A few weeks ago, we looked back at some phones with real star power – phones that were shown in big movies. As Marvel characters featured strongly in it (Tony Stark / Iron Man, Steve Rogers / Captain America and others), we thought we could look at the handsets this week seen the other superhero franchise.
We start, of course, with DC, specifically Christopher Nolans The dark rider rises (2012). It has a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, which was modified by the leader of Wayne Enterprises to emit a sound pulse similar to how a bat relocates. But even with fictitious superpowers, Symbian was a goner. Nokia’s (or should we say Microsoft) new love was Windows Phone.
Although not seen in the movie itself, Nokia tried to get the best out of the marketing and released a limited edition of the Lumia 800 The Dark Knight Rises. And we mean limited – only 40 were made. They had the bat logo etched on the back and some multimedia content preloaded.
Nokia Lumia 800 The Dark Knight Rises limited edition: only 40 made
If you missed one, there was also the Lumia 900 The Dark Knight Rises limited edition, which consists of as many as 900 units.
T-Mobile USA wanted a piece of the action, and Nokia was committed to changing the back of its Lumia 710 phones with new panels that had a splash of branding. It was pretty lazy in more ways than one, somehow a yellow or a pink back does not make us think “Batman”.
The previous movie in the trilogy also had a limited edition phone, though hardly worth mentioning – the Nokia 6205 The Dark Knight edition was a basic flip phone for Verizon.
The Nokia 6205 Dark Knight for Verizon did not turn many heads
Nolan left the director’s chair (but continued as producer) and Zack Snyder took over Man of steel (2013). The Nokia Lumia 925 is featured in the trailer, and there was a limited edition that premiered the day after the movie. Again, the model number dictated how many units were produced, 925 in this case.
Nokia Lumia 925 Man of Steel limited edition (available in China only, 925 units made)
The love story for Nokia / DC did not end there. In 2015, Henry Cavill, who plays Superman in Snyderverse, posted on Instagram that he got a new Lumia 950. Cavill has always been a bit of a nerd – recently he posted a video on Instagram that showed how he assembled his new gaming PC – so we would like to think that the Lumia post was more than just a marketing mandate.
Let’s switch to the Fox franchises – technically they are based on Marvel comics, but are not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
IN Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) Dr. Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic) is seen using a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. It was the official name of the device, remember, its 4.13 ”screen (800 x 480 px) and Wi-Fi 802.11g connection hardly qualifies it for one of those words.
The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet from 2005 was a very early attempt at the “tablet” concept
LG, which parted ways with MCU, moved on to Fox’s new X-Men movie and paired phones from its LG X series with some of the famous mutants. These were quite weak, for example, the LG X Style was compared to the shape-shifting Mystique and LG X Mach for Quicksilver. Others made even less sense, like the LG X Power and Professor X pairing or the LG X Cam and Cyclops.
LG X phones meet X men
That’s enough today, but we’re not quite done. Transformers, Mission Impossible and other franchises have also had interesting phone booths. Even Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek movies uses a Nokia – it was strange to see, given that Star Trek popularized small wireless communication devices back in the 60’s, long before “mobile phone” was even a word (Nokia still made rubber back then).
If you can not wait for the next installment, check out this 2015 article that covers a few other devices.
