Branding is a conspiracy!

When it comes to feeling icky at the sight of grotesque corporate marketing, Cayce Pollard has nothing on the protagonist of Branded, a forthcoming movie that is apparently about how ads are really an alien conspiracy. I'm looking forward to the most ironic marketing campaign since Wall•E!

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spenze

So this is a Micheal Bay-esque remake of They Live?
- TWX
  
  I donno, is an ex-wrestling protagonist here to kick ass and chew bubble gum, but is all out of gum?
  
  It’ll only work if there’s a blues soundtrack…
  - http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
    
    If it’s Micheal Bay then the wrestler will be CG and he’s not a wrestler any more, he’s an alien… made of explosions.
- Michael Condouris
  
  Plus a little of that Simpsons where the mascots come to life. Don’t look up!
- Paul Renault
  
  Me, I’m waiting for the Michael Bay remake of ‘Waking Ned Devine’.
  - http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael
    
    Bay did a pretty good job on “Last Year at Marienbad 2″
  - malindrome
    
    Michael Bay’s “My Dinner With Andre” (Andre is actually a transforming robot).
Thomas Valley

Notice there are at least 3 QRCodes displayed during this trailer in momentary flashes. I’d check and see where they lead, but it’s probably just another corporate conspiracy to get me to buy into this movie.
- ocker3
  
  I saw about 5, two at a time the first two times
- Tony Fannin
  
  They appear to be fake commercials from the movie. One was pretty funny. An ad for a pocket machine to test if your beef was contaminated with mad cow disease.
Paul Renault

Of course, there’s nothing ironic about the fact that the main actors, save ms. Dapkūnaitė, are brands in themselves….

While I’m at it, who goes to Edinburg University to study French! Who? I’m looking at you, Stoppard.
Timothy Krause

What a horrid literalization of memes, language, culture, capital, etc.: a dimly-lit congeries of CG scorpions and brain leeches that couldn’t make the final fight scene in The Avengers. That’s who made me eat all them hamburgers!
LintMan

I don’t recall the Wall-E marketing. How was it ironic?
- pjk
  
  Yeah, there was something going on there, but it would only have been ironic if the purpose of the film was to criticize consumption-driven capitalism in any real way, which was not the case.
- xian
  
  I wonder if Rob got it mixed up with the marketing for The Lorax?
- http://www.facebook.com/BoschKevin Kevin Bosch
  
  “Buy-n-Large” was the mega-corp that ran the world in the future, that encouraged over-consumption, and led to the mess the world became (and the blobs humans became). Part of the viral marketing was a fake site for what would be present-day Buy-n-Large , which seems a lot like Wal-Mart. I’m pretty sure Wal-Mart carried Wall-E toys anyway.
  - http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
    
    Yes they did. Probably the moment I started to lose faith on Andrew Stanton.
Omar Kooheji

One of the QR codes leads to an extreme makeover video
http://www.brandedmovie.com/code013/
The other is an advert for a beef tester: http://www.brandedmovie.com/code020/

I’ve also managed to get images from:
http://www.brandedmovie.com/code001/
and
http://www.brandedmovie.com/code010/
- Ashen Victor
  
  The Beef Tester advert is TERRIFYING!
http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch

Looks like fun. I kinda wish people would stop staying “How far would you go?” in trailers though. Why is that the big Hollywood power question?

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO…..TO AVOID CLICHES?
- Box of Cotton Swabs
  
  BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
- malindrome
  
  More like, “How far would you go … to get the script in on time?” Probably just rip off some old catch phrases from last year’s summer blockbuster. That far.
- http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair
  
  The “in a world…” guy died, so this is what they have now
bumblebeeeeeee

easier to believe in aliens (with a purpose), than brands as human created uncaring greed machines…
http://twitter.com/MitchellPowers Mitchell Powers

I guess Adbusters and the BLF can close shop now. Good job, everybody!
Drabula

Looks pretty good to me, but my expectations for mainstream film are ridiculously low these days. At least it looks dark and a bit nasty. There’s not nearly enough dark and nasty in film these days. Plenty of faux dark and this might end up there too but I’ll give it a shot. The trailer conveys a little bit of Cronenberg to me.
http://www.microcar.org microcars

Is there a name for that “Transformers Sound” that I keep hearing in trailers like this? It was in BattleShip as well. Sounds like a giant motor with a bad bearing slowing down. Is it pre-programmed key on the sound effects board? Perhaps it is right next to the Wilhelm Scream.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ON37BGRH3HB7XU7TFAINESIA6E Aaron Thomas Sherwin
  
  I like to think that this is the sound of a giant robot, rusting beneath the sea, awakening itself with apocalyptic flatulence. And then massive bubbles erupt on the surface, overturning boats.
  
  Also I think this is called a bass drop.
http://whimsicalacious.tumblr.com/ Patrick McGorrill

The corporations=space aliens analogy is also the premise of As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial by Derick Jensen and Stephnie McMillan. I’d be more excited about this movie if I knew that it also had a talking fox character.
- http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
  
  A talking fox you say? reminds me a lot of Castañeda’s talking coyote ;)
James Le Fever

The aliens plugging into the back of peoples heads kind of reminded me of John Shirley’s novel “Wet Bones” – which I haven’t read in ages….
- spejic
  
  Or the Futurama movie “The Beast with a Billion Backs”?
Cruftbox

Here are the QR codes I found and where they lead to:

http://uqr.me/branded/qr/code020 – http://www.brandedmovie.com/code020/ – for iPhone only, Beef Tester commercial in Russian (Branded_Commercial4.mp4)

http://uqr.me/branded/qr/code013 – http://brandedmovie.com/code013/ – for iPhone only, Extreme Cosmetika commercial in Russian (Branded_ExtremeMakeover.mp4)

http://uqr.me/branded/qr/code023 – http://www.brandedmovie.com/code023/ – Yepple Ads

http://uqr.me/branded/qr/code091 – http://brandedmovie.com/code091/
Which leads to http://uqr.me/branded/qr/code030 – http://brandedmovie.com/code030/ – for iPhone only Burger trailer (Branded_Commercial.mp4) , more QR codes

http://uqr.me/branded/qr/code002 – http://brandedmovie.com/ – main site

When I say iPhone only, it means the page does a Javascript query to see if you are coming from an iPhone, if yes, it plays a video, if no, it give you a black screen.
- http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael
  
  They “iPhone only” videos loaded for me in Firefox 14.0.1, Windows 7 (they launched inside of Media Player)
- Tony Fannin
  
  They loaded just fine on my Android.
nvlady

Didn’t Supernatural do all last season on this?
http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie

Well I hang around circles where there are a lot of people who firmly believe the world is being secretly controlled by dark sinister forces feeding off human grief and negative emotions. So yeah, I’m hoping Branded can take the ball from where They Live left it ;)
http://vinnietesla.com/ Vinnie Tesla

I dunno–the Lorax selling SUVs was some pretty goddamn stiff competition.
taras

Looks like an interesting film! I don’t think it’ll come as any surprise to anyone that QR codes are evil, though. fnord
Afonso Loureiro

My first thought was “hmm, the teal-and-orange version of They Live”.