I think college football is really cool. It’s probably my favorite sport. I also think Star Wars is cool. I’m not like a Star Wars nerd or anything, but they’re all cool movies that I enjoy watching.
You can buy these Star Wars-themed college football items, but you shouldn’t, because they make no sense
Someone thinks you will pay money to have your school’s logo next to R2-D2, for some reason.
I also think that there are occasions when college football and Star Wars can interact in cool ways. Like when the opposing team is on offense and your marching band plays the Imperial March? That’s neat. Or, like, when Ole Miss fans wanted their mascot to be Admiral Ackbar, because they’re the “Rebels,” and Star Wars rebels are cooler than Civil War rebels? I think they should’ve gone through with that instead of making a bear.
However, that doesn’t mean you should just ram Star Wars and college football together for the sake of it.
Like when Illinois compared themselves to Stormtroopers -- WHO ARE THE EVIL GUYS WHO DIE. For example, look at these official expensive t-shirts and tote bags you can buy online, at various team stores and at the College Football Playoff’s store.
For the most part, none of these really make any sense. They’re just a character from Star Wars with a college football logo next to them, and maybe some words that the character from Star Wars didn’t actually say.
This is probably the most sensible one. A lot of fanbases, FSU included, would be okay with being compared to an evil empire, and “we got this” is a thing you might say about sports. There’s still very little connection between the school, the character, and the phrase, but the workings are there. We give this a B-minus.
What’s the connection between Uga and C-3PO? Has Uga replaced R2-D2? If so, I think C-3PO has made a bad move. R2-D2 was capable of all sorts of helpful rapid procedures and could communicate with his fellow robot using language. Uga is capable of lying on a large bag of ice. English Bulldogs aren’t exactly built for interstellar conflict. Don’t bring him to that planet with the two suns.
This is just the word “R2-D2,” an Alabama logo, and some pictures of R2-D2. At no point does it attempt to imply any correlation between the two. It is just those two things on a tote bag.
To demonstrate how pointless this is, I have made a t-shirt featuring the Indiana athletic logo next to a picture of Reginald VelJohnson’s character, Sgt. Powell, from the Die Hard franchise:
Let me make this clear: I don’t think Reginald VelJohnson’s character has anything to do with Indiana sports. I just picked a random film character and a sports logo. So far as I can tell, this is what the people who made that R2-D2 shirt did.
OH COME ON HAVE YOU EVEN BEEN WATCHING COLLEGE FOOTBALL FLORIDA VERY CLEARLY DOES NOT KNOW THE FORCE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU
Okay, I’ll give you the long long time ago. Michigan football is about old things that should be respected. But far far away? I mean, I bet it was in Michigan.
WHY WOULD DARTH VADER WANT A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. WHY? I COULD UNDERSTAND IF THERE WAS A FAMOUS QUOTE IN ONE OF THE MOVIES WHERE DARTH VADER WAS LIKE “I WANT A... ” AND THEN SAID SOMETHING HE WANTED BUT HE DOESN’T EVEN SAY THAT EVER I THINK.
I can think of few things lazier than slapping two popular things on one thing and hoping people buy it anyway because they’re together now.
However it will probably make money because somebody will want an R2-D2-themed Michigan tote bag and someone else will want a Texas A&M R2-D2 tote bag, and in five years someone else will be getting rich off my Indiana/Reginald VelJohnson idea and I’ll be broke and drunk in a ditch somewhere mourning humanity.
Update: December 2017.
Since this post was originally published in 2015, the store’s Star Wars offerings have gotten slightly better, but still:
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