5. Qui-Gon Jinn’s comlink and shaving appliance
This one is niche but have we ever talked about the fact Qui-Gon Jinn’s comlink from The Phantom Menace is an insane bit of product placement for Gillette?
The Hush-98 comlink that the Jedi uses to contact Obi-Wan, create white noise to protect privacy and send Anakin’s blood data for analysis, was actually an adapted Gillette Sensor-Excel for Women and what’s worse, George Lucas didn’t seem to think we would notice.
It’s almost like Lucas forgot that women would go and see Star Wars. Why else would he include something so obviously from the real world in a film that’s meant to defy expectations? In the galaxy far, far away, even milk isn’t the same. Milk is blue, sunsets are binary and football is played by what Mashable calls “sentient buoys”. Comlinks apparently double up as leg shavers.
It might sound like a small thing, but hear us out. This echo of the real world is jarring. It takes you out of the Star Wars world, even just a little bit, and all because George Lucas didn’t consider that women in the audience would notice. It’s either that or just the fact that he didn’t care. He looked at that razor and thought “Hey, that’s the walkie-talkie we’re looking for”.
What an imagination. What a world.
Women watch Star Wars. It’s really weird seeing Qui-Gon speaking so directly into what we know is a razor. For one thing, we can’t stop worrying about his mustache.
So consider this petitioners who want to get The Last Jedi removed from canon. Can we erase the Hush-98 from Star Wars canon instead? It’s much more important.