"Game of the Brave 2" will be released in a few days. Before that, let's talk about the first "Game of the Brave: Battle of the Jungle". This movie is a new production of the 1995 version of "Game of the Brave". Compared with the 1995 version, "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" has its advantages, but its shortcomings are also very obvious. Next, let's talk about "Game of the Brave: Jungle Decisive" in several aspects.
(1) Background setting
The first scene of "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" was the "Board of Brave Game" that appeared on the seashore in 1996. This scene is very familiar to friends who have seen the 1995 version of "Game of the Brave". It is the last scene of the 1995 version. However, "Game of the Brave: Jungle Fight" did not continue the 1995 version in the setting, but appeared in the form of video games.
This is a very interesting idea and change. Especially in the beginning of the juvenile Tucao, no one plays board games now, so the "Board Game for the Brave" is actually stubbornly transformed into a video game, expressing a strong "advance with the times to attract you to play the game for the Brave". At the same time, this also reflects the creator's idea. The revision after more than 20 years will inevitably adapt to the current audience. This attitude is worthy of recognition.
In addition, the "Game of the Brave" itself, "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" is also very different from the 1995 version. "Game of the Brave: Jungle Decisive" is a group of people who are sucked into the "Yumanji Jungle", and they can return after completing the game step by step to save the "Yumanji Jungle". At the same time, after entering the game, everyone will be incarnate as a preset role, with different skills and weaknesses, such as Muscle Doctor, Animal Expert, etc. It can be seen that the "Game of the Brave" gameplay of "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" is mainly to complete the game task, which is closer to the electronic RPG game, which is quite interesting at first glance.
The 1995 version is a game of craps and steps. Every time you take a step, you will encounter different difficulties until someone finishes the number of steps. There are three major differences between this setting and "Game of the Brave: Jungle Decisive".
- -First, in the 1995 version, game elements appear directly and affect reality, while "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" is only played in the game space;
- -Secondly, the characters in the 1995 version only have one life, while each person in "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" has three lives;
- -Third, the 1995 version requires the characters to figure out their own way to overcome difficulties, and "Game of the Brave: Jungle Decisive" has too many preset skills.
The above three major differences have respectively affected the three-level gap between "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" and the 1995 version, and it is also the place where the story of "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" can be improved. We will talk about them one by one next.
(2) Characters
Although the characterization of "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" does not reach the highest level, it is undeniable that the characters in this movie are still pleasing, and the details are also thoughtful. Before entering the "Game of Umanji", "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" portrayed four girls with different images at a very fast pace, each with their own problems. Therefore, after entering the game, the movie naturally arranges the four people in different and ironic preset roles to create changes in the characters. The change of characters is the essence of most stories.
While telling the growth and changes of the four teenagers, "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" also interspersed the love lines of nerds and mean girls, and the friendship lines of nerds and big men. At first glance, the character design and subplots of "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" seem to be quite rich. After watching it, it is difficult to firmly say that the character design of this movie is not well designed. But "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" was too greedy when designing the character subplot.
Indeed, whether Dashi Johnson or other actors, the performance in "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" is very good, the sense of comedy is natural and in place. Dashi Johnson, who is a nerd at heart, looks very interesting. Black people act in a smart comedy. The middle-aged fat man interprets the sense of being possessed by the female soul. Looking at these characters along the way, these characters are quite likable. But the problem is that when promoting the change of characters, "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" directly uses preaching and chicken soup-style lines to turn. For example, lines such as "we can do it, you can do it" and "we do this together" often appear when movie characters encounter setbacks and difficulties. In this way, the change of the characters becomes a kind of "force twisting melon" deliberately by the creator, rather than touching the true growth of the soul. In the final analysis, the problem with the character design of "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" is that the characters are too flat and there is no rooted inner conflict.
How can we show the inner conflicts and changes of the characters? Not by words, but by doing. No matter what a person says, what he does can really tell who he is. Here, the preset skills of the game character (the third point is different) has become a constraint design. When a character encounters a difficulty, in many cases it is not through the character's own willpower, ability, and intelligence to overcome it, but through the pre-set skills of the game character. As a result, the characters in "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" rarely prove their growth and changes through actions, but resort to shallow words.
Comparing with the 1995 version, you can see that the protagonist in the old version of "Game of the Brave" has lived in the jungle for 26 years and learned various experiences, but his first thought after returning to reality was to escape. This scene shows that he has not really grown and changed.
If the characters of "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" were designed to conflict and confront the nature of the four teenagers with the default game characters, it would be dramatic and the characters would be more three-dimensional. For example, even though the timid nerd entered the body of Dashi Johnson, he was afraid to shrink in the face of difficulties. Until a certain moment, he overcame the inner hurdle and truly controlled the skills of the game's preset characters to overcome difficulties. Such a design is not uncommon. The black Spider-Man in "Spider-Man: Into the Parallel Universe" has made a good demonstration. You can refer to my previous film review "Comment on "Spider-Man: Into the Parallel Universe" ".
