Screenrant Writer And Former Imagineer Defends The 'Star Wars' Hotel After Viral Jenny Nicholson Video, Escalating Great 'Galactic Starcruiser' Discourse

The great YouTuber Star Wars drama of 2024 appears to have escalated this week, as some on social media suspect Disney paid a Screenrant writer to defend the company against YouTuber Jenny Nicholson's exhaustive takedown of the company's ill-fated Galactic Starcruiser experience.

Here's the background. On May 18th, Jenny Nicholson released a four-hour video essay investigating Disney's failed immersive Star Wars experience attraction, which essentially had people LARP as though they lived in the Star Wars universe for two days.

The video is almost as much of an investment as the experience, which could run a family of four $6,000.

Throughout her video, Nicholson discussed her experience at the so-called "Star Wars hotel" and painted a bleak picture. She said her rooms were not worth the experience's hefty price tag; she could not enjoy the live entertainment because she was seated behind a pole; she went in fully prepared to LARP along with the experience, but she got railroaded into a different experience by the Galactic Starcruiser app that ignored her choices.

The video's thesis was that the failure of the Star Wars hotel was indicative of a larger trend with Disney theme parks, which is that the prices go up while the quality of the experiences goes down.

@theegoosegirl #greenscreen #jennynicholson #starwars #galacticstarcruiser #starwarshotel #dnd #dndtok #dndtiktok ♬ original sound – madeleine 🍉

On Wednesday, Screenrant published an article defending the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience from the perspective of an employee who worked at it. That employee is Screenrant writer Molly Brizzell, who covers all things Star Wars for the publication. She is indeed a former employee of Walt Disney World and worked the Galactic Starcruiser.

While the piece doesn't mention Nicholson, it seemed clear to many that it was inspired by the discourse surrounding the failed attraction after Nicholson's video.

The article says many people did not understand the level of immersion offered by the experience and conceded that the price was high, but the overall 48-hour experience made it worth it, as evidenced by some positive reviews the experience received.

When the piece hit Twitter / X, it was met with doubters who believed it was damage control paid for by Disney, though there's no evidence Brizzell received a kickback from Disney for her piece.

One aspect of the article they used to support their claim was that in Nicholson's video, she claims that influencers paid to say "Galactic Starcruiser experience" came off as disingenuous when most people would say "Star Wars hotel." The Screenrant article calls it the "Galactic Starcruiser experience" the whole way through.

As of now, it's unclear whether Screenrant's piece was sponcon or simply a passionate defense from a former Imagineer, but whatever the case, it doesn't appear to be doing much to improve the general public's opinion on the Star Wars hotel — sorry, the immersive Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience.