Back in 1999 Star Wars had been on the comeback for a little while at that point. Having died down in the later half of the 1980s as Lucasfilm focused on Indiana Jones sequels and attempting a more traditional fantasy story with Willow, the franchise had gone on the back burner until the 1990s saw a big push with the Expanded Universe and the Special Editions of the original trilogy.
This all helped pave the way for the explosion that was the arrival of Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace. And recently, TikTok user Joventurez found a lost piece of ephemera relating to that, a Pepsi vending machine with an image of Anakin and Sebulba ready to podrace.
1999 was a major year for film in a lot of ways. It was a banner year for sci-fi with The Matrix and Galaxy Quest both hitting screens and both going onto become huge classics in their own rights. But there was only one movie that was causing people to camp out for weeks ahead of time, one movie that drew reporters to interview rank-smelling fans sleeping in tents like homeless people, asking them what they found so compelling about a universe of Jedis and Wookiees and Droids that they’d be willing to leave their mom’s basements and venture out into the daylight, blinking like mole people. Only one movie that spawned commercials featuring a team-up of Colonel Sanders, a Pizza Hut delivery girl, and Taco Bell chihuahua and that movie was Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace.
The prequel was marketed everywhere anybody looked. Lego introduced their now famous Star Wars line that year. The Tricon chain of restaurants (since rebranded), the owners of the fast food franchises mentioned above, featured toys and soda cup lids and giveaways. Pepsi became the drink of a galaxy far, far away, and everywhere spread an endless blanket of Jar-Jar Binks action figures, dolls, animatronic toys, bed sheets, and T-shirts as far as the eye could see and the heart could take in. This was going to be the new Star Wars characters fans would love—if for no other reason than that he was the main course in every marketing dish Lucasfilm served up, even more than little Anakin Skywalker, the “yippee!” yelling podracing tyke who’d one day become Darth Vader once he got all grown up. And Anakin’s face, in podracing gear, also got plastered everywhere, like the soda machine in the video.
And then, almost as quickly as the film disappointed fans and their overwhelming expectations, the tide went out again. Merchandise was boxed up and sent back and aside from a few trinkets here and there—someone with a soda cup lid or a Jar-Jar figure taped to a cash register—everything in public vanished once more as if everyone was embarrassed over the collective mania that had united a nation and inspired the world. People wanted to forget having ever been Star Wars gaga and though there was furious speculation over what the next entry would be about, the bubble had been burst and the intensity would never hit that fever pitch again. But finding the occasional relic is like taking a time machine to a different time, one where all fans had to go on for a movie like Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace was their hopes, dreams, and a whole lot of stuff everywhere.
Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace is streaming on Disney Plus.
Source: Joventurez/TikTok