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What's The Deal With Cerveza Cristal In 'Star Wars'? Memes About Chilean Beer Ads In Movies Explained
Well, we didn't have a "Chilean brand of beer from Star Wars becoming a meme" on our bingo card this month! What exactly is the Cerveza Cristal beer that people are editing into famous movie scenes, and how did a 2003 commercial that ran in Chile become a big meme in March 2024? Find everything you need to know about Cerveza Cristal memes in this brief explainer.
What Is Cerveza Cristal?
Cerveza Cristal (Spanish for "crystal beer") is a Chilean brand of beer produced by the multinational company Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas (CCU). The brand was launched in 1977.
What's The Story With Cerveza Cristal Ads In 'Star Wars'?
In 2003 and 2004, Chilean TV network Canal 13 aired the original Star Wars trilogy films. The network decided to use an unconventional approach for commercials shown during the airing, seamlessly cutting advertisements for Chilean beer brand Cerveza Cristal directly into the film in an organic and comical fashion.
For example, in the scene in which Obi-Wan Kenobi is supposed to give Luke Skywalker his father's lightsaber, the scene instead cuts into a short clip of Obi-Wan opening a cooler and taking a bottle of Cerveza Cristal as a jingle for the beer plays.
Which reminds me, I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough.
In 2009, YouTube user emetwistable uploaded five clips of the commercials to the platform, with four of them surviving to this day.
How Did Cerveza Cristal Ads Become A Meme?
The obscure story was cast into the spotlight when on February 22nd, 2024, X / Twitter user @DESCONOCIDOHK made a viral post about the ad campaign, posting one of the the advertisements to the site.
Es buen momento para mencionar que cuando la trilogía original de Star Wars fue emitida por Canal 13 por 2004 más o menos, para irse a espacio publicitario hacían cortes de los personajes agarrando una cerveza cristal. pic.twitter.com/zyHpK1ReuA
— Misterioso Desconocido (@DESCONOCIDOHK) February 22, 2024
Several days later, Spanish news website Vida Extra published an article about the curious precedent. On March 2nd, 2024, X / Twitter user @heyitswindy shared the discovery in a thread, posting several of the clips dubbed in English, with the thread going viral.
Around 2003 in Chile, when the original trilogy of Star Wars began airing on television there, they did this funny thing to avoid cutting to commercial breaks. They stitched the commercials into the films themselves. Here is one of them, with the English dub added in. pic.twitter.com/wC7N2vPNvv
— Windy 🛸 (@heyitswindy) March 2, 2024
The ad campaign then became a viral topic of discussion on X / Twitter, with several posts and jokes about it going viral. Could Cerveza Cristal be the reason Palpatine somehow survived? At least one person argued that it is.
I'd never heard of it, and it's fantastic.Above all, it explains how Palpatine somehow survived: with Cerveza Cristal. https://t.co/JtNd4jOE3e pic.twitter.com/kuX3Cn0Ls8
— The Spaceshipper 🚀 (@TheSpaceshipper) March 3, 2024
‘Cerveza Cristal’ In Memes
Soon after the thread went viral, users on X / Twitter started editing Cerveza Cristal into various scenes in Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and other films. This aspect of the meme was started by user @edsbs, who on March 4th captioned a scene of Paul Atreides making a speech in Dune: Part Two with "¡CERVEZAAAAAA CRISTAAAALL!"
Virtually any scene makes a great fit for a seamless Cerveza Cristal ad placement, it appears. Just like the simulations…
Don't forget to add 🎶 Cerveza Cristal 🎶 to your meme to instantly produce that earworm of a jingle in everyone's head!
For the full history of Cerveza Cristal memes, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.
