One more breakfast by the Mediterranean (and had to eat a nectarine as there were no peaches - disgraceful) and then we took a cab over the mountains and a plane over the sea and before too long we were back in London, listening to drivers shouting "cunt" at each other. Good to be home.
The taxi we got back from Victoria had adverts for Vodaphone on the back of its foldaway seats. It was part of that woeful and upsetting campaign that uses Yoda from off of the Star Wars films. It sticks in the craw a little bit when you see characters from one of the most financially successful movie franchise of all time being used to hawk stuff in adverts and I am sure that most fans of the films feel their heart sink when they see this Jedi and puppet selling out. But I am beyond that. What annoyed me about the advert was the awful attempt at a pun that the copywriters had employed. They are pushing the ultrafast 4G and went with the tag-line, "May the 4G be with you." That is quite a stretch. It's almost like someone had said, "It's a shame it's not called 4C because then we could almost get away with the pun, "Let the 4C be with you" as that almost sounds like force," and someone else had said, "Ah fuck it, we've been working on this for two minutes now and none of us have come up with anything better. Let's go with "Let the 4G be with you."
"But that doens't sound anything like force. Apart from the four bit at the front. If anything it sounds like forge or forgery. Given that most people are already annoyed about us appropriating a much- loved puppet... I mean character... won't implying criminality be a bad thing?"
"I don't think you were listening. I haven't had a cocaine for almost two hundred seconds now. We're going with this."
What most amazed be about the rubbishness of this pun, was that in none of the adverts I have seen do they make the more obvious (and at least almost close to working) pun of Yodaphone. Which seemed like a massive oversight.
But according to the people of Twitter they had wanted to do that, but George Lucas wouldn't give them permission to do so and it was too late then as they were committed to the campaign, so they did the whole thing, even though they can't use Yodaphone, which would surely be the only point. I love the idea that George Lucas is prepared to let his characters appear in adverts, but draws the line at using their names in the tag, as if that would somehow make them look like they were selling out. If he cares so much about Yoda (a puppet remember) that he doesn't want to sully his reputation by pointing out that his name is similar to the first four letters of a phone network, why is he sending Yoda out to work at all. Hasn't Yoda made him enough money already without picking up another couple of million for him to throw in his big money pit?
If all that's true then every single person and puppet involved looks like a fucking idiot. Why didn't Vodaphone just say, "Oh right, well if we can't use the Yodaphone pun, there's not really any point in doing it"? Did George Lucas manage to swing them round to it by giving them the "Let the 4G be with you" pun instead. And if not why isn't George Lucas furious that they are using "Let the force be with you" as a pun, especially given that it doesn't even work as a pun.
Is there any person in the world who has seen the "Let the 4G be with you pun," and laughed out loud at it? Seriously. I mean I think it's so far away from the original that most people probably won't even spot that it is meant to be a joke, but if they do they won't even roll their eyes at its corniness. Because it isn't corny. It's not a joke. A pun can not be made because two different words start with the same syllable, otherwise there would be too many puns in the world to keep track of. Both the words ideally should be identical or at least close enough that a verbal tick or accent or emphasis can make them sound alike. This is not a joke. And I am sure the advert has made many more people cry than it has even smile. Why Yoda? Why have you done this? And then tried to claim some kind of artistic integrity by not letting your name be used as a pun? That was the only point of you doing this surely? If you weren't a puppet I would be much more annoyed about this.
So anyway. Good to be home.
