Does anyone else find the product placement to be completely ridiculous in Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
Asked by
rockfan (
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September 7th, 2017
from iPhone
I rewatched the movie last night and forgot about the blatant advertising. It completely took me out the film, especially the scene in which there’s a Budweiser bottle perfectly set up on a nightstand in the foreground, while a Budweiser commercial is playing in the background. Does this bother anyone else? But I realize that that the film had some budget problems and it probably wouldn’t have been made if it weren’t for the advertising – I just wish it was done in a subtle way.
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I, too, remember the Budweiser commercial, I always laughed at it, as it was blatant. The movie itself was kinda cheesy in the backgrounds, the sounds, and the way people acted. It always had that strange, odd feel to it, which I think they were trying to make it slightly off to make it feel like something odd was going on throughout the whole movie, and the adverts added to that weirdness for me. Even the music that was played on the kid’s record player was weird…
It’s an artifact of its time. I think Wayne’s World did it well – as an added joke. These days I’m more likely to notice when a commonly-seen label is deliberately covered up, masked, or altered, because the brand in question did NOT sponsor the video.
Also, Apple must have a huge contract with certain production companies. There are films with Apple computers in places that would never use Apple computers otherwise.
This is my all-time favorite product placement. It’s so egregious that I thought it was fake when I first saw it.
I don’t remember the Bud, though I certainly will look for it from now on. It was only after the practice sparked levels of controversy that I began keeping an eye out. If funding really was an issue, that beer can was unquestionably a small sacrifice to realize so wonderful a film, and Spielberg can now get all the money he wants for any project he chooses.
@rockfan That “commercial” was really funny. By having that hugely overweight guy eating them it might turn out to be a negative commercial and work against them.
It doesn’t bother me. Those products exist in that time frame, so it seems just like any other prop in the whole movie.
I never noticed it before. It was a great movie at the time, though.
Eh. It had 100% too few chest bursters.
It’s still a great movie in my opinion
Spielberg actually likes to reference how it feels growing up in the suburbs. The advertising in some of his movies is intentional. I remember reading that Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial have similar suburban themes, with hundreds of references to pop culture and advertising in the background. It’s quite paradoxical. Advertising is part of every-day life and yet on another level it’s unrealistic and other filmmakers hate using it.
LOL! ET has a ton of references to Star Wars characters.
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