Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Hulk vs. Godzilla

I'm watching a commercial that talks about the virtues of a high quality picture screen for Philips electronics when I noticed that it featured the Incredible Hulk from the movie of a few years back. I thought it was strange, because the movie didn't do all that well and I haven't heard anything about a sequel being made. Were they talking about the picture quality being soooo great that you can easily spot the fakeness of the computer generated monster? I dunno, it just seemed weird to feature a character from a movie that really wasn't iconic enough to make people forget Lou Ferrigno.

The weird thing is that this is the second time in recent months that a commercial featured a computer generated representation of a character that is better remembered as a man in costume. A Doritos ad recently featured Godzilla. No, not the Japanese icon we all love but the "edgy" size matters 90's version that no one really cared for. That movie came out 8 years ago and no sequel is on the horizon. If he was an actor I would assume he needed the work but who is it now that needs the work? The CGI company?

I guess these commercials seem strange to me is because usually these type of commercials have a synergy aspect to it. They usually are there to hype an oncoming movie and the various tie ins. I got used to this schtick. I guess I should be glad that in both cases it is limited to one commercial but the cynic in me is wondering what is really being sold to the consumer.

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