Aside from directing Gladiator, Alien, and Blade Runner, Sir Ridley Scott is also known for directing the famous ‘1984’ commercial for Apple – because when you’ve directed one of those films on that list you can basically do anything you want for a paycheck forever. Of course, it helped that the commercial is so famous that Epic specifically parodied with Fortnite it as part of its ongoing snit fit with Apple. And Sir Ridley Scott saw it, and commented on it with the air of a dad who isn’t mad, just disappointed.
I sure have and I wrote to them because on the one hand I can be fully complimented by the fact they copied [my commercial] shot for shot. But pity the message is so ordinary when they could have been talking about democracy or more powerful things… And they didn’t use it.
The intended irony with the commercial, of course, is that Apple itself was primarily commenting on other companies being monolithic entities stifling creativity with the allusion to George Orwell’s novel. Now they’re the monolithic entity stifling creativity! So it is perhaps a bit on the nose. It’s probably good that the director is fond of the execution, at least, even if he feels that the message itself is something less than inspirational.
