Five-0 `Hookman’ remake’s similarities, differences

Feb. 5: Updated with a correction about the credit fonts.

CBS’s new Hawaii Five-0 followed the 1973 version of “Hookman” pretty closely in the remake that aired Feb. 4. But there were some significant differences, as well. Here’s a sampling of the similarities and differences:

Episode title: The new Five-0 repeated “Hookman” as the episode titles. The new show, that debuted in 2010, usually uses Hawaiian words as titles while not actually showing those episode titles on screen. (CLICK HERE for an example.) Apparently, “Hookman” doesn’t have a good Hawaiian equivalent. Also, the title “Hookman” was shown on screen just before the main titles. The villain had prosthetic hands rather than hooks, but “Prosthetic Hand Man” wasn’t nearly as good a title as “Hookman.”

Credit fonts: It appeared that Five-0 used the same, or at least a very similar font for the credits as the one used in the original show. Presumably this was intended for a “retro” look that CBS had hyped in promoting the episode. (Shoutout to Mike Quigley, webmaster of The Hawaii Five-O Home Page for pointing out differences in the fonts.)

Car chase: In both the 1973 and 2013 versions, the villain takes off in a Ford Mustang. In the original show, Ford Motor Co. was the supplier of vehicles. In the new show, General Motors Co. has that role (McGarrett 2.0 tools around in a Chevrolet Camaro). It looked like the crew attempted to obscure the Mustang logo in the front grille of the Feb. 4 show.

Meanwhile, in the original, McGarrett chased after the villain by himself. In the Feb. 4 show, both McGarrett 2.0 and Danno 2.0 are in McGarrett’s Camaro. Naturally a “cargument” (a schtick of the new show) ensues between the two men.

Things not shown in the original: In the 1973 “Hookman,” we don’t see the villain send his car into the bay; we’re just told about it later. Such a scene was staged in the remake. What’s more, the Feb. 4 show had a flashback sequence showing how the villain lost his hands. In the 1973 version, McGarrett provides a quick recap. Also, in the new version, it was McGarrett’s father who was involved in that case, rather than McGarrett himself.

Score: Morton Stevens won an Emmy for his “Hookman” score. The score on the Feb. 4 story keeps with the general Five-0 background music by Brian Tyler and Keith Power that seems like it’s the poor man’s Hans Zimmer from Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies.

New ending: McGarrett 2.0 “meets” the ghosts of the villain’s victims, something that didn’t happen at all in the original.

UPDATE (Feb. 5): You can CLICK HERE to watch the Feb. 4 episode on CBS’s Web site.

CBS provides preview of Hawaii Five-0 season finale

CBS, which has been using YouTube as part of its Hawaii Five-0 marketing efforts all season long, uploaded a preview of the May 16 season finale. Wo Fat 2.0 frames McGarrett 2.0, an idea that evokes the plot of an episode of the original Five-O series called The Ninety-Second War.

In the clip CBS uploaded, McGarrett 2.0 is driving his father’s old Mercury, which just happens to be the same model driven by Jack Lord’s McGarrett in the original show. (The original series had Ford Motor Co. vehicles. CBS struck a deal with General Motors Co., which provides the bulk of cars for the new show.) McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) is on the run and needs help:

A brief (incomplete) 007 product placement history

So, Bond 23 will have a record amount of product placement, according to the Sunday Times. Agent 007 isn’t exactly a virgin when it comes to the subject.

In Bond’s debut film adventure, you could see Smirnoff vodka and Red Stripe beer. Then again, Dr. No only had a $1 million budget and was modestly budgeted. The brand name referneces reflected what you’d see in a James Bond novel by Ian Fleming.

Things picked up with the third 007 film, Goldfinger. There were vehicles from Ford Motor Co. (Tilly’s Mustang, Felix Leiter’s Thunderbird, the Ford trucks in Goldfinger’s convoy going to Fort Knox and the Lincoln Continental where gangster Mr. Solo had his “pressing engagement”). Not to mention Gillette shaving products and Kentucky Fried Chicken, evidently Felix’s favorite fast food place while maintaining survellence on criminal masterminds. The film’s director, Guy Hamilton, had this to say to film historian Adrian Turner:

I used to get a little bit angry when Harry (Saltzman) used to come on the set. In the plane scene with Pussy Galore, when Bond haves, the whole thing was a Gillette exercise. You never saw anything like it. There was Gillette foam, Gillette aftershave…I said, ‘Harry what are you doing? It’s eight in the morning, the crew haven’t arrived and your’e dressing a set?’ He’d done a deal with Gillette and we were going to get sixpence to use their stuff.”
(Adrian Turner on Goldfinger, 1998, pages 158-59)

With Thunderball, Ford was even more out in force: Fiona Volpe’s Mustang, not one but two Lincoln Continentals and Count Lippe’s aging Ford Fairlane. Ford did a promotional film, “How to Blow Up a Motor Car,” and Henry Ford II, then the CEO of Ford had a cameo in the movie. For You Only Live Twice, Japanese financial titans had an impact, including television monitors by Sony and Aki’s Toyota (not orignally a convertible but it was transformed into one).

