Horrible product placement in Casino Royale

M

MG08

New member
Watching Casino Royale again last night, I still think the product placement was the most embarassing in the history of movies. Almost completely ruins the film for me. The obvious close-ups of sony laptops and mobiles were bad enough but to have an entire scene devoted to discussing Omega watches was shameful.

The blatant car advert where Bond arrives in the Bahamas and drives the mondeo is equally horrible, made worse by David Arnold over-scoring the scene in a desperate attempt to try to make the car look cool. It made me squirm at the time and still does now.

Bond films are guaranteed box office, so there is no need to whore them out to advertisers. I just find it appalling. Are there any worse examples of product placement around? Bond films seem to be particularly bad at it. Looks like it is set to continue as well: (following is from Times Online)

JAMES BOND
 
Ha ha! You're a gas! :D

There's been product placement in cinema for years now, and it's not going to disappear.

Sure the studios make money from ticket sales, but they're just making as much money out of it as possible, at the expense of the art.

Your argument is art vs capital. You're dealing with studio execs and shareholders. What did you think they were going to do? :rolleyes:
 
I can't remember the film footage but I thought at the time all of the press releases said it was a Modeo .. doesn't really matter anyways.

Product placement is big business in films and it will continue. In fact, I'm sure Ofcom have actually relaxed rules on product placement on British TV so expect to see more of that as well.
 
There's that old film with the monkeys in it. BLATENT product placement. I was appalled. I will never buy T bags again.
 
sure has! it can be a sport with some films, spotting the product placement, me and my hubby play all the time.

Nightwatch and 28 days later are two i can think off right away with some very obvious product placement.

For beginners, spotting the coke and pepsi cans faced with thier labels towarRAB the screen is an easy way to begin this sport.
 
I'm a massive Jackie Chan fan, and his films are choc-full of product placement for Mitsubishi, Sony and Pepsi.

In some movies, he drives through a factory on a motorbike, or in a Mitsubishi, and takes out all these workers whose job it is to stack empty boxes - God knows what company makes money stacking empty boxes, but there you go.

Sometimes, it's cans of soft drink that are empty, yet stacked in a supermarket for no reason.

James Cameron famously included Pepsi in Terminator 2 only in scenes where people died - genius. Take the money and run... :D
 
Godzilla and the first Fantastic Four movie both featured seriously blatant product placement. In FF massive advertising billboarRAB fill the screen at one point.
 
Vantage Point is another massive showcase for Sony gear. It's got people watching footage on Bravia TVs and Forest Whittaker drooling over his HD Sony camcorder as he lovingly pans it around the square.
As Sony owns Bond, I fully expect the PS3 to get a plug in Solace. In a gritty not gimmicky way of course ;-).
 
It's odd that only piece of placement that never bothers me in the Bond films, is when they introduce the Aston Martin each time. :cool:

Though when they used those terribly common BMW's in those equally awful Brosnan films, that did make me ill. :(



It could be just like that scene in Never Say Never Again. :D
 
Product placement doesn't bother me in the slightest, also I am not a person who after seeing something in a film like a 'Sony laptop', I suddenly think, I WANT ONE NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
 
But aren't products a way of life?
Bond's admiration of Omega, is a strong part of who he is and it's natural this comes across in conversations once in awhile.

I certainly prefer it to displaying fake branRAB and pretend branRAB don't exist in the world!
 
Bond wearing an ACME watch would certainly extract urine.

Simple answer. Just ignore the product placement. It's not going anywhere. Get used to it and don't worry. As long as there's capitalism, there will be sponsorship.
 
Meanwhile in Iraq...

Aren't there other things in life to worry about than this? As someone said, product placement is here to stay. And it's not like Ian Fleming didn't plug brand names in the original Bond books 50 years ago.
 
Back
Top