Marphalump

Reenacting the prologue.

First off unlike most bloggers, message board users, and the Nostalgic Critic. I happen to love The Phantom Menace, I know this is the opposite of what you’d expect to hear but I loved it since I was 11 and still do today. Since this article is about the advertising of Episode 1, I don ‘t want any negative posts about the commercials, the movie, or Jar Jar Binks. Doing so will have the post deleted. I don’t want to lecture about how annoyed I was about people comparing The Phantom Menace to the same level as Battlefield Earth. With that being said, on with the article.

With the release of Star Wars on Blu-ray, I feel it be appropriate to talk about a character who’d be from the Star Wars universe but was only used for commercialism. Marphalump was exclusively created for the Pepsi campaign on Star Wars Episode 1. Other marketers that were involved were KFC, Pizza Hut, & Taco Bell. Funny thing is KFC, Pizza Hut & Taco Bell had cross over commercials which featured The Colonel, Taco Bell Dog, & a Pizza Hut Delivery Woman(An article on those commercials another time). Marphalump is an alien who is obsess with Star Wars. So obsess that he would use the collectible cans of Pepsi to reenact the whole movie with the 20 some characters that appeared on various cans of Pepsi during the movie’s release. The funny thing about that commercial is that Marphalump ad-lib two scenes and quotes that weren’t in the movie. Cause there was no scene in the movie where Anakin told Padme he loves her. That wasn’t expressed deeply until Episode 2 which featured a much more developed relationship between the two. While Darth Maul didn’t had his brains spilled out, he was just cut in half without saying a word. My guess is that Marphalump did it on purpose to deceive viewers who haven’t watch the film yet. But since it’ was a prequel it was obvious which characters survive at the end. Much similar to how it was obvious what became of Master Miller, Huey Emmerich, & Big Boss after the events in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker.

The second commercial shows Marphalump living in his parent’s basement which is filled with Star Wars merchandise. He didn’t feel like being at home so he goes into his escape pod and is blasted off to the planet Couresaunt for the premiere of Episode 1. Since the planet is one gigantic city, it’s bound to have a million theaters playing the movie. He flies right into the theater lobby, grabs a Pepsi and is just in time to watch the scrolling prologue of the film. He keeps chanting I’m not worthy only to be hush by Jake Loyd who happens to be sitting right next to him. The interesting thing about this commercial is revealing Marphalump’s parents to be humans and not aliens. I’m guessing he was adopted and his real parents are either dead or weren’t able to keep him so they abandon him at an orphanage. Which ever the case maybe, I found this commercial to be interesting despite the fact that his parents aren’t four armed aliens.

The final commercial depicts a couple trying to find a taxi only to hitch a ride in Marphalump’s pod racer taxi. Marphalump puts his taxi in full throttle and the couple find themselves flying through the New York sky. Marphalump keeps ranting on how cool the pod racing scene is in the movie. Which I do agree that it was my most favorite scene of the whole film. When they meet their destination the man and woman are wiped out from the ride while Marphalump tells them they at least got a review of the movie. The commercial ends with a Gran yelling at Marphalump for being a crazy alien. Which is ironic for him to say that outburst when he’s a Gran(an orange skin three eyed alien).

Example of a Gran

Marphalump wasn’t used for the advertising of Episodes 2 or 3, but I found it to be cool for Pepsi using a one time idea of the concept of an alien worshipping Star Wars like it was a religion. In closing here’s three commercials and a rare making of featurette. The featurette has a split second of the Coke logo being destroyed, just a heads up for those who didn’t notice the first time viewing it. I didn’t bother to read any of the posts for any of the videos cause they’re bound to be spam and hatred. So just watch them off of this page without any posts that contain nothing but neglect.

References:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mawhonic