Film

Some Deeply Unnecessary Merchandise You Can Buy For ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’

Featuring those Star Wars apples and that Star Wars soup you always needed.

by Meg Watson  15 December 2015

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We’re now just 31 hours away from the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and it seems as though all monstrous people* not interested in the film have been shuttled far away from anywhere with a working wi-fi connection. The internet is now solely a place for celebrities to share pictures of their invites to the world premiere, hardcore fans to document their wait outside cinemas under #TheLineAwakens, and people like you who are supposed to be working or studying or living their lives but are instead helplessly clicking on anything that mentions the film as some kind of torturous foreplay before the main event.

This is literally what your webcam/front-facing camera is seeing right now.

There are many upsides to this kind of fandom. It give a sense of community. It helps to expand the fun of the film into the real world. In many cases, it can give people a sense of personal gratification. Like any kind of pop culture phenomenon, there’s a sense of pride to be gained in knowing the content back-to-front. Many Star Wars fans have developed and refined all this over the course of their entire lives, and there’s really nothing wrong with that.

The downside is all in the money. Though it’s great that such a lucrative franchise was built on the creative work of a young and largely unproven director and screenwriter in the mid-’70s, the decades since have left a ludicrous number of people and outside brands trying to capitalise on its success. In the best cases, this leads to Luke Skywalker lunchboxes, costumes and toy lightsabers; the kind of stuff that lets kids indulge in the fantasy and adult fans outwardly express their enduring fandom. Other times, it’s a little more gratuitous.

This is a list of those times.

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Some Delicious Star Wars Oranges

Can you imagine how happy this ad exec was when he or she realised BB-8 was the general shape of a popular piece of fruit?

“IT’S ENOUGH. JUST PRINT ‘EM UP, FELLAS.”

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Some Very Logical Star Wars Grapes

“Guys. What about Yoda? FUCKING YODA, YOU GUYS.”

*runs around boardroom for high-fives*

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A Line Of Very Beautiful Star Wars Makeup

Covergirl have launched a whole line of branded cosmetics based on the new film including Star Wars mascara, Star Wars nailpolish, and Star Wars lipstick. The tagline of the campaign is “Light side or dark side: which are you on?”

No one seems to care that both the “dark side” and “light side” products pictured here are labelled “very black”.

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Some Super Practical Star Wars Razors

I mean… there’s not even an attempt at a connection to the film here. You really just have to accept it.

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A Line Of Star Wars-Themed Fake Milk 

A couple of months ago, Nestle teamed up with Disney to produce a special “collectors’ series” of Force Awakens Coffee-Mate containers. It’s a campaign which rests on the assumptions people both want their bizarro long-life witch milk to have a connection to the cultural zeitgeist and also have some kind of intense desire to hoard dirty plastic bottles.

To make the idea slightly more off-putting, they later teamed up with a series of YouTube celebrities to plug the products.

Screen Shot 2015-12-15 at 2.27.17 pm

*Vomits directly on the screen*

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A Star Wars Toaster You Won’t Resent At All

Are you sick of eating bread that’s been evenly toasted to perfection? Would you like to spend more of your precious time on this Earth eating topical black dust and/or scraping disappointing breakfasts into the sink? You’re in luck! 
starwars

Inconceivably, you have more than one option here:

Screen Shot 2015-12-15 at 2.36.12 pm

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Some Star Wars Apples That Frankly Didn’t Even Try

“Will a red lighsaber be enough? Will people get it?”

“What the fuck do I care, it’s 5 o’clock.”

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Star Wars Campbell’s Soup With A Social Conscience

In October, Campbell’s launched a cute and simple ad which featured two gay dads (who are actually married in real life) feeding their young son soup and singing the Star Wars theme song. It now has more than 1 million views on YouTube and has been praised by many online.

It’s a great stand for LGBT representation on screen and an effective ad that tacks the homely connotations of soup into a simple snapshot of everyday life, but does it have much to do with Star Wars? Not so much.

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Star Wars Bottled Water, Because They Can’t Brand Stuff In The Taps Yet

It was only a matter of time until they turned to the essentials. Resistance is futile.

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Star Wars Mouthwash That Fights Cavities

Geddit? Geddit?

Yeah, you get it.

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A Luke Frywalker Mr Potato Head

Disney. Mate. Go home.

Screen Shot 2015-12-14 at 3.55.40 pm

….. [whispers through clenched teeth] “Kill me.”

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Cokebacca

This is not a real branded Star Wars product. The picture of Chewbacca has clearly been crudely stuck on to a can of Coke Zero by someone who should instead be doing their work.

That being said, it’s easily the best thing on this list.

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be in cinemas December 17. These products will be on the shelves and discount bins for several months after.

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*I’ve never seen any Star Wars film and am the biggest monster of them all. Please forgive me.