Niantic's augmented reality mobile game Pokémon GO has just turned four years old. To celebrate in style, it's teamed up with the Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Knives Out director, Rian Johnson, to produce a special commercial for Pokémon GO Fest 2020 (taking place on 25th - 26th July).
Johnson describes himself as a longtime trainer, and helped shape the concept of the video (below) with his "cinematic eye" and "vision" by peeling back the layers of everyday life to take a look closer at the experience of being a trainer.
"it was a real pleasure working with Niantic on this spot. It was a new experience for me to direct a production remotely, and I enjoyed the highly collaborative process and think we put together a fun and upbeat commercial that fans will enjoy.”
This isn't the first time Johnson has made Pokémon GO headlines. Last December, he used the game to call out angry Star Wars fans who didn't like The Last Jedi.
What do you think of his latest work? Leave a comment down below.
[source nianticlabs.com]
Comments 46
Rian Johnson? Meh.
inb4 Star Wars fans get their Knives Out
Hopefully he did a better job on the commercial than he did on Last Jedi.
Gotta make money somewhere now that COVID put a halt in filming Knives Out 2.
Pokemon always has better commercials in Japan
In my opinion he resurrected himself with Knives Out. That was a great film. I put his Last Jedi abomination in that part of his career he just needed to pay the bills. I mean we've all probably got something we're ashamed to admit we did to make a buck, eh?
@RustedHero True, plus I'm sure Disney chimed in with A LOT of notes on how they wanted the story to unfold. They aren't exactly known for their autonomy. I just hope they let Star Wars rest for a bit before relaunching/rebooting it again. It lost a lot of luster over these past few movies (starting with Phatom Menace, which was before Disney).
Great, another reason to hate Pokémon Company even more
Yes, but did the commercial subvert expectations? Lol
Joke Comment: In the commercial, Victor and Gloria (Sword and Shield protagonists) find Red, give him his Pokédex, and he just throws it away. Later it turns out that Pikachu's original trainer was a nobody and a drunk that sold him for beer money.
Serious comment: Though plenty of us Star Wars fans know RJ as the man who nearly killed SW, I admit that's a good Pokémon Go commercial, watched it a few hours ago.
Johnson is a very good director. Those who judge his skill based on one movie would do well to be more educated about the matter.
@nessisonett Lock the thread. This one wins.
Will let the commercial do the talking for him.
I liked TLJ. The retconning in TFA really grates on my nerves, personally. But whatever, people like what they like and don’t like what they don’t.
@KingBowser86 lol that made me snort my breakfast out
Why did that commercial need a ‘special’ director? It wasn’t even a good advert. Honestly I wish companies would stop mindlessly throwing money at big names just for the sake of it.
@kingbk Wouldn't be hard to do that!
I feel like my expectations have already been subverted and I haven't watched the advert!
Looper broke it's own rules and The Last Jedi forgot to be Star Wars. Wonder how he'll overthink a Pokémon advert.
"This wasn't as good as the one before it."
This thread wasn’t even about Star Wars but here we are.
Hot take: having recently watched the conclusion of the latest trilogy Rian Johnson’s film was the best one and very well shot. Johnson is a very accomplished director. Knives Out was great as was looper
@meeto_1 not a hot take at all. He is a fantastic director and writer.
He cleverly subverted our expectations by making Ash into a deadbeat failure. Don't complain you manbabies!!!
@PoorGeno that is actually true. https://youtu.be/4tU_D0e2auE
@Jslade depends on the circle. Reading comment sections anywhere that attracts Star Wars fanboys and you could be forgiven in thinking that he was Michael Bay.
@meeto_1 Well imagine if Mario was re-written into a villain who killed Satoru Iwata. But hey, it subverts expectations! Also, this trio of websites is pushing HARD to start fan wars.
@KingBowser86
"Pokémon is about family."
@nessisonett,
See what you did there.
@PoorGeno It definitely subverted my expectation of an ad that would make me want to play the game, I tell you what.
Didn't subvert my expectations
2/10
I had to open the article to figure out who Rian Johnson is, lmfao
@AngelFox which trio, and how are they doing that?
Well, that sure subverted my expectation by not being a 30 second short where he effectively spits in the face of everybody who has been with the franchise for longer than two years.
@AngelFox In fairness, the idea that the original trilogy stars were failures didn't exactly start in The Last Jedi. Force Awakens established that Leia's new Republic had failed to stop the rise of the First Order, Han had lost the Falcon and returned to crime, the two of them had raised a genocidal maniac, and Luke was off hiding on an island somewhere ignoring it all.
Oh, and then it turned out later that they hadn't even managed to kill Palpatine properly.
You can dislike the theme of the previous generation screwing up but that's way more on Abrams than Johnson.
I guess nobody remembers the several episodes of Breaking Bad that he directed, one of which (Ozymandias) is the only television episode in history to have a perfect 10 rating on IMDB.
Star Wars blunders aside, the man is an excellent director and should be remembered as such.
@personauser93 he only directed the episode. Is not like he wrote it.
And the other episode that he directed and wrote is one of the worst episodes in TV history. Fking fly episode.
The man is a hack and a douche to fans.
@fafonio Okay? An excellent script needs an excellent director to visualize the episode, so nothing you can say diminishes that achievement.
@withad
All three of them are nihilistic cashgrabs that explore undermining the original trilogy and its beloved characters in depressing new ways. Not even memelord Admiral Ackbar is safe, sorry pal you’re gonna die in the coldness of space and nobody will even acknowledge your passing but I expect nothing less from the film that doesn’t bother to dwell on Luke reacting to hearing about Han.
“Cinematic eye” “vision” oh give me a break. This guys so full of himself.
Hopefully the Pokémon don’t revive a dead character for the plot, or make everyone unlikable.
This is the kind of crap Niantic pours their money into instead of the actual game itself. There’s literally always some new game breaking bug every month but they make OVER $1 BILLION WITH A B every year. Stop the microtransactions!
People still crying over The Last Jedi? Let it go. For one it was a great Star Wars movie and second, he is a great director. Knives Out and TLJ were very enjoyable.
Knives Out is probably the best murder mystery I've seen, and TLJ isn't as abominable as people say it is.
Just to balance things out here in the comment section. TLJ was the best of the new trilogy. Looper and Knives Out are fantastic.
The Fly episode of Breaking Bad was amazing. All these years later, I'm really surprised to find out that someone didn't like it.
@withad. Got to agree. Most of the OT character faliures were established in TFA. The "surprises" in TLJ all make sense if you are really paying attention. I'd go so far as to say Ryan put more thought into reading TFA script, than JJ did writing it.
@pinta_vodki Agree with everything you just said. I had no idea until recently so many people hated The Fly. Or Skyler for that matter.
I really enjoyed TLJ and really wish people would stop going on about it - whilst there were definitely scenes that didn't work well (Super Leia) overall it was really enjoyable (and that hyper space crash, oh man, I've never experienced a moment in the cinema anything close to that before). It's definitely the strongest of the Disney sequels (although you could argue that's not saying much).
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