Star Wars Prius Commercial Uses Famous Droids to Sell Toyota's Plug-In

In his original deal with Fox for the first Star Wars movie, George Lucas famously kept the licensing rights for himself. That deal – unusual at the time – has resulted in a huge pile of cash for the filmmaker and the ability for his iconic characters to appear on a seriously uncountable pile of merchandise, hawking everything from the 1977 Toyota Celica to today's Volkswagen Passat (to name just two car-related ones). The latest? The space-age Toyota Prius Plug-In.

Like many odd commercial pairings, this one was intended for the Japanese market. Translation of the ad done by friends of Green Car Reports says that everyone's favorite droids keep their know-it-all/ignorance-is-bliss dynamic in full effect. For example, when C-3PO first sees the plug-in hybrid's J1772 connector, he asks R2D2 if it's the little droid's charger. Goldenrod then asks, "You wanna recharge too?" To which R2 replies in his regular beeps and blorts and 3PO says, "Okay, me too!" They then have a discussion about range anxiety, which makes us wonder if Toyota is hinting that the next-gen Prius will come with Twin Ion Engines.