wiredog writes: Disney has developed a radical new theory of copyright. When Disney bought Lucasfilm and Fox, they acquired the copyright licenses that enabled them to sell Alan Dean Foster's books -- but not the liability, the legal obligation to actually pay him for those books. They have apparently also done this to numerous other authors.

The statement from the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) is here, and also a Twitter thread from Cory Doctorow. Foster's complaints go beyond Star Wars. His letter also states that Disney failed to pay royalties entirely for his Alien novelizations. "He noted that he and his agent have tried to negotiate with Disney to resolve it all -- mainly because he and his wife have ongoing medical issues and the royalties would help with bills -- only for Disney to ask Foster to sign an NDA before talks could even commence," reports Gizmodo.

Here's part of his letter sent to the company: "When you purchased Lucasfilm you acquired the rights to some books I wrote. Star Wars, the novelization of the very first film. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the first sequel novel. You owe me royalties on these books. You stopped paying them. When you purchased 20th Century Fox, you eventually acquired the rights to other books I had written. The novelizations of Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3. You've never paid royalties on any of these, or even issued royalty statements for them. All these books are all still very much in print. They still earn money. For you. When one company buys another, they acquire its liabilities as well as its assets. You're certainly reaping the benefits of the assets. I'd very much like my minuscule (though it's not small to me) share."

SFWA president Mary Robinette Kowal said: "The larger problem has the potential to affect every writer. Disney's argument is that they have purchased the rights but not the obligations of the contract. In other words, they believe they have the right to publish work, but are not obligated to pay the writer no matter what the contract says. If we let this stand, it could set precedent to fundamentally alter the way copyright and contracts operate in the United States. All a publisher would have to do to break a contract would be to sell it to a sibling company." The group is asking Disney to either pay Foster foor back and future royalties or cease publication -- either permanently or until new contracts can be signed. They're also asking any other writers who may have had the same experience with Disney to come forward.

"Forget all the rules about uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols; your password just needs to be at least 12 characters, and it needs to pass a real-time strength test" developed by the passwords research group in Carnegie Mellon's CyLab Security and Privacy Institute (according to the Lab's web site).

CNET reports: After a user has created a password of at least 10 characters, the meter will start giving suggestions, such as breaking up common words with slashes or random letters, to make your password stronger...

One of the problems with many passwords is that they tick all the security checks but are still easy to guess because most of us follow the same patterns, the lab found. Numbers? You'll likely add a "1" at the end. Capital letters? You'll probably make it the first one in the password. And special characters? Frequently exclamation marks...

In an experiment, users created passwords on a system that simply required them to enter 10 characters. Then the system rated the passwords with the lab's password strength meter and gave tailored suggestions for stronger passwords. Test subjects were able to come up with secure passwords that they could recall up to five days later. It worked better than showing users preset lists of rules or simply banning known bad passwords (I'm looking at you "StarWars")...

Lorrie Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Security and Privacy Laboratory at CMU, says the best way to create and remember secure passwords is to use a password manager. Those aren't widely adopted, and they come with some trade-offs. Nonetheless, they allow you to create a random, unique password for each account, and they remember your passwords for you.

At the Creative Arts Emmys on Wednesday night, The Mandalorian not only scored its first Emmy but also won the first Emmy for Disney+. Deadline reports: As a brand new streamer, this year marks the first year of eligibility for Disney+. The Mandalorian has racked up a staggering 15 Emmy nominations with 8 of those trophies being handed out tonight. Outstanding Special Visual Effects is the first win for the sci-fi series that stars Pedro Pascal as the titular masked hero and introduced the world to Baby Yoda -- which won everyone's hearts. This win will likely be the first of many tonight and at Sunday's ceremony. The Mandalorian is also up for Outstanding Drama Series as well as Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for Taika Waitti's role as droid IG-11 and Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series for Giancarlo Esposito's performance as Moff Gideon.

