Star Wars 8hype is starting to get out of control with less than 90 days to go until the long awaited sequel toThe Force Awakenshits theaters. One particular U.K. website, Argos, has decided to celebrate the release of Rian Johnson’sThe Last Jedibe sendingBB-8on a real-life space mission. The popular website sells a lot of toys and they have 15 exclusive tie-ins forStar Wars 8, but none of them will automatically get launched into orbit. Argos had to give BB-8 an extra hand to get him into space and back to the Resistance.
To celebrate the upcoming release ofThe Last Jedi, Argos decided to pull an awesome publicity stunt and literally lunch a BB-8 toy into space.TheDailyStar U.K.reports that the popular website took one of theremote controlled BB-8 toysand attached it to a weather balloon with a camera to capture his mission back to the Resistance. The results are some pretty gorgeous images of the droid floating up into the atmosphere.
Argos partnered with twelve space experts to help them pull off their BB-8 space mission, which lasted about 2 hours before the droid made its reentry back to Earth, plummeting at speeds as fast as 200 miles per hour to rejoin the other pieces ofStar Warsmerchandise. The team was able to track the droid via camera and advanced tracking technology that showed the BB-8 unit float over the English countryside, getting higher and higher until all of England is visible through the clouds. Next, you can clearly see BB-8 over the clouds, about to leave Earth’s atmosphere. It is also important to note that all of the video footage shows a BB-8 menu from the popular Sphero toy and it’s a nice touch for the publicity stunt.
In addition to the new BB-8 droid fromSphero, the company has also made a version of the First Order’s droid of choice, the BB-9E, or the BB-H8 as it was lovingly called on set.BB 9-Eis just like BB-8, the rolling robot who melted everyone’s hearts inThe Force Awakens, but with a flat head that vaguely resembles a probe droid fromThe Empire Strikes Back. Just like BB-8, he’s a droid whose magnetic head sits atop a rolling spherical body, and he makes robot noises except this time he’s black and gray to represent being evil.
While no video has surfaced of the BB-9E getting launched into orbit, we still have a few months beforeThe Last Jedihits theaters, so you never know, it could happen.The Last Jediwill officially be released on December 15th, but it was recently announced that the world premiere will take place on December 8th, a solid week before the movie hits theaters for moviegoers. For now, we have some pretty epic video from BB-8’s journey into space, courtesy of Argos, that you can check out below.
