I remember talking about product placement in films during the first week of class. And I thought to bring it up again to get everybody's opinion about it in Blade Runner.
For me personally, it's really distracting. I know when the huge Coca-Cola sign showed up in the movie it really threw me off guard. I was trying to see what the character was looking at and all I saw was the huge digital product placement. I think product placements in movies is just plain distracting and can sometimes ruin the scene.
Even though the Coca-Cola one wasn't so bad despite it being huge, I must say the Polaroid one was irritating. It's the scene where Deckard, Harrison Ford, is looking through the pictures to get clues to find the replicants. At the bottom of the pictures said Polaroid. It wasn't so distracting at first, except when it got to the point where he moved the pictures in such a way as to make sure he wasn't hiding any of the letters in POLAROID.
I guess I notice these little things. But really? Really?
I just want to know what you all thought about product placement in films. Does it ruin the scenes for you? Or is it just me?
But I also think it enhances the themes in the movie. One of the themes is the idea of big corporation take over. Coca-Cola and I guess you can say Polaroid back in the days was considered huge corporations. Which goes on to show that in the movie, their world is ruled by corporations. I wonder if the directors, producers, and etc intended it to be shown that way.
Hmmmm....
Olga Martinez
Funny thing is that there is sort of a 'curse' associated with the businesses that did product placement in the film. I remember reading a theory saying that any business that did product placement in Blade Runner ended up suffering financially. The only one that really recovered was Coca Cola, but shortly after the movie was released Coke decided to put out a 'new coke' that did horrible and almost diminished the company. Atari no longer became known for new games, as for those video phones, The Bell system being broken up due to the famous Telecom Act of 1984. And various other companies suffered problems too if I remember correctly...
ReplyDeleteThat's just awesome. The Blade Runner product placement curse!!! I must say, after seeing the Coca-Cola image, I drank a Pepsi.
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