Newsletter 
As of writing, there are just 16 days to go until the worldwide release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and what is bound to be one of the biggest box office draws for a long, long time. Many of us – myself included – have already bought their tickets and are eagerly awaiting to see what J.J Abrams has done with a franchise that so many have loved for years. Now that the franchise is in the hands of Disney, it’s no surprise that characters from this new film as well as the original films have been absolutely everywhere. It’s been difficult to escape Disney’s aggressive merchandising push this year and now Verizon are getting involved.
Disney and Verizon have partnered together to offer up a Google Cardboard experience just before the film hits theaters across the country. Verizon is doing their part by offering up four different Google Cardboard designs, one for each of the franchise’s beloved Droids, R2-D2 and BB-8 and one each for Kylo Ren and Stormtroopers everywhere. It appears as though the light side need not apply here, but we guess the two droids count as flag bearers for the light side of the force, right? Either way, these cardboard designs won’t be available for long and they’re only available in select Verizon stores, and only to Verizon customers (how surprising). Meanwhile, Disney will be doing their bit by offering up a short VR experience, dubbed “Jakku Spy” through the official Star Wars app, available in the Play Store for free. We’d assume that you can experience this with any sort of Google Cardboard VR viewer though, so it’s not all bad news.
This sort of thing shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it is nice to see mainstream entertainment get involved in virtual reality, even if it is for shameless self-promotion. Big entertainment names like Disney and Star Wars will no doubt help to raise awareness about virtual reality and hopefully get more people interested in the emerging platform. If you’re interested in learning more about these special Star Wars VR sets, check the source link below to find a store in your galaxy.