01
In my opinion, the biggest highlight of "Out of Control Players" is not in visual effects and imagination, but in: it holds an equal attitude to the virtual world.
Most movies think that the virtual world is dangerous, addictive and empty. For example, those movies that are compared with "Out of Control Players", "Trumen's World", "Extreme Space", and "The Matrix"... Without exception, they all use the "fake" of the virtual (fictional, illusory) world to contrast The "truth" of the real world.
"Out of Control Player" does the opposite, telling us: the virtual world is also another kind of reality. People who live inside can also live well.
This also coincides with the "post AlphaGo" era, where people have a deeper awe of technology.
Guy, the first protagonist of this movie, is an NPC in the game. He originally lived a life set by code, until one day, he fell in love with a female player named Millie. In order to follow Millie, Guy changed the established trajectory of action and gradually realized love and freedom.
The whole film is actually about Guy's "adult" road, which is his existential awakening from love in the face of the nihil world.
And this is the most different aspect of "Out of Control Player".
In this sci-fi film, there is no "technological phobia" and "AI rebellion" drama, what you see is the harmonious coexistence of virtual and reality, and the "creator (human)" versus "created (AI)" The kind of emotion that is close to the same kind.
It is a life tribute about "AI adults".
02
If the film can follow this line of thought to the end, it will be a complete and innovative work. But unfortunately, the ending was timid.
After the vigorous cyber romance, Millie finally chose to return to reality and hug and kiss the keyboard of her entrepreneurial partner. This ending is not difficult to guess. Although the film lacks enough groundwork for this, it can be seen from some scattered details that Millie and the keyboard have long liked each other, and love is only a matter of time.
However, this seemingly well spent arrangement has become the movie's biggest flaw.
In order to make Millie's choice more reasonable, the creators also specially designed a reversal: The reason why Guy fell in love with Millie at first sight seems to be an awakening of love, but it is actually because the keyboard encodes his love for Millie. On Guy's body. As Guy said: "I am just a digital love letter sent to you, and the person who wrote this letter is in your world." At first glance, this sounds romantic, but when you think about it, it is extremely cruel. Because while it writes a sweet ending, it also obliterates Guy's path to adulthood.
This tool man originally thought he had gotten rid of his destiny as a tool man, but in the end he discovered that he was still just a tool man; his so-called autonomous consciousness was just another series of prescribed actions given by the programmer; he went through fire and water in the virtual world. , Almost lost his "life", only a soft kiss from a couple in the real world.
This is so frustrating.
03
So is there a more ideal ending?
Of course there is.
The best ending in my mind should be: Millie chooses to be with Guy in the virtual world.
This is not only very romantic, but also more in line with the logic of the whole play. Because this movie is about Guy awakening because of falling in love with Millie, if Millie can finally respond with love and thus complete Guy’s path to adulthood, wouldn’t it have the best of both worlds?
You may think that real people and AI cross-border love, this matter is somewhat unreliable.
But the essence of love, or its moving part, lies in its ability to overcome secular barriers and prejudices to achieve itself.
Those classic loves are all like this. Romeo and Juliet crossed the feud between the two big families; Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai crossed the ethical imprisonment of "parents’ orders and matchmakers’ words"; and Jack and Rose crossed the class differences between poor boys and rich girls... …
And now it is more and more difficult to make romantic movies, but also because with the more independent economic and consciousness of modern people, the above-mentioned obstacles have no longer become obstacles. This can also partly explain why same-sex romance movies are still popular, precisely because same-sex love is still an untouchable pain in many countries.
So, what's the point of love that crosses the boundary between virtual and reality?
In fact, Hollywood genius director Spike Jones has already filmed in "She". "She" tells the social incompetence and doomed loneliness of modern people through the story of a man falling in love with AI. What it actually expresses is that AI is not human after all. It can neither satisfy people's exclusive desire for love, nor can it provide physical intimacy below the spirit, so this cyber-Platonic love ended in failure.
"Out of Control Player" originally had a good chance of being a negative "She", it can boldly admit that when an AI has the ability to love, then the obstacle in front of this love is no longer a "human machine". There is a difference", but just secular prejudice. If Millie can break through the prejudice, bravely walk in front of Guy and say to him: "No, you are not a love letter. The person I love is you."
Isn't this more of a desperate romance?
It's a pity that "Out of Control Player" is about to reach the end, but it's back to the old path.
04
After all, it was too conservative.
Not only "Out of Control Players", we can see this creative conservativeness in the recent Hollywood blockbusters. Obviously there is a very subversive and even offensive idea, but it will still be drawn back to a traditional and safe ending.
"Black and White Witch Kuila" is about the growth history of a devil, and how Kuila was occupied by her inner demon personality. But in the end, the creators still wanted her to say to her friends pitifully: "You are my family, and you are all to me." In the end, she really returned to the "family".
"X Task Force" created an alliance of villains formed by a group of big villains, but after the bloody storm of an R-rated plasma movie, these villains somehow suddenly "returned to justice" and became heroes of salvation with awe-inspiring righteousness.
It's not that I can't see a happy ending and can't appreciate the positive energy. It's just that these films are clearly dressed in strange costumes, posing a maverick posture, but they are timid at the last minute and become three good students. This is really split.
In the final analysis, it was because the creators were not bold enough. They were worried that the steps were too big for the audience to accept, so they only dared to give a surprise start, and then they would accept it.
This has fallen into an embarrassment of "stroke between left and right". Just like the segment in "Out of Control Players", the creators just ridiculed the conservative thinking of "Hollywood companies rely on IP to continue their lives", and turned their heads and couldn't help taking out Captain America’s shield and the Hulk’s fist. Spend another wave of IP bonuses.
In fact, it doesn't have to be this way.
The audience is already prepared, and the creators may wish to be bolder, ahead of the audience's expectations, and imagine another ending.
However, we can see further.
Although "Out of Control Players" still made compromises under the constraints of the market and creative inertia, its breakthroughs in the framework of science fiction may be more valuable compared with it.
This value lies in the fact that it is the first work that regards AI and human life as equally important, and it really establishes empathy with the audience through a virtual character, and makes this kind of more thorough and modern "beings" The expression of "equality" is complete.
Although there are regrets, the shortcomings do not conceal the good.
This article was first published on the official account "Gun Draft".
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