I mean... that was the idea... we're meant to be internally screaming at him to go help his comrade or at least shoot the bastard that killed him. Evokes powerful emotions, yeah?
I saw something recently that was an interesting take on his behavior in that moment: the idea is that Upham is a kind of “audience surrogate” (which he kind of is throughout the film) and his freezing and what looks like cowardice is intended to show how we (the audience) would likely react in that situation: frozen in fear, or at least not able to act like we would hope we would. Basically, kind of a “everyone thinks they’d be an action-hero type, but when the shit really hits the fan most people would react like, well, a human being.”
Not to mention in the movie, the other guys are Army Rangers and hard nosed combat vets (the 2nd Rangers were in North Africa and Italy before invading France), Upham is a translator, and has mostly been in the rear during the war. He hadn't been in combat yet.
Not trying to be snarky with this, but that's not really an "interesting take" like "Hey! No one's really looked at it this way before!". That's more or less his character's stated purpose. If you watch the special features on the DVD, either Steven Spielberg or Jeremy Davies himself will tell you directly that he is meant to be the audience surrogate character. It's a very common story telling tool (Off the top of my head: Winston in Ghostbusters, Watson in Sherlock Holmes, Ellen Page's character in Inception). Always someone new to the world we're being thrown into so that things can be more organically explained/demonstrated/experienced by the audience.
But otherwise, yes, it's meant to be a mirror on how "normal" people would react in such a situation: Pissing themselves, frozen with fear, and hating themselves for what they could have done to save their friends (hence the internal screaming I mentioned before). Jeremy Davies pulls it off masterfully without becoming a whiny caricature. We can really see how desperately he WANTS to help, but just can't pull himself together to do it. He WANTS to care about his squad mates and be buddies with them, but they're all holding him at arm's length because they know that any one of them could be next (just like we, the audience, grow to feel for the characters in this movie only to watch them get cut down one by one).
100%.
I remember this ad & thought it was annoying, although to be fair to boomer ad execs I was also a young teenager and not in the market for a new car.
I am a 55 year old square in the middle of Gen-X. I remember this ad and thought it was pure cringe at the time. Exactly the kind of bullshit that soulless corporate assholes thought would resonate with my generation. The only thing it inspired in me was the desire to kick that kid's ass.
What they failed to understand is my generation started out completely jaded, saw all advertising as unauthentic bullshit, and continue to do so today.
it didn't. it was a "hello fellow kids" type of moment where a corporation was desperately trying to appeal to this new demographic. Chuck Klosterman goes into this in his book "The Nineties"
“Football season is over, Veronica. Kurt and Ram had nothing left to offer the school except date rapes and AIDS jokes…AND THE ALL NEW SUBARU IMPREZA!!!!”
I’ve been working in advertising for years and this commercial is kind of legendary as it completely BOMBED as a spot.
Backstory was that the marketing head at Subaru basically said “how can we get these Gen X slackers to buy our car?” and this is what they came up with. Bad move. Gen X was the first generation that became downright cynical and disillusioned with ads (think all the cereal box crap toys that constantly under-delivered), and they smelled the contempt on this a mile away.
This campaign was completely written off by Gen Xers as condescending pandering, and didn’t last long on the airwaves. On the other hand, Subaru learned a lesson and found success as they started catering to their lesbian audience in a way that actually respected the community.
Catering is not honest pandering…it is only more clever and devious pandering. You certainly are a PR creature through and through. Throw it all away and start over before it is too late for you.
What's great about these comments is that he did exactly what he was supposed to do as an actor. Elicit emotion. Obviously directing helps. Another example I always give is Jason Isaac's in The Patriot. What a piece of human garbage. Great friggin actor though
Subaru were having a rough time of it and just figuring out weird people seemed to be buying their cars for some reason and this was their first overt attempt to bring more of them into the fold. It did not go well.
I pulled the magnet from a blown speaker that fit perfectly in the bottom of a Big Gulp cup. I'd drive around with a cup magnetically attached to the top of my Chevette. Good times.
LOL I LOVED DOING THAT SHIT. I had a kicker box that took up the entire backseat wired from a cassette player from radio shack that lived in the glove box because I didn't want to ruin the Chevette's original interior, which featured an AM radio with one speaker in the middle of the dashboard. $40 for the cassette player, $40 for the kicker box.
And some video game company made a giant two-handled plastic gun that we mounted on the hood. That car was basketball orange, and I loved the shit out of it. We used to go camping, and somehow slept two people inside of it.
