The one I'm going to talk about today is an American drama that is seriously underestimated and easily overlooked.
The beautiful and pure tone of this show, the sci-fi setting is ethereal and unique, which makes people feel extremely comfortable.
It's Ring Story .
"The Ring Story" was originally a collection of illustrated short stories, written by Swedish sci-fi and fantasy illustrator Simon Starlenhager. The show is based on this illustration collection, as well as an extra "The Ring Story Cosplay Table". Tour" adapted from.
The first season of "The Ring Story" has a total of 8 episodes, each episode is a short story, and each episode is independent of each other, but the content of the 8 episodes is related to each other, forming a larger circle and story, very Meaningful.
Since the launch of "Ring Story", perhaps due to the production cost, there has been very little publicity, which has also caused many people to not know the existence of the show.
And from the perspective of the narrative style of "Ring Story", it is obviously different from the fast pace of business, and there is no grand sci-fi action scene, but slows down the audience's viewing steps, and has a lot of blank space and silence in the audio-visual, allowing you to have Take enough time to slowly savor the psychic impact of each story.
If you like sci-fi works like "Blade Runner 2049", which is so eloquent, but with exquisite pictures and deep stories, then "Ring Story" will be very suitable for your taste.
Next, we will review and analyze the episodes of "Ring Story", and then extend and deconstruct the mysterious sci-fi world behind "Ring Story".
first episode loop
Because it is an American TV series, the background of "Ring Story" was set in the 1980s, and the location was set in Mercer Town, Ohio, USA, but in fact, the scene art in the film is very Nordic style.
Almost all the people living in this small town are influenced by a Mercer underground loop physics experiment project.
As mentioned at the beginning of the film, the project is directed by an elder Russ Willard, and the Ring project has been running for many years to explore the mysteries of the universe.
But before the universe was revealed, people were affected by various strange events caused by the loopback project, which brought trouble and thinking to many families in this town.
The first episode begins with a little girl named Lolita who, like many of us in childhood, is curious about the outside world.
Lolita grew up in a single-parent family, and her mother worked in an underground loop laboratory for a long time, resulting in Lolita's lack of love and independence.
One day, Lolita came home and learned that her mother had taken something very important in the laboratory and wanted to do a secret experiment at home.
As a result of the experiment, when Lolita came home from school the next day, she could no longer find her home. The house she used to live in became a large open space, as if the house had never existed. Only a black stone remained.
So, Lolita's mother-hunting adventure began, and she also met a boy named Cole, and the two went together to find Lolita's mother.
During the search, they found that the black stone left behind could be suspended in the air, which also showed that this stone was the cause of the disappearance of the house and Mother Lolita.
Afterwards, they went to the door of the laboratory and wanted to ask the security about the whereabouts of Lolita's mother, but told Cha that there was no such person, and the security then called Cole's mother, who was also a senior in the laboratory.
At this time, the mystery was finally revealed. It turned out that Cole's mother was named Lolita. When Lolita was a child, she traveled to decades and met herself.
It turned out that the black stone that Lolita’s mother stole from the laboratory at that time was the core of the research in the Loop Loop Laboratory. This giant spherical dark core is composed of many black stones, which may also be the original intention of human research on it.
In the end, the adult Lolita communicated deeply with her childhood self, unraveling their own knots, and the two time and space self have grown and thought.
Little Lolita will eventually return to her own time and space, but the house and her mother will not appear again, and little Lolita will start a new life.
The protagonist of this episode is Lolita. It seems that at a certain moment in her life, she accidentally entered a small cycle. Her childhood experiences affected herself when she grew up. Traveling through, once again deepened the understanding of life, especially the love for his child Cole.
There is a saying that we use a lot these days, and we all end up living the way we hate.
In this episode of Lolita's loopback story, what we want to express is whether we can often look back on our past and strive to make ourselves live more clearly.
Second episode transpose
The protagonist of the second episode is Lolita's eldest son and Cole's older brother Jacob, who is a somewhat introverted and well-behaved warm man.
An upright adolescent Jacob has a crush on Mei, a Chinese woman, but has never had the courage to make friends with Mei.
