Our friends over at DC Metblogs have been all a flutter over the recent unveiling of USPS mailboxes decorated to look like R2D2, and we can hardly blame them. R2 is, after all, secretly the most powerful leader of the Rebel Alliance. So thanks to Flickr user epmd for snapping this shot of a new R2 mailbox in downtown Washington and adding it to the DCist Photo pool. In fact, Flickr users all over the country have created a group just for photos of these adorable mailboxes, which are part of a marketing campaign George Lucas and USPS have teamed up for to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. About 400 of the boxes began appearing yesterday in high traffic corners across the country, and the Postal Service will be launching commemorative stamps on March 28.

Sadly, the video the url printed on the boxes points to is a pretty unsatisfying teaser hyping the release of the stamps (and make sure you add “www” to the beginning — leaving it off leads to a dead link). Not that anyone has accused George Lucas of being behind anything remotely satisfying in the last, oh, ten years or so. But we can still appreciate the fun in having these mailboxes around town. Have you seen anymore?