2008: Martin Jetpack

December 2, 2022

By AHNZ

The premise of the Mel Brooks film The Producers (1967) is that a producer can make more money out of a play that is a flop than one that is a success. So, the sure-to-fail script of ‘Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden’ was born. Brooks’ film has been made twice.

That’s how I see the Martin Jetpack (2008) as well. It is a cultural relic from our last K-selected era. It was never supposed to be commercially or mechanically successful.

Governments do the same thing to us, only breaks being our incredulity and willingness to pay and pay and pay. Sociologically it serves a useful function in checking us when our population becomes wanting in skepticism toward power. If we believe in government as a means to doing good then pain comes until we learn better. Labour 6.0, for example, makes much of its money by creating propaganda/advertising campaigns or by sending taxpayer money to consultancy firms. These planning and media jobs are ends in themselves and some friends of Labour get paid very highly; The measures they’re supposedly promoting and planning probably will never be taken and don’t matter. Consider the Road to Zero (2022) campaign costing some $200,000,000¹ or the $8,000,000 What do you do? (2022) prison guard recruitment campaign² or the $150,000,000 Auckland Cycle Bridge Consult (2022) which was never implemented. These are not failures at all. The government is doing exactly what it set out to do.

“How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?” – The Producers

“You see? You see what I’m trying to tell you? You could’ve raised a million dollars, put on your $60,000 flop, and kept the rest.”
“But what if the play was a hit? Leo Bloom: Well, then you’d go to jail. See, once the play’s a hit, you have to pay off all the backers, and with so many backers, there could never be enough profits to go around. Get it?”
“Uh-huh. A-ha! So, in order for this scheme to work, we’d have to find a sure-fire flop!” – The Producers

“Help us keep a jetpack in Canterbury…you can donate” – Canterbury Museum (2021)

“Canterbury Museum was vying to buy it but was unsuccessful as it dropped out of the bidding when it reached $151,000…Museum director Anthony Wright told the Herald they are really disappointed…”We haven’t given up on one day telling this story of Canterbury innovation in our galleries,”” – ODT (2021)

Its success was in fleecing people out of their investment money and getting a few guys paid to play big big toys.

If Canterbury Museum buy one of these things then it will be like a re-making of The Producers. Are people still silly enough to part with their money due to a recycled trick from 2008?

—
Image ref. Martin Jetpack 5000ft flight – highlights, Martin Aircraft, Youtube (2011)

1 “Waka Kotahi has been allocated $14.7 million in new funding for the campaign but has told the Union it plans to spend as much as $197 million on Road to Zero promotions and educational activities.”, Taxpayers Union (2022)

2 “…multi million-dollar recruitment campaign in a bid to attract more frontline officers. The campaign includes new television ads at a cost of $4 million which has shocked Corrections officers currently in pay negotiations with the department. Billboards and other social media advertisement costing an extra $2 million, while 24 recruitment staff adds $1.7million. It brings the total advertising budget for Corrections to around $8 million this year.” – 1News (October, 2022)

3 “The Government has set aside $150 million for an Auckland harbour crossing for cyclists and to also cover sunk costs arising from last year’s abandoned cycling and walking bridge project.” – Stuff (2022)

Ref. also 2007: Paper Computer Dream Dies With Kiwi Inventor, AHNZ

Like    Comment     Share