Jacob has a good friend Danny, who is strong and handsome, and is the favorite object of many girls.
One day, the two found a circular device that looked like a Saiyan spaceship in the forest. Out of curiosity, Jacob got into it. As a result, something unexpected happened. Jacob and Danny exchanged consciousness, which is Jacob's mind went into Danny's body.
The usage of this circular transposition is very simple. As long as one of them stands outside the device and the other enters the device, the consciousness can be exchanged.
So Danny decided to swap bodies with Jacob for a day to experience their different lives.
During this day, Jacob kissed a woman who had been fond of Danny for a long time in Danny's body, and experienced the taste of youth.
A day later, Danny wanted to continue swapping bodies, and Jacob could only reluctantly agree, but soon after, Jacob found that Danny had used his body to successfully catch up with Mei, who had been secretly in love with him for a long time.
Annoyed, Jacob wanted to replace his body immediately, but Danny refused. The biggest reason was that after Danny changed his body, he would go to work in the mine, but Danny's biggest wish was to work in an underground laboratory. , In order to change his destiny, Danny wants to stay in Jacob's body all the time.
And Jacob can't explain to his family now, Jacob can only run to the forest by himself, and then disappear without a trace.
After many days, many people are looking for the whereabouts of Danny. At this time, only Danny, who is in Jacob's body, knows where Jacob has gone.
Sure enough, Jacob entered the circular device by himself. He wanted to try to see if he could change his body back. But what was disappointing was that, standing not far from the circular device, there was a man who often walked in the forest. The robot, Jacob's consciousness and the robot interchanged.
The robot itself has no consciousness and soul, which caused Danny's body to become a vegetable, while Jacob's consciousness went into the robot's body.
Danny, who had no regrets, went to the prototype device and found that the device had been disassembled, that is to say, the exchange of bodies was a foregone conclusion.
Danny, who was full of guilt and self-blame, would have to live in Jacob's body for the rest of his life.
Poor Jacob.
This episode should be regarded as the most abusive of the whole season. We also learned that in the background world of the episode, many devices have been researched. Maybe they were useless or not found at the time, but after the passage of time and precipitation, it seems that there are New features, but those features were forgotten and placed in a corner.
We also saw from this episode that human nature is selfish and selfish, and Danny wanted to get rid of his destiny and use this opportunity to make a new face, but he didn't think more about the impact on Jacob and the two families, and even in the end led to an irreversible outcome.
Episode 3 stalled
The protagonist of the third episode came to the Chinese woman Mei, who was in love with Jacob (Danny) at this time.
But at the same time, at a wedding of someone else, Mei met Ethan, a lame man of Chinese descent. The two got along and gradually fell in love. Yes, even though Mei had a boyfriend, she still started a relationship with Ethan. .
The protagonist of this episode is May, so the progress of Jacob (Danny) and her relationship is not explained too much, which causes the plot to be a bit disconnected.
Mei usually likes to modify and research some devices. One day, she accidentally found a device like a kettle. After repairing it, she found that when the device was turned on, the time in the whole world stopped, and the time of herself wearing the device bracelet continued. forward.
After that, May shared this with Ethan, and brought Ethan into this still world. The two began to play crazy in the still world, did a lot of outrageous things, and began to fall in love, temporarily forgetting the troubles of the real world. and relationships with others.
But in the end, they still had to return to the normal world, but at this time, Mei found that the device was damaged and had to be repaired. Quarrel and attack each other.
Ethan didn't want to be with Mei in this still world anymore. Ethan chose to take off the bracelet, and then he also stopped. In the whole still world, only Mei was left, but fortunately, Mei had repaired the device and everything was back to normal.
But the best relationship between May and Ethan stays in a static world forever, as if their relationship never happened.
The setting of static time in this episode is not new, it has appeared in many film and television works, but the interesting thing about this episode is that this film uses the setting of static time to isolate people living in a static world from the normal world. , we originally thought that it would be great to make time stand still, but when we found that the device was broken and could not go back, we found ourselves isolated from the world.
What the film wants to express is exactly the mentality of many people like Mei, who wants to turn the beauty of the moment into long-term nourishment, or even the eternity of happiness, but the passage and development of time have made such a thing never happen. Just like May and Ethan, even though they have entered a static and eternal world, their relationship has never been able to stay at the best moment.
