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TV Guide Star Wars Episode I collector covers from 1999

Posted in movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags movies, pop culture, Star Wars on February 17, 2012 by Paxton

This week I’ve been taking a look at some of the promotional items that were released in 1999 to celebrate the first new Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi in 1983. I’ve looked at the current 3D movie promotions as well as the Pepsi Episode I collector soda cans as well as soda bottles. Continuing my look at the promotional extravaganza that was the Star Wars Episode I marketing machine, today I’m going to look at two separate TV Guide promotional cover spreads for Episode I.

The first group of covers was from May 15 – 21, 1999. There were four collector covers featuring various Star Wars characters. When you laid them all side by side they combined to form one giant painting.

You can click the images to see them bigger on Flickr. I love these images and the artwork is great.

The second set of covers was a month later on Jun 12 – 18, 1999. It was also four collector covers featuring Star Wars characters that combined to form one giant image. This group focused more on the CGI characters of Episode I.

You can click the images to see them bigger on Flickr.

Not surprisingly, Episode I made the cover of Time Magazine.

This issue was a month before the release on Apr 26, 1999.

Here’s some other random Pepsi promotional material I recently found.

This is a group of four Pepsi stickers promoting Episode I. I think I got these at the first Star Wars Celebration in Denver.

Here’s a Pepsi promo poster to “Collect All 24 Cans”. It was used in supermarket displays and schools. Notice it uses the image of one of the stickers in the previous post. I like that they have all the cans displayed around the poster’s border. I’m not sure if there were other posters featuring the images in the above stickers.

Here’s a corner sticker promotion. It was normally stuck in the corner of fridge case doors in gas stations. It also compels you to collect all 24 Pepsi cans. I like the prominent image of Darth Maul in this one.

Pepsi’s 1999 Star Wars Episode I collector bottles

Posted in Mountain Dew, movies, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, Star Wars with tags Mountain Dew, movies, Pepsi, pop culture, Star Wars on February 16, 2012 by Paxton

The other day, I took a look at the 1999 Pepsi Star Wars Episode I collector cans. At the same time as the collector cans, Pepsi also put Star Wars characters on their bottles. They were the same characters that are on the cans, but the bottles included soda flavors not involved in the can promotion. And only one character per flavor.

Here are the main Pepsi Star Wars character bottles.

This is the regular Pepsi and Pepsi One bottle labels. Anakin was on all the Pepsi bottles as he was the #1 character can. C3PO was the only one on Pepsi One bottles and he was also on the Pepsi One cans.

These are the Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew bottles featuring Queen Amidala and Darth Maul. They both were also on those respective cans.

Diet Mt Dew and Wild Cherry Pepsi were not a part of the collector can promotion. Padme was originally on Diet Pepsi cans and Capt Panaka was on Mountain Dew cans.

Pepsi’s 1999 Star Wars Episode I collector cans

Posted in movies, nostalgia, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, Star Wars with tags movies, nostalgia, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, Star Wars on February 14, 2012 by Paxton

This week, I’m looking at many of the Episode I promotions. Yesterday I looked at some of the current promotions for the 3D release of Star Wars Episode I. Today, I’m going to go back in time to 1999 and look at the original Pepsi Star Wars collector can promotion during the original release of Episode I. Being a soda enthusiast as well as a Star Wars enthusiast any cross promotion between the two is a huge deal for me. So this giant Episode I promotion is one of my favorites.

Pepsi’s 24 collector character cans were the huge promotion everyone probably remembers even to this day. There were 24 character cans in the entire set. There were 8 Pepsi and Mt Dew cans and 4 Diet Pepsi and Pepsi One cans. Pepsi One was newly released in 1999.

I actually bought cases of Pepsi, Mtn Dew, Pepsi One and Diet Pepsi to get all the cans. Cans were released in waves (see the list here) every 2-3 weeks and each 12 and 24 pack of cans only contained one character. So, obviously, like everyone else, I wound up with a ton of extras. I remember the very last character can I needed to complete the set was the Diet Pepsi with the Battle Droid. It took months to find it but I finally did and had to buy a 24 pack of cans to get it. The pic above is, I believe, a salesman’s sample of the complete 24 can set. There are no tops on those cans. I acquired this a few years after Episode I. It came together in a lot with a bunch of Pepsi promo material, the cool black Pepsi can holder you see holding the cans in the pic and the cool Pepsi Destiny can (which I’ll discuss in a minute).

Inserted randomly into cases of these character cans was a chase Gold Yoda can. If you found one, you could send it in to receive $20.

