This movie has to be one of the earliest examples of blatant product placement in cinema history. There are a TON of product placements in this movie, which is kind of odd considering the movies Green/hippy pro-nature, anti-tech theme.
Any other movies of the era that had such blatant product placement? (2001 had it's Pan-Am placements ...)
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I never thought of the Pan Am space clipper as 'product placement'. To me it added a touch of reality to the movie. It foreshadowed the privatization of space using a brand that was well known to people at the time. It seemed perfectly reasonable at the time that a company like Pan Am would be involved in such an operation. Who knew what the future of Pan Am, and the US space program, would hold.
BTW, is there anyone who thinks that being 'anti nature' is a good thing?
Point well taken on the realism aspect of the product placement. It works for this film.
Small detail, but Pan Am was "2001: A Space Odyssey." American Airlines is "Silent Running."
"It's people..."
Apparently Dow contributed $60,000 of materials in exchange for having their logo shown.
Oh Lord, you gave them eyes but they cannot see...
It doesn't seem to me that it was anti-tech. Tech is the only thing keeping the forests going. The spaceships have trees and birds and squirrels and cute little bunnies for crying out loud. There's no murderous computer, no evil cyborg, no crystal in your hand telling you when it's time to die.
The robots are not cold villains plotting to enslave mankind, but companions, surgeons, poker players, and the last best hope for nature.
Even sunlight can be replaced with technology, and well enough to save the forest.
The only "evil technology" was nukes and synthetic food. They should have avoided that, and kept the tech/nature harmony theme.
I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler.
- Jon Stewart
I laughed a little that one of the containers was AMF.
What was in it? Bowling pins?
That product placement was brilliant, to me, in both 2001 and Silent Running. It add some interesting realism, which you'd probably take all you can get if you're directing a uphill-climb-suspension-of-disbelief science fiction movie!
shareThe movie wasn't going to pay for itself, pal. You corporate haters really need to get over yourselves.
shareJerry Lewis' "Who's Minding The Store?" (1963) featured even heavier product placement. www.imdb.com/title/tt0057683
I saw this film in it's original release and upon entering the theater was given a large scale "behind the scenes" sort of pamphlet published by Duro-Test. They boasted as being the "real hero of the movie" due to their grow lights.
The AMF connection was that they supplied the robotic arm used in the Snooker(?) game. There's a goof on this in "Innerspace" (which I worked on)...they too used an automated robotic arm that placed a microchip into it's socket, as the thing was incredibly slow the actor grew frustrated and yanked the chip from it and shoved it into place by hand!
Why is there always some bozo talking about "product placement"? I kinda like my movie characters drinking a coke rather than a can marked with SODA in big black letters.
I like the nostalgia of seeing the old logs and such, in addition to the touch of realism that actual products bring to a story.
You must have hated Repo Man.
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