Vintage Japanese Commercials Starring George Lucas
Prior to the availability of Youtube, there is little to no chance that viewers can see foreign commercials that well known people can be involved in. Certainly in the United States, unless with a right fee, you really wouldn’t catch popular and established celebrities selling commercials. However if you are in a country like Japan, you’ll see many celebrities selling Japanese products. Like Bill Murray in the movie Lost in Translation. You can see Arnold Schwarzenegger selling instant cup ramen, Leonardo DiCaprio selling a car, Brad Pitt selling a cell phone, with enough money, the choice is clear. Consider these following commercials starring George Lucas.
In the first commercial here, Lucas used professional/personal expertise with a handling a camcorder. With Star Wars references and cameos from Jabba the Hutt and C-3PO, did you get swept up in the commercial and consider this something new to experience? I happen to like how cool Lucas appears at the end, his pose leaves an impression of an independent thinker.
Panasonic sure used George Lucas for a series of advertisements, I do wonder how their sales went. Knowing that Japanese electronics was raved and praised about during the latter part of the 20th Century. There was probably profit it this. In this advertisement, George Lucas speaks a couple of lines, but for the majority of this ad, he gets dubbed over. Storm Troopers, and Dark Vadar gets a chance at appearing in this commercial, and you get to see Lucas act as a samurai. So what else is there to like or laugh with the setting of throwing a samurai theme, and then using the camera to film it all?
Lastly check out this cute video. The commercial begins with an early assumption on the advertisement going to be on powering a Japanese robot, and R2-D2 being there cements this assumption. You see at the end, that the focus was on the Panasonic product. Other than the hint of how useful a robot can get, marvel at the price of the product, and purchase it. Using George Lucas as a Panasonic spokesperson, do you trust him to be a voice of experience for selling these dated technology products?
Linda Yau is a fan of Japanese culture, and various anime/manga titles. She is a freelance writer and editor under her own name or animemiz. Her main blog is here and she can be contacted by Twitter.