Product placement
Spoiler warning: the analysis reveal details of the plot
The new movie of the saga directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla (2014), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), The Creator (2023)) comes full of product placement: Snickers, Altoids, Doritos, M&M’s, Lay’s, Dr. Peppers, Converse, Nike, and Heineken, among others. In Jurassic World Rebirth: 2025, we find two types of product placement: passive and active. The most attractive, the active, can be primarily Plot placement, like Snickers, since the product plays a relevant role within the story, and Usage placement, like Altoids and Heineken, when the product is actively used by the characters in the plot, but is not necessarily the focus of the scene.
One of the most unusual cases of product placement in film history is the 2012 film Skyfall, in which Heineken replaced James Bond’s iconic “shaken, not stirred” vodka dry martini with a refreshing bottle of Heineken. Without entering the debate of whether we approve this type of advertising practice, one thing is clear: brands influence films based on the amount of money they have invested.
This article does not take sides with any brand and is impartial regarding the use of marketing within films.
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Color Business
In this sense, one of the most characteristic situations in the plot takes place at Van Dijk’s Bar & Grill, where Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) meet. Heineken carefully curates the decorative elements of the scene to promote the well-known Dutch beer brand. Everything is measured in such a way that the brand is positioned in the viewer/consumer’s mind; the bar is called Van Dijk’s (a Dutch name); the exterior of the roof is painted with the flag of the Republic of Suriname (formerly known as Dutch Guiana), the country where the Bar is located (although it was filmed in Thailand). The colors of its flag match Heineken’s corporate colors (green, red, and white), in addition to the placement of green bottles, cans, neon lights, and beer taps in the set.
On the other hand, it’s surprising that another beer brand appears in the same sequence: Parbo Bier. It may seem like a mistake (although hard to believe given the meticulous marketing), and it also creates a clash of egos between corporate colors: green, red, and white for Heineken versus red, gold, and white for Parbo Bier. Everything was solved, for those unfamiliar with fermented beverages world, when searching for information revealed that Parbo Bier is a Surinamese beer produced by a company with roots in the Dutch province of Zeeland and acquired by Heineken in 1968.
Beyond the anecdotal nature of the sequence in relation to beer brand, there is one element that begins to stand out and which I want to focus on in this article: color. From the scene at Van Dijk’s Bar & Grill, we can establish a basis to try to decipher the use of color in Jurassic World: Rebirth 2025.
Something doesn’t fit
Often, the use of colors in a film is based on a pre-established logic related to locations, situations, or characters. When watching Jurassic World: Rebirth 2025, one perceives a slight intention in the expressive use of colors, although we have a strange feeling of incoherence. Something doesn’t fit or work, especially with the two most striking colors in the film: red and yellow.
Red has a greater prominence in the film, especially due to the costume of the character Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), who appears transversally throughout the film without any significant relationship to other elements, without any treatment, dramatic use, evolution, or resolution. Likewise, yellow also plays a considerable role and, likewise, lacks apparent significance beyond a mere aesthetic or functional use to resolve certain situations.
While cultural variations and many other factors must be considered, we can try to force possible color associations in the film:
Red: Alertness, danger, and violence linked to the attack of dinosaurs or distress flares. However, these are contradicted by connections of love, passion, vitality, and strength, which can be associated with Reuben the father figure, the family boat, or life jackets.
Yellow: Safety, protection, stability, or comfort associated with life jackets, Captain Duncan’s teacup, life bags, or the inflatable lifeboat; however, these are contradicted by connections of warning and instability that can be associated with dinosaurs (Spinosaurus and Dilophosaurus) or some structures in the abandoned laboratory.
Corporate colors.
The truth is that no matter how much we look at it, the film’s use of colors responds to a general aesthetic line of the franchise (see advertising posters). Don’t you think Reuben Delgado’s red and blue wardrobe is somehow reminiscent of those worn by paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern)? Even so, there are still certain chromatic inconsistencies. If Jurassic Park’s “corporate” colors are red and yellow, why is there a tricolor combination of green, red, and white in many of the film’s shots?
If we recall the sequence at Van Dijk’s Bar & Grill where Heineken imposed its corporate colors, the use of tricolor combination of green, red, and white did make sense; even the combination of red, gold, and white in some elements of the bar in relation to the Parbo Bier brand. But outside of that sequence, why is the tricolor combination used? Going a step further, we could even say that they are the three colors that most encompass the entire film, represented by green natural spaces, sequences with red lights, and laboratories where white also plays a major role.
Imposition or gift?
I know it may seem excessive, and it probably is. It’s also very difficult to find an official answer to this question, and we’ll be left without a solution. But there’s a possibility that Heineken brand influenced the general use of colors in the film. If we recap, Heineken beer lines advertised in the film are Heineken, Heineken 0.0 alcohol-free, Heineken Silver, and Parbo Bier. If we do the crazy exercise of comparing frames from the film with the brand’s advertisements, we can see some rather curious similarities.
If the brands are so powerful that Scarlet Johansson drinks a (non-alcoholic) beer or a Snickers bar causes an accident, would it be unlikely that they would propose the use of certain colors in the film? If this theory turns out to be false and the colors only reflect the franchise’s official colors, likewise, we have a mental connection with the brand, so if the use of the tricolor combination outside of Van Dijk’s Bar & Grill sequence isn’t intentional, we’d be talking about a great gift the film has given to the brand. So, with everything stated above, do you ultimately believe the colors were imposed by the brand or is it simply a coincidence?