I think there are some pretty good options out there for less than $500. There are YouTube channels that do a lot of those reviews: Spectre Sound Studios, Guitar Max, Darrell Braun, etc so there is no shortage of info about them. But Firefly goes the ultra cheap route and all the ones I got just played like shit despite trying to set them up better. Here are the other ones I went through.
I bought a few of those Firefly guitars and thought they were all crap. Their fans rave about them and maybe I just got a bunch of duds but I thought they were bad. I’m still hanging on to a semi hollow tele-style model with P90s because I think it looks cool and may make it into a slide guitar, but even after swapping the strings they bend about as well as rebar, the tuning pegs require two hands to get them to move, and the action and setup are pretty bad.
Before they wrap it all up it would be fun to explore more of the what-would-you-do aspect. Kind of like daydreaming about winning the lottery. If you could have literally any experience or material possession that humans could provide, what would you do? See the most exclusive places on earth? Go to space? Eat and drink the most amazing things imaginable? Better hurry on that last one as the ingredients are running out.
Caught it on a flight yesterday. I love the original and watched it many times in college, and I thought it was a fitting follow up. Hell Toupee killed me, and the trashing of Paul McCartney.