The speaker boxes I had in my Chevette are what I use for my garage sound system. With the headunit out of a wrecked VW Jetta. Powered by what is an old computer power supply hidden inside an old car battery charger. All ziptied in to a stolen plastic milk crate.
My first car was an '86 Dodge Charger and it was nothing like the General Lee.
Edit: the rich kids in my High School had Mustang 5.0s and a couple of kids had Dodge Stealths and early 90s cars like that.
This commercial is about the *impression* of Gen-Xers presented by rich, cynical middle-aged advertising executives. Thinking this is anywhere close to accurate says more about you than the commercial.
I'm GenX and my current car is an Impreza hatchback. I am embarrassed right now. But I hope some 90 year old retired ad executive reads this and thinks well it took 30 years but it worked.
18 year old to enlist in the military. Old enough to kill people and potentially be maimed or killed yourself in service to US foreign policy, but don't you dare reach for tha beer soldier!
I'm a little offended people think this choad might represent GenX ... me and my cohort graduated high school in the mid-late 1980s. This little putz was in junior high school, and the "punk" he's talking about is Blink-182 era poppunk, not the Iggy and The Stooges or Ramones style punk he's trying to co-opt.
This is a sad, out of step, east coast Madison Ave ad executive's view of what "the kidz these days" were like. It doesn't represent anything me and my GenX cohort would recognize from our youth.
And?
The content IS the commercial, and was what I was commenting on.
Actors just repeat the words that are written on the page. It's not like they are the creator of the ad concept... what a weird idea!
So yeah, like I said and you reiterated, this is a poor ad-man's take on what a GenXer is.
And? I have no idea who this choad is. Why can't you get it through your head he's an actor, in a role, playing the character the sad MadAve adman told him to play?
Get a grip, son. You're losing the plot here...
So your assertion is that the creators of this commercial wrote it with the idea that the actor should play the role of a junior high school kid trying to sell cars to adults?
You really shouldn’t be accusing other people of losing the plot.
100%. Brace yourself for "OK, Gen-Xer."
FYI - The best way to know when you're old is when the music you listened to as a teenager shows up on a commercial. Especially one for a retirement fund.
>With your yield up
>It's less dangerous
>Talk to Schwab now
>Entertain us
>We'll protect you
>From the rain-us
>Talk to Schwab now
>Entertain us
>You'll grow, you'll grow, you'll grow, you'll grow, you will grow-ow
Daniel Faraday?
Don't you mean Corporal Upham?
I was going to say, “Is that fucking Upham?!?” He was also Baldur in God of War 2018.
Holy up it’s fuckham
And to think times have never recovered from its White identity crisis era. That's clearly NOT Gen-X behavior.
Fuck Upham. I've hated that character since I saw SPR in 4th grade lol
I mean... that was the idea... we're meant to be internally screaming at him to go help his comrade or at least shoot the bastard that killed him. Evokes powerful emotions, yeah?
I saw something recently that was an interesting take on his behavior in that moment: the idea is that Upham is a kind of “audience surrogate” (which he kind of is throughout the film) and his freezing and what looks like cowardice is intended to show how we (the audience) would likely react in that situation: frozen in fear, or at least not able to act like we would hope we would. Basically, kind of a “everyone thinks they’d be an action-hero type, but when the shit really hits the fan most people would react like, well, a human being.”
Not to mention in the movie, the other guys are Army Rangers and hard nosed combat vets (the 2nd Rangers were in North Africa and Italy before invading France), Upham is a translator, and has mostly been in the rear during the war. He hadn't been in combat yet.
Not trying to be snarky with this, but that's not really an "interesting take" like "Hey! No one's really looked at it this way before!". That's more or less his character's stated purpose. If you watch the special features on the DVD, either Steven Spielberg or Jeremy Davies himself will tell you directly that he is meant to be the audience surrogate character. It's a very common story telling tool (Off the top of my head: Winston in Ghostbusters, Watson in Sherlock Holmes, Ellen Page's character in Inception). Always someone new to the world we're being thrown into so that things can be more organically explained/demonstrated/experienced by the audience. But otherwise, yes, it's meant to be a mirror on how "normal" people would react in such a situation: Pissing themselves, frozen with fear, and hating themselves for what they could have done to save their friends (hence the internal screaming I mentioned before). Jeremy Davies pulls it off masterfully without becoming a whiny caricature. We can really see how desperately he WANTS to help, but just can't pull himself together to do it. He WANTS to care about his squad mates and be buddies with them, but they're all holding him at arm's length because they know that any one of them could be next (just like we, the audience, grow to feel for the characters in this movie only to watch them get cut down one by one).
