Honda's "Power of Dreams" Online Films

I've been viewing the short films online at Honda's "Power of Dreams" series (http://dreams.honda.com). While very clearly advertisments for Honda, its history and current operations, the films can also be alternatively smart and inspiring, brimming with au courant ideas of management, risk-taking and innovation. (One does wonder, of course, how many of the ideas are actually implemented and practiced in the everyday.) Besides the corporate figures, many of the faces and voices are familiar (Deepak Chopra, Danica Patrick) and some refreshingly unexpected (Christopher Guest, Clive Barker). And the "Mobility 2088" instalment is simply cool. Viewed collectively, these films aspire to be a cross between the groundbreaking BMWfilms.com series of shorts, The Hire, directed by luminaries from John Frankenheimer to John Woo, in 2001-2002 and more recent online salons, from TED to the Aspen Ideas Festival (http://www.ted.com and http://www.aifestival.org). They finally fail to reach that standard, but do offer an excellent summary of how a company, particularly in a challenged industry like automobile manufacturing, reflects on -- and, with polished production values, presents -- itself and its vision of the future.