VW: The Dark Side. Greenpeace Protests Volkswagon by Mocking "The Force" Ad and Pulling A Big PR Stunt in London.

Claiming that Volkswagon, whose charming television ad for the Passat, "The Force", is a fan favorite and award-winner, emits harmful CO2 emissions, Greenpeace of the UK has organized a large PR stunt in protest.


above: a still from the Volkswagon "The Force" by ad agency Deutsch.

According to Greenpeace UK, automotive brand Volkswagon opposes the European climate laws. In its report, 'The Dark Side of Volkswagen', Greenpeace complains that Europe's largest car manufacturer has purposely restricted its most fuel efficient engines to a tiny minority of vehicles, and then drastically increased the price for consumers.



Unfortunately, the memorable and likeable tv ad served as a perfect target for their message "Welcome To The Dark Side."

The original VW The Force Ad from Deutsch:


Greenpeace created their own parody of the popular ad which, because of a LucasFilms copyright violation, has been pulled from YouTube and Vimeo and other articles on the web. However, here it is from EFE of the UK news (with newscaster talking over it, sorry):

VW: The Dark Side ad from Greenpeace:

Greenpeace Reveals Volkswagen's "Dark Side" by NewsLook

The PR Stunt


The PR stunt began early the morning of June 28th in London's 'Silicon Roundabout" on Old Street. Two teams of climbers scaled the largest billboard ad space in the city to post four banners starring Darth Vader and a VW logo.




As rush hour approached multiple people dressed as Star Wars stormtroopers began standing on boomboxes in the area, broadcasting the Imperial March music, while volunteers gave out flyers and explained the issues to the public.





Later the men in white gathered around the Foundry in the heart of Shoreditch as a second banner unrolled and thousands of people passed en route to work.




Greenpeace has a site that asks you to "Join The Rebellion" here.

images and info courtesy of Greenpeace UK and the EPA

A Special Version Of The Oscars Unintentional Musicals Clip & More.

If you managed to sit through this year's Oscars, aka The Academy Awards, without falling asleep or switching the channel to watch Hoarders, you might have noticed a few funny little segment about the year's Unintentional Musicals.



The clip was an auto-tuned version of scenes from Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1, Toy Story 3 , Twilight Eclipse, and The Social Network created by the Gregory Brothers who've made a name for themselves auto-tuning the news. These are the same guys who brought you the hilarious and catchy Bed Intruder Song.



The following 2:00 clip is from the Gregory Brothers' own site and is a special version that includes The King's Speech and does not include The Social Network. It must be for some sort of legal reason that this is a different cut than what aired [that version has been removed from youtube but at the time of this post could be found here on Popeater.]

   

The Oscar's Opening Montage

And in case you didn't catch last night's broadcast, here's the opening montage in which hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, along with the brilliant Alec Baldwin and a cameo by Morgan Freeman, were digitally inserted into the ten films nominated for Best Picture:

 

And finally, an abridged version - a 6:00 minute clip of the shows' best moments:

 

 See photos of the winners, videos of the speeches and more at Oscar.com

Inside Jon Stewart's Book, Earth: A Visitor's Guide To The Human Race.

Jon Stewart's newest book hit the stores yesterday. Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race is his highly anticipated follow-up to mega-hit America (The Book) Teacher's Edition: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction



The man behind the best-selling America (The Book), Emmy-winning, Oscar-hosting, Daily Show-anchoring Jon Stewart asks: Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? Questions that have puzzled us since the dawn of time. But when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all bound in a 256 page book with lots of color photos, graphs and charts.



With eye catching page designs by Pentagram, this definitive guide to our species is filled with Jon's trademark sense of humor. Nothing is sacred and everything is hilarious. From captions under images to the appendices, the book is filled with wit, sarcasm and style. Here's a look at many of the spreads, crops and images (not in actual order) from this fun and fabulous new trendy tome.