Movie With Multiple 2600 Sightings

[NovaXpress]

I just watched "Videodrome" for the first time in around 20 years. This was an early David Cronenburg movie about using television to control people. Lots of violent sex is involved . . . and lots of Atari! The technician in the film uses an Atari 800 and a 2600 can be seen on his shelf. In one scene, James Woods television begins to mutate. On top of said TV are a couple of 2600 joysticks as well as brand new Combat and Air-Sea Battle boxes with the carts laid out on top.

 

The weirdness: This film was made in 1983, so why use the oldest carts possible? And the movie was not a Warner picture, it was made by Universal. The extraneous 2600 scenes make no sense at all.

[Godzilla]

I asked Dave and he told me he did it to confound NovaXpress.

[deathtrappomegranate]

I must watch that film again.

[G.Whiz]

...On top of said TV are a couple of 2600 joysticks as well as brand new Combat and Air-Sea Battle boxes with the carts laid out on top.

 

The weirdness: This film was made in 1983, so why use the oldest carts possible? And the movie was not a Warner picture, it was made by Universal. The extraneous 2600 scenes make no sense at all.

 

The picture wasn't "made" by Universal -- I imagine it was simply a distribution deal. Videodrome, like almost all Canadian films, is what you might call an indie film (albeit financed by the National Film Board of Canada, and today other government funding sources). The great thing about the arrangement is that once you get the funding, you have pretty much free rein and artistic freedom with no producers looking over your shoulder and nobody telling you that you "can't do that". Which is why so many of the cult classics including Cronenberg's films get made in the first place, and get made in Canada.

 

The downside is that relative to Hollywood terms, the funding isn't great. Which is also why so many of the cult classics including Cronenberg's films get made in the first place, and get made in Canada.

 

 

So the fact that the film featured old Atari games is incidental -- probably just what he could find lying around. It had nothing to do with "placement advertising" or anything else. And it certainly had nothing to do with Universal or WB.

 

~G

[tiggerthehun]

Could it also be that the movie was made a few years earlier, but sat on the shelf, waiting for distribution? That happens more often than one might think.

[Paranoid]

I would imagine if it is an indie film, it is possible there is some sort of symbolic meaning to using outdated technology as props in a film that has a theme centered around technology.

[Dusk2600]

atari probibally paid to have them put their products in that movie. kind of like if u see a can of pepsi in a film, pepsi paid for it to be there. I am in a communications program at college and this is what companies do, thats how lots of movies get funding.

[Rik]

How about CLOAK AND DAGGER?,Im not %100 sure of plot,but,this kid had a 5200 atari cart,that had some top secret thingy inside,that some bad guys were looking for,that were chasing him and his little sister all over,came out in the very early eighties.

[NovaXpress]

atari probibally paid to have them put their products in that movie. kind of like if u see a can of pepsi in a film, pepsi paid for it to be there. I am in a communications program at college and this is what companies do, thats how lots of movies get funding.

Maybe at some point in your communications program (Is phony degree! Lugash learn nothing!), your professor will tell you how product placement fees in film were essentially born out of the M&M/Reese's Pieces dealings with ET. Maybe you'll also learn that companies pay product placement fees for new products, not old ones.

 

Being a Canadian production, it makes more sense. I bet that one of the producers or prop masters simply owned a couple of Atari systems and wanted to use them on film. If Cronenburg plays Atari as well, then the use of Atari's two oldest carts may well have been symbolic. It's hard to say for sure, Cronenburg is a weird guy.

[Nognir]

interesting. So i have have to search for it. hope i get an german title of the movie somewhere

[G.Whiz]

atari probibally paid to have them put their products in that movie. kind of like if u see a can of pepsi in a film, pepsi paid for it to be there. I am in a communications program at college and this is what companies do, thats how lots of movies get funding.

Maybe at some point in your communications program (Is phony degree! Lugash learn nothing!), your professor will tell you how product placement fees in film were essentially born out of the M&M/Reese's Pieces dealings with ET. Maybe you'll also learn that companies pay product placement fees for new products, not old ones.

 

Being a Canadian production, it makes more sense. I bet that one of the producers or prop masters simply owned a couple of Atari systems and wanted to use them on film. If Cronenburg plays Atari as well, then the use of Atari's two oldest carts may well have been symbolic. It's hard to say for sure, Cronenburg is a weird guy.

Yes, I would whole-heartedly agree. I would bet anything that "product placement" is not at issue here. This isn't Hollywood, this isn't the 90s/early 2000s, this is Toronto in the 70s/early 80s. Director applies for Arts Grant, director gets money, director scraps together what he can with said money, director makes movie. I think the only "symbolism" in the two games is that these were probably the only two games that he or his buddy had.

 

I also highly doubt that it "sat on a shelf" because, again, this is Canada. You are given a grant, you make the movie, you release it. No Hollywood politics, no waiting for the right timing (especially then), you just put it out.

 

Besides, why would the fastest-growing company in the world at the time (or close to it) bother with a couple thousand on some Canadian homegrown film? It wasn't a cult classic when it was being made, and chances were pretty good it would be as famous as any other entirely Canadian movie you have ever heard of. If anything, Atari probably would have demanded money to let them use it in the first place...

 

~G

[NintendoDieScreaming]

 

 

Besides, why would the fastest-growing company in the world at the time (or close to it)

 

Almost! I believe at the time, Apple was still the fastest-growing company in the world. I could be wrong, though.