See a real-life, soaking wet Star Wars Speeder Bike battle
All it takes is a couple of weird, water-powered jetpacks and a whole lot of duct tape to be well on your way to joining the Rebellion.
- Finalist for the Nesta Tipping Point prize and a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
If you can't wait until next week's premiere of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" for the possibility of a new Speeder Bike battle, YouTuber Devin Super Tramp modded-out a few Jetovators and took them for a romp down the Sacramento River in full costume to give you the above fix.
The Jetovator is a crazy cross between a hovercraft and a jetpack that runs off a hose connected to the jetted water exhaust of a personal watercraft such as a jet ski. In the above scene, of course, all jet skis have been cleverly omitted from the frame.
In true DIY fashion, the crew relied largely on duct tape to transform the Jetovators into speeder bike replicas and also to create the Stormtroopers' helmets. If you watch the full behind-the-scenes video here, you can see a little more on how the Jetovator was transformed into the bike of the future. For some shots of close-in fighting, two speeder bikes are actually mounted on a single Jetovator platform.
That's right, filmmakers are cheaters, but if they're really good at it, we don't care. The fact remains that the whole video was done without the benefit of any fancy CGI, which means there's hope for all of us to one day have our own real-world Speeder Bike race.
Just be sure to pack a life jacket...and lots of duct tape.
