not too many of them there and and some local authors with their books, they had a face painter, you know, as well. Different clothing makers were there with different types of T-shirts or sweatshirts and things.

01:05:16:15 – 01:05:22:24
Joseph
And we had the one artist that was there who was the taxidermist. And yes, we talked. And what you talk a little bit about that.

01:05:22:25 – 01:05:23:02
Michelle
Yeah.

01:05:23:02 – 01:05:27:06
Michelle
So that was kind of interesting. I almost came home with a bat.

01:05:27:24 – 01:05:28:29
Joseph
A real bat, a.

01:05:28:29 – 01:05:29:11
Michelle
Real.

01:05:29:11 – 01:05:30:00
Joseph
Taxidermy.

01:05:30:01 – 01:05:39:27
Michelle
Bat that was taxidermied in in this cute little cage. So we were talking to him and you had asked him how he came to.

01:05:39:27 – 01:05:40:25
Joseph
How these sources.

01:05:41:11 – 01:05:42:12
Michelle
Were his critters.

01:05:42:17 – 01:05:45:05
Michelle
And what was it so he kind of had.

01:05:45:18 – 01:05:49:02
Joseph
So he said he has a license. He’s a licensed scavenger.

01:05:49:05 – 01:05:49:26
Michelle
Right, which.

01:05:49:26 – 01:05:55:29
Joseph
I didn’t even know that existed. But he said most of the stuff that he gets comes from people that he works with.

01:05:56:14 – 01:05:57:27
Michelle
Right? They kind of trade.

01:05:57:27 – 01:06:03:05
Joseph
Will it right? So they’ll send him the for lack of a better word carcasses.

01:06:03:12 – 01:06:03:26
Michelle
Right?

01:06:03:27 – 01:06:07:15
Joseph
Held taxidermy them his. Was it his son or his.

01:06:07:24 – 01:06:08:18
Michelle
Nephew, his.

01:06:08:18 – 01:06:09:12
Michelle
Nephew nephew.

01:06:09:12 – 01:06:11:23
Joseph
Does the actual settings and the.

01:06:11:23 – 01:06:12:06
Michelle
Right.

01:06:12:06 – 01:06:13:16
Michelle
The dioramas.

01:06:13:16 – 01:06:13:28
Michelle
And stuff.

01:06:13:28 – 01:06:14:23
Michelle
Like that. Right? Right.

01:06:14:25 – 01:06:15:19
Joseph
And he’ll set.

01:06:15:19 – 01:06:16:02
Joseph
The.

01:06:17:05 – 01:06:21:24
Joseph
The taxidermy animals in here, and he’ll send some of these back to these people that that provide.

01:06:21:24 – 01:06:23:05
Michelle
The aerial support.

01:06:23:20 – 01:06:31:21
Joseph
And it’s really cool. They did. Not only did they do the bats in the cages, they did these incredibly ornate ostrich eggs.

01:06:31:22 – 01:06:32:09
Michelle
Yes.

01:06:32:21 – 01:06:49:16
Joseph
Because the the person who runs it is a former dentist. He uses dental tools to actually go in there and carve these out. Talking about no additional material added to it. He just takes the egg, carves it out, and you had three dimensional renderings of.

01:06:49:16 – 01:06:49:28
Michelle
Of.

01:06:50:02 – 01:06:50:20
Michelle
A dragon.

01:06:50:20 – 01:06:59:11
Joseph
Dragons coming up. I mean, it was incredible the kind of detail the guy had. Yeah, first time I think we’d seen that VIDEO And he’s a local guy, too, which is nice.

01:06:59:12 – 01:07:00:04
Michelle
Right, right.

01:07:00:05 – 01:07:12:02
Michelle
So he actually is going to be at some of the other local. He’ll be at Monster Mania, which is coming up in a couple of months and then another one that’s up in Parsippany Monster Con. I think it was the.

01:07:12:02 – 01:07:13:03
Joseph
Next horror one up.

01:07:13:03 – 01:07:15:04
Michelle
There. Yeah. So yeah, it was.

01:07:15:04 – 01:07:21:28
Joseph
Interesting is it was a it was a kind of a cool venue the way they laid it out. It was small, right?

01:07:21:28 – 01:07:23:00
Michelle
It wasn’t very big.

01:07:23:00 – 01:07:23:18
Michelle
But had.

01:07:23:19 – 01:07:25:20
Joseph
A lot of vendors for such a small.

01:07:25:20 – 01:07:26:08
Michelle
Area.

01:07:26:17 – 01:07:29:26
Joseph
But it was laid out in such a way that you didn’t feel claustrophobic in.

01:07:29:26 – 01:07:30:13
Michelle
Their right.

01:07:30:14 – 01:07:40:12
Michelle
Because they had the one banquet room set up with the doors open. But then they had guests. They had vendors throughout the the lobby area as well.

01:07:40:17 – 01:07:41:18
Michelle
So yeah.

01:07:42:17 – 01:07:52:20
Joseph
It was it was cool. I certainly, you know, for the price, but you can’t beat. five bucks to get in there and look around and stuff, so it’s probably one that will go into a game.

01:07:52:20 – 01:07:53:16
Michelle
Yeah, absolutely.

01:07:53:17 – 01:07:54:25
Joseph
It was that was Nerd Fest.

01:07:54:29 – 01:07:55:24
Michelle
Mm hmm. Yeah.

01:07:56:19 – 01:08:11:26
Joseph
And I think that was all we had before we do go, though, I do want to invite you to subscribe to the podcast. You can find audio versions listed as insights in entertainment. You can also find video and audio versions listed under insights into things.

01:08:12:07 – 01:08:26:01
Joseph
We’re available on Pandora, Castro, Stitcher, Pod being Buzz, Sprout and so forth. We’d also invite you to write in to us, give us your feedback, tell us how the new format of the show works. We were curious if this works better than what we were doing before.

01:08:26:21 – 01:08:29:26
Joseph
You can email us at comments and insights into things dot com.

01:08:29:26 – 01:08:36:05
Michelle
You can find us on Twitter at twitter.com and Backslash Insights into things.

01:08:36:12 – 01:08:41:03
Joseph
You can find us on Facebook at Facebook Dot Com Slash Insights Into Things podcast.

01:08:41:04 – 01:08:46:26
Michelle
You can find us on Instagram at instagram.com. Backslash insights into things.

01:08:46:28 – 01:08:53:23
Joseph
And you can find all that and more on our official website and insights into things icon. And that’s it. Another one of the books.

01:08:53:23 – 01:08:54:27
Michelle
Have a good week, everyone.

01:08:54:29 – 01:08:55:28
Michelle
Bye bye.