What’s going on with ‘Star Wars’ and Cerveza Cristal?
The original Star Wars series is very good. This isn’t even really a debatable fact now, nearly five decades since the first film — now known as Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope — was released. George Lucas has famously made some questionable changes to the re-released versions of the trilogy, including color timing, audio mixing, take choices, visual effects, and scene expansions.
But there was one edit many of us hadn’t seen before this week on X when a beer commercial was somehow edited into the film in Chile. The original Star Wars trilogy didn’t air in Chile until 2003, and the films were shown without advertising breaks, so they added them themselves. Instead of gifting Luke Skywalker with a lightsaber, Obi-Wan Kenobi opens a cooler filled with ice and Cerveza Cristal.
“Around 2003 in Chile, when the original trilogy of Star Wars began airing on television there, they did this funny thing to avoid cutting to commercial breaks,” X user Windy posted along with a clip of the movie. “They stitched the commercials into the films themselves. Here is one of them, with the English dub added in.”
There are loads of these odd product placements in the Chilean version of the movie, and none of them lean towards subtly. In response, users on X are editing their favorite films to include Cerveza Cristal product placements.