I did a search and found nothing so sorry if this is a repost.
I believe the ad was shown during the superbowl. It has also been shown here in Britain. Anyone know where I can see it online? I think it’s brilliant.
here a [URL=http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-video/Media/video/2005/01/27/golfgti.mov]link[/URL
That links directly to a quicktime version of the ad. I got that link from an online journal, where I first saw the advert.
Well that didn’t work. Here the link
Whoopsie, wrong forum. :smack: I meant to post it in Cafe Society.
a) I didn’t see this during the Super Bowl, although it could have been shown only regionally.
b) It appears to be the same technique/technology used in the Olympus camera ads that were shown during the Super Bowl.
c) In some spots they did a terrible job of pasting Gene Kelly’s head over the dancer.
d) THIS IS DESECRATION! Ths song, the dancing, the mood, even the memories are fouled. Aboslute perfection is taken down to the lowerst possible level. How can anyone who’s seen the original be so young as to like this? :eek:
I’ve never seen the original film. Anyone over the age of 15 who asn’t seen a clip of that sequence must have been living in a hole. I’ve seen the old clip many times, and something about the way they make what to me sounds like a very chirpy, nerdy original song and clip actually begin to look and sound cool.
::catches breath::
It’s also not a very good advert. I mean, I had no idea it was for Volkswagen.
(maybe they just wanted everybody to forget about the suicide bomber one as quickly as possible)
Yeah, there was a thread on this already, and despite the fact that some people inexplicably like this worthless abomination, it is heartening that a majority of the thread’s comments described the ad as:
Awful
“Eeew”
p.o.s.
horrible
blasphemy
“nothing at all appealing”
crap
wrong
dreadful
With the best comment coming from WhyNot: “Who took the sexiest man on screen ever and replaced him with Jar Jar Binks?”
Absolutely utterly craptastic. 
:mad: :barf:
That’s hilarious! That’s just friggin’ funny!
They aired that???
I thought it was one of those spoof ones, like the cat being trapped in the sunroof.
About the ad: That link is the first time I’ve seen it off tv and, It’s still f***ing brilliant
ArchiveGuy said…
“Awful” I say Brilliant
“Eeew” Stylish
“p.o.s.” Huh?
“horrible” thrilling
“blasphemy” meh, I am not religious.
“nothing at all appealing” It’s an advert and I like it. There must be something appealing about it.
“wrong” [So very] right
“dreadful” Wonderful
It really irritated me. Didn’t like it at all. It’s probably a combination of that scene from A Clockwork Orange and the fact that I’m a grump.
Haj
25 or under Brit dopers: I’d like to know your opinion.
They didn’t air it, nobody did, but they were so horrified by it that (last I heard) they were doing their best to sue the creators, who were remaining sensibly anonymous.
Umm… you do realize thatthat ad, and the even funnier one with the pigeon, were created deliberately at considerable cost by the advertising company of the automaker as part of a too cool for school “viral” marketing campaign, which usually involves a somewhat shocking ad that’s distributed via the internet to get buzz for the product. Other than the production cost it’s cheap and (variously) effective.
That the auto company is “Shocked, shocked” that this was released is just part of the plausible deniability game in the viral ad strategy.
1-It looks creepy, as if Kelly had been possessed by an alien who didn’t understand how a human moves.
2- Gene Kelley could, and did, routinely do things in his dancing that were far more impressive than any of those digitally created moves. Why not just take one of his routines, leave it alone, and edit in the car.
I didn’t think the vacuum cleaner add from a few years ago with Fred Astaire was all that bad, as they just edited in the vacuum in place of a coat rack Fred was dancing with, but this is just offensive to the memory of one of our greatest performers.
I think a good portion of the ad looks surprisingly natural - there are only a few really abrupt motions that make me scratch my head somewhat. If noone had seen the original sequence, I doubt there’d be as much negative shouting about CGI.
The music is brilliant, effervescent, and upbeat. I really dig the cheesy, slinky, flangey bassline.
Because that wouldn’t underscore the tagline of the ad at all?
I really don’t see where all the negativity about this comes from. It’s supposed to be kinda bizarre. It’s supposed to commit blasphemy. Its very intent is to take a cultural artifact and defile it to create something new. If Andy Warhol can print the Mona Lisa in pink, and Chris Ofili can use elephant dung as one of the media in a picture of the Virgin Mary, why can’t Gene Kelly go pop-locking?
20 year old Brit Doper here. I have saw the original film, have the original song in my playlist and I’m a fan of hip hop and breakdancing also. I think such a large company could have hired me to paste his head on and I’d have done a better job.
On the other hand it’s a novel idea that just could have been done better.
Here’s the thing. Blasphemy is meaningless in and of itself. Any idiot can crap on a Rembrandt. Only a very few can pull off true subversiveness. The end result either says something worth the telling or it’s just shit. This is the latter. That’s why people are rightfully upset.
Well, agreeing to disagree, then. I think the way they updated the dance is clever, done with considerable artistry, and projects the original exuberance into a different genre of dance entirely.
I, too, really like the commercial. I kind of see why some may feel negatively about it, but I personally don’t view it as offensive or otherwise wrong. Is there a generation gap between the folks who liked it and the folks who hated it? Probably.
I love the music used in the commercial.