Did the Honda Cog Commercial Copy the Film The Way Things Go?

Striking similarities exist between The Honda Cog film and The Way Things Go. So strong are the similarities that the makers of The Way Things Go threatened to pursue legal action against Honda for the blatant resemblance. Both films have unique and similar organizational principles and elements of design that help illustrate ideas and radiate certain themes.

The Honda Cog film contains crucial organizational principles that help engage the viewer. Repetitive use of tires is seen both in The Honda Cog and The Way Things Go. Poles, flat pieces of wood, and circular objects are used repeatedly throughout the two films. A lot of variety exists in both films by using different household items. Both films use tires, trash bags, ladders, soap, oil drums, and gasoline are all various items used to make the chain reaction. They also contain the same rhythm, each piece of the chain lasting an average of about five seconds. Balance is crucial in the films because sometimes tires rolled on think planks of wood, or gasoline had to spill at a certain spot to ignite a fire. In The Way Things Go emphasis on fire was present. About 75% of the reactions or the parts of the chain contained something that needed fire to start the next piece of the chain. Everything scaled to a certain level in both films. Nothing was bigger than the diameter of a tire, I believe. Not one object overpowered another. This is so because even if the object was small, their purpose was just as big as something else that is large relative to the size of the small object.

Elements of design are also present in both films. Every object had some kind of geometric form and clearly all of them contained volume and mass. The space they took up was either flat, in the air, or on a plank of wood. In both films, everything had some sort of linearity and a smooth surface. In The Way Things Go there was a lot more light than in the Honda Cog film. This is so because a lot more fire was used to spark many of the chain reactions. Both films contained bland colors, unfortunately, and the only bright color present was in The Way Things Go where the color orange was prominent due to the fire.

Both works were engaging in the sense that the viewer wants to know what will happen next. The essence of trying to figure out what the end result is makes the viewer very interested and intellectually engaged. In my opinion, I don't think that either film was "Artsy" in a way. I think that the main goal was achieving the purpose of using reactions to set off other actions. Using household items, in a sense, is an art form, but accidentally. I believe the intent of the film was to impress and show that things that do not go together, like tires and coffee pots, can have similar purposes and be put into something that relates them somehow. I feel like since both films did that, it shows you that art can always be made out of everyday things and contain meaning. I preferred the Honda film over the other because it was short but had the same effect as the longer film. The attention of the audience was grasped throughout the entire film, while in The Way Things Go, the attention starts to wander after the first 15 minutes.

Overall, both films were intellectually stimulating and allowed me to see that random things can come together to create an art and a purpose. I was very much impressed by the inventors of such an innovation and the way things just came together.