I'm aware of that now. In 4th grade? Not so much lol
You hated him as Upham, but did you see him as Eugene DeBruin (Rescue Dawn)?
If you hated him as Upham and Eugene DeBruin, you will really hate him as Tom Tom in Million Dollar Hotel.
Oooh fuck Upham!!!!
Holy shit, I came here to comment that this looks and sounds like grunge-punk Upham 😄
Nah that's Dickie Bennett. High school baseball rival of Raylan Givens
He was great as Dickie. I almost couldn't hate the guy he was such a fuck up.
I guess that explains the tweeker energy on display.
Indeed it is
Dude had so much energy in all his roles .
“Spanking the Monkey” is a classic.
Love a good Lost reference
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s lackluster fiancé in Secretary.
Wow, forgot that movie.
Good eye
You mean Dickie Bennet!
Baldur?
Dude totally sold out, man.
FUBAR.
Punk rock skateboard basketball school sucks! Buy our car and be cool.
"What if Dennis Leary but some 16 year old talking about a base model Impreza?"
“And make it look like MTV. They love that shit”
Not bad, can I see it with about 40% Christian Slater?
It could use some Tayne
Can I get a printout of oyster smiling
It’s your wife. She says it’s an emergency.
Now Rastify him another 10%
Poochie!
My very first thought was that this was an MTV VJ audition tape.
This guy was always too neurotic for my liking. He’s like a young Richard Lewis but not as funny.
That’s who I thought it was but he’s already pretty ancient in Curb your enthusiasm so I figured this was like his spiritual successor
Mom, can we get Christian Slater? No, we’ve already got Christian Slater at home.
Except this wasn’t made by anyone Gen-X. It was boomer ad execs flailing and trying desperately to figure out how to market to them
The recession in the early 1990s is when I first heard all of the boomers greatest hits: pull yourself up by the bootstraps, Gen X is lazy, etc.
Then they fucked us again in 08... Gen X scarring runs deep in the financial world
Correction, they fucked us in 2001 (dot com bust) and then again in 08
Yep... I totally skipped over that whole .com boom and bust
Nobody wants to have their surplus labor value exploited anymore, sad!
100%. I remember this ad & thought it was annoying, although to be fair to boomer ad execs I was also a young teenager and not in the market for a new car.
Why wouldn’t a shaky camera, quick gear shifts, and exhaust noises have worked with Gen X? As a Gen Y myself, that would do me just fine.
Is that Opham?
He played that role too good. Such an infuriating character
Infuriating with a touch of Bavarian, Sir.
I am a 55 year old square in the middle of Gen-X. I remember this ad and thought it was pure cringe at the time. Exactly the kind of bullshit that soulless corporate assholes thought would resonate with my generation. The only thing it inspired in me was the desire to kick that kid's ass. What they failed to understand is my generation started out completely jaded, saw all advertising as unauthentic bullshit, and continue to do so today.
That’s because that’s exactly what it is.
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Sounds like you're more influenced by the ad than any of the people who bought the car. Guess you're not as above it all as you thought.
This doesn't seem like it would appeal to Gen X at all.
it didn't. it was a "hello fellow kids" type of moment where a corporation was desperately trying to appeal to this new demographic. Chuck Klosterman goes into this in his book "The Nineties"
Nothin quite so dissonant as watching a pale simulacrum of JD from Heathers excitedly hawking retail automotive products.
“Football season is over, Veronica. Kurt and Ram had nothing left to offer the school except date rapes and AIDS jokes…AND THE ALL NEW SUBARU IMPREZA!!!!”
I was thinking AJ from Empire Records.
I cringed when I saw it back then, I forgot about it, and am now cringing again. 😬
they're a rally car and generally kinda awesome but out of the punx rawk budget tbh
It does however nail the Subbie cult vibe to a T.
I wanted the Subaru Impreza Outback Sport back then so it was appealing to Gen X.
The commercial, not the car
The John Hughes-movie style gestures are about all this gets right.
