Compared with "Superman Family 2", I may prefer the short film "Baby Bao".
When the subtitles of "Special Plus Screening" hit the screen and the Chinese-style soundtrack sounded at the right time, I thought it was the first time I saw a Pixar animated short in a domestic theater. Thinking about it later, it was also posted once in "Cars" in 2006. In addition, I didn't pay much attention to the release information of this film before, so "Baby Bao" suddenly appeared, which was really a surprise to me.
"Baby Bao" is a montage animation short film, the look and feel is similar to the montage of "Flying House" and other Pixar works, but it is still moving. It is worth mentioning that the author of this short film is a Chinese female director named Shi Zhiyu, who was born in China and grew up in Canada. The short ten-minute content portrays a Chinese family living abroad quite deeply, and the description of the family love that blood is thicker than water is also quite touching.
When it came to the feature film, it didn't bring me too many surprises. The first one was 14 years ago, when Pixar was in its prime, firmly occupying the position of Hollywood animation boss. It is almost equivalent to Blizzard in the game industry and Naughty Dog now. From this point of view, "Superman Family 2" seems to be another bowl of sentimental rice, but the taste has been diluted by a long time.
In this film, I still see the status quo of the jumping lights lingering in aging. Now, the soul of John Lasseter has made Disney's animation prosperous, but Pixar himself is getting more and more tired. "Inside Out" was a rejuvenation, but the subsequent "Finding Nemo 2" and "Cars 3" were lackluster (in fact, I think "Cars 3" is slightly better than the first two). Last year's "Dream Hunting Travel Notes" made people see infinite hope. So now...I can see that Brad Bird is trying to give The Incredibles 2 a high quality, but it's still a bit overwhelmed.
Pixars in the past were good at completing narratives with exaggerated characters, creative fantasy settings, and real rich details. Whether it's the "scare charge" of Monster Power, Inc., or the idea of a toy resurrection in Toy Story, including the whimsical "Flying Home" to the most recent "Inside Out," it's amazing. In addition, Pixar is also good at rediscovering the highlights of traditional themes, such as the family search in "Finding Nemo", the mid-life crisis in "Superman Family", and even the inspirational "Ratatouille" and "Dream Travel". Missing, makes the subject matter that we have chewed countless times to regain its radiance.
This is a positive example of a "routine". In fact, the routines we often mention when we talk about movies refer to the structure and techniques of genre films. From this point of view, it is not a derogatory term, it does not mean vulgar, boring, or nothing new. There is no good or bad in the routine itself, because the point of a genre film is to ponder the audience's psychology, summarize the experience of countless successes and failures, and evolve a set of creative rules suitable for the vast majority of people, so as to maximize the entertainment effect. This empirical skill should be worthy of our affirmation.
If some movies make you feel "routine", then it is very likely that its routine is useless. That is, the content and form are not integrated and unified, so it will make you feel "cookie cutter". However, we can still see many wonderful genre films with routines, such as Christopher Nolan.
Today, Disney is the largest "routine factory" in the world. Marvel, Pixar, Lucas, all hold many super Franchises. Whether it is the Avengers series or the Star Wars series, they are all masters of routines. We shout about aesthetic fatigue every year, but every year we can't hold back the call of these series, and they will be sent to the box office obediently. Sometimes, new surprises can be seen from the film. Pixar, on the other hand, is a good player at playing routines. It rarely makes you feel "vulgar". Instead, it can see you snot and tears every time.
2004's "Superman Family" was full of creativity at the time. At that time, there was no such majestic and complex heroic movie universe as Marvel and DC. Only "X-Men" and "Spider-Man" fought each other. But Pixar sniffed the superhero trend slightly and teased it gently with the cartoon.
The good-looking of the previous work lies in the novel angle and rich story, and then captures the emotional theme that Pixar is good at from the spectacle images. As a middle-aged superhero, Bob's daily price is two points and one line in the insurance company and the family, boring and dull. A life of financial constraints inevitably caused him to have a mid-life crisis. Faced with his wife and teenage kids, Bob ultimately needs a battle to vent his frustrations.
But 14 years have passed, and the primary school students who watched the first movie have probably entered college, and the unborn children grew up under the baptism of Marvel DC. If "Superman 2" doesn't have a stronger story or alternative ideas, it is bound to be submerged in the wave of superheroes, even if it is a Pixar animation. From the point of view of the finished film, Brad Bird did not find any better ideas, and the superhero theme is basically rotten now.
