Yes, There’s A Real Cerveza Cristal Beer Cut Of Star Wars, And It Upset George Lucas

The ad campaign was rather bold and unique — though it would not fly abroad. In 2004, OMD Santiago’s “La fuerza está con Cerveza Cristal” campaign (literally, “The Force is with Cristal Beer”) even won a major award for advertising at Cannes (via The Guardian). Unsurprisingly, though, George Lucas’ lawyers at Lucasfilm were not happy about the ad campaign, as it could mislead viewers into thinking Cerveza Cristal was actually a part of a galaxy far, far away.

That same year, Lucas’ team filed a complaint with the Chilean Council for Self-Regulation and Advertising Ethics. By the end of the year, the council had ruled in favor of Lucas, and the ad was not allowed to run on TV again.

Still, very much like Emperor Palpatine, somehow, Cerveza Cristal returned. Despite the ruling, Canal 13 and OMD Santiago decided to run a new advertising campaign, expanding their movie rooster to splice beer ads into such movies as “Gladiator,” “American Beauty,” and “Notting Hill.” Though the ads don’t seem to be available to watch online, you can see still images showing how the beer was added to these movies here.

The idea of a movie franchise as protected as “Star Wars” having such absurd commercials is funny, but not entirely surprising. After all, Lucas was notoriously open to self-parody, giving license to shows like “Family Guy” and “Robot Chicken” to make several spoofs of “Star Wars” and even producing the shelved satirical cartoon “Star Wars Detours.”

As for Cerveza Cristal, they are back in the conversation, with fans making fake ads for new movies, including this great “Dune” parody.