F'ing VWoA
This one is very near and dear to my heart so bear wit me. I'm a huge Transformers fan evr since I was a lil tike. There is a live action movie in the works, I've know about that for a minute or two. Anyways it's looking like my favorite Autobot, Bumblebee, is not going to be in the script because he is obviously a VW Beetle and VWoA greed with copyrighting the beetle image is causing this. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I am so pissed! If you think about it, it would be a great marketing opurtunity(?) for vw to get some free advertising since Bumblebee was one of the main characters. Now the question is will Porsche do the same with Jazz since he was a 944, or Lamborgini, Mack truck, Jeep....
On a side note, there is a new line of Transformer toys where they modernized the older toys and they can't get permission to use the new beetle for the modern Bumblebee. I am so embarased by how greedy VWoA has become these last 6 years. I never recommend there products to possible customers, and I will never support them in anyway. I will always be a fan of a hopped up older products, the stock ones do nothing for me. Nick PS sorry about the rant, but I had to vent. |
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They did a good job with that, I wonder if the Transformer movie is gunna look like that. I wish it was a real Beetle.
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Do you have a link to the article which details the upcoming movie and VW's objections?
As far as protecting copyrights in general, it's not just VW. It's everybody. With the success of retrocars, Ford is going to do a limited production of their famous GT-40. What's it going to be called? The Ford GT. Why? Because Ford stupidly let their copyright to the GT-40 name run out, and now someone eles owns the right to that name. More recently, GM strong-armed a kit car manufacturer to not call its product the HummBug because it resembled the Hummer too closely and was infringing on its name. The product changed its name to the Wombat and had to change its "grill" to having horizontal slats rather than the verticle slats of the Hummer (because the slats were ornamental on the air-cooled, VW-based kit car). Interestingly, VW did not lodge a legal complaint against the "Bug" part of its original name. As far as toys go, all manufacturers must get permission from the originating company. Ferrari did not let Aurora make slot cars with their name back in the '60s for example. Manufacturers are very protective of what toys, etc. are conveying as far as their product is concerned. This is nothing new. Please note: I am not offering an opinion on whether Volkswagen is smart in not allowing a toy to be made using one of its cars. I know as much about Transformers as I do on brain surgery. Copyright protection, though, is very important and very essential to all companies ... and it has been going on for a long, long time. (Is there another car shape as distinctive as the Beetle?) |
Rene (sorry bout not knowin how to do the astrick thing above your name) I'm searching for the info about that as we speak, I'm gunna call my boy and see where he got his intell from. He's way more into XFMRS then I ever can be and he's not a VW guy so I know he ain't making this stuff up. I got a quick description off of www.thetransformers.net and the toy line that I was refering to is called the alternators and it appears that they are going to use a RX-8 for Jazz, interesting.
Dreamworks/Paramount producing The Transformers for 2006 Posted by: Big Bot Dreamworks will now be producing the Live Action Transformers movie, with a release in 2006, and Paramount with the foreign rights to the film. In previously rumoured news, Steven Spielberg did use his magic on Hasbro to get Dreamwaorks the film rights. He will be the film's Executive Producer with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Don Murphy and Tom DeSanto all being producers. Hasbro will be involved in creative development, marketing and merchandising, with Takara, the poeple who actually make the toys, will have a development role. As you can see they ain't f'ing around having dreamworks do this and Speilberg as the Executive Producer. Damn I can't wait till 2006. VW is really missing a chance to be apart of something very big. I'll keep you all posted. Nick |
Here's a link about VW's stance on the new toyline, it is funny reading these non-VWers veiws of Bugs and new beetles. I'm gunna have to agree with most of them about how lame the new beetle is and how it doesn't even deserve its name. This will hopefully reinforce my theories that VWoA is missing a golden oppertunity for a huge marketing push. The movie is going to be huge, I'm talking Spiderman 2 huge!
