Sessa17

I thought this would be about the vampire dildo placement in the movie.

valkyrie

Or dracula lunchboxes.

hytec

i saw the oakley symbol on there sunglasses and an XM radio was in the background in one scene...

Rammsteinfan

Count Chocula is all I could think of

Jolard

I saw Blade Trinity earlier this week, and while I enjoyed the movie a reasonable amount (I loved the first one, didn't like the second) I was incredibly annoyed by the product placement in the movie.

I noticed numerous obvious examples, (cars, soda etc) but by far the most blatant was the product placement for Apple. It was horrendously done, and very nearly ruined the movie for me.

The computers in the movie are obviously apple, which is fairly common, and doesn't bother me that much. But when a major character actually spends time organizing their i-tunes playlists and transferring songs to their i-pod, that is too much. When another major character actually starts spouting Apple marketing speak (she likes to have her own internal soundtrack) while she is organizing said tracks, it is even worse. And when every major fight scene that she is going to be in is preceded by her obviously putting in her ubiquitous white i-pod headphones, I start throwing up.

I just spent $9.50 to see an apple commercial. Do you think I feel cheated???

I can understand product placement in network TV shows to some extent. Network TV is free, and since more and more people are skipping the ads, they have to do something. However movies cost ME money. I am paying to see them, and I DO NOT appreciate paying to see advertizing. Studios can go on and on about how the placement was integral to the story and was important for realism sake, but I don't buy it. That is bulls--t. They are taking money to place a product, pure and simple. If this trend continues, I will be watching far fewer movies in the future. Not only that, but even though I might have bought Blade Trinity on DVD, I most definitely won't now. I have little enough hard earned cash to waste it on purchasing ads.

jessecrx

You know...


It's kinda funny but this reminds me of the whole "Selling Out" speech in Waynes World......


But yeah, I noticed that stuff too in Blade 3. I tried not to think about it.

mikehunt

sounds worse than Mission to Mars' product placement, which was kind of bad

Jackskeleton

No, you've paid $9.50 for admission to the movie to see a filmed that cost the studio plenty and that made up some of that potential risk by offering apple computers some endorsement.

ID4 come to mind? can we spell out CAST AWAY? I'm sure I made all my shipping choices after that movie.

Sorry, but it also cost the studio money as well. Next time just don't bother to go to the movies or watch tv. As much as you want to think that you aren't paying to see local tv you are wrong. You pay for electricity, you pay for it by seeing their commercials. You pay every time. If it's not with your wallet, it's with your time.

This isn't new and it isn't going away anytime soon.

Good luck with that.. I'm sure you are going to take the system down. FIGHT THE MAN!!!11

angryyoungman

It's funny that you posted about this, my friends and I had the exact same thought during the movie!

Besides the beat-you-over-the-head iPod placement ("When Abigail's kicking ass, she likes to listen to her Apple iPod!" Cue shot of Abigail using iTunes on her Apple laptop to pick songs), the pimped out GMC Yukon for Blade and company was another obvious one. The way they shot them getting into the car seemed like a car commercial.

And I think we all know that Superhero Capes USA, Inc must have gotten a TON for Blade's brightly colored cape. What was up with that?

Me007gold

you know the used apples in the 1st blade to. but the product placement cant be any worse then what was in i robot.

Jackskeleton

CASTAWAY FED/EX PEOPLE!! come on. Am I the only one who didn't get sick to death of that one?

Puzznic

That one actually didn't bother me. If that was an endorsement it wasn't a very good one. It shows alot of people not getting their packages, plane crash or not. Besides, it at least made sense in the context of the story.

scott shelton

Yes!!!11

fumanstan

Didn't really bother me.

resinrats

So what do you people want? All generic devices so 'you aren't watching a commercial'? Then people would say that movies are horrid because no real products are shown. Movies need props. Unless the studio wants to waste money creating them from scratch, they will use what is availible. If a company is willing to pay for a certain type, it helps fund the movie. The character would use a MP3 player no matter what so they might as well use something audience members will recognize.

