Oh, lord… the “I want a real American burger” line followed by him eating a Whopper had me rolling my eyes. Really, Tony? Really? That’s your definition of a “real American burger”?
If the time I spent in Basic is indicative, when you have no freedom to pick what you eat, you get cravings for the darndest things. I spent a week and a half craving McDonalds. I spent a week craving apples. And we were actually allowed to eat all the apples we wanted in the chow hall. I think the big problem was not being able to eat what I wanted when I wanted.
So yeah, my first week when I was out of Basic and allowed to go off base? You bet your butt I walked a mile to McDonalds (I stopped at a camera shop on the way, I get easily distracted like that.)
Exactly. Why would Omega spend tons of dough promoting the Bond franchise all these years only to have it culminate in Vesper’s scornful dismissiveness of the watch as something a poser would wear? Have you watched the Youtube scene I linked to above? I think it’s pretty clear that she’s genuinely admiring the watch and then snaps herself out of it in order to get back to castigating Bond.
Omega has been a major sponsor of Bond films for many years, and in the wake of Casino Royale even came out with a model where the face supposedly simulates the rifling in a gun barrel, and has a silly second hand with the numerals “007” at one end. Again, I just don’t think it’s plausible that Vesper was being dismissive of the watch.
You do present an interesting alternative view though.
I am seconding this statement. My big craving when I left Basic was Burger King. And when I went home for Christmas four months later I ate nothing but fast food.
Well, of course, you miss the point. It wasn’t to say that James Bond was a poser. Just that Vesper THOUGHT he was a poser at first. Obviously he’s not, because he’s James Bond. She just hadn’t figured out the importance of that yet because she had just met him.
If you really want to continue to think that the Bond producers and Omega itself would allow Vesper to make a snide, dismissive remark about the beauty of Bond’s watch you’re welcome to do so, but I’m not buying it.
What’s more American than fast food?
Also note that Tony didn’t specify what kind of burger he wanted, just that he wanted it right away. I’m guessing that Burger King was just the first place they passed.
A decent burger 
Anyway, last thing I want is some massive thread derail over fast food. For me personally it made me roll my eyes knowing that its only purpose was to be a Burger King ad.
I’m curious about this. What is meant by M&M/Mars refusing to let them use the product? What authority do they have to do this?
I think “getting permission” means “please don’t sue me if I use your product in my movie.”
Because they don’t really have that much control over the film. For starters, motion pictures aren’t as beholden to their advertisers as television is. For another, the person who signed the contract with Omega was not the same person who wrote the scene, or (especially) directed it. If the director thought that the scene worked better with Vesper being slightly snide about the watch, and its not overt enough to be a clear violation of whatever contract was signed between Omega and the studio, there’s probably not going to be a fight over it. And whoever at Omega whose responsibility it was to verify that their product appeared probably didn’t care to much about the context, much less the subtext. If the watch appears on his wrist and gets mentioned by name, he’s happy.
Yes, repeatedly. I also own the film on DVD, and have watched it at least a dozen times. Have you noticed that, at no point in the scene, is his watch even visible? If the sponsor has as much pull as you assume, wouldn’t he have gotten them to ensure that Bond flashes the watch to the camera when he says the brand name?
Well, here’s the major problem with your read of that scene. There’s no point in that scene where she can see his watch. He’s got his hands in his lap, below the table, for the entire length of her speech. Look at that clip at around 20 seconds. She’s trying to see what he’s got on his wrist, but it’s plain that it would be out of her field of vision.
Now, if you approach the film with knowledge of the history of product placement in the Bond franchise, and the fact that Omega is one of the sponsors who has bought time in the film, then your interpretation makes sense. It even makes sense that you’d jump to that interpretation first, because you’re already looking for product placements. But if you take the film on its own merits, without recourse to external information, and just judge the action by whats actually shown on the screen, then your interpretation makes no sense at all. It’s entirely out of tone with the scene, with Vesper’s characterization, and most tellingly, with what she’s in the middle of talking to Bond about.
No, it’s entirely plausible - indeed, inescapable - that Vesper would be as dismissive of Bond’s watch as she is towards everything else about Bond. What you don’t find plausible is the idea that the filmmakers would write a scene in which she’s dismissive of the watch. But that’s plainly what we see on screen. You’re approaching the work with an assumption in mind: that there’s a list of products that can only be mentioned in a positive light, and that Omega is on that list, and then interpreting the scene through that filter. If you approach the scene without that filter, there’s nothing in that scene to suggest your interpretation.
I hope I never get as cynical as some of you! 
I think anti-product placements bother me much more than product placements, because the anti is always always in-your-face while product placement doesn’t have to be, especially since I tend to not notice things in the background or things that aren’t the focus of the scene.
For example, somebody had to tell me that American Idol judges drink out of cups with the Coca-Cola label on it; I never noticed it at all, they were just “cups” in my mind. And scenes in movies like the Iron Man one with Burger King elicited a small chuckle from me but as soon as the burgers were gone I forgot they even existed
However, everytime someone mentions a fake brand name they made up, like the ones for iCarly, it jarrs me out of the moment. I can accept that in the movie world, these characters eat Burger King and drink Coke, but I cannot accept that they buy “Zony” products.
The worse anti-product placement (or it may be a legal issue) is on TV shows where they blur out brand names on people’s shirts. God I fucking hate that. I refuse to watch shows in which there are blurring of t-shirt slogans or labels
At some point maybe a decade ago, McDonalds had an offer where you could get a VHS tape that had little mini-documentary type things about Britney Spears and N*Sync. (I… uhm know this from a friend of a friend.)
Anyhow, through the entire thing, one of the NSync guys had an NSuck t-shirt, and another guy had a t-shirt which looked like it could have had a Burger King logo on it, but it was blurred out.
I honestly find that what you call anti-product placement helps you realize that you’re not dealing with a representation of the real world. It makes it easier not to nitpick when things don’t make sense. For example, iCarly (the web show) is way, way too high quality for such a show in this world. But, in a world with Pear computers, I can accept it. It’s all about universe building.
Ha! I knew it. That’s a show that didn’t come on until 2007.
Now will you guys stop the time traveler meme?
By “refused” I was meaning “refused to enter a product placement agreement with him”. (I suppose he could have used whatever he wanted if he hadn’t bothered approaching them first.) Here’s what Snopes says.
When I saw the film in NZ (where Taco Bell doesn’t exist) they hadn’t bothered to change or dub anything and that entire sequence/joke went sailing over everyone’s heads.
And I have to agree with the people annoyed at “Fake” products. It really irritates me in something like Mythbusters where some poor bastard has to spend hours relabelling cans of soft-drink or digitally editing out “Ford” and “Chevrolet” logos in post-production because of whatever weird issues are being invoked to prevent them from just acknowleding that people in the real world drink Coke and Pepsi (and honestly, don’t most people just drink whatever’s available at the time?) and drive cars which are made by Ford and Chevrolet and Toyota and so on.
The worst with Mythbusters was when they were doing a segment on a bunch of Coke myths. Not generic cola myths, not Pepsi myths, but Coca-Cola myths, and it really is relevant, since Coca-Cola is significantly more acidic than any of its competitors. But of course, they still didn’t show the logos.
What part of a starving artist and his teenage sister being able to afford to live in a 3-story apartment in downtown Seattle is realistic? :D:D:D
Rent Control?
I’m all for it if gives a fave show of mine a few more bucks to improve the quality.
Examples: Fiona’s Hyundai on Burn Notice, Mika’s Twizzlers on Warehouse 13.