Ford was back in Oh Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Tracy’s Mercury Cougar) and Diamonds Are Forever (Tiffany Case’s Mustang that Bond drove to great effect). GM managed to get its Chevrolet division as the primary auto supplier for Live And Let Die but it appears only one type of model could be supplied. The Man With The Golden Gun had the only 007 appearance for American Motors (later absorbed by Chrysler).

Moonraker is remembered by some fans for excessive product placement. A long Rio sequence has multiple referneces to 7 Up, British Airways and Marlboro cigarettes (including the use of Elmer Bernstein’s theme for The Magnifcent Seven, which Marlboro would use for television commercials in the 1960s). United Artists initially hoped to make the movie for $20 million. The budget came in closer to $35 million, so it’s not much of a stretch to speculate the product placement was a way of finding alternative sources of funding.

Three Pierce Brosnan 007 films (GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough) featured BMW cars.

But Ford once again entered the world of 007. For 2002’s Die Another Day. At that time, Ford had a collection of European luxury brands (including Aston Martin, a long-time 007 favorite), so DAD was a way to promote all of the brands, including a Land Rover SUV that took villain Gustav Graves to Buckingham Palace. Ford even managed to get in a couple of shots of its then-new Thunderbird two-seat car driven by U.S. agent Jinx (Halle Berry) to a big party given by Graves.

The Daniel Craig era has again seen Aston Martin make a splash and Omega watches even got mentioned in a dramatic scene between Bond and Vesper Lynd (Eva Green).

The Sunday Times reported that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sony, which are co-financiing Bond 23, want to generate $45 million, or about a third, of Bond 23’s production budget from product placement fees. We’ll see how it goes. The Bond 23 filmmakers will probably get the money. The question is how obvious the product placement will be.

Saab, 007’s former ride, lives to die another day

Saab, once the ride of the literary James Bond, avoided the fate of automotive brands such as Studebaker, Plymouth and Stutz. Here’s the start of a Bloomberg.com story by Ola Kinnander and Katie Merx:

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Co. sold Saab Automobile to Spyker Cars NV, the Dutch maker of supercars, for at least $400 million in cash and preferred shares, averting the extinction of the 72-year-old Swedish carmaker.

“The transaction secures the future of Saab Automobile and signals the start of an exciting new era for the iconic brand,” Spyker said in a statement after Chief Executive Officer Victor Muller and Saab CEO Jan-Aake Jonsson signed the final accord today in Stockholm.

Saab was the choice of John Gardner, when he was commissioned to do a new series of Bond continuation novels starting in the early 1980s. Click here to see a diagram of the Saab described by Gardner. It includes a remote car starter, now a fairly common gadget for drivers. You can read the rest of the Bloomberg story about Saab by CLICKING HERE.

1974: American Motors gets its one chance to be 007’s ride

In 1974, American Motors got its one and only chance to be James Bond’s primary ride.

The film was The Man With The Golden Gun, Roger Moore’s second 007 film. In earlier installments of the Bond film series, Ford Motor Co. (Goldfinger, Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever), then-General Motors Corp., now General Motors Co. (Live And Let Die) and Toyota Motor Corp. (You Only Live Twice) provided the bulk of iconic vehicles. (Aston Martin was a small independent company in the 1960s that really didn’t do product placement deals.)

As The Man With The Golden Gun was in pre-production, Eon Productions went with American Motors, then a distant No. 4 U.S. automaker. Part of the reason: Eon was going to use a signature car stunt that had been performed with an AMC model. In any case, AMC had its one chance to show off its models via a 007 movie. The company would be acquired by Chrysler in the mid-1980s, mostly because Chysler coveted AMC’s line of Jeep sport-utility vehicles.

Here’s a look at a key sequence of Golden Gun where AMC got to show off part of its product line.

Saab, once 007’s ride, is on the endangered list

Back in March, we ran an article on how the literary James Bond once drove a Saab and how that Swedish brand was facing tough times.

Illustration of the literary Bond’s Saab via MI6 James Bond website

Things haven’t gotten easier for Saab. In fact, Bloomberg is reporting that General Motors Co. may close Saab after sports-car maker Koenigsegg Group AB canceled a planned acquisition of the Swedish company. The story cites a person familiar with the matter that Bloomberg didn’t identify.

Bond drove a Saab in the first continuation novels by writer John Gardner, whose 007 ran began in 1981 and lasted through 1996.