I, Robot

[DGMacphee]

GAH!!!! 

[Peter Thomas]

Maddox actually summed up my opinions pretty well. I think Smith pissing on Isaac's grave is EXACTLY the right image.

Movie as a movie: 3/10
Movie as a book adaptation: -10/10

[evenwolf]

Product placement is a touchy topic.

A bad example of product placement is in SWAT where a character sees a sprite can and says, "Holy shit! I love sprite! Now what was that you said about terrorists?"

A good example of product placement is anytime in a story where a character tastefully uses a product without it effecting the story or presentation.Ã,  For instance, in Mystic River Sean Penn has an emotional moment in front of a closet shelf full of Jello.Ã,  But fortunately,Ã,  he never turns around and says "Damn! We need more Jello!"Ã,  Movies have to get money from somewhere;Ã,  if a soda is written into the script- why not ask sprite to pitch in?

Now in Wayne's World, Evolution, Minority Report, and Demolition Man- those are all instances of real product placement.Ã,  Even though their delivery was more humorous or innovative, they weren't entirely shameless.

[Kinoko]

Sure, but they did it without trying to LIE to us. Dirty, filthy LIES is what these other movies spread ... evil. Eeeeeeeviiiiiiil.

I think you should change "Good" and "Bad" product placement to something like "Obvious" and "Subtle" because I honestly don't feel that Sean Penn standing in front of a cupboard full of jello is good product placement In fact, it's all bad. It's just plain shitty that they do this. I hate advertisement! ARGH!!!

[evenwolf]

Movies lie to us anyway.Ã,  That's the purpose of film - to perpetuate fantasy.Ã,  Do you honestly want movies to say "Here comes product placement!!!" before every instance?

Listen, I hate advertisements too.Ã,  I especially hate commercials.Ã,  I hate how a potential thirty minute television show becomes 22 minutes due to ads.

That's why I like product placement as a subsitution for commercials. We could get stories with no interruptions.


Kinoko, I don't mean to offend you with "I once thought just like you" talkÃ,  but viewing advertisements as evil is a fairly naive view.Ã,  Shows such as Seinfeld, the Simpsons, Friends, Daily Show, Adult Swim, etc etc wouldn't exist without selling some sort of advertising spots.Ã,  This is especially true for network television.

Get used to product placement and learn to love it,Ã,  because TiVo is slowly going to phase out the use of commercials altogether.Ã,  Advertisers can't get viewers to watch their ads, so naturally ads will blend into the content of the show.

[DGMacphee]

I agree with kingsized that product placement is a touchy subject.

The Mystic River example is pretty interesting. I mean, is it better to have something that's obvious like I, Robot or something that subtle (or even subliminal) as Mystic River. Some would say the Mystic River example is worse because it's sneaky.

I think I do prefer the Mystic River type though, mainly because it doesn't take the focus away from the performance. I mean, it's a little difficult for advertising to affect you in a way that you think during the movie, "My god! Poor Sean Penn! He must be so sad over his daughter's death... Hmmm, I've got the munchies for some jello pudding!" We're still focused on Penn and Eastwood's direction doesn't take focus away from that. Where as in the SWAT example or the I, Robot example the focus is clearly taken away for a quick advert.

I mean, it really ticks me off that you go to a cinema and pay somewhere between $6-$15, then sit through 20-30mins worth of ads, and then have product placement up the wazoo during the actually movie. Meanwhile, film budgets are getting bigger but most of the films produced on a big budget are shitty anyway.

I think filmmakers need to learn to be creative while using less money. Having a big budget makes things too easy. It's far creative to make something with hardly any money because you're using more thought into overcoming challenges in filmmaking.

But as kingsized also implies, it's naive to think this way.

By the way, naive spelt backwards is EVIAN! BUY EVIAN!

[evenwolf]

I used to be extremely pissed off about the price of movie-going.

I still am really.Ã,  But it breaks down like this:



$6-8 ticketÃ,  --Ã,  goes almost entirely to the Studio, not the theatre.

Hence theatres are going mad raising prices for popcorn, sodas, and making no outside food and drink rules.Ã,  They make most of their money on concessions.Ã,  And they are struggling.Ã,  The equipment it takes (bulbs, projectors, sound) to keep up with Hollywood is tremendously expensive.

Regal Cinema, the largest exhibition chain in the US, has made it a LAW in their theatres to show atleast aÃ,  minimum number of ads before movie trailers.Ã,  AND most theatres play slides even before showing commercials.

Really, all you need to understand is that your money and consumership is going to several places.Ã,  Ã, The studios make risks with box-office flops like Catwoman, and hope to break even with another movie later (therefore the trailers).Ã,  And the theatres get no percentage if one movie does better than another, they just simply need you to buy popcorn and they need advertisers to buy ads.


---I edited out my idea because I want to do more research on it ---- sorry dg

[DGMacphee]

I could justify it like that, but that would mean I'd be complacent about getting screwed.

