It’s called “Synergy”
A couple eagle-eyed viewers have written us after noticing some fairly obvious Apple product placements in the newly-released on DVD Disney movie BOLT.
First up we have the lady with a MacBook, that somehow does not have an illuminated Apple logo…
… followed by Miley Cyrus’s agent’s 1st gen iPhone.
Now, BOLT came out last year, so this is obviously not groundbreaking news (although I think quite a few of us missed BOLT in the theaters). But Apple product placement in Disney/Pixar movies has now gotten so commonplace, it’s getting a little ridiculous. Last year’s Wall-E had the (allegedly) Jonathan Ive inspired EVE, Wall-E had a video iPod, and he made the Mac Boot chime when he recharged his battery. Cars had an Apple-branded car in the Piston Cup, and if you want to really go nuts (and I do), you can say that the uber thin tablet that comes out of an envelope in The Incredibles is the inspiration for the MacBook Air commercials.
Wall-E sounded suspiciously like a Mac when fully charged..
I’m not sure if this annoys me because all product placement annoys me, or because just everything annoys me in general. I am not against Apple fanboyism making its way into films and TV (I like the 1984 cameo in Watchmen) but in those cases I like to think it is the result of a writer, director, or actor’s genuine love of Apple gear more so than that the company making the film is also owned by the creator of the laptop (as is the deal with Pixar).
I can’t believe it lost! (pic via FreeMacBlog)
I suppose I am being naive here, after all, while I have never seen conclusive proof, many claim Apple (like many companies) pays legitimate production companies to place their products in TV and films – I always like to give them the benefit of the doubt (although, that was a LOT of Cinema displays in Transformers…).
You can almost hear that Yael Naim song.
I suppose in the end I might just be bitter because I am CONSTANTLY putting pictures of Apple gear on Macenstein, and Apple hasn’t offered to pay me anything. Cheap bastards.
Thanks to faithful Macenstein readers Teegan and Brandon for the pics!
It bugs you because Bolt is not a Pixar movie…
D’oH! Well, It’s Disney, and Jobs owns Disney, so same thing. I can be annoyed at that.
🙂
– The Doc
I notice that too…
I am Legend has loads of apple products too…
now I know why the white car has the number 84 😉
It’d be a little unrealistic if WALL-E had a Zune, where would he find one? Does anyone know someone that owns one? I don’t.
Well, WALL-E did collect junk so it wouldn’t be surprising if he *did* have a Zune.
The tracking device in “The Incredibles”, used to find Mr. Incredible, looks very much like an iPod as well. Just a thought…
The reason the apple log wasn’t lit was because somehow the animators decided that the person’s laptop didn’t need to be on.
test comment. Seeing if domain migration successful.
– The Doc
new test comment.
The Doc
Perhaps Wall-E used Apple sounds as a thank you to Johnny Ive for consulting on the movie – http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/09/technology/siklos_walle.fortune/index.htm
Of course you’ll only see Apple products in Disney animated films. Pixar is the company built by Steve and the OS X operating system (okay, it was actually NeXT when he created it). Steve and Disney now own Pixar. Just like Ballmer only lets his kids listen to Zunes, Pixar uses Apple in its films (nothing wrong with either).
Bolt may not be from Pixar, but it is from Disney Animation. While they operate independently, do you really think Disney bought an ebtirely new, duplicate system like Picar? Or do you think they contract with Pixar to use theirs? They probably even use a bunch of the Pixar techies, too.
I’ll bet most aren’t product placement, but likely “Easter Eggs” by/for the animators. Do you know a single Mac user, left to their own devices, who would put a Dell in their artwork? (working Dell, that is)
The Incredibles came out before the Macbook air. Perhaps some artist at Pixar already knew about it but I doubt that the commercials were even in the works then.
In bolt, the scene where she gets “captured”, you hear the iPhone sync sound when it first connects to your Mac. Listen carefully!
Computer animators spend weeks making all these CGI props. Do you really think they’re going to insist they make their favorite nokia phone or their Toshiba laptop? Nope, they’re going to make the pretty stuff, that’s a pleasure to look at… And the number 84 car is just funny. Oh, and the rebooting sound… for sure he’s running OSX How do you think he lasted so long without an IT guy? Not on VISTA.