Product placement

[Matt S]

KingDaniel wrote:

---

If anything, having a little bit of today's stuff in the far flung furture made it seem more real.

Exactly how I felt. Too much would've been an issue, but the movie handled it incredibly well.....Lets all be honest: 60's style of the future was incredibly naive, so having some 'real world' name drops Like Budweiser seems pretty realistic to me. Beer is gonna make it to the 23rd century folks!!!!

[Xaios]

The Budweiser placement didn't bother me in the least, because a) I can EASILY see them lasting that long, and b) the placement at least happened in a reasonable context. The Nokia placement, conversely (*snicker*IROBOT*snicker*), was incredibly awkward. It came out of the blue, and they could have just as easily used an era communicator, which served as a point of inspiration for a lot of modern cell phones IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I wasn't bothered by any of the placement in ST:IV either. The Pacific Bell placement was a great sight gag, and the Apple placement set up one of Scotty's best comedic moments.

[Christopher]

tighr wrote:

---

Budweiser is actually very likely to still exist in 250 years. Nokia, maybe not.

As I pointed out above, the Nokia brand name is actually a few years older than the Budweiser brand name. Although I exaggerated a bit; the original company of that name was an ancestor of the modern electronics/telecommunications corporation, which was formed in 1967 by the merger of the original Nokia and two other jointly owned companies. Still, it's nearly as old as Star Trek itself, for what that's worth.

Xaios wrote:

---

The Nokia placement, conversely (*snicker*IROBOT*snicker*), was incredibly awkward. It came out of the blue, and they could have just as easily used an era communicator, which served as a point of inspiration for a lot of modern cell phones IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Yeah, but the communicators we've seen before are Starfleet models. How do we know that civilian communicators aren't manufactured by telecommunications/electronics companies like Nokia or Sony or whatever?

Not to mention that the Nokia communication panel was in the dashboard of a 1965 Corvette. Obviously its owner had a thing for antiques. Maybe it was actually a modern communicator but Kirk's uncle (or George Kirk, its previous owner according to a deleted scene) had it dressed up with an archaic Nokia logo for authenticity (though he got the era wrong by about 40 years).

[Xaios]

Christopher wrote:

---

Yeah, but the communicators we've seen before are Starfleet models. How do we know that civilian communicators aren't manufactured by telecommunications/electronics companies like Nokia or Sony or whatever?

That's actually a valid point, hadn't thought about it that way.

Christopher wrote:

---

Not to mention that the Nokia communication panel was in the dashboard of a 1965 Corvette. Obviously its owner had a thing for antiques. Maybe it was actually a modern communicator but Kirk's uncle (or George Kirk, its previous owner according to a deleted scene) had it dressed up with an archaic Nokia logo for authenticity (though he got the era wrong by about 40 years).

Possibly, but even if that's what they were going for, the execution just makes it... less than believable.

[JarodRussell]

Xaios wrote:

---

I wasn't bothered by any of the placement in ST:IV either. The Pacific Bell placement was a great sight gag, and the Apple placement set up one of Scotty's best comedic moments.

Product placement in The Voyage Home is an exception because they friggin' time travelled to the present day Earth. Scotty needed to use a computer, so it would have been either Apple or IBM.

[Mr_Homn]

JarodRussell wrote:

---

Will there be more blatant product placement like Nokia and Budweiser in the next Trek film?

Yes, I think there will be. Probably more blatant now that they know they can get away with it.

JarodRussell wrote:

---

What do you think?

I think it's stupid, and doesn't make sense in Star Trek. It made sense in IV because of the time travel, as you said. The idea of Multi Billion Dollar corporations still plugging away in the 23rd century does not fit with Star Trek. Kirk driving his corvette listening to BEASTY BOYS answering his nokia phone and ordering budweisers sounds like a bad nightmare of a movie. too bad it really happened. even worse that fans swallowed it up and ask for more.

[Christopher]

Mr_Homn wrote:

---

I think it's stupid, and doesn't make sense in Star Trek. It made sense in IV because of the time travel, as you said. The idea of Multi Billion Dollar corporations still plugging away in the 23rd century does not fit with Star Trek.

Actually, in the 23rd century, it makes perfect sense. The whole "moneyless society" thing didn't come along until TNG. Yes, Kirk said in TVH that they don't use money in the 23rd century, but TOS was full of references to money and capitalism -- Harry Mudd and Cyrano Jones as businessmen/traders, the "rich lithium miners" in "Mudd's Women," credits as a unit of currency in "Catspaw," "Mirror, Mirror," and "The Trouble With Tribbles," Kirk telling Scotty he'd earned his pay for the week in one or two episodes, Kirk saying in "Errand of Mercy" that Starfleet had invested a great deal of money in his and Spock's training, Spock in "The Apple" reporting just how much money they'd invested in his training, Flint in "Requiem for Methuselah" and Carter Winston in "The Survivor" described as having great wealth, etc. There's no question that capitalism was alive and well in the 2260s. The most logical interpretation of Kirk's TVH line is that they don't use currency because they've switched to a purely virtual/electronic credit-based system -- as we increasingly have today with things like credit cards and PayPal.

