-this article is hardly a film review.
No matter how fierce the controversy is, the characteristics of the "Transformers" live-action movie series are in some respects representative of hard to ignore, so I tremble with courage and cheeks, and refer to Wu Si's "Law of Blood Remuneration" to create such a new term and try to outline it. The laws in these chaos. If the verbosity is too much, just blame the midnight coffee for its good effect.
Generally speaking, the adaptation of a masterpiece is always a good thing with half the effort. The reputation of the original work itself is equivalent to a large amount of publicity, and its fans are a force that cannot be ignored. As long as the film producer releases the corresponding news, there will always be fans to follow up and spread, so the film naturally has a certain amount of potential audiences and even free promotional tools, and the film information will slowly penetrate into other areas at an excellent speed. This advantage is It is incomparable to a purely original story. In recent years, a large number of movies with "household" stories and characters have emerged in the Mainland, even at the risk of crashing, which is roughly the factor.
In theory, whenever an influential cultural product (such as novels, animations, games, and even the movie itself) adaptation project book is put on the table of the film producer, the internal game starts silently. . Is it a conservative attack, or a new start, a small beating, or a big deal of bluffing. Both naturally have their pros and cons. But no matter what kind of thinking, the so-called "fans pay" will be taken into consideration in the whole process of work. Simply put, the producer will carefully calculate how to "satisfy as many fans as possible with the lowest possible cost." The number of fans is used as a weight to move around on the scale, because the movie is not made for them after all.
Fans of the original work will naturally transition into prospective audiences of the film, so it is logical that the director is almost obliged to try his best to visualize the original work. But the problem is that too much catering to fans will inevitably affect the input of other audiences. After all, for any masterpiece, fans who have seen it and are passionate about it are always relatively small. Those followers who have only studied or heard about it and maintained a certain interest may determine the wider spread of word-of-mouth effects.
Besides, fans are also divided into many categories. Some nympho characters, some are obsessed with setting, some are well-maintained in the story, and some pay more attention to certain elements in the original. For them, there are always some imaginary models in their hearts before watching a movie, and they will subconsciously refer to the comparison during the viewing process. For a normal work, the boundary between "good" and "bad" is inherently fuzzy, and if there are various restrictions at the beginning, every step after determining the direction will be more like walking on thin ice. The four words "difficult to adjust" are not an excuse for editors and directors.
Furthermore, there are inherent barriers between the genres such as novels, TV, and movies. The content presented in a certain way, the effect of another way will inevitably change. Secondly, because the times are always advancing, the aesthetics are changing, and the tastes are changing, it is bound to be impossible for many contents to be put on a new stage in a complete appearance. Moreover, we assume that even reindustrialized commercial films need to be created, and I am afraid that any creator will not be reconciled to becoming a craftsman who is purely trying to figure out what to do. The ambition of the director can be big or small, so I won't talk about it here.
A good account depends on how to calculate it. If a movie faces a hundred viewers standing in a row, the interest in the original work diminishes from left to right. So naturally, the studio will find that no matter how they shoot, the ten people on the far left of the team may not be satisfied. But these ten people will never give up paying attention to the news of the movie. Even if they publish negative information from start to finish, some of them will still pay for tickets. Therefore, the feelings of these ten people can be ignored, and there is no need to pay them "fans". Zhang Jizhong once complained in Qiangqiang's threesome that he was always questioned when he was filming Jin Yong's drama. Some super book fans will always tell him that you can't move this sentence and you can't change it, so his final attitude is to ignore it. For the time being, regardless of his motives for making excuses and the behavior of secretly changing concepts. After all, this situation does exist, and it is bound to come to this result. On the contrary, when Zhang Huo continued to shoot down part by part, he slowly began to make a sound of "actually improving" and "some places are good".
