but for some of you who've followed along the way, after 14 years of being with the series, it's possible to see it in this one. Seeing everything you want to see, the super-complete lineup, the consistent story style, and the relaxed and cheerful atmosphere of watching movies have brought surprises to people as the summer season draws to a close. Compared with the uneven levels of many domestic cartoons in the summer archives, "Blue Sky" has maintained a consistently high level, from the exquisite pictures to a large collection of various laughs, from familiar old characters to novel new characters. From the ardor of love to the deep affection of family affection, it is a very "full" cartoon.
In all fairness, this movie has a lot of problems, but it's also not as worthless as many people say.
Let's talk about the advantages first. In the first few films, the one who left a deep impression on me and was quite eye-catching was the little squirrel who loved pine nuts like his life. He was always on the road of chasing pine nuts, but he never really got his hands on it. The helpless state brings a lot of joy to people. This time, it still adheres to the usual style, but this disaster has gone into space, which is really enough, it can be tossed too much, and this time, will it be able to hold the pine nuts and return? Let's sell it first. This time the story focuses on interstellar collisions, which means that the earth is in danger of being hit by a meteorite. The mammoth family and their friends have a more difficult task. How to prevent the meteorite from falling and protect their own homeland? ?
But this is not the point. The point is that they have experienced various difficulties and tests on this thrilling adventure. The presentation of the emotional part of the family is very realistic and delicate, and I believe it will resonate with everyone to some extent. Faced with the fact that their grown children have to leave home and their other half, parents will be reluctant to give up, and how to adjust their psychological state and try to accept and let go is not a small difficulty. The mammoth father Manny will encounter such a problem. , and can he successfully untie this knot? In the end, I was actually quite relieved. The theme of family affection is closely related to everyone. We should be more tolerant and understanding of family members, and be less self-willed and obsessed. If there are any unsolvable knots and endless tempers, we should cherish them more while we can have them. , and the marriage that can get the blessing of the family is even more precious, which is the more moving part of the film.
In addition, the level of joy in the film is simple. In addition to the unlucky little squirrel, there is also "wisdom" - Buck (one-eyed weasel), two possums who are always inseparable and always play high, etc., all of them are living treasures. , not happy. And the adventure journey is no longer boring because of them, which adds a bit of lightness, which relieves the pressure and activates the atmosphere. In fact, even if it is faced with a disaster, what if there are so many friends fighting together? lucky. When encountering a problem, the angle of view of the problem will be different, and the mood will also be different. They all say that stupid people have stupid blessings, and there is no harm in being simple and optimistic. It is also worth mentioning the music of the film. At the end, the bright voice of the mother sloth is absolutely amazing. It's good to hear whether it's explosive or not. The effect can also be seen, especially its display of the cosmic starry sky can be said to be so beautiful that it is reluctant to blink, one cannot help but be fascinated and like it. Overall, it's still good, and it's worth seeing for the fun and relaxed viewing atmosphere alone.
In addition to the classic characters in the film, there are also the return of old characters. Buck the weasel, who seems to be indecent but has a sense of justice, and the dinosaurs that appeared in the third film are all gathered together. The feeling of appearing again is very familiar to the audience. and fulfilling. There are also many new characters, the soft alpaca, the mother sloth Brook, and the peach's boyfriend Roger, these fresh blood make the story more full. In addition to the interesting and funny stories, the visual effects of the film are also worthy of recognition. The concept of Crystal City is quite interesting, and the role of crystals is very imaginative. The effect of the giant screen is quite good. Experience the charm of the vast universe in space, experience the shock of shaking the earth on the mainland, and the beautiful scenery along the way.
Let me talk about some of the problems in my eyes. In fact, part of the reason why the story ends in the fifth part is that the thinking of developing the story forced myself into a corner. At the beginning, the little squirrel quet only existed as a mascot, the exaggerated image became Iconic characters of the series, but there's no denying that Manny the Mammoth and the trio formed in the first installment are the unshakable core of the film. The reason why the first two films have been unsurpassed in the minds of many people is not only because the thought-provoking human and beasts are related to human thinking through animals, but also because the little squirrel is always at a distance from the main story and the big background. , the real natural disaster has enough credibility for the little squirrel to carry out nonsensical profligacy. Starting from the third dinosaur, the story really started to unfold in the order of the items that appeared in the ice layer in the first. These 14 years are also a good move that has been planned for a long time. From this point of view, it would be biased to say that Blue Sky Studio is short-sighted.