Each soda flavor had it’s own Gold Yoda can, so in actuality there is a set of four Gold Yodas, one each for Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Mtn Dew and Pepsi One. Pepsi One being the most rare.

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Current promotions for Star Wars Episode I in 3D

Posted in movies, nostalgia, Pepsi, pop culture, soda, Star Wars with tags movies, nostalgia, Pepsi, soda, Star Wars on February 13, 2012 by Paxton

Star Wars Episode I in 3D started on Friday. I plan on seeing it this weekend, so I’m very excited. It reminds me of the innocent times in early 1999 when I was awaiting the initial release of the movie. That pre-Episode I buildup was so much fun. This week, I’m going to take a look at some of the promotional stuff companies like Pepsi and Hasbro did for the first Star Wars movie since 1983.

Today, let’s start with the most recent stuff being used to promote Episode I in 3D.

There have been several posters released for Episode I in 3D. You can see the wide quad poster above. There’s a more traditional vertical version of that quad. There are also some cool looking character posters that have been released. Here are three of them (click image to see BIGGER).

As you will see, Darth Maul seems to be the character they are focusing on for most for these promotions. See several more posters at Geeks of Doom.

Pepsi is really being understated about their Episode I in 3D promotion. Currently, they have bottles of Lipton Raspberry Tea with Darth Maul’s face and a blurb about the movie. Other flavors just have the movie blurb. Check them out.

Darth Maul is also on the large cans of Raspberry Brisk. These are a lot harder to find. I’ve only seen the actual cans of Brisk once, but they didn’t have the Maul can. It looks awesome, though.

League of Extraordinary Bloggers: Favorite “go-to” movie

Posted in Back to the Future, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags Back to the Future, LEB, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on February 9, 2012 by Paxton

Brian over at Cool and Collected has started a new movement. It’s a group of blogs coming together each week to discuss one topic. Brian will hand out the assignments and the blogs will discuss the topic as they see fit. Brian has dubbed it The League of Extraordinary Bloggers.

I pledged to him that I would join in when I can, and seeing as how for once I’m actually way ahead on my own writing I’ve decided to jump in on our first assignment.

This first assignment was to discuss our “go to” movie. A movie we could watch at any time. Just pop it in, curl up on the sofa with an industrial sized bag of Cheetos and start quoting along with the movie. Mine is probably not going to be a shock to anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time. And I hate to keep going back to “the well” on this, but I have to answer truthfully.

On any given weekend, since I was a kid, there are two things I’d pop into the VCR at a moment’s notice depending on how I was feeling that day. The first was Back to the Future.

There is hardly an aspect of this trilogy I have yet to discuss. Check out my Back to the Future archives. Articles galore. The Nerd Lunch crew did an entire podcast discussing the Back to the Future movies and another one on just the topic of time travel. It’s because I’ve seen this movie so many times and know it like the back of my hand that I can talk so often about it. I love this movie. It kindled my love for time travel. The first movie I took my son to when he was literally 1 month and 5 days old was the limited 25th anniversary showing of the original Back to the Future on Oct 25, 2010. I pretty much recited the dialog throughout the entire movie while he slept. So yes, this is definitely a “go to” movie for me. I could probably put the entire trilogy in here as I love all three movies, but I watched the original many more times. Mostly due to the fact that Part II didn’t show up until four years later. So I had time to just load up on repeated Back to the Future viewings. And I own this trilogy on all media formats including VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-Ray.

The second thing I’d pop into my VCR on any given weekend and have on in the background is the Star Wars Trilogy. Most especially the original VHS releases.

It doesn’t matter which one, I consider them all to be one movie. And I have this movie trilogy on nearly every format including VHS (multiple versions), Laserdisc, Video CD and DVD. On any given day my favorite is different. I love all three.

Since college, I could pop on a Back to the Future or Star Wars movie and have it running in the background for hours while I worked on school projects, surfed the Internet or just hung out at home. They are hands down my two favorite movie trilogies. Possibly even my favorite movies of all time.

I even own the deluxe film score to the Back to the Future trilogy as well as the 4 disc Star Wars Trilogy Soundtrack Anthology. I would sometimes put these on in the background while doing homework or working on chores around the house.

Articles from other League of Extraordinary Bloggers

1. Shawn Robare at Branded in the 80s talks about Red Dawn.
2. Christopher Tupa talks about one of my favorites, The Goonies.
3. Siftin’ talks about watching Superman II more times than even I have seen it. And that’s a lot.

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