Chris Burns, writing for SlashGear: This morning the official Disney+ Twitter account suggested that Star Wars fans could celebrate the next big holiday with the biggest brand in the galaxy. "Celebrate the Saga," they said, "Reply with your favorite #StarWars memory and you may see it somewhere special on #MayThe4th." The follow up to this message with a bit of lawyer language. "By sharing your message with us using #MayThe4th," said the account, "you agree to our use of the message and your account name in all media and our terms of use here: disneytermsofuse.com."

The Bad Astronomer writes: A new study of very young binary stars shows that exoplanets orbiting them (circumbinary planets) will orbit in the same plane as the stars if the two stars are relatively close together. If the stars are farther apart, the planets may have a perpendicular (polar) orbit around them. This study looked at the protoplanetary disks of dust and gas around binaries to draw this conclusion. Extrapolating to fiction, this means Tatooine in Star Wars was coplanar with its host stars.

DevNull127 writes: MIT has a long-standing tradition. High school seniors who've been accepted into next year's class at MIT are informed on Pi Day (March 14th — that is, 3/14). And each year there's also a slick video touting the URL where students can check whether they've been admitted. (Last year's video documented a massive project that involved 30 sacks of charcoal plus several hundred pounds of — no, that would be telling...)

But in 2018 Dean of Admissions Stu Schmill appeared in a Star Wars-themed video titled "The Last Dean." (The 2017 video had also paid homage to another Disney franchise...) So for 2020, MIT's video returned again to their version of Star Wars universe.

Congratulations to the class of 2024! Even America's National Security Agency got into the Pi Day fun this year, daring readers on Twitter to try to crack the code hidden in this sentence:

"Now, I make a tasty delicious or hidden treat and share messages decrypted through numbering..."

"After opening 20 percent behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi last weekend, Skywalker has almost caught up with its predecessor as it heads for the $1 billion mark in a fitting end to Disney's unprecedented domination at the 2019 box office," writes the Hollywood Reporter.

But Forbes senior contributor Paul Tassi notes that critics seem to hate it -- while it's been embraced by Star Wars fans: Rise of Skywalker now has some critics calling JJ Abrams' finale effort one of the worst in the series, oftentimes even more so than the dreaded prequels. In contrast, a good chunk of fans seem to enjoy the finale and think it's a fitting end to the series, and "fixes" much of what went wrong from with The Last Jedi... You can actually see this play out in the numbers. I went through and measured the critic score versus the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for every Star Wars film... the biggest gap in favor of fan approval, by a huge margin, is Rise of Skywalker, with fans rating it a full 31% better than the critical average...

[W]hat's going on here, really? To me, the impression I'm getting is that critics have overreacted to Rise of Skywalker's flaws just like fans overreacted to the problems with The Last Jedi. Neither of these films are even close to the worst Star Wars film in the grand list. Critics are insane to say that Rise of Skywalker is worse than movies like Attack of the Clones or Phantom Menace, so much so that it almost seems spiteful to try and make that case. And the same goes for The Last Jedi haters who would rate it as the worst Star Wars move in history by a 13% margin under the worst prequel, Attack of the Clones. Just... absolutely no way.

To sum up what happened, fans were mad that The Last Jedi took traditional Star Wars arcs and shattered them, ignoring questions like the mystery of Snoke and Rey's origins, and that the film turned Luke from shining hero to grumpy sacrificial lamb. And that's exactly what critics liked about the film, that it broke away from tropes and tried something new. That's why those same critics are so mad now, because JJ Abrams did everything possible to undo so much of what Johnson did in The Last Jedi, providing specific answers to those questions that Johnson said weren't important. Abrams sidelines lambasted characters like Rose, he mocks Last Jedi moments like the Holdo maneuver or Luke throwing away his lightsaber. It's such a complete rewrite of The Last Jedi it actually feels vengeful.