Indeed, from dinosaurs to continental drift and finally to "The Great Clash of Heaven and Earth", Blue Sky Studio's imagination has been constantly digging in one direction, just as "The Fast and the Furious" has pursued one by one since the fourth part. The scene is going to be exaggerated like a final blatant provocation of gravity. The little squirrel, which was already dominating in the fourth part, actually directly led to the cosmic crisis in this part. From 2002 to this year, as an original series with a long enough life, "Ice Age" can almost be regarded as a history of visual technology development. Despite its seemingly tepid "half beats" every time, always chasing after "milestones," great visuals have always been a pillar of its quality. Whether it is the delicate fur on the characters or the shocking meteorite impact in this film, it is enough to be on an equal footing with several big factories. The little squirrel scene at the beginning and Buck's cool "Figaro" debut can still see the excellent ideas of the year. shadows, but some are fleeting.
There is no more thought-provoking "big truth" in "Ice Age 5", and the tone is completely changed to a relaxed entertainment direction. Because everyone can predict the happy ending of the final happy reunion, it leads to a lack of sense of crisis. In order to make up for this defect, the huge meteorite never seems to leave the audience's sight for too long. Every now and then, it shows off the dazzling forward signal of the huge body, always reminding the doomsday. Although the audience has long been familiar with the routine that these animals must find a reason to go from one place to another, this journey does not have to be as bad as before. The biggest problem is probably aesthetic fatigue and the villain's brain damage. . Disaster has become the focus, and in order to create a sense of crisis in the journey, we must find a villain, but these three pieces of material have no courage and imagination, and they are directly reduced to a funny role.
In fact, the film's efforts can be seen in terms of the setting of laughing points, but unfortunately, a large number of laughing points other than a few bright spots seem to have not figured out their own positioning. Perhaps just like the handling of character relationships in this film, in order to maintain and continue the previous family-friendly positioning, the film is filled with a lot of noisy and meaningless young jokes, and many fast-talking "talking jokes" really Feeling tired like embarrassed terminal cancer. That's right, I'm talking about the alpaca doing yoga, proving his worthless existence with the most exaggerated movements in a group of harmless faces. The most impressive point of laughter is all kinds of cos shows. The famous American astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who is the most "non-professional" astronomer, uttered the standard science and education lines in a highly recognizable voice with magnificent lines. The symphony "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" instantly entered the world of documentaries, and the passages of Manny and others imitating "The Clash of Heaven and Earth" also made people laugh.
In order to cooperate with the disaster crisis of the film's continuous "freedom of self", the story of the Iron Triangle has been gradually diluted. In this film, the original bachelor group has become today's big family, although it is emotional, but the overly bloated story line has been reduced. The story and charm that a single character should have. It's already hard to find out who the protagonist of this movie is, and Manny's inclination from the third episode reaches its extreme in this episode - a serious midlife crisis. You will even see that such an animated film that should be full of energy and imagination is actually applying the classic paradigm of disaster movies, the poor communication between the two generations, the emotional estrangement between husband and wife due to time, everything is A twist after a disaster, and "Ice Age 5", after choosing such a proposition, used the most perfunctory approach to cross the emotional turn of the characters, and the rest..."A family soap opera for middle-aged people" I think It is the most appropriate description.
In addition to the very old and stubborn Manny, Thiago has also unfortunately become the background of tiger meat. To tell the truth, one of the biggest highlights of the last movie is the relationship between it and Sheila, but in this one, the two seem to skip it. I don't know how many episodes there are and it lacks engaging interactions. As for Sid...I don't know if it's because the writers can't accommodate singles or what, there was an inexplicable speed-dating in the second half of the film, and the final reversal really doesn't have to be thought about. Old people are lost, and new ones are not established. The only impression that Manny's daughter gives the audience is that she must never have a daughter in the future. I don't think this kind of family conflict is prepared for children. If so, why is it so superficial?
Animated comedies, especially those of American studios, have always used exaggerated expressions, humorous lines, inappropriate behaviors, and various tributes or parodies to increase the saturation of laughs in 3D animated comedies. "Routines" can be found in Pixar's "Monsters, Inc." series, as well as in DreamWorks' "Kung Fu Panda" series, and more can be found in Disney's "Crazy Zoo", an old animation production company, so , Blue Sky's "Ice Age" series is no exception.
