Thirty minutes after the opening scene of Army of the Dead , the protagonist, played by Dave Bautista, speaks to the camera: "Think about it, we After doing so many things and saving so many people, what did we get in the end? But what if, just once, we vote for ourselves?" For ordinary viewers, this is a simple dialogue when recruiting teammates. But for those familiar with director Zack Snyder, this passage has a completely different meaning. It is a declaration, a little easter egg buried for loyal fans, or a cryptic expression of Zha Dao himself, with only one meaning: "This time I will make a movie for myself."
As a film made entirely for itself, "Legion of the Living Dead" does have many special features. The original idea for the film appeared in 2004, when Zach had just finished his feature-length debut " Dawn of the Dead " for Warner Bros. Interestingly, this movie is also a zombie theme, a remake of George A. Romero's work of the same name. For the next 15 years, Zha Dao has been working with Warner Bros. From "The Spartan 300" ( 300 ) to " Watchmen " to the DC Expanded Universe (DCEU), his reputation has grown and he has received more and more controversy. In 2017, with the release of the theatrical version of "Justice League" ( Justice League ), his relationship with Warner Bros. dropped to a freezing point. the possibility of cooperation. That's when Netflix came along like a savior. It first bought the rights to Legion of the Living Dead from Warner Bros. and gave it a generous budget of $90 million. The most important thing is that compared to the previous owner, Netflix, the financial owner's father, has never interfered with the director's actual creation. This kind of treatment has never been enjoyed by the director since his debut. It's a fresh start, but everything seems to be back to square one.
The story of "Legion of the Living Dead" takes place in Las Vegas, the casino city. Because of an accident, it has become a dead city occupied by zombies. A group of mercenaries have been commissioned by a mysterious financier to take $200 million in cash locked in a vault before the nuclear bomb goes off, some of which can be rewarded for their desperate journey. At the same time, the film also contains another story, a father needs to get his daughter's forgiveness to restore the broken family relationship.
If the director's cut version of "Justice League" a few months ago was an explanation given to fans by Director Zha and he needs to try his best to satisfy the supporters in the director's cutting movement, then "Legion of the Living Dead" is an explanation he gave to himself. After the investor's restraint was completely released, the whole movie showed the willfulness of "no one cares about me this time, I just want to play like this". Therefore, the movie does not explain the real source of zombies, nor does it describe the appearance of the whole world, and even the history of several characters has only a vague description. Instead, it puts all its energy into new and weird ideas, and those bloody explosions.
Indeed, "Legion of the Living Dead" is full of memorable moments: a zombified tiger that lost his right eye roams the ruins of the city; The helicopter fleeing towards the brilliant sunset, and the banknotes falling with blood when fighting with zombies. Whether it is innovative or bad taste, at least the characteristics are distinct enough. Coupled with the slow motion that Zha Daoyin is proud of that no one can learn, it does make the whole movie have more gimmicks on the screen than works of the same type.
But aside from these moments, what else is left of Legion of the Living Dead? Sorry, it seems not. The big flaw in Zha Dao's narrative ability that was a commonplace, not only did not improve in the slightest here, but instead worsened, to the point of giving up treatment. The entire film is 2 and a half hours long, and the real entry into Las Vegas to start the action has dragged on to the 50th minute. I spent a lot of time introducing the members of the group, but the results were all scratchy, not only did not leave a deep impression, but also did not help the development of the subsequent plot. In the second half of the film, the whole story is interspersed between the two main lines. Instead of complementing each other, it becomes a mess, taking care of one and the other. Not to mention that there are still various loopholes in the plot that cannot be considered carefully. Everything combined into a total disaster.
It can be said that "Legion of the Living Dead" is the last fig leaf for the lack of guiding ability, because this time, the excessive interference of investors can no longer be used as the reason for the film's problems. As a creator, Zha Dao is like a disabled person with a broken leg. The advantages and disadvantages are too obvious. Although he was running hard, he couldn't keep his balance. Sometimes people can't help but suspect that his creative process is that the picture comes first. The first step is to construct a proud picture in his mind, and then find a random story to connect these pictures together. In this way, the best destination for his films is to put together those beautiful shots to make a remix, and then put them on the TV store as a beautiful promotional material.
