Twitter Cries ‘Release the Cerveza Cristal Cut!’ After Hilarious Chilean TV Edit of ‘Star Wars’ Goes Viral
In Star Wars, The Force binds the galaxy together. On Twitter, Cerveza Cristal brings Star Wars fans together — especially the Chileans.
Localized versions of the Star Wars films have been a massive hit in online spaces ever since the famous poorly translated Chinese bootleg of the sequel trilogy got an English dub. Star Wars is a global phenomenon, so it stands to reason that each new culture that’s introduced to the sci-fi mega franchise will inevitably put their own spin on the experience. Down in Chile, the movers and shakers of media decided that, when the original Star Wars trilogy first aired on TV stations in 2003, the films were too important, too classic and too iconic for the usual commercial breaks that are awkwardly cut into feature films at every broadcast network around the world. Instead, ingenious Chilean marketers opted to subtly splice specially filmed product placements into the movie featuring a beer brand popular in both South America and parts of Tatooine.
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Earlier this week, Twitter user @heyitswindy posted reconstructed clips from the immaculate Cerveza Cristal broadcast with the English audio track added back in after the Spanish language website VidaExtra published an article about the peculiar airing. Almost immediately, Star Wars Twitter demanded to see all three movies of the Cerveza Cristal Cut in their entirety — see, George Lucas? That’s how you do a special edition!
Right now, Star Wars sleuths and internet investigators are tracking down more and more pieces of the Cerveza Cristal cut in search of that fabled full broadcast that, hopefully, still exists on a stack of VHS tapes in someone's Chilean dad's basement. Given the global popularity of the film series, it's no stretch to assume that some forward-thinking Chileans thought to preserve this piece of entertainment history when Star Wars first aired in Chile, it's just a matter of finding those archivists and buying one of those old VHS-to-digital converters on eBay.
In the meantime, every nerd sphere on the internet has adopted the Cerveza Cristal product placement as their meme of the moment. Here is just a small handful of the many, many highlights…