[Nerys Myk]

Mr_Homn wrote:

---

Yes, I think there will be. Probably more blatant now that they know they can get away with it.

I think it's stupid, and doesn't make sense in Star Trek. It made sense in IV because of the time travel, as you said. The idea of Multi Billion Dollar corporations still plugging away in the 23rd century does not fit with Star Trek. Kirk driving his corvette listening to BEASTY BOYS answering his nokia phone and ordering budweisers sounds like a bad nightmare of a movie. too bad it really happened. even worse that fans swallowed it up and ask for more.

Why doesn't it make sense? Where doea it said that corporations do not exist in Star Trek? Do you think that Corvettes, Budwiser and the Beastie Boys will somehow disappear from history? That Humans are so "enlightened" that they won't find the vehicles and music of the past interesting and only drink "boutique beers"? Frankly that makes less sense than beer, the Beastie Boys and Corvettes not existing in the future.

[Mr_Homn]

Christopher wrote:

---

Actually, in the 23rd century, it makes perfect sense. The whole "moneyless society" thing didn't come along until TNG. Yes, Kirk said in TVH that they don't use money in the 23rd century, but TOS was full of references to money and capitalism -- Harry Mudd and Cyrano Jones as businessmen/traders, the "rich lithium miners" in "Mudd's Women," credits as a unit of currency in "Catspaw," "Mirror, Mirror," and "The Trouble With Tribbles," Kirk telling Scotty he'd earned his pay for the week in one or two episodes, Kirk saying in "Errand of Mercy" that Starfleet had invested a great deal of money in his and Spock's training, Spock in "The Apple" reporting just how much money they'd invested in his training, Flint in "Requiem for Methuselah" and Carter Winston in "The Survivor" described as having great wealth, etc. There's no question that capitalism was alive and well in the 2260s. The most logical interpretation of Kirk's TVH line is that they don't use currency because they've switched to a purely virtual/electronic credit-based system -- as we increasingly have today with things like credit cards and PayPal.

Almost all of those references to money dealt with outsiders of the federation. Harry mudd was a criminal and an independent smuggler. He would need money to deal with whatever non federation forces he would encounter daily. Same with Cyrano Jones. He is a trader who deals with non federation types all the time. The federation could still give it's people credits that they could use to deal with these types. They portrayed all this stuff pretty well in ds9.

Kirk telling Scotty he earned his pay was most likely an expression, a vestigial idiom. Just like when he said "mind the store". Unless you took that literally and you think the Bridge is a store. Maybe they sell popsicles and lemonade to all those klingons they encounter.

As for The Apple, Spock could have easily been talking about time, not money. 120,200 hours invested in his training. Kirk didn't let him finish.

Errand of Mercy is the trickiest one. I'm sure Timo could whip up some explanation if he wanted to. Like Federation outsources some of it's training to third parties so they would need to use some kind of currency, like latinum or gold or even spices, for dealing with these outsiders. Works for me. It's really the only line that can't be easily explained away.

But it's just one line and there are plenty of little inconsistencies like this, especially in the original series. United Earth Ship Enterprise? Vulcanians? "Mankind has no need for gods. We find the One quite adequate." Really? So now the federation has an agreed upon religion? Of course not. These things happen when you are still fleshing out your universe.

The decision (by the powers that be) was eventually reached that there was no money used int he federation, even in the 23rd century.

As you pointed out, Kirk clearly says they don't use money in the 23rd century, so even if the no money thing wasn't planned from the beginning, it was retconned. Federation doesn't use money in the 23rd century.

Nerys Myk wrote:

---

Why doesn't it make sense? Where doea it said that corporations do not exist in Star Trek? Do you think that Corvettes, Budwiser and the Beastie Boys will somehow disappear from history? That Humans are so "enlightened" that they won't find the vehicles and music of the past interesting and only drink "boutique beers"? Frankly that makes less sense than beer, the Beastie Boys and Corvettes not existing in the future.

I think it's quite likely that all those corporations would cease to exist after World War III kills 600 million people and many of the planets major governments and cities have been completely destroyed. I mean do you really expect me to believe that pretty much every world government is destroyed, along with their economies, but somehow Nokia survives and is still selling outdated cell phones in the 23rd century?

I could see beastie boys surviving, though. I don't have a problem with that. We've already seen plenty of ancient forms of music surviving well into the 24th century.

[Nerys Myk]

Do we even know that much about WWIII, other than the body count? Is there a list of which cities, countries and corporations perished? Do we even know where the fighting took place? Various Japanese and German corporations managed to survive WWII in spite of being the targets of Allied bombing.

