(The article was first published on MTIME.com, ID: Fire Unicorn ST) Anyone who has a certain amount of reading should have more or less known about the magical classic science fiction film "Strange Forms". Fans who have heard roughly will think of the monsters in the film that humans are possessed by extraterrestrial cells and mutate; friends who have watched the film will be impressed by the process of the expedition members in the film calculating each other to "catch ghosts"; as for me, this Recall that some views that are not so follow the trend have been put forward-someone should have expressed similar views, but there are very few speakers. Based on the only relationship between each character in the film, I made a bold guess: Even if there is no strange appearance, the members of the expedition will sooner or later due to the influence of ideology, they will intrigue and even hurt each other. ! The two most obvious contradictions in the film are the Norwegian expedition team who chased the Huskies in the opening scene and the American expedition team as the protagonist. In the beginning, the Norwegians drove a helicopter to chase down the dog that had been possessed by the strange form in order to remove the roots. Later, the American expedition killed the opponent in the name of humanitarianism and took in the Husky. Later, at the expedition station, the husky appeared at night and turned into a monster with teeth and claws. While killing other dogs, it also infected the members of the expedition team with the cell body that continued life. Some people may ask, if the American expedition knew that something was wrong with the huskies from the beginning, would they not just squeeze it with the Norwegian expedition? I don’t think so. Not to mention that this is a strange shape disguised as a husky, even if it is really an ordinary husky, even if TA is a fugitive, the American expedition might try to protect him. The film was released during the Cold War period. Although Norway was barely neutral under the Cold War situation, it would be no different from the Soviet Union to provoke the U.S. authorities in that situation, and Norway is not considered socialist. A member of the camp, so for the "big brother of capitalism" America, I dare not speak even if he is unfaithful, for fear that he will be detached if he makes a mistake, just like the Norwegian explorer in the film who wants to kill but is kind and not rewarded; the American brother is here The most arrogant at this stage, as long as it is good for maintaining the image of a “superpower”, foreigners or things, no matter how good or bad, can be protected as much as possible, and it seems that there is no need to be responsible at all using “humanitarian” as an excuse.
Then there are internal contradictions, one of which is the contradiction between the scientist and the explorer. And its root is the contradiction between the American people and the "bricks" of the American scientific community.
For a long time in the last century, the American people tended to dislike scientists, especially those who announced new discoveries about aliens. They sneered at them. In the last century, for various indescribable political purposes, the government published a large amount of information about UFOs, either true or false. Since World War I, young Americans, girls and wives who have never seen the world have been fooled by the government and the brick family. However, with the popularization of American national education and the development of information dissemination, more and more American citizens have discovered and realized that the alien information shown to us by the brick family is not as "real" as the fictional aliens in the movie! As a result, more and more people began to resist the "alien theory," and even later even cults came to intervene until by chance, the people themselves discovered the inexplicable UFO phenomenon.
Despite being slapped in the face by UFO, the mission of ZF can not be easily discarded! Fortunately, the art world is relatively free. If you don't get angry in reality, you can show it in the plot of the movie! So even though in the movie, the explorers are bored with the babbling scientists, and the scientists look down on them who look uneducated and rude, but the director outside the movie can help them out, or make these scientists become alien villains when they appear. The first batch of cannon fodder was either simply set as "ZF and the scientists themselves are aliens" (Carpenter later did it in "Extreme Space").
There is also a contradiction that has existed for a long time in the real world, that is, the contradiction between whites and blacks. To put it bluntly, it is racial discrimination. Racial discrimination has always been a sub-health phenomenon in Western society. If it's just a little trouble in the peaceful days, but in times of emergency, people of color, represented by blacks, are often left out or helpless. In "Strange Form", in the process of testing the true physique of the members of the expedition, the black team members were the first to be suspected. In the final climax of the film, although both the black team members and the white team members played by Kurt Russell survived, he held a musket with a suspicious appearance. As everyone knows, this has achieved the director’s express purpose: before the big boss appeared, the director arranged for the black team members to go to unknown. When the audience guessed based on his situation in the first half of the plot, he would feel that he would be hidden. Even if it weren’t, the grotesque form will stare at him when he is isolated, and become a big boss with him, but the result is that the big boss is equally ignored but hardly suspected by Western audiences. The doctor changed it; in the end, the big boss died, and the black team members suddenly appeared-if this is a white character, then there will be two questions about him: Is he a normal human or an incarnation of a strange shape? And the black team members will have two questions: even if he is a normal human, will he make an excuse to burn the white team member because of his resentment against the white person, or will he be burned to death by the white team member because of his congenital discrimination as a black person? In this way, the ending of the film leaves more room for the audience to think about. The influence of ideology is subtle, no matter in the movie "Strange Shapes" or in the real society. The existence of the "weird" is only a catalyst for the contradictions between the characters in the movie. It can be said that under the teasing of ruthless fate, the so-called "belief" that some people once held in order to make a stand is suddenly fragile. It is ridiculous to think about it. PS In "Strange Forms", the player with the clearest mind, the most decisive, and special consideration of the overall situation is Kurt Russell. At that time, he might not have thought of it. After more than 30 years, he actually played a "weird" role in the atypical comic book "Guardians of the Galaxy 2"... Hexi, he might be talking about.
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