At this rate I don't think TF5 will take place in China.

 

Did anyone read the article? Wulong is suing because their company paid a product placement fee to have the canyon shown, and (due to a language error) the canyon was improperly credited, and presented in a way that implied it was directly adjacent to Hong Kong, which apparently is not even close. Some guy that lives in Hong Kong was even ranting about this on YouTube and a ton of people gave him shit for it because apparently he wasn't supposed to care how his city was represented.

 

Here's what they're up in arms about:

Wulong park payed a product placement fee to have it shown in the movie, under the condition that it was mentioned by name, as product placement deals often are.

Due to an apparent language issue on the American side, the name being promoted in the film was not Wulong's, but the name of another park, presumably because the American producers weren't familiar in Mandarin Chinese, and couldn't spot the error.

The second problem is with implied location. The whole reason product placement is done is, in essence, to promote a product. Presenting the park as being right next to Hong Kong might not be noticed at first by a viewer not familiar with the area, but, this is the actual geographical relation between the two locations shown in the film:

They are very far apart, and definitely not within driving distance of one another. The placement deal was done specifically to promote tourism of the area, and implying that those two areas are in close proximity of one another would be like showing the Brooklyn bridge in Chicago. You may not think this is a big deal, but if someone unawares sees the movie and wants to visit that park, it's likely that they would book a trip to Hong Kong city instead of Wu Long city because of the way that it's presented, and the fact that they got the name wrong certainty doesn't help matters either.

In conclusion, this whole debacle was the result of an honest mistake on the producers end that WuLong park has every right to be disgruntled about.

WuLong isn't suing the film because they're a bunch of haters. Why is this even news?

 

Thanks this helps a lot.

 

I'd really like to assume that people aren't that stupid and would actually research where this place is before booking trips. (and the misspelled sign is beside the point. If someone actually researched for their vacation they would easily see it's a different place)

And I know this is somewhat of a weak argument but that thing was a spaceship that can travel at high speeds. Although it was probably indeed actually meant to be part of Hong Kong in the film, it isn't extremely too far-fetched that the ship could've been out of control for that distance.

 

This is not the big deal the litigants want everyone to believe....First, how can anyone expect that watchers of a transformers movie are going to want to see a park that was in the transformers movie? There is not a market of people that are going to be disinfranchised over a park not being in an implied location....

if we go with your idea ...then the smithsonian should sue the transformers because when the doors opened from the smithsonian buildings in revenge of the fallen movie....they then walked out the bone yard in Tucson, AZ and the smithsonian could lose business because of this....


Sorry but I don't see their case for implied damages...i can totally see and agree they should get their fee back for the name misspelling issue....

but the implied damages don't hold water for me....

 

Well if TF5 or TF6 have any Hong Kong moments I guess it will just be done on China sets here in the USA Lol

 

Or in Japan.

 

Except that WuLong park did pay a fee to paramount so that the park would be featured in the film, presumably with the intention of attracting tourists to the area, otherwise wulong wouldn't have paid them and they probably would've shot the scene somewhere else. It was basically product placement, just like the miller lite scene in the movie or Joshua sipping on the Shuhua milk. It was just that they misrepresented what they were paid to promote, even if it was on accident.

I agree that it would be a little to much to sue over assumed damage, but if they were paid money under the condition that they represented the park a certain way, and they didn't represent the park that way, it would make sense for them to ask for the money back.

But yeah, I don't really know. I was just upset that people were just misinterpreting the article so callously.

 

Most likely they'll settle this outside of court or Paramount will win