When Star Wars merch goes strange

Ahead of the release of JJ Abrams’ Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awak­ens on Decem­ber 18, and to cel­e­brate #Force­Fri­day – the day when new lines of SW gad­gets, gifts and col­lec­tables are launched world­wide – LWLies delves into its giant toy box to look back at when the mer­chan­dis­ing looked to the Dark Side for their inspiration…

We know. It looks made up. We took some con­vinc­ing that this is an actu­al, prop­er Thing That Exists too, but 1980’s only tru­ly sem­i­nal Galac­tic Scat album remains a sol­id gone fact. Arranged by leg­endary jazzbo Ron Carter – wing­man to the likes of Miles Davis, Chet Bak­er and Har­ry Con­nick Jr – this deep suite of hot mess kicks off with Vader’s Impe­r­i­al March, which switch­es between a swarthy take on the theme to 1980s ITV sit­com Nev­er the Twain and tooty-flutey Bird­land whim­sy before dis­in­te­grat­ing into full-bore school-orches­tra wig-out.

The real gem, how­ev­er, is Aster­oid Field (Slight Return), which re-envis­ages Han and Leia’s squeaky-bum escape from a patrol of TIE fight­ers as boozy, Don Drap­er-esque cock­tail-jazz back­ground muzak. Fif­teen min­utes of YouTube fame sure­ly awaits who­ev­er has the time and ener­gy to splice those two togeth­er. (Note: the com­ments sec­tion below is reserved sole­ly for Star Wars jazz/​muso puns that improve upon the line ​“I find your lack of bass disturbing….”)

“You will find a new def­i­n­i­tion of pain and suf­fer­ing as you are slow­ly digest­ed over a thou­sand years.” Or, in oth­er words, ​“I wouldn’t go in there for a while, mate!” Star Wars is replete with pot­ty ref­er­ences, from Luke emp­ty­ing his tor­pe­does into the Death Star’s exhaust port to Han Solo’s impromp­tu Tauntaun cav­i­ty search. But all the phan­tom men­aces, dis­tur­bances in the force and ran­cour mon­sters (that’s what we call ours, any­way) aren’t near­ly as unpleas­ant a prospect as fish­ing these gim­micky bac­te­ria traps out of your u‑bend the morn­ing after cur­ry-and-a-pint night down Wetherspoons.

It’s not often that you can’t improve on a press release, but… ​“Mod­elled after the most well-known astromech droid in the galaxy, this R2-D2 holds a 1 3/​4‑gallon aquar­i­um tank in his cen­tral com­part­ment, ide­al for a small fresh­wa­ter fam­i­ly of gold­fish, gouramis [?] or tetras [??]. The domed head rotates with any [!!!] vocal com­mand you issue and he utters his famil­iar ​“bleeps” from the Star Wars movies.

His radar eye hous­es the eye­piece to a built-in periscope that pro­vides an inti­mate view of the aquat­ic activ­i­ty below, allow­ing you to watch your charges swim towards the food you’ve dropped in from the dome’s remov­able feed­ing door. Includes over­head LED tank lights that ran­dom­ly morph between red, blue, and green and a two-sided water­proofed card­board insert depict­ing scenes from the movies as a back­ground. Plugs into AC. 20” H x 14” W x 14” D. (9 lbs.)”

To bor­row a line from ​’80s com­e­dy behe­moth and walk­ing Rorschach Test Andrew ​‘Dice’ Clay, who­ev­er buys one of these is a sick, con­fus­ing moth­er­fuck­er indeed. What mes­sage are you send­ing out to the world with this? ​“I’m such a Star Wars nerd that I spend all my trag­ic beach hol­i­days squat­ting my salty rump on the cal­ci­fied face of a man locked, scream­ing into an unknow­able eter­ni­ty of exis­ten­tial ter­ror and word­less, breath­less pan­ic. What’s that..? Anoth­er stub­by of Heineken and a game of strip-Holo­gram chess? Rah-rah-rah!” If any­one ever gives you one of these, fill it full of oranges and pum­mel them to death.

It may arguably have looked rea­son­ably badass in the adver­tis­ing bumf, but the grim actu­al­i­ty of Burg­er King’s short-lived Sith­burg­er looked more like an ashen, mildewed cousin to Homer Simpson’s 6ft hoagie than any­thing prop­er­ly edi­ble. The Japan­ese ver­sion (this par­tic­u­lar­ly del­i­ca­cy was only ever offered in Japan and France – make of that what you will) went a step fur­ther into the dark side by adding inky gar­lic sauce and grief-strick­en black cheese to the ​‘com­bo’. How much more black can you get? The answer is none. None more black.

LWLies 107: The Sin­ners issue – Out now!