The ten people on the far right do not have a good impression on this subject, so unless they are photographed in a different way, they have no desire to consume. But this kind of catering is basically unpredictable, and the price/performance ratio is too low. Of course, it is also not paid attention to. It is much easier to attract the ten people to their left. But if you consider adding other elements that may be attractive in a limited space, such as celebrities, such as genres, such as pornography, it may increase their chances of buying tickets. For filmmakers and directors, money has already been spent. In addition to creating a good box office as much as possible, it is more important to turn more people into fans of the "movie itself". If the first part dissatisfies the original fans and causes audience loss, there is a new market for the second part to cultivate. Therefore, some unpredictable "fan rewards" are accumulated and will be repaid very well. For example, in the three live-action editions of "Bian", the sound generator is never repaired so as to take the opportunity to sell the cute Bumblebee.
The higher your chances of buying tickets, the less important your opinions and expectations will be. The main thing the filmmaker needs to do is to keep the names and details of the story, so that fans can establish connections with points of interest, and then make some bold changes to create novelty and strangeness, and lose the fan's more left-handedness. Danger, to attract a larger number of fans' attention. Calculating in this direction, we return to what we said before. What the boss needs to care most about is the group with the largest number of people close to the center of the team, which is the most "ordinary" audience. The greater the investment in the film, the greater the dependence on them. Their cognition and requirements for this film are particularly ambiguous and vague. What they might like to watch, the filmmaker puts it in. After determining that they can attract this group, the filmmaker may look back and think about whether there is room to restore some "classic scenes", insert some "classic lines", and put in the easter eggs that some senior fans can only see. , Such as inviting the original author, voice actor, and the protagonist of the previous version to come and make some nostalgic gimmicks. So we are very clearly aware that in fact, the key factor that determines how an adapted film is made is no different from any other film. Business is business.
Of course, some people will ask, why can't you make a movie that can please the fans and really make the public feel good? Of course, everyone wants this. But to achieve this, it also requires changes in various cost ratios, and it will also increase uncertain costs. In-depth market research, script running-in discussions, director selection, and scene preparation and prop production will "seemlessly" increase the shooting cycle, and you can't guarantee how much money the money will bring in return. Between a third-line actor who can play the role appropriately and a popular fried chicken with at least 1 million movie viewers, the choice may not be so easy.
Whether it is willing or not is one thing, and whether it is possible or not is another. As a fan, I can only pray. A director is a person who has the ability and love.
Unfortunately, "Transformers" met Mike Bay.
A subject matter will be adapted, sometimes because the promoter is a fan, and sometimes because the producer feels that certain conditions have reached the maturity. The most famous case of the former is probably Peter Jackson looking for someone to shoot "The Lord of the Rings" with a plan. Of course, he was lucky enough to get the support of the new line boss. In many cases, the director himself pooled money to find someone on his own, and finished the filming with regrets under relatively difficult circumstances. There are countless examples of the latter.
The original animation of "Transformers" has the following characteristics: First of all, its source G1 animation is a set of relatively old dramas. The children who had feelings have grown up now, and the degree of accounting details is limited. Fans of books such as "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" have a completely different overlap with movie fans. Secondly, this series was originally produced to advertise Hasbro's toys, in the layout of the big story. In fact, it is relatively casual, focusing on portraying the pros and cons of different characters, and even arranges specific single episodes for certain autobots. Except for the personality protagonists such as Bumblebee Inspector Jack, the more marginal ones fly by. Mountain recorder gliders have been treated like this, but these contents are difficult to fit into the length of the movie. Third, the animation perspective was aimed at Transformers from the beginning. The Americans with the shadow of the Cold War naturally wrote the arms race and the energy crisis into the struggle between the two factions, whether it was the Japanese animation or the sequel of the Beastman series. , The stage moved from the earth to the universe, traveling through time and space, but the theme remained basically unchanged. However, if the movie is also made in this way, the meaning of the so-called "live-action version" will become very weak. On the contrary, it is not as cost-effective as a DreamWorks style three-dimensional animation (in fact, fans should expect this idea more), but the whole project is The nature has changed. The most basic visual effect-"deformation", the precious thing is to be dismantled from a real car.
The live-action version of "Transformers" was born decades after cartoons. The key point is that the level of special effects has broken through the bottleneck. The idea of "mechanical changes with the conservation of physical and logical energy" can finally make more realistic CG images. Once the special effects department is launched, the investment will not be low, so it must be done in the direction of big investment and big return to be safer. The filmmaker may be worried that if he chooses a director with a more fan mentality, he will only focus on realizing his childhood dreams, ignoring that the main summer consumer is today's teenagers. They basically have no Transformers complex, and the strange encounters of the big robot on the screen may not be as attractive to them as the boy next door mowing wet on the grass. So Mike Bay claimed from the beginning that he was not a fan. To make this movie, he had to do what he wanted.
