Clamshells, or what some people refer to as flip phones, were a big thing in the pre iPhone era, but for some reason or another they lost their sex appeal with people instead opting to have a large sheet of glass in their pocket to poke and prod at. In 2009 the movie Star Trek was released, and while it was a huge disappointment for Star Trek fans such as myself who were hoping that the heritage of exploration and discovery of new planets in deep space would be continued, it did make a lot of money using the formulaic action film approach that Hollywood loves to use and abuse. Nokia was planning on releasing one of their older models, the N76, with a highly custom makeover that would have made the mobile phone in your pocket look like a Starfleet Communicator. Only 14 of these beauties were ever created, and in the video below you get to see what could have been, but sadly never was.
In the future, do you think we’ll see more or less mobile phones launched with a particular franchise attached? The R2D2 Motorola Droid on Verizon is due to launch in less than 2 weeks, and I’m frankly a little furious that Motorola isn’t making a GSM version to be sold in Europe. All it takes is a little custom paint job, a polished theme, and some modified system sounds, and grown men can be made weak in the knees and light in the wallet because of that slight tinge of nostalgia they’ll feel every time they reach into their pocket. Sure, I may make fun of George Lucas and his most obvious whoring of the Star Wars brand, but what about the other creative houses? Why isn’t there a Batman phone, an Iron Man phone, a Spider-Man phone?
They’d sell like hot cakes.
[Via: Engadget]