The San Francisco Citizen

There was a time when a big movie like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would open at a place like the now-deceased Coronet Theater. But The Castro was doing pretty well  for itself last night with a packed house on the first day of the new Indy.

Bullwhip? (Doesn’t everybody in San Francisco have one already?) Free.

Costco drinking water? $.12 plus $.05 CRV.

Fedora? $29.97 from Lucky Supermarket.  

Memories of entertaining the long lines of people waiting to get a good seat? Priceless.

View from the balcony includes an old-skool organist and a proper chandelier

Don’t forget to complete your Indiana Experience by purchasing LEGO Indiana Jones Adventures. All the cool kids are doing it!

So turn up your hearing aid (if you have one, as the Castro Theatre’s sound system seems a tad on the quiet side) and get on out there!

LEGO, the LEGO logo, DUPLO, BIONICLE, MINDSTORMS, the BELVILLE, CLIKITS, KNIGHTS’ KINGDOM and EXO-FORCE logos,
the Brick and Knob configurations and the Minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group.
© 2008 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the terms of use.

© 2008 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All rights reserved. Used under authorization.

By now you’ve seen the latest viral video recreating Indiana Jones’ famous Boulder Dash? From the Gootube:

“We built a huge LEGO boulder and then made our friend dress up as Indy and run from it. Fun times!

(How respectful the Youtube poster was of our corporate overlords, taking care to CAPITALIZE corporate names.)

Anyway, it sure got plenty of Diggs. 

However, some have alleged that the giant Lego ball was styrofoam and that the makers merely sought to promote a new game. (Who knows, you might like it.)

Irregardless, this has led to confusion on the Internets.   

From Flickr via tillwe, are these LEGO bricks or not? (Commenter Phill says nay. Commenter Martin says it’s Duplo.)

Some appear to have lost their faith in the Web:

Viral is so mid-2000s, now it’s just being exploited and we’re all gonna hate it.

And the famous Laughing Squid is now trying to give credit to the entire crew that pieced together all 5 million Legos, to no avail.

Was Teak Motion Visuals or Teak Films Production behind this corporate subterfuge? Some think Sausalito’s Butler Shine and Stern  (wouldn’t it be nice to be “hanging out on a fucking sailboat, while getting paid coupla hundred an hour“) may have had a hand in it.

Only Time Will Tell.

But in the meantime and while we’re on the topic, take a look at  Teak Motion Visuals’ attempt at verisimilitude. How contrived does this scene appear on a scale from 1 to 10? Can’t you just see the guy with a baseball cap plotting out the most effective bouquet of garbage?

Are we really suppose to listen to this Amazing Group of Talented Creatives, and then ”Clean the Bay” and “Start With This Beach?” This particular beach at Crissy Field? Srsly? Until the sexy but trash-strewn drunkfest known as the Bay to Breakers Footrace gets rerouted, the Crissy Field Protection Area will never look like that. (If you want real, then check out San Francisco’s Warm Water Cove - it still looks like this.)  

The makers of these contrived bits probably had a good time getting paid to do them, but when you start fibbing and shilling… Will this LEGO stunt end up on the list of Great Examples of Guerilla Marketing Gone Wrong?

Fail

Epic Fail.