"Good Omens" review: Love can save the world
I was bored recently, so I dug out the resources of "Good Omens" from the online disk. The storage time was still June 2019, which is the summer vacation when I finished the college entrance examination. Before I watched this drama, I only read the recommendations written by others, I probably knew it was a story of an angel and a demon, but I didn't know anything about the specific plot.
After spending two days watching this short six-episode series, I don't know how to characterize this series. It seems to be about the deep friendship between the angel Yates and the demon Crowley that lasted for 6,000 years. In telling the growth story of Adam Young, the boy who bears the fate of opening the decisive battle, it is also interspersed with the love of Angelina, the descendant of the witch, and Newton, the descendant of the witch hunter.
Overall, what I feel is this: Only love can save the world. Saving the world with love is a common theme, but if love can't save the world, what can? Saving the world with love does not mean using the slogan "Love life, love the world" to influence the villain, but it refers to using more specific and warm ordinary things to make people aware of it. The beauty of life in this world.
Our two protagonists, the old-fashioned bookstore-loving dessert-loving angel Yates, and the rock-and-roll, antique car-driving demon Crowley are a fitting pair. They have lived in the world for a long time, have gone through countless dynasties, countless ups and downs, and established a wonderful but stable relationship. Yates does not represent justice, nor does Crowley represent evil. Their nature is good.
The two forces of heaven and hell in contrast to them are naive and ridiculous. In order to decide the victory or defeat, the entire world must be destroyed and all human beings must be sacrificed.
And boy Adam, from his point of view, this is his upbringing story. An eleven-year-old boy who lives in a small English village suddenly discovers that he is not human, and bears the fate of opening a decisive battle between heaven and hell. He can have unlimited power, can rule the world, and do whatever he wants. But what's the point of all this if no one else exists? He eventually discovered that the life he wanted most was the life he was and now is.
He likes his parents who scold him but then relents quickly after he gets into trouble, his puppy who digs a rabbit hole, his three friends who ride a bike and play games with him, and he likes this video of him playing with his friends place. He doesn't want to stand on the top of power, instead he doesn't want to be feared and abandoned by his former friends, he just wants to be an ordinary human boy. After all, nothing was more precious than what he already had. So he chose his human companions instead of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who would bring disaster to the world. In the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the setting of "Plague" retiring and "Pollution" taking his place at work is a reflection of the awareness of environmental protection, and the influence of eco-criticism can also be seen from it.
In the final battle, his human friends even used weapons to eliminate these catastrophic non-humans. "War", "pollution" and "starvation" are eliminated, and the world is back to what it was, or even a little better than it was. Angel Yates' original burned down bookstore was spotless, the demon Crowley's exploded car was restored, Adam really became an ordinary human boy, Angelina and Newton, Shadwell and Tracy were married, Yates Swapping souls with Crowley escaped punishment from superiors and sat together for lunch at the Ritz Hotel. The episode ends with "The Nightingale Sings in Berkeley Square."
This happy ending shows the author's optimism about the world, given that the original book was published in 1990, a time not only free of the epidemic, but also much better than it is now. The dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, published in the same era, also involved discussions of sexism, nuclear weapons, and environmental pollution. It's just that "The Handmaid's Tale" is a wake-up call about the future, while the story of "Good Omens" shows the author's optimism and expectations for the future world. Even if this nuclear-armed, increasingly polluted world isn't good enough, human goodness won't drive the world toward destruction. The human world is a battlefield where angels and devils fight, and human beings are better creatures than angels and devils.
The content of the play parodies the Bible, setting up well-known biblical storylines such as Adam and Eve stealing the forbidden fruit and Noah's Ark, creating well-known characters such as Michael, Gabriel, Hastur, Satan, etc., without showing religion The solemn and serious, but makes people feel familiar and friendly, and the various down-to-earth shaping of angels and demons makes people laugh. At the same time, the play also has a strong British flavor. The location of the Ritz Hotel in the play, Shakespeare plays, Knights of King Arthur's Round Table and other elements have also made this play a unique London tourism promotional film.
Although I love music and movies, I don't like to use audio and video to get information and aesthetic experience. My love for words is strong and eternal, so I have always disliked it, and I have never watched or listened to TV series and Radio dramas, I hate these two forms of conveying information with sound or video from the bottom of my heart. But Good Omens, a six-episode series, not only healed me, but changed my mind about TV.
View more about Good Omens reviews
