Episode Seven got a nice trailer a couple days ago, which you (probably) saw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erLk59H86ww


But today, someone showed what the Lucas Special Edition would be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v93Jh6JNBng





The scene with the pilot was my favorite, complete with that awful head bob. Such a good satire.

Also - the JJ Abrams "lens flare edition":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPuUiENIuPI

Michael Bay Cut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... kWhczj6MQ8

Those are awesome. I particularly like the Lucas cut.

The product placement in the Michael Bay cut actually made part of me angry. Perfect!


The part of Transformers 4 I laughed the hardest at- and I know not everyone has seen it, so the recap goes like this:

Stuff happens with the main characters in America, and then suddenly EvilCorp gets spooked and loads everything up and goes to Hong Kong, and the rest of the movie continues there.

One of the characters- like a Steve Jobs sort of character- is up on a roof, and all this stuff has been going on around him. On the Hong Kong roof, he opens up a fridge, and gets this dumb little milk thing out and starts drinking that, and then stuff starts happening around him. And I laughed so hard, because I realized that the stupid little milk thing he drank was some milk company that must have payed in huge for that spot, even though literally no one could go buy it or read the label- because as an international movie, many of the viewers will be in China and recognize the brand.


Anyway, while writing this, I realized that the joke was on me, because I actually googled it. Here's the few second youtube scene, that works with or without sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmyBOyChsoI

But upon googling it, the previous transformers movies also product placed milk, and I didn't even KNOW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TykAQlkwhjU



Ultimately, Michael Bay is a funny guy, because he will actually place the products in such a ludicrous situation- and only in scenes that should be edited out anyway, as they add nothing- that he's essentially satirizing the companies that pay for them. But I still don't like them. I hate advertisements so fucking much. The "I, Robot" scene where Will Smith somehow

Hold up, this is the internet.

Will Smith plays a future cop, who just happens to like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HpIZrOH4zc



This is motherfucking Asimov that they destroyed like that, and I'm actually sort of surprised that Will Smith went along with it gleefully.



But the one that ticked me off the most was actually an Abrams movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeRghYqi090

There's a literal Nokia phone in post nuclear war Earth (about 20 seconds in). Not just post nuclear war- post capitalism. This takes place in a time period where world war three happened, mass slaughter ensued, genocidal camps were set up, society was restructed, and finally a happy socialist style paradise was formed with the help of technology. A post scarcity society.


And they product place into that. For fucking Nokia. In Star Trek.



Needless to say, if they manage to product place in Star Wars, I will flip my shit so hard. Not that they even fucking need to- all they need to do to get me to buy something is put Luke Skywalker's face on it, and that's been the case since I was like seven. But if that's not good enough, if they have to somehow try to sell me Geico or whatever....


rrrrrrrrrrr

Yeah, see, I don't care about those things. At least two people on here still wear Converse, a shoes that is almost 100 years old. Seriously, "Chuck" comes from 1921. I think it is very likely that they will be around forever despite being terrible shoes, particularly for a character who distrusts technology. We are closer to the time in the story than we are to the creation of Chucks.

The murder to Asimov was the entire fucking plot, not the shoes.


As for Star Trek, there are many reasons for Nokia to be there. First, it is supposed to be not that far in the future. We know that there was a war, but we also know it didn't reduce us to the middle ages or anything. Companies survive war, and Nokia could make it. Many companies survived WWII, afterall. But sure, it's also possible they don't make it... Wouldn't someone remember the eternal brick phone and revive the name for a new company?

Every time I have added an aftermarket head unit, it says the company name right on it.

You know what is less plausible? When you see a car driven in a TV show and they have removed the badge and logo.

As much as that annoys you, it gives me an anchor to the real world that makes it more plausible. It's like... why the fuck does no one watch TV in Star Trek? Or holograms or whatever. They have like 1000 people on the ship in TNG and 3 holodecks. How does that work? How are they not booked solid? There's nothing else to do there. So when Enterprise came out, the captain wanted to get the water polo games from his college where he used to play. That was a real world anchor to show not everything is different. The idea that you can just buy this head unit for your car that is fancy... yeah, I like that.


I'll tell you the best product placement... Chuck. It's fucking incredible. They got sponsored by Subway, which was the only way they could survive. So they lured people into traps using Subway subs that they described in great detail. It was so over the top that it was funny. It wasn't as bad as Wayne's World, but still great.

With the power of whiskey I destroyed your foolish arguments in favor of Nokia, you Nokia apologist!


As for the I, Robot thing- you are certainly correct that the movie was an absolute travesty. If you want to make a movie about killer fucking robots, you don't need a goddamned Asimov license to do that- just make a movie about killer fucking robots. Title it Killer Robots, Killer Tits and I will watch it like twice in the theater- movies that just do what they say (like Pacific Rim) are dear to my heart, because they offer entertainment and a world that makes sense within itself, mostly because they don't have a bunch of strange other claims. More importantly, people who set out to make those movies sometimes accidentally stumble upon greatness, or figure out a few scenes or lines midway through that really make it- and if they fail to do so, you at least leave the movie satisfied.

But to go out of your way to pay a bunch of money for an I, Robot license and then fuck it up is pretty awful. I knew going to see it that it had nothing to do with the actual I, Robot story except the title and presumably paying for something that clan Asimov needed to buy IRL. But I just don't understand why they do it. Everyone fucking hates it. Does it even sell a few more tickets over Will Smith Punches Robots Seriously Just Watch Will Smith? I doubt it, but even if it does, it just means that you have a bunch of people who wanted to watch I, Robot who are angry because the movie is not I, Robot. It is literally false advertising. It also punts on the possibility of actually SEEING an I, Robot movie, which would have a hard time being marketed in the next decade or two now.


But anyway, the reason the converse scene was so ludicrous is that they basically pause the movie to have him wear the converse. I'm sure that "your product is in the movie" is one price, "your product is featured on the main character" is another, and "Will Smith literally advertises your shoes with his actual mouth, while in character" is the highest, so they went with that. I claim that the final option shouldn't be on the table- it even cheapens Will Smith Punches Robots Seriously Just Watch Will Smith, to say nothing of I, Robot, a story that has yet to be filmed.



Also the Subway thing sounds hilarious.

Oddly topical and just came out today:

http://www.cracked.com/video_19080_the- ... -trek.html