The hilarious Chilean edit of ‘Star Wars’
George Lucas has famously withheld the original theatrical cuts of Star Wars from the public in favour of his special editions loaded with additions made decades after the fact, but there was nothing he could do about the versions that aired on Chilean television.
As one of the most influential and beloved blockbusters ever made, the film that would eventually be rebranded as A New Hope is something a lot of people are going to sit down and watch whenever it was playing on TV, at least back in the dark ages before on-demand streaming was a thing.
However, nothing ruins the immersion of watching anything on the small screen worse than advertising breaks. Advertisers pay big money to have their promos shown to the widest possible audience, with one Chilean firm taking an ingenious and hilarious approach to stopping the Star Wars action in favour of shilling their wares.
Instead of simply cutting to ad breaks, when A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi were screened in the country, the commercials were seamlessly folded into the story. At the expense of handing Luke Skywalker his father’s lightsaber, for instance, Obi-Wan Kenobi opens up a cooler full of cold, refreshing Cerveza Cristal beers as the company’s jingle plays in the background.
When Obi-Wan is in the depths of the Death Star ahead of his final confrontation with Darth Vader, he doesn’t deactivate the not-moon’s tractor beam on Chilean television. Deciding an alcoholic beverage takes precedence, the wizened old Jedi opts for a Cerveza Cristal instead.
It’s something that won’t be replicated too often – if at all – in the modern age now that streaming has established untold dominance over the old-fashioned means of persevering with countless ads in order to watch a film to beginning to end, but everybody could have learned a thing or two from Chile to at least make it a touch more palatable.
The agency responsible – OMD Santiago – even took home the Grand Prix award from the Cannes International Advertising Festival after convincing local broadcasters to let them integrate their work directly into the films themselves, which was understandably described as “genius” by the presiding judges.
It wouldn’t fly all over the world seeing as the product placement for Cerveza Cristal is about as flagrant and in-your-face as it gets, but it offers a completely unique Star Wars experience. If anybody ever wanted to see how the Rebel Alliance winds down after a long and taxing day of battling against the encroaching threat of the Empire, then OMD Santiago’s inspired work does a much better job of making it a more relatable experience than any amount of deleted scenes or Lucas-approved tinkering could ever manage.