But fans like it A) because they got those Last Jedi "fixes" they were looking for and B) it was specifically...made for fans. The film is rife with fan service, which is often viewed as a negative by critics, but you know who likes fan service? Fans.
He also shares some "lessons learned" for Disney: that one person should be in charge of an entire film series, and "that maybe we don't always need a trilogy, and stories should be as long as they need to be."

"Technically JJ Abrams' Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker could have just been a two-film set, given how much of The Last Jedi was flat-out erased."

This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Jason Koebler, writing for Motherboard: Emperor Palpatine is back with a fleet of planet-killing Star Destroyers, the masses are scared to fight the Final Order, and the last glimmer of hope for the rebellion is nearly stamped out by ... overbearing DRM? The Rise of Skywalker is an allegory for the dystopian nightmare we are quickly hurtling toward, one in which we don't own our droids (or any of our other stuff), their utility hampered by arbitrary decisions and software locks by monopolistic corporations who don't want us to repair our things. In Skywalker, C3PO, master of human-cyborg relations, speaks six million languages including Sith (spoken by the Dark Side), but a hard-coded software lock (called Digital Rights Management here on Earth) in his circuitry prevents him from translating Sith aloud to his human users. Presumably, this is to prevent the droid from being used by the Sith, but makes very little sense in the context of a galactic war that has relied so heavily on double agents, spies, and leaked plans and documents. The only explanation that makes any sense is a greedy 3PO manufacturer that sells the Sith language pack as a microtransaction and a galactic Congress that hasn't passed strong right to repair laws for the junk traders, droid mechanics, and droid users of the galaxy. C3PO's software lock is a major plot point in Skywalker as he's unable to translate a Sith passage that could lead our heroes to the Sith planet that the aforementioned Palpatine is hanging out on.

After 42 years the final installment in the 9-movie Star Wars franchise arrived this weekend during a "moment of transition for the movie business," reports Variety: Its $176 million debut, though massive, ranks as the lowest opening of the most recent three films in the saga, falling far below 2015's "The Force Awakens" ($248 million) and 2017's "The Last Jedi" ($220 million). Enthusiasm for the series is beginning to flag (2019's spin-off "Solo: A Star Wars Story" did the impossible, becoming the first Star Wars movie to lose money). Reviews were lackluster and it's unclear what Star Wars' future will be on the big screen... Disney, the company that bought the rights to the space opera with its $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm, once envisioned something different for "Star Wars." It believed that the mythology of virtuous Jedi warriors and evil Sith lords was so rich it could spawn a movie a year, making it analogous to Marvel, another in-house purveyor of global blockbusters. Faced with diminishing box office returns, it has been forced to acknowledge that it may have done too much, too fast. Even its ambitious Disneyland theme park, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, has been a disappointment, with attendance far lower than expected.

The one, recent bright spot for Star Wars lovers has been "The Mandalorian," a Disney Plus series that follows a planet-hopping bounty hunter and a co-star in Baby Yoda that boasts a face cute enough to launch a thousand memes. Buoyed by that success, Lucasfilm is moving along with other Disney Plus shows set in a galaxy far, far away, including one featuring Ewan McGregor reprising his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi. This flurry of activity indicates that Star Wars' future may not lie in cinemas. It may be in streaming.

If that's the case, "Star Wars" is pivoting along with the rest of the movie business.
The Los Angeles Times seems to agree, noting that this year 10 movies accounted for 38% of the total box office "that's dominated by intellectual-property-powered blockbusters, at the expense of almost everything else." As the studios become increasingly risk-averse, much of the market for midbudget comedies, dramas and rom-coms has migrated to streaming services such as Netflix. Studios are loath to risk the embarrassment of a flop, and streamers are more than happy to use such content to draw subscribers...

"The studios are more corporate-driven and guided by marketing and bean counters than ever before, and the ability to invest in originality is all moving toward streaming," said Rick Cohen, who runs the five-screen Transit Drive-In in Lockport, N.Y. "But they still have $200 million to throw at 'Dark Phoenix.' You could have made 10 original movies for that budget."

