Darth Vader's branded coffee may not be organic and fair trade, but Rob Zombie's is. While the Sith Lord shills an African and Indonesian blend “hand roasted by Stormtroopers,” the dark lord of metal offers a Peruvian blend and a dark French roast, both of them organic. Zombie also beats Vader on price; his coffee is $13.99/lb compared to Vader's at $14.99/lb. We're looking forward to a taste-off in the near future.

When we first discovered the Sith Lord had lent his likeness to something as banal as coffee, we were surprised, even dismayed. But, much like Mark Hamill crawling out of a Tauntaun carcass, we wriggled out from under the weight of expectation and began to admire, even understand, the Empire's new plan to strike back.

Those savvy Sith Lords know they don't have the resources to overpower every disobedient planet and decimate its inhabitants. If they want total galactic domination, they'll need to enslave people in more subtle yet profound ways. Perhaps by relentlessly equating personal freedom with consumer choice and elevating individual buying power above all other types of freedom. Yeah, that'll mask the horrific inequalities of the Empire's power structure by tempting humans with enough tchotchkes to keep them from revolting while simultaneously sucking every last dollar from their wallets and encouraging a life of indentured servitude to credit card companies (a master more cruel than even Jabba the Hutt).

Actor Hayden Christensen has a posse. That's what we discovered with one throwaway comment about Christensen's “acting” in the Star Wars films. Granted, he had to recite some jaw-droppingly stupid dialogue, but when you come out of a movie looking only slightly better than the simpering CG Sambo also known as Jar-Jar Binks, you've got problems that extend well beyond the script.

We won't know until we hold our taste-off who makes the superior coffee, Darth Vader or Rob Zombie, but we're told that the the best — and possibly the first — film director-branded blend is still David Lynch's Signature Cup Organic Roast. Beat that, dark lords of the coffee world.

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