The result is very clear, his approach is to photograph Transformers as "alien". Non-my race, no need to pay attention. There is no need to shape characters, and no need to invest in emotions, which greatly reduces the cost of creation. No matter which one, the perspective has always been firmly locked on the human side. The Transformers scenes are suppressed to as few as possible, and the martial arts are hot enough. The literary dramas only provide the most basic explanations. The functional coolness and comics are all "fans" for the intermediate audience. Because stunt modeling is the result of a strong team, some people shouting "This product is not Optimus Prime" can not overshadow the voice of "Wow, it's so cool." Ignoring the part of "watching the fun", even fans will have people who are really happy just watching their childhood idols appear on the IMAX screen. On the contrary, the voice of doubt will disturb the viewers who have received the "fans" to further devote themselves to the appreciation, and then further argue, the shortcomings of the original work will be turned out instead. As a result, some fans were isolated and turned into untimely spoilers.
If there is a quota for the Transformers drama, the free time is basically reserved for human actors to reduce costs. And these human dramas are not written according to the normal commercial film level, because it is not necessary. On the other hand, the audience is looking at Transformers. As long as the literary drama of humans can be embellished, even if it is a little bit boring overall, you have to bear it. The first part of Hong Xiu Tian Fan concluded that the line of writing strong water was to pull the female agent out, and the female agent was to steal information to attract black people, and this black person came out mainly for funny (so recently In the third part, Ken Jeong plays a wretched man. It has a somewhat dramatic effect.)...The funny itself and the close-up of Megan’s buttocks and Optimus Prime’s knife are in the same position. Nostalgia does not seem to be more important than the expression of hormones. How important is it. And this approach, because of the impressive results of the first film, proves that it is generally successful in business.
The lower limit will naturally continue to decline.
So in fact, when it comes to the third part, the audience has to delve into how mentally retarded the story is, how vain the laws of physics are, how blunt the character logic is, and how boring the exaggerated and grotesque human supporting roles are. Don't care about the results of co-indulgence. The "fans pay" unique to the movie version has successfully created a group of audiences who are addicted to this world of fun and flames. As long as the play runs fast enough, they will feel "okay."
From an independent point of view, for a commercial film such as "Moonlight Time", it is naturally a bit negative to say that it is bad, but in any case it can not be said to be excellent, even mediocre is almost meaning, and regardless of the more demanding science fiction film, even if compared with 90 Those action movies that blow out of the age, "Moontime" can actually make people watch it without even a bit of aftertaste. The key is that Mike Bay has effectively established a special industry standard of "what kind of plot do you watch in this kind of movie", and the monotony of the battle, the lack of imagination in the action, and the lazy design of the scene seem to be sprinkled with a layer of sparkle. Of gold powder.
The story goes down in its own style, and it doesn't matter if it becomes self-talking. If it is good or bad, it loses its true meaning. Tucao has the joy of Tucao, and 3D has 3D dizziness. What is desperate is that the law of powder pay will continue to work. As long as you like a story, it may be counted like this once.
Finally, let's talk about my personal opinion. I don't like "Transformers 3". This series is increasingly lacking in a very important thing in the continuation.
respect.
The minimum respect for the role.
The life and death of all Transformers belong to the technical stage, just to arrange the lowest-level "fans" service for the director. In fact, looking back on "Avatar", even from the story line, we all guessed that all the strange animals on Pandora will eventually join the fighting army, functionally it is a "smart soldier" that needs no explanation. But because the actor earnestly learned to hunt and pray in a low voice, he quickly ended the pain of the prey. You will feel that they have lived. Together with the entire ecology, they all exist. The director joins us in respecting the world he created.
And Mike Bay, who even his own world is just exploiting and bombing, and Mike Bay who treats metamorphosis as a purely technical juggling, how can he expect him to respect you audiences?
View more about Transformers: Dark of the Moon reviews