[Mr_Homn]

Nerys Myk wrote:

---

Do we even know that much about WWIII, other than the body count? Is there a list of which cities, countries and corporations perished? Do we even know where the fighting took place? Various Japanese and German corporations managed to survive WWII in spite of being the targets of Allied bombing.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/World_War_III

Rising from the ashes of the Eugenics Wars of the mid-1990s, the era of World War III was a period of global conflict on Earth that eventually escalated into a nuclear cataclysm and genocidal war over issues including genetic manipulation and Human genome enhancement. World War III itself ultimately lasted from 2026 through 2053, and resulted in the death of some 600 million Humans. By that time, many of the planet's major cities and governments had been destroyed. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II"; Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "In the Flesh")

"As a result of this world war, like the two before it, whole generations were nearly wiped out. (ENT: "Judgment") The subsequent use of nuclear weapons engulfed Earth with an immense dust cloud, resulting in numerous nuclear winters. (TNG: "A Matter of Time") When it was over, Earth's atmosphere was irradiated with a detectably heightened amount of radioactive isotopes. (Star Trek: First Contact) "

Sounds like a pretty mad max-esque time to me.

Comparisons to world war II don't seem appropriate. The devastation and fallout of world war III sound far more significant. Except I guess not since nothing happened to all those cell phone towers and you can still buy some nokia phones at your local at&t store. Glad to know nokia's stock wasn't hurt by the near apocalypse

[Greg Cox]

Christopher wrote:

---

Actually, in the 23rd century, it makes perfect sense. The whole "moneyless society" thing didn't come along until TNG. Yes, Kirk said in TVH that they don't use money in the 23rd century, but TOS was full of references to money and capitalism -- Harry Mudd and Cyrano Jones as businessmen/traders, the "rich lithium miners" in "Mudd's Women," credits as a unit of currency in "Catspaw," "Mirror, Mirror," and "The Trouble With Tribbles," Kirk telling Scotty he'd earned his pay for the week in one or two episodes, Kirk saying in "Errand of Mercy" that Starfleet had invested a great deal of money in his and Spock's training, Spock in "The Apple" reporting just how much money they'd invested in his training, Flint in "Requiem for Methuselah" and Carter Winston in "The Survivor" described as having great wealth, etc. There's no question that capitalism was alive and well in the 2260s. The most logical interpretation of Kirk's TVH line is that they don't use currency because they've switched to a purely virtual/electronic credit-based system -- as we increasingly have today with things like credit cards and PayPal.

Don't forget "Devil in the Dark" in which the struggling miners look forward to striking it rich after they team up with Hortas. I can't remember the exact line, but Kirk says something like "Sounds to me like you're all going to be very weathy men!"

The whole money-less thing is a TNG conceit that really can't be retconned back into TOS without a lot of torturous mental gymnastics . . . .

As for the Beastie Boys . . . hey, it's good to know that the people of the future don't just listen to Gilbert & Sullivan and classical minuets. (Or, I suppose, Argellian belly-dancing music!)

More importantly, it was a fast-and-dirty way to establish that this Star Trek was a bit more rock-and-roll than the last few films. Which was a good thing.

[Mr_Homn]

Greg Cox wrote:

---

Don't forget "Devil in the Dark" in which the struggling miners look forward to striking it rich after they team up with Hortas. I can't remember the exact line, but Kirk says something like "Sounds to me like you're all going to be very weathy men!"

The whole money-less thing is a TNG conceit that really can't be retconned back into TOS without a lot of torturous mental gymnastics . . . .

There's nothing indicating that any of those miners were part of the federation IIRC. Ds9 dealt with money all the time, just like this.

and it's not a TNG concept, actually. "no money in 23rd century" was first mentioned in the voyage home, which came out before TNG. It was a gene roddenberry concept and he retconned his universe. Sorry if it's disappointing to you

This wouldn't be an issue if the new movie was a hard reboot instead of trying to connect itself to the established universe, taking on all the baggage associated with it. That was a bad decision imo

[Kruezerman]

Christopher wrote:

---

Well, that's obviously not going to happen, but I wouldn't find it unbelievable if we saw that some of its components were imprinted with the names of real aerospace contractors or the like. The Space Shuttle's robot arm had its builder's logo on it, and I've seen photos of things like satellites or ISS components that had their makers' logos on them -- just as most vehicles and equipment down here on Earth are branded with their makers' logos. If anything, seeing all these futuristic spaceships in TV and movies without any manufacturers' logos of any kind on them is rather unrealistic.

That'd be cool, the warp engines are really Rolls Royce Merlin MK XV's, the phasers are Kalashnikov AK-670 PHASED Energy Rectification turrets, the shuttles are MiGs or Messerschmidts. That'd be very interesting.

[Nerys Myk]

Its still pretty sketchy. Mostly extrapolation from a line or two of dialog. From what we've seen cities like San Francisco and Paris seemed to survive with their landmarks intact. England seemed to make it through with its Royal institutions in place a well. The USA also made it through the war.

Star Trek future history has space exploration occurring while the war is going on. While some areas may have gone "Mad Max", there still seems to be an advanced technological society in others.