This work changed the positions of the two parents, Bob and Helen. Bob became the one who looked after the children at home, and Helen became the star hero under the spotlight, carrying the banner of the legalization of superpowers.
After the film has passed the construction stage, it is basically a parallel editing of a two-line narrative. While telling how Helen fights crime, Bob plays the role of watching children at home until insomnia. To be honest, Bob's part is better than Helen's. We have really watched too many heroes who punish evil and promote good. Helen's action scenes did not produce more flowers, but the rubber band motorcycle was quite interesting, but it was no longer used.
On Bob's side, it is a collection of children who like to hear about being mad at him: to solve Violet's love troubles, and to digest Dashiell's excess energy, while also facing the fact that little Jack has the strongest superpower in the whole family. However, Pixar did not contribute any fresh details this time. The few episodes in which Bob watched the baby were interesting, but they also seemed familiar. I thought that little Jack would shine after revealing his superpowers, but in fact, neither the final battle nor the family relationship has become a key role in turning the situation around - of course, this is just my personal expectation.
And in this sequel, there are really a lot of waste dramas and cumbersome characters. Or many scenes are too long, dragging down the rhythm. Mrs. Yi completely became an illustrative cameo character, and her appearance was purely to explain the superpowers of little Jack to the audience, and then design a dress incidentally. And this paragraph is also very general. The role of Cool Ice Man feels much more tasteless than the previous episode, and basically does not play the role that a supporting role should have, and its self-creation is not full. So in order not to make him seem too useless, let him contribute necessary help at the critical moment of each battle, but this kind of bridge will appear repetitive after two or three times.
There are also big consortiums that suddenly appeared. Such a setting basically gave up the possibility of creating suspense, especially in such a very standard Hollywood family carnival animation. So sure enough, the big villain appeared in this enterprise. Because if there is no conspiracy set up for this giant company, then this large-scale role will be very top-heavy.
These characters refer to the various superheroes who appeared later, such as nausea man, time traveler, psychic man, brick man, and spicy deaf man. They also didn't give people a refreshing feeling. Superpowers change the soup but not the medicine. In terms of positioning, it is not a pure spoof character, but it is not serious enough. The time-traveler with the most scenes is basically Fan Bingbing in "Reversing the Future", or it can be said to be the physical version of "Portal". Apart from constantly "confessing" to the elastic girl as a fan girl, she has not developed much and is very flat. Other heroes are even more facialized.
As well as the male classmate whose memory was washed away at the beginning, he thought that he would play more role in advancing the plot later, but it turned out to be useless except to set up troubles for Violet. Kind of forced to create conflict for the sake of conflict. Many of the scenes and characters in this episode will feel that way, starting with a heavy-handed debut, and then with a light curtain call.
Perhaps it is the movement and editing that fully inherit the advantages of the first work. If each of Pixar's cartoons has its own unique highlights, such as the pantomime-style performance of more than half of "Wall E", then "Superman Family" convinces the audience and industry insiders because of its smooth and skillful camera movement and editing. This aspect is completely under the tutelage of the most classic Hollywood action movies. Apart from the fact that the second part is mediocre in other respects, this is not lost. Whether it's the drill battle at the beginning, or the rubber motorcycle chasing the high-speed rail, to the final yacht battle, the action design and audio-visual solutions are still quite outstanding.
As for the shaping of the villain, it can only be said that it is not lost. When I first came up, I felt so scary and awesome, but later I found out that it was nothing more than that. Roughly, I want to go the way of the clown and the scarecrow, that is, use my own mind and distorted values to fight against the righteous heroes who are not very good at brain teasing. The taste came out at first, but the final finish was a little mundane.
So we can see that when all this does not fit well with the content itself, the sense of "routine" will be very eye-catching. Even a master such as Pixar will do the same if they don't do well. In addition, I don't think it is necessary to delve into so-called serious topics, such as what is the status of women, simulacra societies, and so on. How deep can you expect such an entertainment-focused animation to go into the discussion? If these themes are involved but not expressed in the necessary depth, then these serious topics are only flavorings for entertainment, and there is no point in complimenting them.
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