Subject: "1984" Macintosh Spot Script
From: [email-masked] (Mack Simpson)
Date: 30 Mar 1995 15:24:20 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.tv.commercials

In message ID <[email-masked]> on 3/27/95, [email-masked] wrote:

> In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Rhonda
> Rodriguez) writes: > Hi there, just started reading this group.  I
> wondered if someone could send > me a description of this Apple 1984
> commercial because I don't remember it, > and it must be good to
> warrant all the posts. Happens I ran my tape of it yesterday for a
> visitor--I never tire of it: Directed by Ridley Scott (Blade
> Runner), it runs as follows: 

[snip]

Here is the complete script, from the storyboards:

WE OPEN ON A FUTURISTIC BUT GRITTY SCENE- A MONUMENTAL STRUCTURE WITH THE
LOOK OF FAILED SOCIALISM.

(BIG BROTHER VOICE OVER) /on huge tv screen/: For today we celebrate the
first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives.

CUT TO SHAVED-HEADED AUTOMATONS MARCHING IN LOCK STEP AS THE OMNI-PRESENT
"BIG BROTHER" HARRANGUES THEM OVER COUNTLESS VIDEOSCREENS.

(BIG BROTHER VO): We have created for the first time in all history, a garden
of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of
contradictory and confusing truths.

CUT TO A GREAT HALL WHERE THE AUTOMATONS ARE SITTING, ROW AFTER ROW,
LISTENING TO "BIG BROTHER" ON A HUGE SCREEN.

(BIG BROTHER VO): Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than
any fleet or army on earth.

INTERCUT SEQUENCES OF A BRIGHTLY-CLAD YOUNG WOMAN BEING PURSUED BY SINISTER
"THOUGHT POLICE."

(BIG BROTHER VO): We are one people.  With one will.  One resolve.  One
cause.

WOMAN RUNS TO THE CENTER OF THE GREAT HALL, HER PURSUERS CLOSING ON HER.  SHE
SWINGS A HEAVY SLEDGEHAMMER AROUND AND OVER HER HEAD LIKE AN OLYMPIAN AND
HURLS IT AT THE VIDEO IMAGE OF BIG BROTHER.

(BIG BROTHER VO): Our enemies shall talk themselves to death.  And we will
bury them with their own confusion.  We shall prevail.

THE SCREEN EXPLODES.  THE CAMERA PANS DOWN ROWS OF AWED AUTOMATONS.

(ANNOUNCER VO): On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh and
you'll see why 1984, won't be like "1984."

  Mack           -----           [email-masked]
                   P1082, University of Texas
   1st Vice-President, Theta Xi Association of Texas
               Lancaster Lodge #160, A.F.&A.M.

      "When a nation's young men are conservative,
               its funeral bell has already rung."
                         -- Henry Beecher