Dystopia often has two ideas. One is to eliminate the pain first, and then find that the pain cannot be eliminated, but bring more pain. The end is often resistance or uprising. The other is that after the pain is eliminated, it is found that the basic humanity and Morality, has caused extreme absurdity.
The 2020 drama Brave New World uses the former routine. This routine has been seen many times. It is very tacky and well-mannered, and it is easy to shoot. The latter routine I am impressed with is the Psycho-Measurer, an anime.
The system in the play is set on the basis of AI, which is more in line with the status quo of society as a whole, but it seems to want to remind the audience that this system is similar to the original, causing a lot of sense of incongruity. In addition, some of the plot trends are also Following the original, it looks more like a parody of the original.
But if you put aside the original work, just from the setting of the play itself, the plot and the character development, it is worth at least 7 points +, if it does not use the name of the original work, the non-original fans may be a little more...
The male protagonist, John, has a cowardly character, which is shaped from the beginning. He is a person who fills bullets from beginning to end. He looks innocent, but in fact his hands are stained with blood. , Hunmu drives everything, the only advantage is kindness, although kindness is not thorough. When he came to New London, he was like the heroine of Mary Sue who had traveled to the future. Although he didn't have any flash points, he was "special" because of his very different growth background. Did Lenina love him? No, what she loves is the experience of his upbringing, the very different order behind him that represents humanity and freedom. What she loves is not him, a kind and very cowardly person, what she loves is that she can live a life in another order with him.
The second male Bernard has low self-esteem and longs for recognition. He is a loser of the new London system and a person who is questioned and misplaced. He wants to be recognized by the system, but also yearns for freedom and humanity outside the system. Every time he struggles, he chooses again. Being a dog of New London, trying to forget the human feelings in the Badlands, and even trying to gain recognition with the Badlands experience, but still failed. And he finally embraced his own humanity, and when he was dating Lenina, and longing for love, he felt jealous. Jealousy made him finally act like an alpha+. Aggressive in front of them, at this time their positions were reversed, Bernard became an alpha+, and Henry, the former director of alpha+, became a beta who could only be obedient.
Bernard's role is very full, and the actor is absolutely responsible for the swing and struggle of a person who has low self-esteem and longing for power and recognition, as well as the final transformation, and the information is not lost at all. There's an interesting twist to Bernard's character, when he rejects humanity, tries to forget the Wilderness, or wants to use the Wilderness to please everyone, he has never been recognized by everyone, has never been like an alpha+, when he Embrace humanity and when he wants to get Lenina, he becomes alpha+ out of jealousy. Growth is clearly reflected in him, and it makes Bernard's character very attractive.
If Bernard is a beta placed in the alpha+ position, then Lenina is an alpha+ placed in the beta position. The plot hints at this in many places. Regarding the misplacement, Lenina was put on the inferior side, so she was always disobedient, and Bernard was put on the superior side, so he always wanted to be worthy of his place. Lenina's character itself is set to be a rebel. She is an undervalued person, just like a genius born in a poor family. Had to accept fate - is this the point that the play wants to satirize?
Lenina's character as a rebel and an awakened person, the main line is from vague confusion to complete awakening. The development of this character is quite satisfactory. As expected, there is nothing special about it, and can only rely on emotional drama to attract attention.
Among these three people, John has never been the focus. In fact, he should not be called the male lead... But because he is the one who is in love with the female number one so...
The (spiritual) rebellion against New London is done by people inside New London, so Bernard and Lenina are at the center of this discussion, the two of them are like the "Fate Twins" that Japanese anime likes to set, symmetrical to each other, One became the director and the other left the world, but both of them finally achieved spiritual awakening in their hearts. In the end, New London was destroyed, and everything returned to chaos... In fact, no, it was just that the director wanted to shoot the second season to do all chaos, AI escaped, and started again blabla
The setting of the system is closer to today's reality - productive forces are highly developed, AI controls everything, and everyone performs their own duties and participates in social labor. Everyone can be placed in the right position according to their talents. The smartest and most powerful people worry about the country and the people. This is alpha; generally smart and powerful people are mental workers, the middle class, and the backbone of society. This is beta; People who are a little smart and powerful have skills, but they don't have too many ideas. The craftsmen of society, the ancient witch doctors and musicians, are gamma; people who are not smart or powerful at all, manual workers, do the most mechanical work The work of the social proletariat, which is epsilon. There is one in the middle that I didn't introduce and I don't know what it is.
Even in the most equal society, there will be inequality, because people's talents are not equal. If social responsibilities are divided according to talents, there must be classes. But social division of labor does not need to be related to "high and low". It can be said that although they have different divisions of labor, they are equal in personality. The rich have the troubles of the rich, and the poor have the happiness of the poor. mainstream consciousness, such as America (I'm sarcastic).
The show also seems to want to show this. They emphasize that "everyone is happy", but they paradoxically use the bear children on the bus to show the alpha's arrogance, which is very superfluous and self-contradictory. But if alpha doesn't act arrogant, maybe many people will think that there is nothing wrong with this system -- indeed, there is nothing wrong with it, you see, those who like to worry about national affairs, and those who don't like to worry about 996 every day and become the social leader Screws, I don’t worry about eating or drinking every day, I’m not happy with my phone (mobile phone), I sleep whenever I want, isn’t this a modern man’s paradise?
In order to make New London look obviously faulty, we had to force the alpha to behave arrogantly, force the social division of labor = high and low, force the epsilon to eat monotonously and wear ugly names, a society with high productivity would be stingy with this. order something delicious?
But the issues that the play wants to discuss should be beyond this superfluous, if alphas are not domineering and polite, if everyone respects each other's profession, and does not regard division of labor as high and low, if everyone eats well and drinks well Well, is this system any good?
No, not good. This is what the two characters, Bernard and Lenina, want to express.
But the play finally took the old path of oppression and oppression, and it didn't go deeper into what the two protagonists could discuss, and it was superficial in the end. They kill all at once, but they don't know why they kill. They are clueless from beginning to end. Epsilon, a tool man who is easy to listen to and easy to incite, is used to pick up garbage or to kill. What does it have to do with tools?
related to the person who handles the tool. The person who handles the tool is a clone, he is a clone of the creator, and he does not belong to the eplison genetically. It's ai, the ai who wants to overthrow everything and start all over again.
AI is a major line, and its logic of action is out of common sense. It seems more like an "external variable" for the director and the screenwriter to create a dramatic conflict. The director does not intend to disintegrate the system from within, nor does he intend to directly attack the inherent absurdity that exists in New London, but uses AI to achieve the purpose of disintegration. From the perspective of a dystopian work, this is too simple and rude, which is equivalent to saying that there is a giant outside the wall who is unhappy with utopia, so he runs in and destroys utopia. The fragility and seemingly perfect absurdity of utopia itself is not represented. It was the giant who trampled utopia to death, not utopia, which lost its sophistication and beauty.
The logic of ai is: this is a simulation. In the process of simulating how to build a human society, it needs to learn, overthrow and rebuild again and again, for a perfect society. But before it could be simulated, ten creators in Doomsday started it. It's still the same as ever, simulating, overthrowing, reinventing, not understanding that it's already reality, not a simulation.
AI is reincarnated in the re-simulation, a utopia dies, and a new utopia will exist. The director only let the giant trample to death a utopia that was not perfect, which led to revolt and resistance. He has not yet answered directly why utopia itself should not exist, even if it is perfect enough.
Summary: The show has a lot of bad points, but I'd rather put it mildly because I think it contributes a full (though not deep enough) story and great characters (mostly Bernard), and it deserves a 7+.
Psychometer is recommended again, although it's an anime.
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