With Star Wars: The Force Awakens hitting theaters tomorrow, the ILM-created Star Wars Jakku Spy is now fully unlocked for your Google Cardboard viewer on Android or iOS.
The first of nine segments of the Jakku Spy experience was released earlier this month through the official Star Wars app on Android and iOS. The very brief segments were unlocked over the course of the month as a buildup to tomorrow’s premiere of the new film. All 9 segments are now unlocked.
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Jakku Spy is presented as 360 degree 3D videos which are incredibly authentic to the Star Wars universe. And while the production quality of the sets and CGI is most impressive, part of the magic is lost to lack of resolution (as is currently common with many 360 video VR experiences). As a 360 video on your phone at arm’s length, it looks fine, but when you’re inside with the video as a VR experience—with it wrapped around a wide field of view—the quality leaves much to be desired.
Also lacking is narrative substance. Even now, with all 9 segments unlocked, it feels like a throw-away experience, despite efforts to tie into The Force Awakens. There’s no dialogue, save for a single sentence or so that pops up in front of you at the end of each ~30-60 second segment, and very little exposition.
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Granted, this is new tech, and it’s almost certain that the decision to target Cardboard (as opposed to a higher fidelity but less widespread experience like Gear VR) was to make sure a decent number of people could actually see it.
It might not be the Star Wars VR experience that’s going to blow your mind, but it’s a great sign to see the renowned ILM producing official Star Wars VR content. We’re hopeful that this is a sign of things to come on better VR hardware as it becomes more widespread.
