Before the prequel trilogy that was released in the late 90s/early noughties Disney bought LucasFilm for an exorbitant amount of money in 2015, war of stars Licensing was a bizarre no man’s land. While I was admittedly a little too young to remember anything other than Padme Amidala’s plastic lightsabers and scratchy headgear, thanks to a tweet from gaming historian Damiano Gerli, I’m now acutely aware of just how strange that time was.
The tweet in question features an Italian toothpaste commercial starring Darth Vader (in a helmet, that is Airbrushed like an NHL goalie mask) an Italian fights Luke Skywalker (Luca Cielocamminatore I guess) on the surface of a rocky planet (could be that Faraglioni Rock). They both fight with white lightsabers, which seems like a canon error that would make Lucasfilm kick down your door these days. But just when it looks like our Luca is about to lose to Darth Vader, he has a tube of toothpaste, which is also a lightsaber, thrown by a woman in flowing white robes.
He activates the blade and it’s red (gasp! That’s a Sith color) but then it turns blue (gasp! That can’t happen!) before it’s revealed that these are actually just two very attractive Italian models, the ones in their very ’90s bathroom, probably brushing their teeth. I’m guessing this guy dreams of lightsaber fighting Darth Vader instead of fighting plaque? The commercial never mentions it war of starsbased on my crappy translation and the much better translation the OG poster provided me with Damian Gerli– which is wild considering this is a direct rip off of the franchise.
But Italian toothpaste isn’t the only weird thing war of stars has been associated since before Disney – actually European war of stars Shit is unsurprisingly one of the strangest things. In Germany, war of stars toilet paper and paper towels along with were released Vengeance of the Sith (or Revenge Of The Sith), with the latter the heroes were printed on the paper itself. At least I think so.”war of stars heroes on every role” means.
Before the 3D re-release of The Phantom Menace in 2012, a French fast food chain Quick had two burgers to take away available to add some midichlorians to your down-to-earth palate. The burgers in question were a “Dark Vador” burger with a black bun and a “Jedi Burger” which was just a regular burger, reminding us once again that the Jedi are boring and don’t have fun.
British airline Virgin Atlantic has never been one to be overshadowed by the rest of mainland Europe specially branded puke bag for releasing the Vengeance of the Sith video game. In case you remember how badly the prequels botched up telling the story of Anakin Skywalker’s fall (you can read the clone wars animated series to fix this) and hurl, you can do so straight into one of these bags. Although I assume they hold together about as well George Lucas’ explanation of the relationship between Anakin’s fall and Luke’s rise.
Here in America things are a different kind of weirdness. The infamous lollipop Jar-Jar Binks makes the enjoyer look as if she was a deepthroating Gungan tongue selectionand not a good one.
But myself after this Disney bought the franchise and milked it for all its worth like Luke milks those Thala sirens The Last Jedi, war of stars has been inexplicably linked to products at your local grocery store. In 2015 we got sacks of it war of stars apples, oranges and saladas well as individual war of stars Stickers for the bunch of bananas.
While none of this is as weird as toilet paper and Darth Vader airbrushing a toothpaste-wielding Italian, it’s still interesting to see how war of stars Licenses are used to sell shit. Personally I think they’re missing out on the sex toy market – a Kylo Ren lightsaber dildo would fetch a ton of money at Comic-Con.
