There’s been an awakening. Have you felt it?
*triumphant opening credits music plays*
And so begins the introduction to Star Wars Episode VIII: The Force Awakens, Realizes It is Hungry, Checks the Pantry, Sees Only Star Wars Cereal, Groans, and Heads Back to Bed
Now, I’ve been a big Star Wars fan since childhood. Let’s just say that I’ve spent my fair share of hours yelling “stay, damn it!” at a plastic Darth Vader action figure whose crudely molded hands simply refuse to hold his lightsaber (what fan doesn’t know this struggle?).
So that’s why I’m a bit sad that General Mills’ (which could easily be the name of one of those grey-suited Death Star officer who appears for 4 seconds on film but has an elaborate fan-crafted backstory) tie-in cereal for this December’s Star Wars Episode VII misses the mark worse than a Stormtrooper during any pivotal movie scene.
The gorgeous box belies the disappointment of its innards. Coming in both Yoda and Darth Vader editions—I grabbed Yoda in a hurried moment of passion, but have grown to regret that decision—the bold colors evoke the childlike excitement you’ve experienced with every other limited edition movie cereal.
The back of my box also featured some extremely challenging trivia games. I guessed Chewbacca for every one, and somehow I was wrong!
(Okay, I’ll turn off the sarcasm Hyperdrive now.)
Pouring a bowl, I’m greeted with a mish-mash of various Star Wars themed shapes: some are plain yellow corn pieces, while some are colorful pastel marshmallows. In short, it’s your standard formula for a movie cereal.
Disregarding the box’s guide to identifying the shapes, I took my best guess based on my seasoned knowledge of the series. Clockwise from Vader’s hand, we have:
A Satanic banana
Santa wearing sunglasses
Eeyore
A bloody Liberty Bell
The Wu-Tang Clan logo
Shrek
Homer Simpson’s middle finger
A pill from Dr. Mario
Max Rebo‘s pulled tooth
As for the taste, that’s where the cereal gets uglier than a scruffy-looking nerfherder. In order to try and differentiate Star Wars cereal from every other Lucky Charms copycat, it was given a mild fruit flavor. But the flavor can be best described as “Froot Loops lite,” with a heavy emphasis on the “lite.”
While the all out artificial fruit onslaught of Froot Loops is addictively tasty, in this cereal it just comes off as a “fruitless” inclusion, so to speak. The fruity faintness is overshadowed by the bland styrofoam crunch of the sticky yellow pieces. The added sugar punch of the rare, chalky marshmallows is also barely noticeable, and only feels cloying and unnecessary when you find a mythical mallow-y pocket.
All in all, you’ll be hard-pressed to find lasting enjoyment with Star Wars cereal, and may even have to force yourself to choke down a whole bowl (and not the cool kind of Force choke, either). You better have a backup cereal available, too: the airiness of this cereal is far from filling, and will keep you feeling hungrier than the Sarlacc after a Boba Fett appetizer.
To paraphrase Obi-Wan: “You were the chosen one, Star Wars cereal! It was said that you would destroy the awful movie cereals, not join them. You were to bring balance to breakfast, not leave it in darkness!”
The Bowl: Star Wars cereal
The Breakdown: Too airy, too bland, Tatooine: this cereal is still a Padawan.
The Bottom Line: 3 dead Tauntauns out of 10 (on a scale of Phantom Menace to Empire Strikes Back, it’s a solid Attack of the Clones)
Is the yellow balls with marshmallows the same as this? I just tried it. Tastes exactly like trix! @samuel
Today I was running low on star wars so to full the rest of my huge bowl I added the mini tricks I had to it and I could not tell the difference in taste from the trick and crunchy star wars pieces at all.
Yes that’s exactly what it is its tricks with lucky charms marshmallows I don’t know what’s not to like about that it’s made its way in to my line up replacing tricks.
To me the crunchy things taste like yellow Trix.