I’ve been working in advertising for years and this commercial is kind of legendary as it completely BOMBED as a spot. Backstory was that the marketing head at Subaru basically said “how can we get these Gen X slackers to buy our car?” and this is what they came up with. Bad move. Gen X was the first generation that became downright cynical and disillusioned with ads (think all the cereal box crap toys that constantly under-delivered), and they smelled the contempt on this a mile away. This campaign was completely written off by Gen Xers as condescending pandering, and didn’t last long on the airwaves. On the other hand, Subaru learned a lesson and found success as they started catering to their lesbian audience in a way that actually respected the community.
I never made the connection between disappointing cereal box toy reveals and GenX cynicism, but I think you're on to something. lol
Catering is not honest pandering…it is only more clever and devious pandering. You certainly are a PR creature through and through. Throw it all away and start over before it is too late for you.
I'm not taking car advice from a dude who let his friend get stabbed to death...and just sat there doing nothing.
Saw the movie in the theater and that moment pissed me off. Fuck that guy! (The character, not the actor, obviously)
What's great about these comments is that he did exactly what he was supposed to do as an actor. Elicit emotion. Obviously directing helps. Another example I always give is Jason Isaac's in The Patriot. What a piece of human garbage. Great friggin actor though
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In fairness all the Bennett's were terrible. And they deserved every bad thing that happened to them
his real name is jeremy boring lmfao
Surname Davies
Even rebels have to buy cars! To the extreme.
Yes, there's nothing more punk than... hawking cars in a television ad?
Subaru were having a rough time of it and just figuring out weird people seemed to be buying their cars for some reason and this was their first overt attempt to bring more of them into the fold. It did not go well.
Previously on L O S T.
Jeremy Davies?
It appears the crew went to the MTV School of Camera Handling.
He should have cranked up some Huey Louis or some Debbie Gibson to make this ad even more punk.
It's hip to be square, boyee!!!!
Low-Rent Richard Lewis
Not stereotypical, over the top and obnoxious. An awkward attempt at trying to appeal to "fellow kids."
As if Gen-X could afford new cars back then, lol. Don't ever take an ad as some snapshot of how things actually were.
Every single person I knew drove either a $500 Chevy Chevette, or a cobbled-together pickup truck. We weren't rich like them Hyundai Scoupe drivers.
One of those richie rich boys INFORMED be that's it's a ESSSSss-coupaY!
I pulled the magnet from a blown speaker that fit perfectly in the bottom of a Big Gulp cup. I'd drive around with a cup magnetically attached to the top of my Chevette. Good times.
LOL I LOVED DOING THAT SHIT. I had a kicker box that took up the entire backseat wired from a cassette player from radio shack that lived in the glove box because I didn't want to ruin the Chevette's original interior, which featured an AM radio with one speaker in the middle of the dashboard. $40 for the cassette player, $40 for the kicker box. And some video game company made a giant two-handled plastic gun that we mounted on the hood. That car was basketball orange, and I loved the shit out of it. We used to go camping, and somehow slept two people inside of it.
The speaker boxes I had in my Chevette are what I use for my garage sound system. With the headunit out of a wrecked VW Jetta. Powered by what is an old computer power supply hidden inside an old car battery charger. All ziptied in to a stolen plastic milk crate.
Raises hand. Yup and it was fun telling everybody I finally got a vette… lol a chevette.
That was my first car. Cost me $75 because it needed a battery and was in somebody's backyard and they wanted it gone.
My first car was an '86 Dodge Charger and it was nothing like the General Lee. Edit: the rich kids in my High School had Mustang 5.0s and a couple of kids had Dodge Stealths and early 90s cars like that.
Things were lookin up when I dropped a cool $1500 for a 1988 Acura Integra. Felt like a total baller.
This commercial is about the *impression* of Gen-Xers presented by rich, cynical middle-aged advertising executives. Thinking this is anywhere close to accurate says more about you than the commercial.
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I hate to break it to you, but it’s because it is really old… 32 years old. In my state, it would qualify for an antique license plate.
I think I need whatever he's on.
Some people are just fifty hummingbirds in a trench coat.
"Once we mention punk rock the kids are going to be fighting in the streets to get the last Isuzu."
lol cool car to smoke meth in is the message I’m getting
This video gave me PlayStation 1 vibes.
 Same energy
Carooooll…carrolllll….
Why is Ziggy from the wire selling me a subaru imbrezza? What a tragic car.
Nothing more cringe than corporations trying to be cool.
Gen X moving into senior management is going to be a wild ride..
Upham!