Those audiences here who are full of expectations and hope that Zha Dao can completely transform after leaving Warner are bound to be disappointed. "Legion of the Living Dead" is not a rebirth of the Phoenix Nirvana version at all, it is more like a personal summary and vent, throwing out the grievances in the heart through the movie. After four years of ups and downs in the guiding and shearing movement, Zha Dao obviously has too much to say but cannot say, and "Legion of the Living Dead" has become his best expression window.
As long as you have a little understanding of the previous guiding and shearing movements, you can see that the main line of the father-daughter relationship in "Legion of the Living Dead" is the insinuation of Zha Dao's own state of mind. During the filming of "Justice League", due to the gradual deterioration of the relationship with Warner, Zha Dao himself was exhausted and neglected to care for his family. His younger daughter Rachel, who was suffering from depression, committed suicide at this time and finally broke him. He blamed himself all the reasons for his daughter's suicide, and this deep sense of guilt intentionally or unintentionally affected the next creation. In "Legion of the Living Dead", there is also a father and daughter who have a bad relationship. In the end, the father sacrificed himself to save his daughter, and at the same time repaired the relationship between each other. This is Zha Dao's self-salvation through movies. In a way, he hopes that he is the father in the play who can save his daughter's life with his own sacrifice. This is of course wishful thinking, after all the dead can never be resurrected. But as a creator it's also the best way, at least in another world where his daughter can survive.
At the same time, Zha Dao will not forget to ridicule his former employer Warner. For example, the whole operation is not some noble plan to save the world, just a rich man to get more money. When the mercenaries arrived at the gate of the vault, they found that they were only an alternative, and other teams had already performed the same task. This seems to be what Warner did at the beginning. Everything was based on the greatest economic interests and did not care about the real quality of the movie. Once it realized that it might not achieve the goal, it would immediately replace the person and implement the second set of plans. It would be too much of a coincidence to say that all of this is an overinterpretation.
No matter from which point of view, the "Legion of the Living Dead" in front of him is the work that Zha Dao wants to shoot the most and is the closest to his original intention. This is of course thanks to Netflix for giving carbon in the snow, without its generosity, I am afraid this project would be dead. Of course, Netflix's assistance to Zha Dao does not just want to be a "good person", it also has its own wishful thinking.
In recent years, the scale of Netflix, which has relied on streaming TV series, has grown in size. After 20th Century Fox was acquired by Disney, it has a tendency to become the sixth largest production company in Hollywood. Their ambitions are naturally not limited to taking the lead in the field of TV series, and they also want to make a breakthrough in the field of feature films, which are dominant in traditional production companies. Although Mank and The Irishman have made some achievements and reputation in the art film segment, the commercial film Netflix, which is more attractive to ordinary audiences and has higher profits, has always remained in place. step stage.
The most important IP development in today's commercial film model relies on the high popularity of big IPs to cultivate specific audience groups to improve user stickiness and loyalty. The lack of commercial film IPs is the biggest weakness of Netflix at the moment. Instead of slowly developing new IP by yourself, it is better to directly buy ready-made products that other companies cannot shoot for various reasons. And Zha Dao's "Legion of the Living Dead" perfectly meets their requirements: a director who has achieved success and is eager to prove himself again, an IP with super high traffic, and a group of loyal and ardent fans, this is simply It's a match made in heaven between a husband and his concubine.
"Legion of the Living Dead" is ushering in a new era for Netflix as they prepare their biggest theatrical release to date, including 600 theaters and a one-week early theatrical exclusivity period, as well as an early release of the first 15 minutes of the movie. Preview. After that there is a prequel film set to start shooting this fall, an animated series in the pipeline. If all this is successful, it also means that more stories in this universe will appear on the screen. For Zha Dao himself, this is also a new beginning. After saying goodbye to Warner's 15-year partnership, he can now happily make his own films, at least during his honeymoon with Netflix.
This article was first published on the official account of Deep Focus DeepFocus, and the text and pictures have been slightly changed.
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