Chilean Star Wars beer ads are the funniest thing you'll see today

Star Wars fans will know all about George Lucas’s habit for editing and playing around with his old films – but even he wouldn’t go as far as adding in beer adverts.

The internet moves in mysterious ways, and a truly bizarre Chilean advertising campaign from more than 20 years ago is going viral.

Rather than cutting to ad breaks, the unique campaign for Cerveza Cristal Beer saw ads cut directly into the films, creating moments that are as hilarious as they are jarring.

The footage circulating on social media sees characters from the much-loved franchise suddenly breaking away from scenes and grabbing a cold beer.

One moment sees Obi-Wan Kenobi hand Luke Skywalker a fresh Cerveza Cristal instead of his father’s lightsaber.

A Twitter/X user by the name of Windy looks to have got the clip back into the collective public consciousness first, writing: “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.

“They stitched the commercials into the films themselves. Here is one of them, with the English dub added in.”

It’s scarcely believable, but the film is peppered with ads cut directly into the action. One moment takes place when Obi-Wan Kenobi is inside the Death Star. Instead of showing him deactivating the craft’s tractor beam, it shows him picking up an ice cold bottle of Cerveza Cristal Beer.

It’s not just the first Star Wars film that got the treatment, either. Another clip sees Emperor Palpatine summon up a cold war before the climactic fight in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

It looks like a particularly funny post edited together by a fan at home, but it’s completely legit and actually took place in Chile back in 2003.

A report from the Guardian 20 years ago even stated that the agency behind the campaign, OMD Santiago, won the top prize at the Cannes International Advertising Festival that year.

It might have been a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, but it definitely happened and it’s absolutely hilarious.

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