I saw the movie and I didn't think twice about it. Unless the character said something like, "Blade, while you drive us to vampireland, I will use my Mac iBook to load songs that I downloaded off of macintoshtunes.com onto my iPod that I bought at Target for the low, low price of $150.", it was just a prop and not forced product placement in my book.

Giantrobo

and you just know those Lightsabers need batteries......

Jackskeleton

Resinrat has a point. If you put fake products in it you run the risk of pulling the audiance out of "the mood". I know a generic soda always makes me go "WHAT A MINUTE!!! THAT SODA IS NOT REAL!!"

Atleast it wasn't as forced as the F-150 bullshit pulled on alias was it last season? Now that was forced.

RocShemp

How did I know this thread wouldn't get past page one before someone mentioned the F-150 bit in season 3 of Alias? Boy does that still leave a bad taste in my mouth!

As for Blade: Trinity, yeah it was an obvious placement but easy to ignore. Like someone mentioned earlier, at least it wasn't like they stopped to give a product description and price listing. It was easy to ignore and worse would have been if one of the characters had taken a bright red can of soda with big bold white letters reading "COLA".

Oh, and as much as I really love this remake, The THomas Crown Affair had the worst product placement ever in that scene when Rene Russo downs the soda. Just look how it's shot and how she goes for it like a heroin addict for no reason. That to me screemed commercial.

DRG

I don't care if they use real products, in fact I prefer it. I just take when they draw unneccessary attention to the item to the point where it pulls me out of the movie. I still think Mission to Mars (as mentioned by mikehunt earlier) is by far the worst. That Blade scene was bad, but frankly I was cringing more from the 'trendy music style' name-dropping in that scene than the IPod shill.

Luka

How about all the crap Tarantino puts in his films! Like I'm really gonna go out and buy a pack of "Red Apple" Cigarettes because some character smokes them! I won't even go to a Teriyaki Donut shop any more! I also am boycotting Air-O and Cabo-Air airlines!
Seriously... I never liked "Tenku" beer in the first place, why would I start drinking it just because they serve it in "The House of Blue leaves"!

candyrocket786

No shit... after that film, I thought twice about using Fedex

Other notable product placement in films/tv

Smallville (Red Zone episode)
Terminator 3 (Toyota Tundra)

mookyman

I don't mind product placement when it gives a storyline some reality (i.e., Tom Hanks working for FedEx instead of Boxes Inc.). I don't like it when it doesn't make any sense (i.e., Jessica Biel disabling her hearing during battle with trip-hop).

angryyoungman

See, this is what I don't believe at all. You're suggesting that the character was written that way, and I doubt it. Why does the brand of mp3 player need to be shown at all? What the hell does it have to do with the movie? Does it further the plot or character development?

Now I may be wrong, but this particular part of the movie seemed like it was written specifically to sell something, not because it was a crucial element of the film. That took me "out of the movie" more than a fake item (like the examples from Tarantino's flims) would have. And what would it have cost to not have her use an mp3 player at all, or to just put on headphones and that's it? Will it make the studio money? No. Will they lose any money? No.

The real question is: how much is actually made from these product placements?

jaeufraser

Product placement, imo, is only bad when it's glaring and out of place. With the case of Blade, it's really hard to say. It wouldn't surprise me that Goyer came up with that entire idea before IPod even came into the picture. The reason the IPod stuff was lame isn't cause it was product placement, but because the entire idea of Biel listening to her music with little headphones while she fights is silly to begin with. A lot in that movie sucked actually, and I place no blame on Apple, just poor direction and mediocre writing.

And that applies to most product placement...while sometimes the tie ins are more obvious than others, it rarely rarely rarely is an outright commercial. Most product placement is done by filling certain props with known products, as opposed to writing scripts with known products included. Lots of product placement is extremely subtle, with the marketing blitz and cross promotion being the real meat of the placement. Cause in reality, most product placement is simply having their logo on screen for a few seconds in non focused parts of the screen.

Cameron

...A giant Coca Cola Sign explodes... well thats it Superman movies suck...WTF

The real problem with blade trinity is not the forced product placement, its the forced sequel