Tunisia promotes tourism with a Star Wars-themed 'Happy' dance
YouTube
New Zealand has seen a massive spike in tourism thanks to the all-encompassing popularity of the Lord of the Rings franchise — but can similarly popular movie franchises attract similarly geeky travelers?
Tunisia — which Star Wars fans are more likely to remember as Tatooine, the home planet of the Skywalker family — is testing the waters with a Star Wars-themed video commissioned by the tourism department. The video features a wide range of Star Wars characters dancing to Pharrell's Oscar-nominated "Happy," including C-3PO, R2-D2, Boba Fett, and a moon-walking Stormtrooper.
The video makes an admirable attempt to stay faithful to Star Wars canon; the no-nonsense Darth Vader somehow manages to resist dancing to Pharrell's legendarily catchy song, and every character that appears has actually visited Tatooine at some point during the Star Wars series. (We'll just assume Padme got there through an inter-dimensional time warp.) --Scott Meslow
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Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.
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