Ridley Scott underwhelmed by Fortnite parody of his iconic 1984 advert
"The message was ehh."
Sir Ridley Scott is best known for his work directing critically-acclaimed films like Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator, but he was also responsible for directing Apple's famous 1984 advert for the Apple Macintosh. This advert, of course, has somehow found itself dragged into the ongoing dispute between Epic Games and Apple over microtransactions in Fortnite - and Scott has a couple of things to say about Epic's parody version.
Following Epic's decision to introduce a secondary payment method to skirt Apple's 30 per cent cut of in-game transactions (and the subsequent booting of Fortnite from the App Store), Epic released a parody of the 1984 ad called Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite, intended to rally Fortnite fans to its #FreeFortnite anti-monopolisation cause. When asked about the parody advert, Scott told IGN that he had written to Epic Games about the video, but his reaction was mixed to say the least.
"...On the one hand I can be fully complimented by the fact they copied [my commercial] shot for shot," Scott said. "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."
"I think the animation was terrific, the idea was terrific, the message was 'ehh'," Scott added.
The legal battle between Apple and Epic is ongoing, although Epic recently won a temporary injunction to prevent Apple from blocking Epic's ability to support Unreal Engine on iOS and Mac. This didn't extend to Fortnite, however, which is still unavailable on the App Store, and Epic has now had its Fortnite developer account terminated.