http://www.tfans.com/index.php?showt...7&hl=bumblebee Thats from www.tfans.com messageboard Nick |
What does this thread have to do with GL's almost nothing, except there was one Autobot by the name of Jazz that was a early 944 Porsche, The Scatman was his voice actor and when he talked he always ryhmed kind of like Dolomite. 944 bits work good in a GL, right? Right, ya I know I'm reaching far for a connection, it's in the off topic section so I'm cool. Anyways I was doing a little more searching about VW's refusal to have a vehicle in it's likeness being portrayed in the movie and toylines. Well I found another thread from a Transformer fan site where one of the Transformer fans is also a Porsche AG employee, go figure. This thread explains Porsche's veiw on have a war toy line using their image and it would appear their(Porsche) stand is similar to VWaG's stand. I'm going to take back the money grubbing thing from previous post, cause it's a ethical thing. They don't want to be associated with a war based toy line, I guess somebody frogot their history. Last time I checked it was Hiltler that hired Ferrie Porsche to build cars to moblize Germany and a little later, war machine's. Huh! Anyways enough about my babbling:
http://tfarchive.com/community/showt...threadid=24622 I got this from www.tfarchive.com enjoy. Nick |
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René is actually my middle name. I don't mind it being used at all but I tend to use it or some sort of combination of things if I want to catch a source of something (works wonders with junk mail being addressed to me). And the "e" with the right-to-left, down-swooping accent over it is made by pressing the <Alt> key while punching in <1>, <3>, and <0>. Quote:
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Don't you think I might have incentive to put a little extra distance from my history? We just went through a bunch of crap at work about celebrating our heritage. I said, "My heritage is what I make out of my future. I have little knowledge and even less interest in the sperm/ovum lineage that led to my existence." My response was no doubt more curt than necessary but I'm pretty sick of all of the teeter-tottering of We are all the same; we are all special in how we are different mantras. Anyway, I will have a look at the links you gave me this evening. -Dennis René Weikel (a.k.a. oasis, et al) |
Your name stuck in my head thats all. My Grandfather, Guenter Hoffmann, died fighting the Russians in WWII. My grandmother, aunt, and mother's apartment building got blown up by allied bombs in Berlin. Growing up she didn't like watching war movies and I couldn't even have GIJoe's till I was 12. Hitler did a lot of evil things but one good thing survived out of all that, the Volkswagen. I wish all this mammby pammby stuff would stop too.
Nicholas Guenter Lakich |
I read the Transformer posts and I now remember them somewhat. I didn't realize they had story lines, etc. attached to them. It was a very interesting read. I guess I was/am too old to gather the full appreciation of them.
I understand the "they're just toys" sentiments. I understand the protectionism of copyright as well. I guess the only middle ground is for Bumblebee to be Mini Cooper. I was amused by the (paraphrasing) "cars only get you from Point A to Point B, after all" position. Of course, that's true -- it's so obvious. So, then, what separates Car A from Car B? (i.e. Why should someone buy Car A instead of Car B?) Well, image plays a very important role. It may be a well-deserved image. It may be pure poppy****. The Ferrari owner is linked to an exclusive club with a glorious race history. The Saturn owner used the money difference to buy a house. Who's right? It's a personal choice, so there is no right or wrong -- except for that individual. For the companies involved, they have to make their choice. People howled at VW to give the Karmann Ghia more spunk to go with its styling. Never happened. Yet, Karmann Ghia had a 20-year shelf life. It looks like VW didn't miss the boat on that one. On the other hand, VW looks like they missed the boat in not making the Super Beetle more super to distinguish it from the standard. Hindsight is wonderful that way. As for Hitler, I won't even give him that much credit. No civilian kDf-wagens were ever produced even though many bought into a savings plan which turned out to be nothing more than extra financing for the war machine. While Hitler's involvement is undeniable, I prefer to think of Volkswagen's existence as being more a thanks to Ivan Hirst who got a half-bombed factory up and running, and a near-destitute populace something to help rebuild their lives and their economy. |
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