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Jim Carrey Returning for "Sonic the Hedgehog 3"
(variety.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Movies
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In general the movies were pretty good, but I couldn't help but be a little put off by Robotnik's far right wing undertones along with all the product placement.
In stuff like this I don't give a shit about product placement honestly. When it's a movie that's just incredibly stupid dumb fun who gives a shit, you know? And then there's shit like the power rangers where I still, to this day, say the Krispy Kreme product placement was brilliant.
Because, after all, it truly is a special place.
I can't remember the Power Rangers one off the top of my head, but my go to example of good product placement, that was even integral to the storyline, was the movie Evolution. Head and Shoulders was so subtly woven into things in act 3, then right at the end all the main characters did a bit promotion, and that part had me laughing my head off.
Olive Garden was just randomly shoehorned in, not once but 3 times, with the first Sonic movie. That really broke the immersion for me and harmed my enjoyment.
Maybe not being bothered by it is more of a US thing, what with the nature of TV ads over there.
Okay actually I did forget all about that Olive garden shit that was pretty bad
I think integral to the storyline makes it worse.
As an example from Shazam Fury of the Gods (mild spoilers ahead). The main characters think to summon unicorns to help defeat the bad guys. Unfortunately unicorns are kinda dicks and can only be won over by ambrosia or nectar/food of the gods. So what qualifies as a GODLY FOOD? Fuckin Skittles. Oh and yes, they use the "Taste the Rainbow" slogan. Absolutely ridiculous.
Generally yeah, product placement in the storyline is a bad thing, and worse than regular product placement. But Evolution was so subtle, so funny and unexpected that it somehow worked. The brand wasn't just paying to have its name mentioned throughout the movie, it was a kind of last minute, almost self-depricating presentation in a vaguely endearing way - not a certainly endearing way, but one that didn't piss you off. The characters who first promoted Head & Shoulders were literally the biggest losers of the story up to that point. The purpose of mentioning Head & Shoulders was to make fun of the seriousness of the drama and the whole premise of the movie.
Meanwhile, Olive Garden was only presented in a positive fashion in Sonic, not just by the incompetent military but also the main human character, such that you couldn't really be sure they were telling a joke by mentioning it - because they weren't, the purpose of mentioning it was purely to service the brand, at the expense of the story.
Shazam 2 is not a good example lol, except as a generally bad movie. If you're drawing parallels with Sonic and Shazam that really doesn't bode well for Sonic.
I do remember the Skittles insert into Shazam 2, but by that point the movie had really lost so much credibility that I couldn't have cared less. Meanwhile, Sonic was a generally good movie that was somewhat ruined by product placement and Carrey's alt-right lines. While he was the villain, many of his lines were never presented in such a way that you were meant to disagree with them.
I think for Sonic what made it "ok" aka "fuckin ridiculous" was that because it was just terrible filler, I could just ignore it. It happened to be Olive Garden but it could have just as easily been any other shitty restaurant. It was just nonsense filler.
When it's integral to the story, that's when I can't separate it.
I think placement can be done with intelligence, there are entire Youtube channels with millions of subscribers that do only advertisement sketches.