This article is triggered by the chat records of one of my QQ groups, which counts as it is written.
It can be said that Netflix has once again caught the high point of the masses, and it has to be said that their vision is very precise. However, whether their high point of view of the masses is because of the big data in propaganda, or because the big players in Netflix, who have the final say in content investment, are old butts that grew up in the technological era. This is really hard to say. Big data is unable to tap those needs that did not exist before. In my opinion, love crashes, and Netflix's investment in high-concept sci-fi works (mainly from Japanese animation) started a few years ago. It is very likely to be explained by big data, but it can only be explained that these people of our generation all grew up watching the same things and have the same aesthetic taste. You're like the old ass in Hollywood, you can't figure out the situation at all, and you end up filming a live-action version of Ghost in the Shell and it's inexplicable.
So what is the high point of the masses? In essence, Netflix relies on the current Internet distribution market where upstream and downstream can be seamlessly connected to very accurately find such a group of audiences: this group of people has enough volume and spending power, and can accept more advanced concepts. The narrative is very familiar with this set of science fiction. Put it in the past, in fact, this is the segment of the B-level film. However, B-level films are still limited by the entire cinema and offline video tape distribution system, but now this set of Netflix content can be directly conveyed to each audience's TV, which is a great advantage. This is actually the same evolutionary relationship as the game market: the traditional console-disc game market is almost out of business now, so 3A games have also been impacted: a game costs $60, the production cost starts at 100 million, and it sells 5 million can only be recovered, and if the entire company is killed violently, the entire company will be shaken - this is exactly what the two B clubs are facing. So everyone started their own online distribution market (Steam, Rotten Orange, EGS, PlayU), and the first party (Microsoft, Sony, Apple) started to engage in a subscription system. In the past 10-15 years, due to the rapid development of 3A, the 2A games in the market have basically disappeared: you have to die if you sell less than 5 million, and 3A is independent. In the past two years, medium-cost production games are showing signs of a slow return. It was INSIDE before (although it looks like an indie game, but this game is not cheap at all!), and now it is Ace Combat 7 and Devil May Cry 5. In the film and television market, Love Dead is actually what such a "medium-cost game" means. (Of course, the cost distribution of the film and television content market is much healthier than that of the game market)
But then again, I don’t think it’s hard to say whether Netflix can make money from such a medium-cost sci-fi film. I don’t know how Netflix’s internal cost account is calculated. Science fiction is a category that relies heavily on capital and production level. If you make such a film, you might be able to make an entire episode of drug lords if you invest in it. I don’t believe they haven’t calculated this. In the end, let's go back to the statement at the beginning: the person who manages the money and nods has a good taste.
If you want to say how creative and whimsical this film is, I don't buy it. The most I can admit: the degree of completion is very high. From a textual perspective within sci-fi, these creative texts are clichés. But after all, sci-fi movies are not novels. It is really not easy to be able to shoot all these high concepts with such a high degree of completion. A lot of people went back to find The Matrix Animated Edition. To be honest, I think The Matrix Animated Edition has a higher level of concept than this film. Some people say that the Japanese should be filmed, but I disagree. After "The Matrix Animated Edition" became popular, the Americans asked the Japanese to shoot this theme concept animation collection and there were at least two more: "Dante Inferno" and "Halo Legend", but those two were really not good. Dirty drivers have some magical skills in controlling these big directors and animation teams in Japan (Let Watanabe shoot two short films! Two!), the Americans behind them have no such skills.
There is one more problem: the Japanese shoot too many high-concept animations like this. I won't talk about EVA Cowboy in the Shell, Otomo Keyang's "Memories Trilogy" and "Robot Carnival", even the "Paradise Pursuit" of tits + mechas in previous years is higher than this concept. In the final analysis, the low cost of animation and the nature of the market segment have led to the theme of animation being wider than that of live-action film and television. So in the end, it comes down to the degree of completion: if you let the Japanese make this film, your brain may be bigger than this (it depends on the ability of the group of people in Netflix Japan to control the Japanese animation team, but look at their current situation. The results are not very good), but the degree of completion is definitely lower than this. Because Japanese animation was originally developed for the purpose of saving money, they always have a sense of saving money when doing animation. The problem is that they like cut corners. It's not that the cut corners of this kind of thing can't be seen, but the audience will know at a glance that your production quality is not very good (refer to "Dante Inferno" and "Halo Legend"). It's good that Netflix is daring to present this type of narrative at a new level of cost. A ready-made example in 2017 is the theatrical version of "BLAME!" produced by Polygon, which was invested by Netflix. In terms of high concept, the concept of all the works I mentioned above may not be as high as that of "BLAME!", but the final effect is... hmmmmm, 70 points. I don't think it's because Netflix has not invested enough, but that Polygon is considered a cutting-edge technology factory in the Japanese factory, but they don't know how to present it at a higher production level, because their pipeline is That kind. You don't know how to spend more money on him, and the final effect is still a strong sense of cut corners. In the end, I summed it up in one sentence from a group of friends: The entire project of Love Dead Machine reflects the implementation of the creator's various design ideas in a global market with a highly complete industrial upstream and downstream. that's all.
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