Like I said, a lot of big budget movies are shitty. For every Spiderman 2 you get about 10 "Catwoman" or "White Chicks" films.

I mean, I would prefer to pay a high price to see an indie/low-budget picture because they are more creative when using limited resources.

But like I said, I'm pretty naive. (Buy EVIAN!)

[Kinoko]

*ahem* Well, there was a certain air of exaggeration in my post back there. I'm full well of how ads work, as in advertisements before/after/between shows. Those sorts of things are actually handy to most people. How often have you been sitting through a great movie on SBS or the ABC and suddenly needed to go to the bathroom, only to remember that there aren't any ad breaks causing you to make the harrowing decision of staying all the way through the movie and crossing your legs or running off to relieve yourself while possibly missing some incredibly important part of the movie. I don't mind them when they facilitate me in that way ^_^

Product placement in movies and shows still bugs me, because I still like movies to be made as pieces of art, stupid, serious, whatever. I'm not gonna make a game and put in puzzles where you have to save a bunch of starving villagers by buying them some Macdonalds if Maccas pays me to do so. I might put that puzzle in ANYWAY but if I do, it's only because I believe the game will be better for it, or because I personally like that food and want to endorse it out of sheer appreciation for the product. Sure, the game doesn't cost me millions of dollars to make, good point.

Big budget movies often don't need to be big budget movies, I think we all agree with that. Those that do will most likely make back that money AND HOW once it's released (or even before it's released, from the game, which always comes out before the movie). Some will flop, and studios will lose millions of dollars. Maybe that'll make people think twice about making shitty movies ("White Chicks", anyone?). If movie makers are guaranteed a profit on a movie from advertising space alone, the quality of movies on the whole is gonna plummet.

I don't just forgive Wayne's World because it was honest about the product placement, but because it added to the movie. It didn't cheapen it, it didn't keep it about the same (like sneaky subliminals), it made it even funnier. I was watching I, Robot and thinking, "Okay, they're making a big point about the shoes... it wasn't funny, it wasn't cool... so the shoes must come into the movie at some point as some big thing like a clue".

The price of movie going doesn't annoy me so much anymore because I've found a great cinema that shows things on a screen just as good as the big name cinemas for about half price ^_^ The popcorn thing? Really dodgy, it's like we're giving them freaking charity. "Oh, I'm sorry cinema, you don't get that much of a cut from the ticket sales? I'd better pay 3 times as much as popcorn is worth then". If you can't sell an unnecessary product at a decent price, then tough, I say I know I'd actually buy popcorn if it were a couple of dollars cheaper. As it is, they're missing out on my (and just about everyone I know, and I'm sure thousands of others') business.

EDIT: Hadn't even read your comment, DG, when I made mine about White Chicks. Hurrah! Looks like everyone recognises it to be one of the most retarded movies of the day.

[evenwolf]

Kinoko, anything that attracts the attention of the masses eventually becomes a business.

I fear the day that I make a film and someone comes to me and offers me a nice sum of money if I simply have my character wear a particular T-shirt.Ã,  Should I accept?Ã,  I mean, with a little extra cash, I could afford that crane shot I wanted, afterall.Ã,  And did I really care what the character was wearing when I wrote the script?

I hope this demonstrates one instance where product placement does not interfere too much with the art.

And I have to mention that filmmaking began as an assembly line operation.Ã,  There wasn't just one screenwriter, there were ten.Ã,  And they were all simply cramming ideas into eachother to outsell the other movies doing the same thing.

Slowly Hollywood develops the star system.  People either like Buster Keaton or they like Charlie Chaplin.   Now the star system even extends itself to writers and directors. 

How many people decided whether or not to see Kill Bill because Tarantino made it?

How many people saw Eternal Sunshine because Charlie Kaufman wrote it?

Sure, they're artists but even more so-  they're investments.

[DGMacphee]

I thought I'd put this as another post instead of an edit to my previous one:

Take the biggest movie series over the last couple of years: The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here we have what could be described as a "period piece" so it's very hard to include product placements. You don't expect to see any vending machine for Coke in Middle-Earth. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this though.

Anyway, the films made over $300 million each in the US alone. All had a budget under $100 million. All were well made in my own opinion, but were also praised by more well-known critics. They also scored a shitload of Oscars. All three are within the IMDB's top ten too.

The consumerism (i.e. fast food tie-ins, toy sales, etc) for the film was promoted outside the realms of Middle-Earth. I prefer this type of big-budget film-making and can justify the commercial sales because it was a great film worth seeing (one that will go down in history in my opinion).

Meanwhile, I can't justify a medicore film like I, Robot or Catwoman having a budget of over $100 million. And I can't justify supporting multiplexes to show such films, especially due to the number of product placements.

And I'm fine with movies that were made in an assemby line, as long as they aren't hack jobs. Chaplin and Keaton became investments, yes, I'm fine with that. But they made quality films. I don't mind an investment that is rewarding. But I don't see Chaplin making a bloated big-budget pic like White Chicks or Keaton making an I, Robot. If they make a big budget pic, they make it with great talent. Chaplin made The Great Dictator for $2 million dollars. Probably a lot of money back then. But I'd rather see that than I. Robot.

