Some sell outs are less surprising than others. As fun as the films are, and as rich and interesting as the Expanded Universe is (or was), the Star Wars franchise has been all about the Benjamins, baby, pretty much from the start. George Lucas might not be much of a filmmaker but he's a hell of a businessman, negotiating with Fox studio heads back in the seventies so that while he didn't make as much money off the original trilogy's box office, he was given the full merchandising rights; that's why you see infinite amounts of Star Wars action figures, lunch boxes, video games, apparel, and all that ancillary stuff. That's where Lucas made his millions, and he wasn't too proud to turn down any prospective business who might want to utilise his characters from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPh0ijZNNs0 If he did, you would've thought these spots for Currys/PC World would have been one of the rejected pitches. It's all just a little...off. We dunno if that's Kenny Baker inside R2 but it's almost certainly Anthony Daniels reprising his role as anxious camp robot C-3PO as the pair break into a branch of the leading computer retailers because reasons. After seeing this iconic pair of characters getting up to all sorts of high flying adventures across the cosmos there's something a bit sad about seeing them do the same in a high street shop, less like an everyday location being brightened up by the appearance of bonafide Hollywood stars and more like a down-on-their-luck couple of performers who are hired to open a new supermarket in Swindon. They're R2-D2 and C-3PO, not Alan Partridge.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
