In July of this year, Amazon launched the super science fiction blockbuster "Tomorrow's War" starring "Star Lord" Chris Pratt. The film was set up in 2019, originally aimed at the 2020 Christmas file, but it had to be withdrawn due to the epidemic. Finally, in January 2021, Amazon invested 200 million US dollars to take over, and changed to online streaming exclusively for release. This also makes this film surpass Netflix's "The Irishman" as the most expensive streaming movie currently (here only refers to movies exclusively released by streaming platforms, excluding "Wonder Woman 1984" and "Godzilla vs. King Kong" etc. Streaming media theaters simultaneously release movies).
"Tomorrow's War" is a typical Hollywood blockbuster with a mix and match of travel, war, alien monsters and family drama. The story tells about the 2022 World Cup finals, a huge wormhole suddenly appeared, a group of young special forces passed through the wormhole 30 years later. It turns out that due to the invasion of alien monsters, mankind is about to go extinct in 30 years. In order to ensure the continuation of human civilization, the future mankind came to the past and recruited soldiers to participate in this future war. Dan, played by Klaus Pratt, is an Iraqi war veteran who now teaches in high school and is sent to join the war in the future due to compliance with recruitment rules. But he ran into his adult daughter Murray on the battlefield, and Murray's ongoing research is the key to saving all mankind...
When the filming of "Tomorrow's War" started in 2019, no one had expected what the world's tomorrow would be like. But one thing they have already felt is that the future is actually an era of declining population and a more bleak era. The present we live in is a truly prosperous era. Thus, there is such a story full of pessimism about the future.
As the line in the same film said, "It's hard to imagine that all the glaciers here will melt in 30 years." The changes in this world are not only the kind of boiling frogs in warm water, but also sudden explosions. The melting of glaciers occurs slowly, and the landing of aliens on the earth from the glaciers is a sudden explosion. Compared with most movies that choose to let people in the future go back to the past to correct history, the core idea of this movie is to let people from the past go to the future to save the future. At least one point of "Battle of Tomorrow" is right. In 2019, we are in the most prosperous era of mankind. In just one year, with the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, globalization bankruptcy, and populism prevailing, mankind may be on the move. On another downhill road. This is why, the future technology in the film is advanced enough to allow people to travel through time, but it is not enough to fight the pressing extinction crisis. Because in the eyes of creators, only the past is the best era.
But the sensitivity and advancement of this movie only stop here, even if we think about it again, maybe we really think too much? This is not actually pessimism about the future, but another simple and rude video game model invasion of Hollywood blockbusters. When Dan, played by "Xing Jue", landed from the sky at high speed in the opening, many viewers suddenly found a familiar feeling. Isn't this the beginning of the game "Eating Chicken"? A group of people were airdropped into an unfamiliar future world, and then started a meaningless killing game. From the first scene of "Tomorrow's War", it was verified that this is a real "chicken-eating" journey.
The next step is to confirm this impression. A female voice with an invisible face gave the protagonist a mission briefing after landing, encountered monsters, retrieved important props, and escaped to heaven before the city fell. Everything followed the logic of the game. Other settings, such as the fact that you can't see the monster's face before entering the game, and that the entire mission is completed within seven days, and you can go offline and return to your normal life after seven days. This is the movie's re-simulation of the game experience. This also caused an interesting irony. In this era when many games are increasingly trying to be cinematic (such as "God of War" and "The Last of Us"). "Tomorrow's War" began to imitate the game, how to quickly enhance the secretion of dopamine, how to create a substitution experience in a game, and finally make the whole movie full of loopholes, everything is only for simple pleasure.
The mechanism and principle of traversal have been taken in one stroke, without explaining whether traversal will bring paradoxes to the past and the future, nor whether the two space-times are unified or parallel universes. The only scientific setting is that the same people in different eras cannot meet each other, but this setting is not used again in the subsequent plots, and can be regarded as a waste of drama.
In addition, the setting of recruiting people from the past to fight in the future is also very difficult to withstand scrutiny. Even if you don't care about sending people from the past to the future, it is just to increase cannon fodder. This terrible fact is not justified by the motivation alone. In the past, if humans lent their military power to the future to fight a war that did not belong to their own era, then when the monsters on this timeline reappear, would they have enough manpower to deal with it? It is undoubtedly unrealistic and meaningless to use contemporary soldiers to fight future battles. There is no absolute necessity to solve this layer setting, and the whole movie is full of bugs and doubts.
However, the audience who watched this movie obviously did not go for the logic of the plot and the clever arrangement of the story. It’s enough to have Chris Pratt and a brand new alien monster. It's just that the shape of the monster has not been innovative from the age of "Starship Troopers" to today. Pratt today is also old wine in new bottles. He is like the Harrison Ford of our time, but more close to the people. His role in this film is no different from his roles in Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World. With a sincere face, you can also gag. He is a strong hero who you are willing to entrust the world to his protection. In this movie, he had a daughter and saw how her daughter will look when he grows up in the future. He said, "In order to protect my daughter, I can do everything, even to save the earth." This also confesses the core values in Hollywood movies, saving people is actually for saving family members.
In the end, in a snowy decisive battle like HP Lovecraft’s "Crazy Mountains", Pratt fought side by side with his father played by J.K. Simmons, and finally repelled the alien monsters and guarded them. family. A little deliberate, but enough to satisfy the audience.
It can be said that if this movie is placed on the theater line, it will be another cool film similar to "Fast and Furious", but on the streaming media, without the bombardment of the big screen and stereo, it will be much less fun. This also raises another question. How do we measure the success of a commercial blockbuster in this era when theaters are dead and without box office data? In theory, the moment it is sold to the platform, it has been successful, and subsequent clicks and discussions are just data. Any platform can declare victory by itself. As long as there are new users who subscribe because of curiosity, and as long as this model continues, the success and failure of a cool film will no longer be important. So, why not make "Tomorrow's War" bad?
But at the same time, this movie will be quickly forgotten. The cost record of 200 million US dollars will not be maintained for long. Netflix's upcoming new film "Grey Man" this year has already reported the cost of over 200 million US dollars. The other two films "Knife Out of the Sheath 2" and "Knife Out of the Sheath 3", which are currently being filmed, have a total cost of more than US$460 million. This makes the film's cost of 200 million US dollars and ordinary word of mouth even less worth mentioning. After this film, the new era of streaming media "Tomorrow's Battle" has actually just begun.
(Originally contained in Iris)
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