66-year-old Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy reveals what they'll do after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Kennedy says that streaming "is a really important transition... What we've been focused on these last five or six years is finishing that family saga around the Skywalkers. Now is the time to start thinking about how to segue into something new and different."

Kennedy also blames the poor box office of the 2018 movie Solo on the release of too many Star Wars movies too quickly, and remembers getting Disney's okay on a "pause" before future films. "We're literally making this up from whole cloth and bringing in filmmakers to find what these stories might be," Kennedy said. "It can take a while before you find what direction you might want to go. We need the time to do that." The next "Star Wars" film is expected to arrive in 2022, and that's essentially all that's known about it. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has an idea for a "Star Wars" movie, but it's in the early stages, according to Kennedy. Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed "The Last Jedi," is also developing more "Star Wars" films.

Kennedy said she plans to make key decisions about the direction of the franchise in the coming weeks. But some things she already knows. While the "Skywalker" saga is ending, the company won't abandon the characters created in the most recent trilogy. Additionally, she said, the plan is to move beyond trilogies, which can be restricting. "I think it gives us a more open-ended view of storytelling and doesn't lock us into this three-act structure," she said. "We're not going to have some finite number and fit it into a box. We're really going to let the story dictate that."
The article also notes that George Lucas complained there was "nothing new" in The Force Awakens, according to Bob Iger's recent book The Ride of a Lifetime. And though that film was a commercial and critical success, the Times also writes that "Debates over the franchise persisted." "The Last Jedi," for example, was criticized in some circles for going too far in subverting "Star Wars" tropes. Kennedy says the company heeds feedback from "Star Wars" fans. For example, Lucasfilm decided to revive "The Clone Wars" TV series for Disney+ following a prolonged campaign by viewers. "It does matter what they say and what they care about," Kennedy said. "All of those things play a role in our decision making."

Aside from films, Lucasfilm has ample "Star Wars" material in the works, especially for Disney+. The studio is working on shows starring Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Diego Luna as his rebel spy character from "Rogue One." Additionally, the company is experimenting with new formats. Lucasfilm's ILMxLab, a virtual reality and augmented reality unit founded in 2015, this year released a VR series called "Vader Immortal" that puts users face-to-face with Darth Vader and trains headset users to wield a lightsaber.

Anticipating next week's release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, 20 fans are already camping out in front of Hollywood's TCL Chinese Theatre, reports Cinema Blend: The tight-knit group of fans have brought along their sleeping bags, tents and Star Wars pajamas to the location for 20 years (since 1999's The Phantom Menace) to get ready for the release of another Star Wars movie. They pass the time by playing games, working on Star Wars LEGO sets and raising awareness for the Starlight Children's Foundation.

Check out one camper's update on Twitter. He's been hanging out in Hollywood for four days and is prepared to wait six more...

The superfans have set up a Death Star rug over handprints of iconic celebrities and are playing a game of Sabacc... [A] little over 100 more are expected to join them in the coming days. The stars of The Rise of Skywalker are expected to walk a red carpet close by on Monday when the world premiere takes place. One fan hopes Disney invites the campers into the screening as the studio did back in 2015 when The Force Awakens premiered.

In 30 minutes an exclusive clip from the yet-to-be-released Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will premier in the videogame Fortnite.

An anonymous reader quotes the Verge: We've known about the clip premiere since last week, but Epic disclosed some more concrete details Thursday night at the Game Awards. The studio says it'll open the gates of its virtual world starting at 1:30 p.m. EST. The clip will start airing at the Risky Reels drive-in movie theater at 2 p.m. EST. Speaking with Game Awards host Geoff Keighley yesterday, Epic's worldwide creative director Donald Mustard hinted that there would be some sort of involvement from director J.J. Abrams. We don't know if that means a live pre-show, or perhaps the director himself will intro the clip before it airs.
UPDATE: CNN has a report on the event, while also noting that its start was delayed 15 minutes "because of issues with logging in and making purchases.

