Sunday 8 November 2015

Wiill the Poke be the test parody piggie?

The annual 'John Lewis' Christmas advert is much admired by some here in the United Kingdom - although loathed by others for the schamlatzy undertones  - but no one can deny its been an amazing marketing idea for the department store as its always a much anticipated and much talked about 'national event'. But every year the advert lends itself to parody - which of course in the past might have been a tad tricky here in the United Kingdom - but maybe not now, with our newly installed exception for parody, pastiche and caricature. This year's advert is based on the idea of the 'man in the moon' and a little girl's plan to cheer up a lonely old man by sending him the gift of a telescope. All lovely, and sent to a haunting version of rock band Oasis's "Half The World Away" performed by Norweigian teenage newcomer Aurora Asknes. Cue the Poke ...... whose strapline is 'time well wasted': 

With the imminent release of the new Star wars film 'The Force Awakens' on the cards - why not produce a 'Dark Side' version of the soft and gentle John Lewis tale - but this time replacing the Moon with the Empire's Death Star, and the old man with the evil Darth Vader. Cue a very different, and to this writer anyway, very humerous take on both the John Lewis advert and and Star Wars films. But how will the department store and the Disney and 20th Century Fox, who own various copyrights in the films, take this? The spoof  uses extensively uses footage from the advert itself, and also from the orginial 1977 Star Wars film and the 2015 latest outing - as well as the song and sound recording. So how will copyright owners take this - are we going to see 'take downs' gfrom YouTube and elsewhere  (none as yet I could find) - or even legal action? This writer suspects not - at least not from John Lewis who are surely benefitting from the publicity - and perhaps not even from the film companies - its all good publicity after all. But you never know. What do readers think. Your COMMENTS would be much appreciated. 

You can view the Poke's video here  - Topicalol's take here (which is a spoof of mars based science fiction outing with Arnold Schwarzenegger's Total Recalland the original John Lewis ad here



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