Is this new Direct TV ad starring Chris Farley and David Spade tasteless – or awesome?
I'm torn on it. It's kind of nice seeing Farley and Spade together again, even if it's just shilling some damn product. And when lifelike 3-D animation is totally perfected you're probably going to see whole movies starring dead people. So this is tame in comparison.
(my favorite YouTube comment for this commercial is: "can't wait til they make an awesome Kung Fu movie with Bruce Lee when the technology gets better." Or you could just watch "Game of Death," which has an actual picture of Lee's head taped on some nameless actor's body.)
Ghoulish.
ReplyDeleteBut then I've never been a fan of either of these guys. I just don't like to see a deceased person used in this way.
Um.... my friend was actually going to play Bruce Lee before they canned the project. He has pictures of green gel on his face.
ReplyDeleteThat's more tasteless than this.
(But damn - he WAS Bruce Lee in movement)
I can tell you the first time I saw it, it freaked the shit out of me. I am no fan of it. Weirded me out. Of course he agreed to do it, but man...
ReplyDeleteFurther, you can see the age difference between Tommy Boy and now. Sad.
No one thought about this!?
Sounds like Connie Willis' "Remake" come true.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing that beer commercial (I think it was Coors) a few years ago that had R. Lee Emery and John Wayne together. Shades of Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
ReplyDeleteNo computer graphics, just a re-created set with David Spade dressed in an identical costume, made-up and be-wigged to resemble the way he looked two decades ago (which ain't that difficult since he always looked like a 50 year old pretending to be 30 [meYOW!]). Farley is never in the same shot with him; when they're together it's always a double with his back to the camera.
ReplyDeleteI gotta say I find these Direct TV commercials amusing, and in this particular case I think enough time has passed for it to be iconic, not creepy.
For a similar case of weirdness, see Terminator: Salvation. In it, Arnold Schwarzenegger-as-terminator appears briefly towards the end of the movie. (I know this is major spoilerage, but if you haven't seen the movie yet, then you obviously didn't care about it too much, so bite me.) It's not present-day wrinkly, somewhat flabby, older man Arnold, but young, ripped, oiled and ... well, I hesitate to say handsome, because it's Arnold, but he was definitely young. It was Arnold-at-his-prime. And naked. With strageticly placed steam preserving his modesty. But you could see the rest of his body and it was pristine, as such things go. It was quite a shock to see young Arnold in the movie.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I liked it a lot, though in this case Arnold himself is still alive and can presumably give permission for this sort of thing. For a dead guy, that's not the case. It's still someone's image. Does that person, or their estate/relatives, lose "copyright" or whatever rights they had to that image/likeness after the person's death? I don't think they do, though I'd need a lawyer's opinion to know.
I feel that if whatever legally-approved group that is in possession of rights to an image/likeness gives permission for that image/likeness to be used, then it's fair game. That might mean your image may end up being used in ways you would never approve of in real life, but in that case you need to be a little more careful about picking your estate manager, or spelling out your wishes pre-death.
You're "torn" over it? Heh.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happened to that promised Oh God remake, where they were going to compu-rotoscope Frank Gorshin's facial expressions into a model of George Burns head, or some such? Is it dead? (ahem)
Gamebird,
ReplyDeleteThat was the only good part of that film. Loved it so much.
This commercial isn't ghoulish. It's not like they are digitally inserting images of the deceased Farley. Like all the DTV commercials, they simply cut new footage of one of the actors into the old film.
ReplyDeleteI like the Robot Chicken parody using the end of Million Dollar Baby.