To Steal from the Reel

Justyn 2021-10-20 17:30:59

The mechanical genius in the movie "Three Fools" has a famous saying: "What is a machine? It is a machine that can save people's effort." Very interesting definition. If the machine can save people's effort, then the vast majority of people in Taiwan's so-called high-tech industry, from bosses to assemblers, can be said to be robots. Why? Because they are all OEMs for Americans, they have saved Americans' efforts.

After telling the jokes, come back to talk about this movie. The plot summary and various benefits of this film are done by others, so there is no need to say more here. The most interesting thing about this film is the various bargain games designed by the screenwriter. Everyone can think about it: Is it a series of negotiations, gambling, and exchange of conditions that make up this movie? The most interesting thing is that the most powerful trader in the movie is not someone else, but the kid Max who claims to be 11 years old. He is the smallest in age, but the most powerful.

Max meets Charlie for the first time (the two confrontation is like a bullfighting), Max decides the victory as soon

as he speaks: "How much did he give you (buy my custody)?" He broke the adult's trick and disrupted the opponent's balance. , To seize the opportunity to negotiate. "50,000? ----Then half of them belong to me. Give me half of me and I will leave immediately." He knows very well that he is the axis of interest for guardianship, the most important stakeholder, and any transaction must be passed. He is off. Anyone who wants to engage in illicit discs, he will eat black. "What? You bought the robot with the money? Okay, so half of the ownership of the robot is mine. I'm going to watch the game with me!" He is very aware of the value of the machine, the money is gone, but the robot is traded with money ( It's more valuable to Max) It's still there, he's going to make a decision. "Do you want to go by yourself? The car key is here. Do you want to go to the sewer to salvage it?" Don't say this is a threat. The Americans call it leverage. Articulation skills.

This is just the beginning. More behind. More exciting. In order not to discourage everyone from watching the movie, I just want to say two more points. First, the final Atom vs. Zeus battle was also initiated by Max. He grabbed the microphone in the boxing ring (in front of the media) and shouted out a challenge book. Why? Regardless of whether Zeus takes the battle or not, regardless of the victory or defeat, he can't suffer anyway. The unknown soldier dared to challenge the King of Fighting. The topic has broken the table. How much economic benefits are derived from the topic performance, the big deal is to do a good business and get back to its original form.

Second, the reason why the Atom final battle can be started is that Max's provocation is just a starting point, and it's not enough. At the critical moment, the breakup between Max and Charlie came, and what was even worse was that Charlie was reimbursed for his guardianship and fighting spirit at the same time. Without Charlie's participation, Atom was just a piece of scrap in front of Zeus. How to bring the dead back to life? Max played with psychological leverage again, but it was different from the initial gameplay. This time he turned himself into a positive benefit pursued by economics, and turned his family affection into the fulcrum of leverage. Max yelled at Charlie in the square of which New York department store, "Do you think you are not worthy of being my dad? Why don't you try to win me back!". In the movie, Max challenged two people, one is the Japanese-Russian coalition who manipulates Zeus, and the other is his father Charlie. In these two rounds, regardless of the final victory or defeat, he did not suffer.

With this analysis, it seems that the film is just teaching children to be naughty and mischievous with their parents. Of course this is not the case. I just take the point that I find most interesting to share with you. Why is it interesting? There are two more reasons that can be stated as follows.

First, the common point of these psychological levers and trading games is to beat the big with the small and win the strong with the weak. In the story, Max and his son manipulated the robot Atom repeatedly to beat the big with small, and beat the strong with the weak. The internal and external logic is completely opened up, and the script structure is very clever.

Second, I remembered that Zhuangzi once said: "If there is a machine, there must be an organic matter, and an organic matter must have an organic heart." If you use "Three Fools" who also possesses the wisdom of Zhuangzi to explain Zhuangzi, the meaning will be more explicit. If the so-called machine is everything that can be used to save energy, then the so-called movement is all the scheming and talking skills that can be used to teach others to be obedient and work hard for oneself. Zhuangzi thinks that movement is not a good thing, of course there is his reason. But this world is the mechanical world, it is the movement world. We don't engage in tactics, but we should always know how others do it.

I highly recommend any Taiwanese who are parents to take advantage of driving to send children to tuition English, endorsements and mental arithmetic, etc. during his free time after class. Let's watch this movie. While your children are studying English, learning endorsements and mental arithmetic, children in other parts of the world may have easily learned all kinds of transactions and even games through interaction with their parents' lives—the so-called "enforcement" ----The concept and technology.


So, is this movie actually teaching us to worship machine and ingenuity? of course not.

If the effort-saving and machine-minded game is made from start to finish, this movie will be over. Because labor-saving means that there is no direct or real-time relationship between the actor and the act, and the character (the manipulator of the robot puppet) does not go to the real stage (the ring). If you save effort from beginning to end, the story will inevitably be overly mechanical and lose its sense of reality. There will be steel but not real. But the general audience’s purpose of watching movies is to break away from reality and move toward illusion, but in the end they still want to recognize the reality in the illusion. When the audience projects themselves onto the characters, what they hope in the end is a sense of identity, unity and selflessness.

This is why when the movie is played to the last moment, when Charlie finally turns on Atom's real-time motion imitation, and finally participates in the battle of life in the least labor-saving and least indirect way, we will feel the extreme The real reason for the intense dramatic tension. The various effort-saving games in the first 100 minutes are all prepared for the last five minutes of effortlessness (this is also a psychological lever). When the smooth editing connects the dead robot in the rope and the dead champion outside the rope into one breath, the audience's sense of identity and selflessness naturally burns up from the bottom of their hearts.

From this point of view, Zhuangzi is still right. If you always have a keen mind in your chest, "If pure white is not prepared, pure white is not prepared, then God is born uncertain; God is born uncertain, and the Tao is not contained!"

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Extended Reading

Real Steel quotes

  • Bailey Tallet: 1200 miles for a kiss.

    Charlie Kenton: Worth it. So worth it.

  • Max Kenton: Holy shit, it's Tak Mashido.