"Even after 2:15 pm, players still took to social media to complain the game was crashing or they couldn't even open it."

Fortnite is also offering skins of Star Wars characters Rey and Finn, according to the article, with Mustard envisioning Fortnite as a world where all intellectual property "can live together." The Verge also predicts that the clip will eventually be available elsewhere online, while Business Insider believes "countless" Fortnite players will stream the event live on YouTube and Twitch.

Meanwhile, J. J. Abrams has also asked Lucasfilm to release the original Star Wars trilogy in its original pre-Special Edition format, according to Nerdist.com, but "I've been told that, for reasons that I quite don't understand, that that's not necessarily possible."

"The Walt Disney Co. is asking exhibitors worldwide to warn moviegoers that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker may pose a seizure risk to audience members with photosensitive epilepsy," reports Deadline: In an unusual move, Disney has sent a letter to theater owners and operators worldwide with a recommendation that special steps should be taken to alert moviegoers about the visual effects and flashing lights in the J.J. Abrams-directed interstellar adventure. "Out of an abundance of caution," the letter opens, "we recommend that you provide at your venue box office and online, and at other appropriate places where your customers will see it, a notice containing the following information: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker contains several sequences with imagery and sustained flashing lights that may affect those who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy or have other photosensitivities."

The Burbank-based Disney is also working with the Epilepsy Foundation, which issued an advisory of its own and commended the studio for taking the initiative on the audience safety issue. About 3.4 million Americans have epilepsy and about three percent have photosensitivity issues that puts them at risk of seizures triggered by flashing lights or other visual patterns.

In a Quartz article, Adam Epstein writes about the filmmaking technology used to film The Mandalorian on Disney+: Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) -- the Lucasfilm subsidiary George Lucas founded in 1975 to make the visual effects for Star Wars -- deployed a real-time 3D projection system called "Stagecraft" on the Disney+ series that could, eventually, replace green-screen as the film industry standard for rendering virtual environments. The company has been testing Stagecraft for five years -- most recently on the Star Wars spin-off movie Solo in 2018. But The Mandalorian, the flagship series on Disney's new streaming service, likely marks the most extensive use yet of the new system.

Stagecraft's chief innovation is that it can project a 3D visual environment around the actors that changes in real time to match the perspective of the camera. When the camera moves, the background moves too, simulating the experience of filming in a different location. It's a significant upgrade from green-screen technology, which requires the filmmakers layer in a static image or footage after filming in front of the blank backdrop. [...] The tech has a wide range of benefits. For starters, it can draw better performances from the actors, who don't have to imagine the environment they are in, as they do when filming in front of green-screen. They can instantly be transported to any location, real or made-up, and feel as though they are there. And that's another big advantage: Stagecraft allows films and TV shows to simulate environments without actually having to send an entire production there to film. "One downside is that the displays used in Stagecraft require liquid crystals that take several years to grow," the report adds. "Growing and maintaining these crystals, which are the backbone of LCD (liquid crystal display) screens, can be expensive and time-consuming, perhaps complicating the attempts of other companies to adapt the technology."

This video from Unreal Engine shows a smaller scale version of the tech in action.

Freshly Exhumed shares a report from The Guardian: George Lucas, whose departure from all things Star Wars seems to have been greatly exaggerated -- appears to have yet again doctored the famous Greedo scene in 1977's Star Wars [prior to it being shown on the Disney+ streaming service]. The scene depicts the Mos Eisley cantina in which Harrison Ford's Han Solo is confronted by an alien bounty hunter and winds up shooting him dead in a brief flurry of blaster fire. It has been much discussed over the years, largely because Solo shot Greedo in cold blood in the original, "Han shot first" 1977 cut, while in later versions Lucas re-edited the footage to depict Greedo as the aggressor, with Han returning fire in self-defense. Many fans have speculated about what effect that subtle change had on Han's transformation in the original trilogy from cold-hearted hustler to hero of the resistance. Now Lucas has tinkered all over again, to further muddy the waters.