At the end of the film, it also leaves some mystery to the audience. When Mei discovered this device, did anyone use this device and stay in that static world until death?
These are left to the audience to slowly taste and think about.
Episode 4 Echo Ball
The main line of the fourth episode was put on Cole and his grandfather.
Grandpa received a call from the hospital and knew that his condition was deteriorating, and time was short, but in the end he was reluctant to part with his family, especially his grandson Cole.
One day, grandpa took Cole to an echo ball. This special echo ball can respond to your voice at different times in your life as long as you shout into it. Cole said hello to the echo ball and heard him. His own echoes in 6 different periods show that Cole has a long life left.
But grandpa said hello to the echo ball, but there was no echo. Grandpa wanted to use this method to tell Cole that his time was short.
But Cole was very angry because of this. The young Cole couldn't accept the concept of death and the departure of family members, but after all, this is the life task we need to undertake in our life, and that is to face the death of our loved ones.
In fact, the main storyline of this episode has been diluted very lightly. The focus is on the subject of Cole and grandpa facing death. Cole has to face the departure of his grandfather, while his grandfather has to face the real death. of unknown.
For us, death is unavoidable. It is a compulsory course in our life, and it is also the last lesson. No one can escape it, even in sci-fi genre works such as "Ring Story".
In the end, when grandpa was dying, he had hallucinations that he approached the dark core and touched it, which seemed to imply that the birth and death of the human species was also inextricably related to the dark core.
Of course, you can also understand that this is where Grandpa is looking back on where he once worked.
Episode 5 Control
The focus of the fifth episode is on Danny's family. Danny has changed bodies with Jacob before. Now Danny's body is a robot consciousness, which means that he has no consciousness and soul, and has become a vegetable.
This invisibly made Danny's poor working family even worse, but at this time Danny's dumb sister was bullied by classmates, and when Danny's father was chatting with his colleagues, he was told that a thief had entered the house and rummaged through the cabinets. In fact, it was Mei and the others in episode 3.
All these gave Danny's father the idea of protecting his family.
So he put down his face and went to the boss to get a salary advance, he was willing not to repair the electric switch at home, and also spent a lot of money to buy a robot that could be controlled.
This setting is a bit like the movie "Iron Armored Steel Fist", which also uses various means to control robots.
After that, Danny's father went to work during the day, and at night he used the robot to stand guard and guard his house. The neighbors were a little worried when they saw the huge robot, and called the police for a solution.
At this time, the sister actually knew that Danny was aware of Jacob's body, and Jacob (Danny) also ran home every three days.
One night, Jacob (Danny) put his sister's toy in the garage. When his sister sneaked over to get the toy, he was mistaken for a thief by his father and almost injured his sister with a robot.
This accident also made Danny's father discover that his father's love has never been in a rational and intelligent attitude, but is too blind and has no sense of direction.
This episode seems a little mediocre, but we can feel that Danny in Jacob's body, although he is moving towards his dream laboratory work goal, his real home can't even use electricity.
And Danny's father, because of his excessive sense of helplessness, made him give up the chores of life that he was going to continue to solve and buy a huge robot, but in the end, his current life and family relationship became fragmented.
The image of Danny's father is touching. The way he protects the family is a bit sad and even a bit ridiculous, but when we see his father pouring out his inner distress to Danny, who is in a vegetative state, we are full of sympathy and helplessness for their family. .
Episode 6 Parallel
The protagonist of the sixth episode is the laboratory security guard Cadiz, who is a comrade.
Cadiz likes to be alone, loves music, and is also a bird fanatic. He often walks into the woods alone and observes the birds.
One day, Cadiz found an inexplicable suspended tractor on the farm, so he tried to repair it. With the help of May, Cadiz successfully restarted the tractor, but after the tractor started, with a loud noise and vibration, it started again. damage.
And a magical thing happened, Cadiz traveled to another parallel time and space, this time and space has an exact same self, but obviously the new Cadiz life is more nourishing.