This series tells the adventure story of friendship, love and family affection revealed by Mammoth Manny, Saber-toothed Tiger Diego and Sid the sloth at the end of the Ice Age, every time they face survival and destruction. Since the first film was released in 2002, It was a huge hit, and by the fifth part of this year, it has gone through 14 years. It is quite a coincidence that, just like Universal's commercial action blockbuster "The Bourne 5", which was released at the same time, the latter was born. The year, the number of sequels so far, and the release date of the fifth part are all consistent with the "Ice Age" series, but the difference is that it does not continue the solid and playful performance of the third part like "The Bourne 5". Stable, even surpassing the previous game in some respects.
"Ice Age 5"'s bloated laughs and dense cultural stalks are actually a kind of lack of confidence in the plot arrangement. The huge group of characters all appeared in the fifth part, except for the protagonist Manny and his wife, Diego. With his spouse, Sid, two funny rats, Sid's nasty grandmother, and new characters like Manny's daughter and her lover Julian, and the third tough weasel, Buck (this time actually The protagonist), as well as the villain's three egg-stealing dragons, and a bunch of animals in "Topia", and of course, the squirrel of the thousand-year tragedy, such a huge group of characters are placed in a 100-minute animation. How to effectively deploy the relationship between characters? How to develop the main line and arrange the auxiliary line in a controlled manner? How to make the audience laugh happily and feel the warmth of family with tears? These are all very important points of integration, and the ability to combine an astonishing number of group-like characters with a coherent business narrative is arguably the key to the success of this animation. However, "Ice Age 5" did not do arrive.
Just as the colorful scenes of fireworks are used to satisfy the visual desire of the viewers, this film also makes each character "play in turns and play tricks, each laughs and sings", making the movie like fireworks in the dark night Because the audience is overwhelmed, they choose "sudden laughter" in a panic, but after each laugh, they have to pick up the tricks of the next wave of characters, otherwise there is a risk of masseter muscle collapse.
The same over-fullness is also reflected in the cultural stalks everywhere. Buck's opening is indeed a highlight of the film. Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" was performed in Buck's hands with a kind of robber-style joke. A very thoughtful parody. With the continuous switching of the scenes in the jungle, in the smooth camera movement, we can see that Buck grabbed the egg for the Triceratops with a kind of romantic chivalrous elegance. However, the film did not stop the abruptness of cultural symbols because of this excellent parody. This kind of abruptness is spread throughout the film. In the opening paragraph of the squirrel, the opening song "Chara" in "2001: A Space Odyssey" is quoted. Thus Said Tuxtla", and the "Black Apocalypse Pillars", also from this film, also appear in the objects Buck is looking for later. After that, Pythagoras, R2D2 in "Star Wars", Einstein's modeling, etc. have become a symbol of technology. The appearance of this kind of icon will naturally improve the overall atmosphere of the movie. , but if it is piled up too much, it will be a filling of elements, so that the movie can't come out of the parody.
As for the family warmth that has always been in this series, the focus of this discussion is the contradiction between Manny and his daughter. Of course, this contradiction is an inevitable result of Manny's making friends, falling in love, and giving birth to a daughter. That is - to marry a daughter, but this kind of family warmth is carried out interactively in the context of facing destruction. Of course, this is in the same vein as the core narrative of the "Ice Age" series, which ends the internal crisis through an external crisis, but this time the external crisis The leader of the crisis has been replaced by Buck the Weasel. Diego and Sid in the trio have basically no driving effect. Only Manny has a subtle connection. This arrangement is of course related to the too many roles mentioned before. To sum up, the family carnival mode in "Ice Age 5" has not changed much. At least the continuation of this style will not affect the audience too much, but it cannot be ignored that this series has already belonged to the end of the game. Hard to say there is much development. Take this fifth film as an example, it is also based on the popular space science fiction movies in recent years, such as "Gravity", "Interstellar", "The Martian" and other annual blockbuster movies make "Ice Age 5" also succumbed In the production mode of commercial films - the hotspot of material. In addition to the emotional blessing of 14 years of company, the movie "My Superstar" sung by Jsssie J at the end really amazed the audience. Moreover, the characters who have appeared on the stage gather together, and the effect is no worse than the effect of a series of flashbacks in the finale. Although there may be no such idea at the time of production, it is definitely full of visual sense of the finale. A group of characters accompany me through various adventures, finally getting married and having children, facing new family problems and finally returning to perfection.
I sincerely want to say, no matter you think Blue Sky Studio is like Universal, you spit out an IP, or you like this ending, it is undeniable that the Ice Age has indeed accompanied us for so many years, after all, thank you There is such an imaginary space.
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