This week we’re learning all the Secrets of the Empire straight from David S. Goyer.
Well not all the secrets of the Empire.
Some of the secrets.
A handful of the Secrets of the Empire.
You don't want to give all the secrets away.
Smattering is what I would call it.
This is the Star Wars Show!
From the Lucasfilm headquarters in San Francisco.
Here's your hosts Andi and Anthony!
Hey Everyone! We’re finally back in our studio and ready to begin the exciting,
thrilling, and non-stop adventure that Season Three will bring us!
That might be overselling it, just a little.
Okay, how about this.
We are ready to bring you a mildly interesting, slightly enjoyable, weekly, with occasional breaks inbetween new season?
You forgot to add the cringe.
Also with more cringe.
You might wonder how.
Perfect!
And now the news!
If you're into fitness and running through a theme park without having security chasing you and yelling,
"no running through the theme park!"
Then this first story is for you.
runDisney's Dark Side half marathon is returning April 19 through 22 at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando.
And unlike past Star Wars half marathons this year they're adding a virtual half marathon
that lets you run at your own pace anywhere you want.
More details on the races, including first looks at the medals can be found right now on StarWars.com and runDisney.com.
During our break, Secrets of the Empire opened in Orlando, London, and Anaheim.
Now for those of you who don't know what Secrets of the Empire is,
it's a hyper reality experience done with The Void where you put on VR helmets and force-feedback vests
and actually walk through the experience. Allowing you to touch, feel, and smell the virtual environment.
But instead of just talking about it. Let's show you what it was like!
Cause it was really cool!
And we got to do it!
I know! It was awesome!
Enjoy!
You're watching The Star Wars Show!
[Cheering]
We're in Downtown Disney in Anaheim California
and we're about to try something that I've been waiting for my entire life, Andi.
I am so excited to experience it with you.
We are about to go through Secrets of the Empire, a collaboration between ILMxLab and The Void.
It is a hyper reality experience.
Which is something that we've never done before.
You hear the words hyper reality and you don't quite grasp exactly what that is
You're bringing in all of your senses.
So it's just not what you're seeing, it's what you're smelling, it's what you're touching.
It's the ability to move your body through a space and it becomes real to you.
Oh my gosh! It's actually warm, like you can feel the heat.
Smells like burning.
Oh wow, there's actual breeze!
This is nuts!
There's something wonderful about being able to push an actual button that's in front of you
or lean up against a wall.
It was a great team between xLab and The Void to come together and figure out what does it mean to step into Star Wars.
You are in a lot of ways creating your own story.
Depending on where you look, what you do touch, don't touch.
So everyone comes out with a different Star Wars story mixed within this grander story that we've crafted.
And the social aspect of it's really fun.
I mean going through with your friends.
You are your own Rebel cell that's being brought through.
We were shouting directions at each other.
Like which stormtroopers to shoot.
Two on the high platform!
More coming in!
Alright, I'll take them. Ill get the bottom row. You take the top row.
There's a richness no matter where you look
and that was important because with this being a team aspect
some people are not looking forward or some people are not going to be covering other places.
So you always want them to have some richness, something interesting to look at, and to see.
Not to mention all the various Easter eggs we have throughout.
There are other places we can go experience this right as well?
Yes, we're open up in Orlando now, in Disney Springs.
And then also in London, we have a pop up there.
More locations to come, right?
A lot more location to come.
The captain says you are a friend.
I will not kill you.
We have David S. Goyer with us this week and we have a ton to talk about.
You wrote Secrets of the Empire.
Your career spans film, video games, books, comics, TV, now VR.
Yup.
Can you tell me a little bit about how you came to be working with ILMxLab and The Void on this specific project?
Well my relationship with ILM dates back a couple of years.
Yeah.
Then specifically about 18 months ago ILMxLab asked me if I wanted to get involved in this sort of VR initiative.
And I leapt at the chance to take part in telling an authentic Star Wars story.
I think that when you're experiencing virtual worlds, like so many people,
God knows, when I was growing up I wanted to be in Star Wars and this is a chance to do that.
Right! This experience was exactly like the scenario that we've all played out with our action figures as a kid.
Completely! Completely!
So you are bringing the story to this and ILMxLab and The Void or bringing the tech and the hardware.
What was it like with that collaboration and getting this story together?
Basically everyone's working very collaboratively.
So there was a lot of experimentation with how do we get the story information across.
How do we convey to you that you have to go from A to B or open this up or close that.
That was that was a lot of experimentation.
It's amazing how our brains sort of take these visual cues and these like sensory cues and make them seem so real.
There's that moment where you walk out onto the skiff and I'm afraid of heights.
Right.
So I just wanted to sit down, like that's terrifying.
It's amazing how real that all felt.
That's really The Voids expertise.
Kurtis, one of the main guys at The Void, he used to be an illusionist.
And so a lot of what we're experiencing are these kind of illusions.
There are things you can touch and things you can smell and things you can feel in the experience.
But what we've learned is that a little bit goes a long way.
and you can sort of just intuit what this is going to be in the future
We had mentioned earlier about how this is like the story that we all acted out when we were kids.
What's it like getting to fill in those gaps but also creating questions for people?
Like that ancient weapon that we've never seen before.
That object, we're calling it for now the proto-saber.
Mhmmm.
The idea is it's kind of a prototype of a lightsaber and it may find its way into other mediums, you know, in the Star Wars universe.
See, that's super cool, cause you're not just tying everything up in a neat little package.
You're leaving questions and things for fans to think about.
For me, I like knowing that we're sort of adding to the mythology
and that's gonna kind of disseminate through all these different forms.
Now I know you're still working with ILMxLab on this other project.
Top-secret.
Top-secret project that we can't talk about yet because it's, you know, still in the works.
Still in the works.
We're gonna have to have you come back and talk about that later.
Thank you so much for joining us.
And congratulations. It's such a cool, cool experience and story.
Seeing that this episode was all about hyper-reality experiences,
we thought it would be fun to find out what your favorite Star Wars experience was.
Whether it was waiting in line for weeks on end for Phantom Menace
or meeting your best friend at a Star Wars Celebration,
we want to hear all about it.
Send it to us using the hashtag #SWSExperience
or drop it in the comments on the community tab on YouTube.
Cause that's the thing we can do now.
Yeah!
Season 3, baby!
And as always if you haven't already,
like the video, subscribe to the channel, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and download the Star Wars app.
Thanks for watching and may the Force be with you!
It's gonna be it's gonna be real hard to pick a favorite experience. There's so many!
It's gonna be real hard not to post Caravan of Courage GIFs over and over and over in the community tab.
Do I have access to the community tab?
NOOOO!
100% more cringe!
I cant.
[Laughing]
How is it possible?
Cringe farming.
We were already the nation's number one exporter of cringe.
Where do we find all the cringe, really?
That's the question.
In here.
In your heart.
The cringe was inside you all along.