New Cadiz lives in a big house and has a boyfriend who is the one Cadiz has been thinking about photos of all day and night.
After that, Cadiz wanted to repair the tractor and try to return to his own world, but unfortunately the tractor did not respond. It seems that the tool for crossing parallel time and space is not the tractor, but the vortex black hole on the grass that Cadiz saw before.
So Cadiz settled in the new world again and lived in the storage room of Xin Cadiz. Cadiz and Xin Cadiz communicated, only to find that the two have a lot in common with each other, such as both like music. , are also bird lovers.
And what Cadiz pays most attention to is Xin Cadiz's boyfriend Yaris. Yaris is uninhibited and has an irresistible attraction to Cadiz. Finally, Yaris and Cadiz cheated on Xin Cadiz's back.
This made Xin Cadiz very angry, but Xin Cadiz showed more helplessness, because he knew too well that he was Cadiz. After all, if he were himself, he might have done the same thing.
In the end, Cadiz ran away, and in that new time and space, he met the man who had accosted him in the old time and space, and both of them seemed to have found a new common topic.
This episode of parallel time and space travel encounters its own setting, which belongs to an older sci-fi stalk.
This episode clearly expresses that everyone seems to be the protagonist of their own life, but they also become the supporting role of their own stories. Only by truly knowing myself and life can I re-turn my own life into the protagonist of my own life.
Episode 7 The Enemy
The focus of the seventh episode returned to Cole's family, telling us the story behind Cole's father, George, who has never spoken much.
When George was young, he had two friends and partners. The three of them often played together, watched movies, fought snakes, and spent a carefree childhood together.
One day they were at the dock discussing a small island not far away. It is said that there is a monster living on the small island. The three curious people took a boat to take a look.
But shortly after George landed on the island, the other two left George and left by boat, leaving George alone on the island.
George was alone and helpless on the island, during which it was pouring rain, and the strange man-made objects on the island added to the creepy and terrifying atmosphere on the island.
What's worse is that George was bitten by a snake. He was helpless and endured the pain to spend the night on the island. On the way, he found a dilapidated robot on the island, and the robot let out a heart-piercing scream.
George was rescued soon after, but permanently lost his left hand, which is why George was later connected to a robotic arm.
Years later, George finally learned the truth after his father, Cole's grandfather, passed away. It turned out that many years ago, Grandpa was researching robots with the same consciousness and mind as humans, but the first robot was because it looked very good. Like a robot, it is ostracized and discriminated against by humans, and even attacks the robot.
Out of the protection of the robot, Grandpa chose to put the robot on a small island, isolated from the world.
Finally, George returns to the island, finds the robot, and tries to tell the robot that it is not alone.
The motivational logic of the characters in this episode seems a bit far-fetched. For example, in order to protect the robot, grandpa put it on the island. In fact, there are many ways to protect the robot. If you let others not touch the robot, you can put it in the underground experiment. Room, can't you just have contact with your own family?
Of course, the original intention expressed in this episode is good. It says that people cannot judge people by their appearance, let alone discriminate and attack others without knowing the truth.
Episode 8 Home
The perspective of the last episode, the eighth episode, is all the characters in the previous seven episodes, which can be regarded as the title and closed loop of the first season.
The concept of this episode is time, and time is the cause and end of all stories. The communication and continuation of human emotions, birth, aging, illness and death, are all related to the passage of time.
The episode starts with Jacob (Danny) reaching working age, so Jacob chooses to move out and doesn't return home for a long time.
Cole decides to go to the city to find Jacob, and try to get back the time when the brothers played football. At this time, Danny in Jacob's heart finally can't stand the guilt and pressure of living under a lie for a long time, and begins to talk to Cole. Er and others confessed all the truth.
So Cole went to the robot with the real Jacob's consciousness and played with it all day.
Cole wanted to take the robot Jacob to find his mother Lolita, and let Lolita find a way to restore Jacob's consciousness, but he was attacked by other robots in the middle, and the robot Jacob finally failed to return home and collapsed. in the woods.
On the way home, Cole encountered a strange stream. The water flowed down, and there was a cycle from bottom to top. When Cole returned to town and went to the laboratory to find his mother Lolita, he discovered the time outside. More than ten years have passed, and my mother, Lolita, has a lot of gray hair.