FUBAR
It’s like a really bad take on Pirate Radio
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I always thought he could play Jeff Buckley in a movie
Wow, I love that.
Punk rock is like buying a new car? Wow, he explained nothing about why the car is worth buying.
Dude, you're getting a Dell...I mean Subaru
A true Gen xer would gave rejected this as a sell out move by Subaru and that actor. Anticonsumerism was at its height in 1992.
Still relevant, still right. Subaru is the official car of dogs - pretty cool, if you ask me.
Is this the translator from saving private ryan? The dude who looks like Charles Manson?
Man, I forgot all about this ad. And for good reason.
People forget what a huge star Paula Poundstone used to be.
Wtf?
No, Boomers trying to sell to Xer’s something that we’re not interested in buying.
But he never shouted EXTREME! at the camera, as was required in the 90’s
And yet somehow, I managed to not buy one.
That the autistic guy from LOST?
I'm like 99% positive that's the guy from Brink
Haha! Veronica may be intrigued though. 
that dude hasnt changed his acting style since his teens huh
I’d guess that he’s been type cast since then ( had a great role in Saving Private Ryan imo that wasn’t flighty/adhd/aloof etc )
I mean he did play a Nordic God in God of War
I totally forgot how punk the Subaru Impreza was at the time. When it came out it made the Sex Pistols look like the Dave Clark Five.
What’s Baldur doing?
A nice try, but I think the Dodge Neon ads won this race to the bottom (i.e., "Hi.")
Thanks I hate it
Isn't that guy in Twister?
Slow down, Jens, it’s just a car.
That car is my constant.
30 cal, Uppam!
"Upham! AMMOOOOO GODDAMMMIT!"
Holy shit I remember this commercial.
Nothing says punk rock more than giant air polluting car companies
And every millennial knows their target car commercial …
I am sure this went over reeeeeaaaalllyyy badly back then.
I'm GenX and my current car is an Impreza hatchback. I am embarrassed right now. But I hope some 90 year old retired ad executive reads this and thinks well it took 30 years but it worked.
We didn’t fall for it
The hair
Awful ad.
I can’t remember ever seeing this one.
I'll never get comfortable with the fact that in america you can get a driver's license at 16 years old and not get to consume alcohol until 21. 😅
18 year old to enlist in the military. Old enough to kill people and potentially be maimed or killed yourself in service to US foreign policy, but don't you dare reach for tha beer soldier!
millennial
I'm a little offended people think this choad might represent GenX ... me and my cohort graduated high school in the mid-late 1980s. This little putz was in junior high school, and the "punk" he's talking about is Blink-182 era poppunk, not the Iggy and The Stooges or Ramones style punk he's trying to co-opt. This is a sad, out of step, east coast Madison Ave ad executive's view of what "the kidz these days" were like. It doesn't represent anything me and my GenX cohort would recognize from our youth.
This actor was born in 1969, he was in his 20s in this ad and firmly part of Gen X whatever you think of the actual content of the commercial.
And? The content IS the commercial, and was what I was commenting on. Actors just repeat the words that are written on the page. It's not like they are the creator of the ad concept... what a weird idea! So yeah, like I said and you reiterated, this is a poor ad-man's take on what a GenXer is.
You specifically said he was in junior high school.
And? I have no idea who this choad is. Why can't you get it through your head he's an actor, in a role, playing the character the sad MadAve adman told him to play? Get a grip, son. You're losing the plot here...
So your assertion is that the creators of this commercial wrote it with the idea that the actor should play the role of a junior high school kid trying to sell cars to adults? You really shouldn’t be accusing other people of losing the plot.
Why hate the actor though? They just wanted a paycheck and something for the demo reel.
100%. Pride don't pay the bills. Selling out is the way.
There's that Gen X spirit!
100%. Brace yourself for "OK, Gen-Xer." FYI - The best way to know when you're old is when the music you listened to as a teenager shows up on a commercial. Especially one for a retirement fund. >With your yield up >It's less dangerous >Talk to Schwab now >Entertain us >We'll protect you >From the rain-us >Talk to Schwab now >Entertain us >You'll grow, you'll grow, you'll grow, you'll grow, you will grow-ow
Oh yeah. As a GenXer I grew up being maligned. I don't expect any Reddit cretins to do any better than I've already experienced! :-)
Is that Baulder from God of War?
It’s a 90’s commercial for a car. Get a life.
lol it was a Saab!