As seen on new streaming service Disney+, the scene features Han and Greedo shooting at roughly the same moment -- to be fair, this is a change introduced several years back. But now, Greedo appears to utter the phrase "MacClunkey!" before succumbing to his wounds. Reports suggest Lucas made the changes some years ago, perhaps around the time he sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4 billion, in 2012. Celebrities such as Stephen King and Patton Oswalt have speculated about what the re-edit means for the future of Star Wars, though nobody seems to have much of a clue.

Luke Skywalker wasn't going to be the only Jedi in the final Star Wars movie, reports Yahoo Entertainment: In the original version of the ninth and final installment, The Rise of Skywalker, his sister, Leia (played by Carrie Fisher), was going to emerge as a full-fledged Jedi warrior, complete with her very own lightsaber. That's according to no less an authority than Fisher's real-life brother, Todd Fisher, who filled us in on what the plan was for his sister's iconic character prior to her sudden death in December 2016. "She was going to be the big payoff in the final film," Fisher reveals exclusively to Yahoo Entertainment. "She was going to be the last Jedi, so to speak. That's cool right....? People used to say to me, 'Why is it that Carrie never gets a lightsaber and chops up some bad guys,'" Fisher says, noting that Alec Guinness was roughly the same age when Obi-Wan Kenobi battled Darth Vader in A New Hope. "Obi-Wan was in his prime when he was Carrie's age...!"

Unfortunately, a version of The Rise of Skywalker where Leia picks up her father and brother's chosen weapon can only exist in our imaginations. After Fisher's death, her alter ego's arc had to be re-conceived by returning director J.J. Abrams, who previously directed the actress in 2015's The Force Awakens. "The truth is that J.J. Abrams was great friends with Carrie... he had an extraordinary sense of love for her," her brother says. It was that love that led the filmmaker to make a bold, and creatively risky decision: take unused footage of Leia left over from The Force Awakens and make it part of The Rise of Skywalker. "They had eight minutes of footage," Fisher tells us. "They grabbed every frame and analyzed it... and then reverse-engineered it and [got] it into the story the right way. It's kind of magical."

An anonymous reader quotes an analyst for the Motley Fool: With so many industry worrywarts and Star Wars purists taking a dim view of Disney's bicoastal Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge expansion, I figured I'd check out Florida's version on Saturday afternoon. Would I get pelted by drifting tumbleweed while slurping down some blue milk? Would my voice echo in a barren Droid Depot? Would I leave accepting that the first phase of what initially seemed like a slam-dunk expansion has turned into a colossal flop for ages?

If you read the headline you know my answer. In my sixth visit to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge -- four to the original Disneyland version this summer and now my second visit at Disney World, but the first since it officially opened -- I have never seen the 14-acre addition as busy as it was this weekend. The wait for the high-capacity Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run was 85 minutes. A mobile order at the Docking Bay 7 eatery was filled quickly just past the lunch rush block, but finding an empty table proved challenging. The stores -- and more importantly, the registers -- were thick with tourists. It's early October, which is historically when the theme park industry hits a lull. However, it seems the one-two punch of the recent media blitz across most of Disney's media networks and last week's opening of the Skyliner gondola system that connects two of Disney World's parks with several of its hotels is doing the trick.
Hours later, Disney announced they were closing the Skyline gondola system, after it stalled Saturday night, stranding passengers in the air "for about three hours," according to passengers interviewed by CNN.

"Passengers who were stranded were compensated with free park tickets and gift cards."

