Remember watching Rey’s* miniscule speeder cross the Jakku desert between the camera and a wrecked Imperial Star Destroyer in the iconic opening moments of the most recent trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens?
Now, thanks to a 360 degree interactive video created for the Star Wars Facebook page, you can get a much closer look at the starship graveyard scene, as if you were riding the speeder yourself. Don’t worry about driving – just control the camera and soak in the Jakku junkyard scenery.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Immersive 360 ExperienceSpeed across the Jakku desert from Star Wars: The Force Awakens with this immersive 360 experience created exclusively for Facebook.
Posted by Star Wars on Wednesday, September 23, 2015
(Note: The box above is a Facebook embed, but it’s not displaying the video here. You can click through one of the links in the box or just click here to play it on Facebook.)
You’ll probably never get another chance to be this close to a Star Destroyer (or a starship graveyard), except in a movie theater, so just remember — fly casual.
EW put the post in the context of a newly announced Facebook 360 degree video initiative that works with special spherical cameras and selected other partners, and look at some of the Easter eggs in the Star Wars video (while managing to misspell Tusken). Check it out here.
This is very cool and all, and I hope to see more immersive experiences like this. But I think between this and widescreen Instagram clips, we’re about due for another proper trailer…
Hat tip to Dustin “Dr. Jedi” Diehl
* The official Star Wars Facebook profile confirmed, in response to a fan question, that the speeder belongs to Daisy Ridley’s character Rey.
