A few months ago Lucasfilm teamed with LG to shift Boba Fett’s throne all the way from Tatooine to Manhattan — virtually at least, for a 3D-effect billboard promoting The Book of Boba Fett in the heart of Times Square. Well, Star Wars is back in NYC, but this time its accompanying character seems much more annoyed to be there.
With a new Star Wars show to promote in Obi-Wan Kenobi, occupying the corner billboard is a CG replica of Darth Vader, because why would you want Obi-Wan to promote his own show? He’d just be sitting in that billboard being sad and that’s probably not a great bit of promotion (shout out to the Star Wars fans who do indeed tune in to Kenobi to watch him be sad each week). Vader, at least, can stalk around menacingly and swing his lightsaber in frustration, like he’s got places to go (wherever Obi-Wan Kenobi is), people to see (Obi-Wan Kenobi), and things to do — like be an incredibly petty drama queen to Obi-Wan Kenobi as much as possible, maybe try and kill him, tbd tbd.
What’s fun about this one compared to the Boba Fett ad is, as brief as it is, it captures Vader’s personality in Obi-Wan Kenobi perfectly — in so much that it really is just Anakin. The way he drags his saber across the edge of the floor and that huffy turn back to his bacta tank, instead of just standing around like Boba did, actually feels like Vader being dragged out to somewhere he doesn’t want to be, snarling about it, and then peacing out the second he needs to. Like he’s a hot TV star brought to New York for the media tour and just doesn’t care, because it’s distracting him from Jedi-hunting business. If Star Wars is gonna keep doing these little ads for its shows, hopefully it keeps building on them to embrace that personality. Maybe the next time it’ll be the Bad Batch crew hanging out in their snazzy new looks?
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