Darth Vader Visits Wall Street

Darth Vader on Wall Street

Darth Vader at NYSE

Representatives of Lucasfilm Ltd. opened the NYSE on December 22. President of Lucas Licensing Howard Roffman rang The Opening Bell® with Darth Vader at his side, while storm troopers trained their weapons on the traders below.

As Businessinsider put it, “Darth Vader finds your lack of faith in the market disturbing.”

The Globe and Mail’s create-a-caption contest for a photo of Vader stalking the trading floor produced some funny entries including “A wretched hive of scum and villainy,” and “Help me Oba-ma Barack! You’re my only hope.”

[Thanks to Janice Gelb for the story.]

5 thoughts on “Darth Vader Visits Wall Street

  1. The globe and Mail ran this photo with a caption contest…the winner was,

    “Luke…I am your broker.”

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    Lloyd

  2. It surprises me that nobody there saw the symbology of having a major figure of the Empire, a Mussolini-fascism-style tyranny, opening the bell, rather than one of the Rebellion or New Republic, which would symbolize an actually free market. Or maybe the system is so thoroughly rigged in favor of big corporate/big government collaboration that they just don’t give a damn how they look anymore, figuring there’s nothing anyone else can do about it.

  3. As you say, the execs are probably rather symbology-challenged. Or if they’re not, they may have considered that nearly all of Darth Vader’s opposite numbers are played by actors who would demand a lot more to attend this little ceremony than the guys in costume.

  4. Who would recognize some minor character from Star Wars who represented the Rebel pro-tem government anyway? People might recognize Queen Amadillo (or whatever her name was), but that isn’t any better a symbol of a free-market Republic than that Ralf Nader guy, is it? Maybe they could have lete Han Solo do it? He’s perfect for the job, even if he does just look like some farmer from a back road general store in rural Pennsylvania. He’s not Royalty, he doesn’t belong to any facist political parties that we know of, and he’s a professional smuggler, thief, and liar — the perfect symbol of Wall Street!

  5. > Who would recognize some minor character from Star Wars who
    > represented the Rebel pro-tem government anyway? People might
    > recognize Queen Amadillo (or whatever her name was)….

    Elected Queen of planet Naboo, then Old Republic Senator Padme Amidala Skywalker, nee’ Naberrie was Luke Skywalker’s and Princess Leia’s mother, who died at the time of the establishment of the Empire, not at the end of it.

    In the Expanded Universe Star Wars books which follow the original trilogy (Episodes IV, V, & VI) in the timeline, Luke, Leia, and Han Solo are all major figures in and out of the New Republic government, along with Leia’s and Han’s children (they marry) later on.

    Carrie Fisher is performing a one-woman show in New York City right now, and Harrison Ford moved there from Wyoming some time ago. Either of them were geographically available right there in Manhattan, although whether the exchange would be willing to pay whatever their appearance fee would be or whether the actors would be willing to make the appearance at the exchange in the first place are things about which I’ve no idea.

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