[The article is transferred from the public account: the leader of the drama group]
Text / My Neighbor Totoro
Two years have passed since the first part of the "Mission of a Dog" series.
The film’s cumulative box office reached 607 million yuan, which was nearly five times more than the base cost of 22 million U.S. dollars, so after the film ends, the filming of the sequel will be on the agenda.
It is worth mentioning that before the release of the sequel, a movie called "A Dog's Mission" was released quietly in January this year, called "A Dog's Way Home" .
This film directly abandons the common routines of the animal series and chooses "The Dog's Wandering Journey " as the focus of the film's narrative. It tells the story of a dog named Bella who went home after all the hardships.
Different from the earlier "anthropomorphic" animated films and live-action films represented by "Garfield" and others, the story told in this film is closer to the life and existence of animals themselves.
This also makes the emotional tension in the film relatively objective. With the deepening of understanding of animal behavior, we can gradually understand how other species of animals convey emotions compared to humans.
Behavior is the cornerstone of conveying emotion , this sentence is suitable for any species.
Understanding a person's thoughts depends not on what he says, but what he does.
This sentence is the same for the animals around us.
1 Behavior
There are many ways that animals express emotions, but among them, the number of expressions by behavior is more than any other way.
In "The Mission of a Dog", the protagonist Bailey has experienced four lives and four lives, from the beginning of his life to death, and then returning to the owner in the last life, so that the story has formed a closed loop, and the core of this closed loop has been condensed to one. In a game about discs.
The friendship between the young Pele and the owner Ethan is consolidated in a disc game, so when they met in the fourth life, this game behavior became an important plot to awaken the friendship.
When the behavior is repeated, the emotion is also reproduced. We see Ethan recognizing the changed Pele, and Pele returns to the owner at the end of the story.
Any kind of recurrence will bring about emotional or behavioral enhancement. In "A Dog's Way Home", Bella, who lives in the wild, meets a puma cub who has lost her mother. Bella takes on the role of a mother. Defend against foreign enemies until the latter grow up.
Later, when Bella was in danger, the cougar reappeared and rescued Bella. It is precisely because of this kind of behavioral recurrence that the emotion between the two becomes more thick, and the final parting becomes even more reluctant.
It must be emphasized that this emotion is mutual, not charity.
At the beginning, the same young Bella had also been nurtured by a mother cat, but now that the emotional needs of the cougar are met, Bella is regarded as a compensation for kindness.
Because behavior is a way of conveying emotions, whether it is accepting emotions or rejecting emotions, they are all shown in the behavior.
Therefore, whether it is Bailey or Bella, the process of expressing behavior is expressing emotion.
And this kind of match between behavior and emotional form is also the core of the motif of the "Mission of a Dog" series of movies.
In "A Dog's Mission 2", Bailey took on the mission of protecting Ethan's granddaughter CJ. The emotion of reunion made the matching form echo the beginning.
We will not forget the classic scene of Pele and Ethan reuniting in Ethan’s story, nor will we forget in the story of Ethan’s granddaughter CJ, Pele, in order to fulfill his promise to protect CJ, at the most critical moment, The moment that CJ's boyfriend was saved.
The repetition of behavior makes emotions magnified. It is also the simplest and most effective way of expression, and it also strengthens the main structure of pet movies.
It can be said that the success of the "Mission of a Dog" series provides a choice for the future development of animal films.
2 Animal movies
In fact, in terms of quantity alone, there are not a few animal movies.
In My Neighbor Totoro's impression, in the earlier release of "Captain Marvel", the real body of the "Elemental Devourer" is an orange cat (this is probably another joke about the "catman" coming from outer space).
Another example is "Nine Lives" starring Kevin Spacey, which makes people turn into cats and experience the perspective and life of cats. This fantasy setting gives humans a new perspective to think about the role of pets (it was a good thing, but because the role of cats is too prominent, it turned out to be a cat-sucking blockbuster).
Earlier, in the process of making or writing films, scripts or novels about animals, the thoughts of animals were rarely taken into consideration.
In the "Cat and Mouse" animation series, in addition to the animal form, the opposition relationship between cat and mouse and the details of life are retained. The other parts are original anthropomorphic styles. Even the opposition relationship between animals can actually be used. Find the matching part from the human social framework.
The same goes for "Garfield".
Compared with the "Home Alone" series, "Garfield" only replaces the character from a child to a cat. If it is separated from human society and the laws, Garfield may be at a loss.
of course there are exceptions.
In the final analysis, the ultimate goal of anthropomorphic animal movies is just to introduce the common emotions of the audience into the story.
The "Rise of the Apes" series is probably one of the few movies that can rationalize the process of anthropomorphizing animals.
From the first to the third, the film fully demonstrated the whole process of apes from awakening consciousness to leading the earth, and also fully conceived the possibilities that can be produced by the active thoughts of animals other than humans.
This also seems to tell us that there are also motivations and purposes in the minds of animals. When they choose or practice certain things, they are able to realize the impact of things.
3 Friends or pets
In "A Dog's Way Home", the lonely tramp was afraid that Bella would leave him and trapped Bella in chains. Later, the tramp died unexpectedly, causing Bella to almost die from dehydration.
My Neighbor Totoro can't help asking, what is our original intention of raising a pet?
Do you want a friend or act as a tool?
The tramp relied on Bella to earn the sympathy of passers-by, but did not give it the warmth of the same value. At this time, Bella obviously became a tool and was imprisoned by the tramp all day long.
Bella's situation lies in the deprivation of love.
Because of the motivation of childbirth, caregivers and parents should deprive them of their children, but this relationship is difficult to balance and last, because no one knows how much love you can get or how much you will receive. deprivation.
From this point of view, what the animal film wants to explore is actually the relationship between humans and animals.
When animal movies are more and more similar to human (starring) movies in some respect, does it mean that our attitude towards animals is gradually changing?
In the ending of "A Dog's Mission 2", Bailey completed the mission and the cycle of life. For Ethan and CJ, Bailey's existence is more like a loyal friend than a pet.
This is probably the best way to show the theme of animal movies.
With the continuous advancement of human thought, our attitude towards pets is also changing.
We start to think about what they want to express, instead of thinking about what we think they are thinking. Animals express love in many ways, but when they are with us, they always express love in the way we are most familiar with.
As My Neighbor Totoro said above, love can be expressed and displayed by behavior. Even if we cannot read their hearts, we can express our love with our bodies, and pass this love back in the most familiar way.
There are thousands of possibilities in their lives, but this time they chose you. This choice will accompany their lives and bring changes to your life. Therefore, no matter what kind of animal it is, loving them is the most important point.
The long-term way of getting along with animals is also one of the common and long-term issues of mankind.
The point is to give them enough freedom on the basis of friendship. They are not simple anthropomorphic animated characters, nor are they ordinary tame, nor are they humanized animal characters.
They are just them, on this basis, meet us.
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