It’s one thing to be Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa for Halloween; it’s another to be Luke and Leia riding a levitating speeder through the streets of New York City in the name of everyone’s favorite fall holiday.
A new video, created in collaboration between Casey Neistat and Jesse Wellens, features the duo recreating the famous speeder stolen by Luke and Leia in Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi. Using a Super 73 electric bike, Wellens and lead designer Ian Chambers began constructing the outer body frame that sits on top of and around the smaller bike’s frame. Together, with a team of carpenters, woodworkers and other tradesmen, Wellens’ team spent a few days working on creating the bike seen in the video above.
The video below provides an in-depth look at the building process, including the various parts, tools and materials used to create the speeder.
Once the bike was complete, Wellens met up with Neistat to start working on their annual Halloween video. The two have been in the news before for previous Halloween stunts, including turning a Boosted Board into Aladdin’s magic carpet and Wellens covering his body in silver paint to ride around New York City as the Silver Surfer.
In a behind-the-scenes feature, Neisat explains they’ll have two days to shoot the new video. Neistat would ride alongside Wellens and his partner on a Boosted Board, getting low to the ground to make the speeder appear like it was moving faster than it was. Mirrors over the side of the wheels gave the illusion that the speeder was flying through the streets.
After securing the proper permits, permissions and hiring a professional company, Neistat and Wellens used drones to capture aerial footage of the speeder moving through the streets of Manhattan.
The main video is just over two minutes long, but it’s the behind-the-scenes features that are far more interesting.
