The Star Wars franchise has cashed in early and often, in relation to advertising tie-ins. I was almost on-board with a Curry’s / PC World campaign two years ago, where R2-D2 and C3PO bumbled around a store after-hours, getting excited/confused (it wasn’t clear which) about gadgets that they found (but naturally didn’t understand – being from a galaxy far, far away…). It kind of made sense. Robots being confused by Curry’s technology. Perhaps because of how advanced it is. Sure.

But the latest collaboration, between the franchise and Vodafone, flags up the sorry state of Star Wars-related selling out.

In the campaign, Yoda is found anomalously drinking tea in a trendy Japanese restaurant. A pair of diners take seats beside the Jedi master at the bar, and the three wait for nigiri and California rolls. The seated girl, although meek and quiet, looks occasionally confused to see Yoda (or at least she blinks a lot – one can’t help but feel the wind generator could have been angled elsewhere), while her boyfriend accepts the situation immediately, and strikes up a noisy conversation (partly to his girlfriend – but more generally at the entire room) about his mobile phone contacts. It’s clearly a fascinating night out for the lady in red.

You lucky girl, you.

Picking up the impolitely loud conversation the couple are having about number swapping between two phones (yawn), Yoda steps in to help:

“A challenge you face. But worry no more. Help, Yoda will.”

That’s thoughtful of him. Sure – he has the highest midichlorian count of anyone in the room, but he’s not shy about lending a hand.

But because of Vodafone’s excellent RED box – a time-saver to be sure – Yoda’s force powers are redundant. The boyfriend, fairly patronisingly, plucks his phone from the air, turns to the hero of the Old Republic and delivers the line:

“Easy Yoda…”

Dreadful. The look on Yoda’s face [pictured] says it all. For years, Star Wars has sold out its fans by handing over loved characters to daft and thoughtless advertising campaigns (Mark Roalfe at RKCR/Y&R is the creative responsible for this most recent blunder), but what’s worse, in an instant, this campaign handed over those loved characters to daft and thoughtless diners.

Yoda is just a guy, in a bar, listening to someone moan about their mobile phone. It’s humiliating.