Tablizer shares a report from SFGate: Visitors to Disney's new Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge attraction, can choose from more than 1,000 unique items to take home as souvenirs. But if they plan on flying home, they'll have to leave at least one behind -- a specially designed "thermal detonator" Coca-Cola bottle the company made especially for the new attraction. TSA has told fans that the bottle, which retails for $5, looks too much like a replica explosive and therefore won't be allowed in carry-on or checked baggage. Fans, not surprisingly are not pleased with the decision. I hope they don't take away my lightsaber.

This weekend Disney revealed more details about Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, a cruise-like experience which promises "a two-night, all-immersive adventure," inviting visitors to "live your very own epic Star Wars story."

Gizmodo reports: Like a cruise ship, everyone boards at once and everyone leaves at once. How that works though is, you arrive to a special terminal in Orlando to check in. From there you get on a "launch pod" that blasts you into space. That's where you meet up with the Halcyon, the ship you'll be on the next two days, as you travel through space. Now, when I say "launch" and "travel through space" that's just the illusion, obviously. Disney didn't explain how they will achieve it but, probably lots of screens and different animations to try and make you feel like you are in a real space.

Once you get on the ship, how you experience the adventure is up to you. You can relax and watch the stars fly by as the Halcyon travels through space. Or you can take place in all manner of different activities to learn how to be a hero. You can use a lightsaber, you can help pilot the ship, or you can learn about the ship's defenses so that, just in case the First Order drops by, you'll be able to help. (They'll be dropping by.) The crew will be comprised of "aliens," every window has a view into space (including the one in your cabin), and characters new and old (they showed Chewie, Rey and Kylo) will be part of the experience. An experience that has one stop on it -- Batuu and the Black Spire Outpost, aka Star Wars Galaxy's Edge.
The Disney Parks blog promises the starcruiser "will fully immerse guests in a galaxy far, far away."

In 2014 Esquire argued that great movies like The Matrix "predicted a revolution in film that never happened," adding "We are in many ways worse off now than we were 15 years ago as a culture. We seem to have run out of original ideas."

This week two film critics debated whether 1999 was in fact cinema's last great year. Slashdot reader dryriver writes: Notable films of 1999 are Fight Club, Magnolia, The Matrix, Eyes Wide Shut, Three Kings, The Sixth Sense, EXistenZ, Being John Malkovich, Man On The Moon, American Beauty, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Office Space, Boys Don't Cry, Election, Rushmore, Buena Vista Social Club, The Virgin Suicides, Sleepy Hollow, The Insider, Girl Interrupted, The Iron Giant and Toy Story 2.

According to Nicholas Barber, 1999 also was the beginning of the end for quality cinema:

"The release of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace proved that long-dormant series could be lucratively revived. Toy Story 2, the first ever Pixar sequel, proved that cartoon follow-ups needn't be straight-to-video cheapies, but major, money-spinning phenomena. The Matrix proved that digitally-enhanced superhero action could attract audiences of all ages. And The Blair Witch Project proved that found-footage horror in particular, and microbudget horror in general, could be a gold mine. As wonderful as those films may have been -- The Phantom Menace excepted, obviously -- they taught Hollywood some toxic lessons. Instead of continuing to bet on young mavericks, studio executives twigged that there was a fortune to be made from superhero blockbusters, Disney sequels, merchandise-friendly franchises and cheapo horror movies. And that's what we get in 2019, week after week."
He also writes that the boom in DVDs in 1999 had "encouraged studios to fund offbeat projects," ultimately concluding 1999 was "the year when everything began to go wrong." He argues that today it's a different technology driving innovation. "In the 21st Century, streaming platforms have made the small screen the home of fresh ideas, as well as for conversation-starting communal cultural experiences."

But film critic Hannah Woodhead counters with a line from the 1999 film Magnolia: "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

"Nostalgia is often the enemy of progress when it comes to pop culture. We have a tendency to look back fondly on what came before, ironing out the flaws in our memory until the past is something that seems truly great, and even aspirational."