Cole's father George also died of a sudden illness, and his grandmother died of old age. All these changes made Cole feel the fleeting of time.
In the normal world, Lolita spends every day thinking of Cole. In the end, the scene where Lolita cried to the camera was very moving and reminded me of the ending of "Wild Life". Carey Mulligan's last tears in front of the camera also confided to the test of time for everyone.
Episode 8 covers a lot of thinking. In the end, Cole grew up. Many bizarre and sad past events in the town gradually settled down over time and were imprinted in everyone's heart.
The Secret Behind Ring Story
The 8 short stories of "The Ring Story" in the first season show us the mental journey of the characters of several families in the town, and we also know the background of the world from it.
In the illustration collection, "The Ring Story" is the third illustration collection of Simon Starlenhager. He published the first illustration collection in 2018 called "Electric Fantasy Country", which features bizarre giant buildings and machines, and the style of painting is Very personal and recognizable, although "Electric Fantasy Country" is set in the doomsday background, it does not have too violent and frightening pictures.
Simon's creation belongs to the style of neo-futurism, the sci-fi style of neo-futurism, which mainly embodies simplicity, elegance, and must have giant buildings.
For example, in "Ring Story", the three giant cylindrical cooling towers above the laboratory are a symbol of the show. In "Electric Fantasy Country", there are also similar cylindrical buildings.
In addition to the unique style of painting, Simon is even more admirable for the stories in his illustrations. From the sci-fi setting of "human-machine integration" in "Electric Fantasy" to the underground ring of "Ring Story", these stories are full of suspense and surprise structure.
With the success of "Electric Realm", Simon expanded his background in the sci-fi world and created two consecutive works that originated from "Electric Realm", namely "Ring Story" and "Flood Visitor".
Simon's story perspective is almost all placed on children, using the child's perspective to experience the entire science fiction world that is not looking for, which is why the "Ring Story" album is full of childlike curiosity.
In fact, on reflection, isn’t that how we explored the world when we were children? Everything in the world is novel and incredible. We all slowly experience and accept it with curiosity and a generous heart, and finally find that time is fleeting. Everything wants to be grasped and cherished, but everything is too difficult to grasp.
The core theme of these collections is all about growth.
The story of the illustration collection of "The Ring Story" actually happened in Northern Europe, which is why the art of the TV series "The Ring Story" has such a Nordic style.
From the illustration collection of "The Ring Story", we can understand that the origin of all stories stems from the fact that after the end of World War II, human beings highly relied on nuclear energy, so they began to use nuclear energy to build a giant particle collider, and this ring particle collider, the Built under a small town in Sweden.
It is precisely because of the abuse of nuclear energy by humans that in the 1970s and 1980s, the time and space of this small town began to be disordered, and many things that could not be explained by physical science occurred, and the laboratory also struggled amid the controversy.
There are dozens of short stories in the "Ring Story" illustration set, of which 8 episodes have been collected and adapted, becoming the first season of "Ring Story" we see today.
I believe that if there is a second season of "Ring Story", it will adopt the story of the illustration set and continue to expand and enrich the elements in it.
The time background of Simon's third illustration collection "The Flood Guest" takes place decades after "The Ring Story". The former ring experiment has been closed for many years, and the underground laboratory has also been buried, but it was once polluted. The nuclear sewage has spawned many uncontrolled mechanical monsters in the depths of the ground.
The monsters are called Flood Visitors, which the local government calls "mechanical cancer."
The storytelling method of "The Flood Guest" is still composed of multiple small stories.
At present, Amazon has launched the series "Ring Story" first. I guess the main reason is that it is easier to achieve at the production level, and there are not many sci-fi scenes and pictures that require CGI.
The background of the story of "Electric Fantasy Country" takes place in the United States. It belongs to the road adventure type, and the scene is more grand, more like the category of a movie.
In short, if you like the story and style of "The Ring Story", you might as well learn about these three illustration collections by Simon Starlenhager. If you are interested, I can also open a separate video to share with you Let’s talk about these three illustration collections in detail.
View more about Tales from the Loop reviews