At the same time, due to limited space, it is very difficult to achieve the same growth and change of the four teenagers. Therefore, we focus on portraying a certain role (such as the contrast between a nerd and Dashi Johnson), and make a clear distinction, "The Brave Game" The characters in "Jungle Battle" will be more fascinating.
(3) Obstacles and predicaments
The above mentioned the third different impact, and then continue to talk about the second different impact. In terms of thrills, the 1995 version is obviously better than "Game of the Brave: Jungle Decisive", and the gap between 1 life VS 3 lives is still very obvious. In the 1995 version, what the characters have is experience and intelligence, and what they need to deal with is monsters whose fighting power is far better than them, and they have only one life, and the number of steps taken with each roll of the dice is very thrilling.
In "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle", the setting of Three Lives seems to be too gamified, and the subconscious mind also hints to the audience that "this is just a game, take it easy". Obviously, this is the intention of the film, the purpose is to strengthen the film's comedic color and entertainment attributes, and it did achieve this. However, 3 lives make "Game of the Brave" a trifling matter, and the horror and thrilling atmosphere in the 1995 version disappears.
Probably because of the sense of relaxation brought by the setting of 3 lives, the movie also seemed too trivial and relaxed when setting obstacle levels, further weakening the thrilling atmosphere. From jungle escape, market distress, traffic station competition to the final boss showdown, everything seems too easy. Especially the last villain, he should have caused huge difficulties to the protagonists, but in the end he behaved mediocrely with a lot of slots.
You know, the reason why most stories require the protagonist to overcome one after another, increasingly difficult troubles, is because the higher the risk, the greater the value. When Dashi Johnson and other characters jostling through various levels, the effect is naturally an insignificant level experience. In reality, the game is too easy, and with a 999 dollar, the joy and sense of accomplishment of customs clearance will also decrease, let alone "the brave game." On the contrary, "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" should greatly increase the difficulty of breaking through the level, and even let one or two characters die to impact the audience-this is not just a game, please take it seriously.
In addition, the plot design of "Game of the Brave: Jungle Decisive" is too limited to the default role settings. The skills and weaknesses of the preset characters are successively reflected in the subsequent plots. To some extent, the plot and scenes seem to be designed around pre-set characters, rather than based on the characters in the story. This is a very problematic design method. Although it makes the plot screen easier, it also makes the plot too fragmented and not closely related to each other.
(4) Authenticity
The authenticity of a story is very important. If we don’t believe a story, we won’t be touched. Although there are many fictional stories, they all have a certain reality basis. The simplest is the authenticity of the character's behavior and psychology, even if it is a fictional world, as long as the character is real, it is a credible story. For example, "X-Men" has a lot of superpowers, but racism is a deep foundation of reality, so the audience will accept this story. And this is one of the reasons why the 1995 version is better than "Game of the Brave: Jungle Decisive".
As mentioned in the first difference, the 1995 version of the Brave Game directly affects reality. In the game, terrible beasts, evil monkeys, and hunters will interfere with the reality of the protagonist. A closer look at the 1995 version will reveal that when monsters, evil monkeys, and poisonous mosquitoes caused panic and destruction in the town, some people in the background looted supermarket merchandise, some armed with guns, some panicked, and were indirectly affected by the police. And aunt, their fear further strengthened the thrilling atmosphere of "Game of the Brave". Through the truthfulness of the characters and the truthfulness of the background, the audience will take more seriously the growth and changes of the protagonist.
And "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" is gamified on all levels, emphasizing entertainment attributes and ignoring the most important authenticity of the story. Because of being in the game space, both the audience and the movie characters regard it as a game, so it lacks a solid reality foundation and authenticity. Especially in the bridge section where black people will explode when eating cakes, they are extremely anti-intellectual.
Concluding remarks
The changes in the setting of the background have led to various differences in the plot and characters, which in turn affected the authenticity of the story. Of course, this is not to say that the background setting of "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" is not good. In fact, if the conflict between the character's nature and the game's default role is deepened, the difficulty of going through levels is increased, and the explanation of the preset game role skills is put down, then "Game of the Brave: Jungle Battle" still has a lot of room for improvement, comparable to the 1995 version. It's not completely impossible.
Different from other series of movies, "Game of the Brave" actually every sequel can be excellent, because the continuation of the series is the setting, the sequel plot and characters can be re-created, and there is no need for the series to be too closely connected. . So here is a brief look forward to the second part, hoping to have a surprise.
Welcome to pay attention to the Toutiao account and the public account of the same name (Fugue Film Review)
View more about Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle reviews