Then again, I'm Evian... err... naive!

[evenwolf]

good points DG.

Another strange factoid of studios is that films don't stand alone.

Lord knows why a studio spends so much money on I, Robot and Catwoman but when they flop, every movie in that studio's immediate future serves as a crutch for the loss.

But yes, certain people in Hollywood never deserved to make these decisions to begin with.

PS: I just had a good laugh by looking at the IMDb credits for "I, Robot"

Asimov is listed as "suggested by book".Ã,  To me that's like saying "Haha, silly Asimov- your book reminds me of this hack idea I have for a movie!  Thanks for the suggestion!"

[Kinoko]

LotR is a great example of where a budget is worth while. Although they could never be sure of it's success, it was as close to a sure bet as you could get so I'm sure they could justify making it for that budget. Although any fans of the books can name hundreds of problems they have with it, overall it's a fantastic, enjoyable success of a trilogy and if a movie is gonna have a large budget, that's the sort of movie it should be. How many times in the last year have you heard that some movie or other broke records at the box office (seemingly not taking into account population growth and rising ticket prices) or broke records for movie budget? I've heard it so often I just expect that every new, bigish movie is gonna do the same. It's become pretty meaningless... which I think is a shame.Once upon a time, you could rely on something like that to tell you it was a great movie, or even a well-liked movie. These days, people just go to these movies they HEAR are big movies, then making them even bigger and so the cycle continues. Getting a bit off-topic here but I just thought I'd mention it as a part of my whole annoyance at the overuse of "big" in the movie industries these days.

Incidentally, I think my movie of the year is most definitely going to be "Supersize Me" in terms of sheer enjoyment and impact. I was quite happy to pay the Dendy's prices to see that movie (and it certainly uses a lot of product placement ^_-).

[evenwolf]

hell, I had to eat MacDonald's immediately after seeing it. 

[DGMacphee]

And I drank EVIAN while I watched it.

Please, buy EVIAN!

You can call George W. Bush a pussy and they won't fire you cause they're French!

[Ali]

$6-8 ticketÃ,  --Ã,  goes almost entirely to the Studio, not the theatre.

I don't think that's exactly true.

[boring film finance]
The money might not go to the theatre, but a pretty big chunk goes to the distributor, not the studio. If you bear in mind how much it costs to produce and market a film, there's often only a narrow profit margin.

Four Weddings & a Funeral, for instance earned on its US distribution far more than it cost to produce (only £4m), but would have ended up in the red because of marketing costs if it hadn't been for international sales.Ã,  (You don't need to market much internationally - once America knows, everyone knows).
[/boring film finance]

Nevertheless, your point is fair. I hate advertising too. Try loudly shouting over adverts in the cinema. It helps you feel better and makes strangers hate you! Two birds with one stone.

[LGM]

Personally, I didn't really NOTICE the product placements... Yes, I recognized the products and such, but it never occured to me they were trying to sell it to you. Spooner likes Converse? So what? :-p

Life is so much easier when you choose not over-analyze everything.

[Esseb]

Not much of a life, I'd argue.

[...]I'm not gonna make a game and put in puzzles where you have to save a bunch of starving villagers by buying them some Macdonalds if Maccas pays me to do so. I might put that puzzle in ANYWAY but if I do, it's only because I believe the game will be better for it, or because I personally like that food and want to endorse it out of sheer appreciation for the product. Sure, the game doesn't cost me millions of dollars to make, good point.

What if you did plan to make such a puzzle in your game, but instead of using a non-descript burger restaurant or one called "WacRonald's" you contaced MacDonald's, Burger King etc. to hear if any of them were interested in paying to have their brand in your game? I have no problems with that kind of advertisement (Ignoring any qualms I may have about the brand being advertised.) The Jello example in MYSTIC RIVER that Even mentioned seems to fall within this category. I haven't seen it myself yet though.

The advert for that shoe brand in I, ROBOT (which I haven't seen either) however, sounds like they rang up various companies asking if they'd like a brand to be in their big budget summer movie, then afterwards tried their best to cram it somewhere in the movie. This kind of product placement I'm less happy with.

Thankfully it seems that the latter kind of product placement (the brain less one) happens in movies I never expected anything else from anyway.

So what's the harm if product placement is done tastefully? And do you really care what Will Smith blatantly advertises in his movies?

[DGMacphee]

Personally, I didn't really NOTICE the product placements... Yes, I recognized the products and such, but it never occured to me they were trying to sell it to you. Spooner likes Converse? So what? :-p

Life is so much easier when you choose not over-analyze everything.

Life is also much easier when you're either oblivious or living in denial. Coincidence?

Besides, it's hard to over-analyse when it's so blatantly done in I, Robot.

[Privateer Puddin']

$6-8? we pay £6+ :p you don't know how good ya got it..