The advert for Toyota's new "Optimal Drive" range of cars has me a little bit freaked out. This may just because I have been a fan of science fiction since I first learned to talk, and therefore have a tendency to imagine things a bit more vividly and weirdly than some, but here it is:
Mum uncovers the car by pulling off a silk or satin covering. Mum, Dad and three little children get into the car.
Guy in soccer gear arrives with three of his friends and unveils a new car by pulling off a covering that was the first car!
The soccer guys clamber into the car just in time for a new man to arrive and lift off the covering that was the second car!
This guy is with his (woman, natch) partner and her pet dog, and they all climb into the third car, just in time for a man who's dressed up for a fancy date or possibly a wedding, to run up and sweep away the third car that has become just another covering for a fourth car, into which our late-for-his-date chap hurriedly jumps, and finally drives away.
Now, I get what they're trying to say (I think) with this advert - namely, that the new range is all the same underneath, but it's also very versatile and has a model for every type of person.
But what I got from it is that it makes people disappear into some kind of alternative dimension. Which I find really freaky and scary.
I mean - what happened to that happy family of 5? What happened to the three soccer players and their referee? What happened to the couple and their pet dog? That's 11 people and a dog who have been simply folded and thrown away as each new person came and discarded the previous group! Do they still exist? Could they re-emerge if the fourth car was brought back and the covering was put back over it, or have they completely ceased to exist forever (which would mean that each subsequent group of people effectively murdered the ones before!)? Are they aware of what's happened to them or do they stop being aware the moment they become transformed into the covering that removed them? What is the state of the first group, the family of 5, by the time we get to the fourth car being revealed?
None of them seemed to give any thought to the fate of the last, but none of them seemed aware of what was about to happen either, and it leaves me spooked. It's like the idea that maybe an illusionist isn't really an illusionist, and actually does make a person disappear and kidnaps her (because it's always a her in these stories, somehow!) into a parallel universe or alien world.
I'm never getting into a Toyota ever again, just in case it happens to me!
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