Surely this isn’t serious? Surely someone is having a laugh?
Whoever wrote this must have a cocaine habit so large that a small South American state is employed simply to keep the creative in question awake.
Building super highways in an unknown sky.
Either that or it was written by an idiot savant. Someone gifted life without the curse of self-awareness. Or taste, irony or judgement for that matter.
Right away we can tell that we’re in trouble here. That rolling piano; the glossy film quality; the breathy narration that Jack Davenport and Sean Pertwee have built careers on. This is going to be Epic.
Roaring into the clouds to battle wind and stars.
Any writer can spew out out stuff like this in their sleep. Look:
• carving through the azure-blue skies – a monument to human endeavour…
• to push our limits; to strive to exceed our earthly limitations… is what makes us the people we are
• four words; a simple creed that encapsulates what we do… and why we do it…
See? It’s a piece of piss. But pulling off this overly earnest style is a tight-rope. Go too far and you veer into self-parody – it sounds like you’re taking the piss. Don’t go far enough and there simply isn’t the impact.
Their safety systems built of brain and heart.
It’s writ large in every party political broadcast; every ‘A Beautiful Mind’ Hollywood schmaltzbuster – and every Epic advert. This, perhaps, is the most Epic advert there will ever be.
Jumbo jets full of cash has been spunked on this. To extend this metaphor to breaking point, every British Airways employee has been wanking in a bucket for years to accumulate this amount of jizz.
This is BA’s attempt to wrench back some of the market from the pretenders; to stake a claim for all of that glamour and romance that once went with air travel. One giant ‘fuck you’ to Virgin with its new money and fancypants cabin crew.
Who skimmed the edge of space; skimmed the edge of heaven; of dreams
It’s utterly shameless. It’s turned up to 11. It’s enough to make one not just throw up a little in one’s mouth, it’s enough to make the vomit backwash up one’s nose and come flying out of one’s nostrils.
Everyone who worked on this ad must surely have vomited all the way through it. Assuming they weren’t having a wank at the time.
Genuinely I take my hat off to whoever wrote this. Whoever wrote the line about ‘touching space, the heavens, touching dreams’ did well not to immediately drop dead on the spot due to the sheer inexorable weight of the that line. It is both awesome and awful – in the true senses of the words.
The same four words stitched into every uniform, of every disciple who follows their call.
Someone who could write that line and not immediately turn into a pillar of salt, stick a revolver in their mouth and pull the trigger or simply go violently and impressively insane with the horror of it all deserves a pat on the back.
This is it. This is Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. It is off every chart that has ever been or ever will be.
This is, perhaps, the biggest wank ever wanked.
NB. Have a read of this full script below. I can’t take any responsibility for you vomiting, going mad, wanking or dying.
Those first young people. The pioneers.
The apostles.
Building super highways in an unknown sky.
Leaving partners and children in their snug homes with a kiss and a promise to return.
Roaring into the clouds to battle wind and stars.
Their safety systems built of brain
and heart.
They landed where there were no lights.
Transforming strange names from tall tales into pictures on postcards home.
And those next people who travelled further, faster, higher than any in history
And the ones after them travelling further than anyone in history
Who skimmed the edge of space
Skimmed the edge of heaven
Of dreams
And we follow them up there.
To live by an unbreakable promise
The same four words stitched into every uniform, of every disciple who follows their call.
To follow. To serve.