Don't ask me how but whilst shopping today I accidentally ended up with two copies of the Radio Times. It's still the best TV listings magazine, bascially because it lists TV shows and doesn't endlessly go on about Soaps, which I never watch. I get it every week. Furthermore, I am not averse to buying the odd magazine. I'll usually pick up a copy of Q - the music magazine for people like me who want to read reviews of old albums rereleased on CD, and Empire - the film magazine.
Empire especially has a habit which the Radio Times has now replicated. They print it with several different covers. My two Radio Timeses have different covers. One has a graphic of a skier, the other a graphic of a bobsleigh (and I read on both that there are actually two that I missed). When Empire and now the RT does this they call it a collector's edition.
I am assuming that you are supposed to buy them all, because you need 4 copies of a magazine where all the contents are the same but each copy has a different Star Wars characters on the front, or more absurdly, you need all four Winter Olympics themed graphics. What? If I actually did buy all four Star Wars themed magazines I would spend nearly 13 quid. Are there people who actually do this?
It is the ultimate in desperate marketing. Forcing us all to be fan-boy nerds. You can buy limited edition chocolate bars. Today in the supermarket I even saw a limited edition can of SPAM (with added black pepper). It's bloody SPAM! Like you're going to keep it in mint condition and put it up on Ebay in 2015.
Of course the biggest of these scams is the DVD market. You can buy the vanilla disc, the special edition, the limited edition in a box with a postcard (which, by the way, doesn't fit on your DVD shelf), the director's cut and the ultimate edition box set. There's an Alien trilogy thing I saw that has nine discs. Its a trilogy. Who has the time to even load these into the DVD player? Empire Magazine raves about these various editions. They even give a star rating to 'extras'. Like anyone watched the extras more than once when they're bored and it's raining outside. The central part of the package - the film itself- hardly changes. Give or take the odd director's cut that actually is a definitive version (two I can think of are the Lord Of the Rings Box Sets and Cameron Crowe's 'Untitled' version of Almost Famous), what you are a paying for is the most obvious rip off available. I know how people do special effects - they generally use computers/and/or some rather traditional tricks. Why do a need a doclet about it? I frankly don't care about how the costumes were designed. Presumably someone designed them, they were made and then used in the film. I don't really want to experience a bunch of perfunctory junket interviews spliced together and called 'The Making of...'. If your film is good, this stuff doesn't make it better. If your film is crap then don't even release it in the first place.
And don't get me started on commentaries, which are usually witless, ill-prepared and often performed by people who by definition can't generally speak unless someone else has written their lines.
How is this different from from crap plastic toys in boxes of cereal? It isn't, of course. Yet it must work, or they wouldn't do it. Does anyone know anyone who falls for this stuff? Does anyone know someone who has bought all four Radio Timeses?
Empire especially has a habit which the Radio Times has now replicated. They print it with several different covers. My two Radio Timeses have different covers. One has a graphic of a skier, the other a graphic of a bobsleigh (and I read on both that there are actually two that I missed). When Empire and now the RT does this they call it a collector's edition.
I am assuming that you are supposed to buy them all, because you need 4 copies of a magazine where all the contents are the same but each copy has a different Star Wars characters on the front, or more absurdly, you need all four Winter Olympics themed graphics. What? If I actually did buy all four Star Wars themed magazines I would spend nearly 13 quid. Are there people who actually do this?
It is the ultimate in desperate marketing. Forcing us all to be fan-boy nerds. You can buy limited edition chocolate bars. Today in the supermarket I even saw a limited edition can of SPAM (with added black pepper). It's bloody SPAM! Like you're going to keep it in mint condition and put it up on Ebay in 2015.
Of course the biggest of these scams is the DVD market. You can buy the vanilla disc, the special edition, the limited edition in a box with a postcard (which, by the way, doesn't fit on your DVD shelf), the director's cut and the ultimate edition box set. There's an Alien trilogy thing I saw that has nine discs. Its a trilogy. Who has the time to even load these into the DVD player? Empire Magazine raves about these various editions. They even give a star rating to 'extras'. Like anyone watched the extras more than once when they're bored and it's raining outside. The central part of the package - the film itself- hardly changes. Give or take the odd director's cut that actually is a definitive version (two I can think of are the Lord Of the Rings Box Sets and Cameron Crowe's 'Untitled' version of Almost Famous), what you are a paying for is the most obvious rip off available. I know how people do special effects - they generally use computers/and/or some rather traditional tricks. Why do a need a doclet about it? I frankly don't care about how the costumes were designed. Presumably someone designed them, they were made and then used in the film. I don't really want to experience a bunch of perfunctory junket interviews spliced together and called 'The Making of...'. If your film is good, this stuff doesn't make it better. If your film is crap then don't even release it in the first place.
And don't get me started on commentaries, which are usually witless, ill-prepared and often performed by people who by definition can't generally speak unless someone else has written their lines.
How is this different from from crap plastic toys in boxes of cereal? It isn't, of course. Yet it must work, or they wouldn't do it. Does anyone know anyone who falls for this stuff? Does anyone know someone who has bought all four Radio Timeses?
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