As a touch game born on the iOS platform, "Angry Birds" can be described as a new generation of phenomenal electronic entertainment that grew up with the iPhone and iPad, and its classic characters have long been popular. The world, such as the red "Big Red" (also the protagonist of the 2016 version of the big movie), has been named as a green honorary ambassador by the United Nations, and runs across the country to promote environmental protection.
Now the domestic film and television industry is hyping the concept of IP, "Angry Birds" can be said to provide an excellent example of film and television IP development. From its origin, the game "Angry Birds" itself did not have a strong plot at the beginning. It can be completely understood as a slingshot game on an electronic touch screen. The rules are very simple, and it is very likely that the players will lead the way through psychologically. It evokes one of the most primitive collective subconsciousness of human beings - hunting: human beings evolved from out-and-out "hunting apes". "The big idea in my heart, after the vicissitudes of life, the species memory of this "slingshot aiming" has settled down, and it has been reflected in the fragmented "Angry Birds" game.
On the other hand, the simple and crude gameplay of the birds flying out angrily and then directly "smashing" their opponents to death (of course, there will be more and more complicated mechanism designs in subsequent levels, but the overall principle is still straightforward), which also allows players to With the pleasure of stress relief, it is said that it can also fight depression. In short, the combination of various factors makes "Angry Birds" in line with the law of mobile game dissemination in the cross-screen era (the most important form of dissemination of "Angry Birds" is still mobile games).
"Angry Birds" is different from games with complex plots such as "Silent Hill" and "Warcraft". When adapted into a movie, it needs original and rich story content. In this sense, the 2016 version of the "Angry Birds" movie has done a good job. First, the game's content has been followed in the character setting (even the call to the hidden game character) and the core conflict. (This is also the basic function of IP); secondly, the tone of the whole story matches the feel of the game; thirdly, a lot of original additions have been made, so that the whole movie fully presents a relatively standard Hollywood type one-sidedness- Presumably once this film came out, "Rio Adventure" arrogantly took the name "Angry Birds" and disappeared.
In the original game, the green-skinned pig steals the eggs, and then the angry birds launch themselves with slingshots, "smashing" the basic setting of the dead egg-stealing pig. Of course, when the average player is playing, they will basically ignore the background of the story, just shoot birds with slingshots horizontally and vertically to smash pigs, but in the movie, this conflict has become the core dramatic contradiction.
Interpretation of hidden narrative clues
Basically, the film is divided into two parts. In the first half, the protagonist Dahong is a lonely and angry middle-class "diaosi". He can't even play the birthday clown, and he lives alone by the sea. He was angry and didn't like anything, so he attended a psychological mutual aid course similar to "anger management" and got to know several classic game characters. You must know that this state of Dahong is actually a common psychological symptom of the contemporary urban population. For example, under the name of "Anger Management", Hollywood has made both American TV series and movies - not to mention others, look at our own. Around us, "road rage" fills the streets and alleys, and there are often physical conflicts caused by anger in various public places. It can be seen that we are imprisoned in reinforced concrete bird cages, but in fact there is an "angry bird" living in our hearts.
In the second half of the film, the pigs who came by boat stepped into the peaceful and peaceful Bird Island. They came in disguised goodwill, but stole the eggs and transported them back to the Pig Island to cook and eat—don’t care. How cartoonish, this kind of villain who steals food from children is really terrifying. As a result, Dahong and his friends were completely infuriated, and they fought back, thus opening the curtain of the most familiar "Angry Birds".
Before the invasion of Egg Stealing Pigs, Bird Island was a happy utopia, where different birds settled in their own places and had a great time. Bird Island, like "Zootopia", used animals as a metaphor for the United States and the West. Contemporary utopia (interestingly, there are no birds in Zootopia, which can be explained by Angry Birds).
On Bird Island in "Angry Birds", the birds live well and never care about the outside world. They even lose their ability to fly because their lives are too good. This can almost be interpreted as a high-welfare European Reality portrayal (Finland also belongs to Europe). The bearded pig king, who came by boat, led a group of pigs to break the tranquility of life on Bird Island (the appearance of the bearded pig is hard not to remind people of refugees who are now fleeing to Europe, of course I believe this is just a coincidence), and then the small The birds need to find the legendary "Invincible Condor" to help. After all the hardships, we saw the invincible condor appear in the image of a bald eagle - the national bird of the United States is still printed on the national emblem of the United States.
Although full of jokes, the Invincible Condor finally got rid of the isolationist attitude of aloofness, joined the vigorous counterattack on Pig Island, and finally rescued a large bag of bird eggs from the residents of Bird Island, and was commemorated by the statues of the birds. . And our protagonist, Dahong, has also reintegrated into the Bird Island community and has a brand new egg room.
As a result, we can clearly interpret a hidden narrative clue: the peace of Bird Island (developed Europe) was broken by outsiders (bearded refugees/immigrants), the birds appealed to the Invincible Condor (United States) to help, and finally passed In a battle of slingshots and explosives, the birds finally won the "clash of civilizations".
Of course, this article is just a film review mainly along the lines of ideological criticism. It is purely a literary discussion and has no intention to offend anyone. If there is any inappropriate over-interpretation, please criticize.
[Published in the "Beijing News"]
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