Movie Review: "Halcyon Daze: The Final Voyages of Disney's Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser" Documents the Now-Shuttered Immersive Experience

Last week at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 here in Southern California, I had the opportunity to attend a screening of the new documentary Halcyon Daze: The Final Voyages of Disney's Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Below are my thoughts.

In September it will have been three years since the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser permanently shut its doors at Walt Disney World-- only about a year and a half after it opened. And now a new documentary entitled Halcyon Daze: The Final Voyages of Disney's Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser seeks to memorialize this unique but short-lived overnight immersive theater experience via footage shot during-- as the title implies-- some of its final cruises. After hosting its world premiere at the Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival earlier this year, filmmaker and featured subject Carrie Jo Coaplen (who, according to IMDb, had never made a movie of any type before) made her way to San Diego Comic-Con 2026 to screen the completed doc to interested congoers.

I was there in the audience at SDCC, but in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I was also among the proud few who had the privilege of traveling aboard the Chandrila Star Line's starcruiser Halcyon early on during those roughly 19 months that it was in operation. I actually went through the experience about one and a half times, having attending a condensed media preview of the ship and then embarking on a full-length voyage about a month or so after it opened. I had a great time, but I also should also note-- again, disclosure-- that I did not pay for it. In fact I was paid to be there by my job here at Laughing Place, and I believe it generated some quality content for our website and its YouTube channel. Suffice it to say that I'm an avowed fan of the Galactic Starcruiser, and I know quite a few other people who would also refer to themselves as such.

But since its closure, the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser has amassed a (mostly unearned, I would argue) negative reputation, via lengthy YouTube video essays with high view counts from at least one person who had what my friend Nick has called "a statistically rare bad time" aboard the Halcyon. It doesn't help that Disney reportedly shut down their costly experiment for dubious (read: tax-related) reasons, thereby cementing it as a "failure" in the view of outsiders, the vast majority of whom never once stepped foot aboard the ship. Thankfully, Halcyon Daze has arrived to set the record straight on why the Galactic Starcruiser means so much to so many people.

This documentary succeeds by using "I" statements and providing a firsthand chronicling of Coaplen's journeys aboard the Halcyon, but the first-time documentarian also supports her viewpoint by inviting other Starcruisers to voice their passions as well-- the movie is peppered with interview footage, both shot in-person and remotely-- of other Galactic Starcruiser visitors and even a few cast members from the experience, each of whom provides their own viewpoint on why this experience has stuck with people, even several years after its shuttering. We get a rough outline of what it was like to go on the two-day voyage, and there's a thorough examination of the impact it had on the Halcyon's guests.

I have to admit I was a little hesitant going into Halcyon Daze after learning that Coaplen was simply a Galactic Starcruiser superfan who ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund her movie, and not an experienced filmmaker. But I have to admit, even though I am still a little bothered by the influence of reality television staging and editing on the world of contemporary documentaries, Coaplen did a good job of structuring her movie to keep it interesting for both tried-and-true Starcruisers and newcomers to the immersive concept. The basics are there and it feels like a real movie, which is more than I can say about a lot of amateur documentaries I have seen in my time. It's also genuinely moving, and I loved hearing the stories about the still-thriving community that has grown between and among Halcyon devotees over the past four years.

On the other hand, while I indeed enjoyed the film overall-- and am very glad that it exists as a monument to the experience and its legacy-- I do have a couple of minor nitpicks, the first being that it ever-so-slightly overstays its welcome during its denouement, after the Galactic Starcruiser closes for business and we see fans making attempts to recapture the spirit of what went on there. My second critique is that, while I absolutely appreciate the positive approach, I would have liked to see more of an analytical breakdown of what did actually go wrong with this experience and why it didn't last. I had zero interest in watching any of the YouTube videos I referenced above, but there's also more to the Galactic Starcruiser story than "it was great and everyone loved it" as well... otherwise it would still be around. Perhaps there's a more authentic middle ground here between "perfect, no notes" and "abject failure," and a documentary that took an objective, balanced look at the clash between guest satisfaction and financial reality might have been even more compelling.

My grade: 3 1/2 Starcruisers out of 5

Halcyon Daze: the Final Voyages of Disney's Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser will next screen at Gen Con 2026 and Flyover Fest 2026, both this coming weekend. The film is currently seeking a distributor for a wide release.