Blissfully naïve 1977 Star Wars TV spot advertises "forbidden love" between Luke and Leia

The advertisement aired on TV before 1983's Return Of The Jedi revealed the two characters are siblings

By Reid McCarter  |  July 29, 2021 | 7:15pm
Film Features Star Wars
Blissfully naïve 1977 Star Wars TV spot advertises
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A man and a giant bear-ape consider their friendship with a horrible pervert. Screenshot: Voca Productions

Back before Game Of Thrones made horrifying incest plot lines a selling point, audiences hadn’t been primed to squint their eyes with nauseous suspicion at genre stories featuring two vaguely similar-looking lead characters in a romantic relationship. Because of this, the people who saw the Star Wars movies as they released in theaters had no reason to retch quietly when they watched scenes featuring stuff like Luke Skywalker, Jedi warrior, leaning back with smug gratification after smooching his sister—or to watch advertisements for A New Hope that promoted the movie’s “forbidden love” without tossing their cookies in the process.

To be clear: The TV spot in question aired in 1977, back before Return Of The Jedi let us know that the two characters featured in it were are brother and sister (and forcing us to question what the fuck George Lucas was up to while filming the two movies prior). Still, it’s hard not to gag slightly at the advertisement’s title, “Forbidden Love,” and the voiceover description telling us that “no legendary adventure of the past could be as exciting as this romance of the future.”

“From the moment he saw her image, he had to find her” the clip’s narrator says, splicing in footage of Luke stating “she’s beautiful” in wonder. Leia kisses his cheek in the Death Star, they shoot stormtroopers together, Darth Vader looms, and we are introduced to the incestuous relationship between “Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia: in danger, in love, in Star Wars.”

If nothing else, we’re at least glad this trailer was out of circulation by the time George Michael Bluth was discovering the world of film so he couldn’t “accidentally” leave it on when his cousin was nearby.

[via Boing Boing]

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