Text | Zhan Shibang
The popularity of "Ready Player One", and even its almost violent word-of-mouth reputation, always makes me unable to let go. I have no reason to doubt my judgment, and I don't agree with the opinions of the listeners who left me messages on the "Ban Jin Ba Liang" podcast. , a considerable number of people's opinions can be summed up as 'so many people feel good, you feel bad, you must have a problem'. If all works in the world were judged in this way, there would be no real works.
● Simple and crude contract spirit
After recording the show, my anger towards "Ready Player One" gradually disappeared, and instead I became interested in the way of thinking of its main creator. Whether it is the story structure or the visual performance, every part of this film revealed a commercial thinking. This is not to say that Mr. Spielberg made the film purely to make money (although it must be), but that the core of the story is built on business logic. The founder of the "Oasis" virtual game world passed away. Before his death, he left a contract: he left an easter egg in the game, and the person who got the easter egg could inherit the property rights of the game. This is a commercial contract. If you want property rights, you must meet conditions. Even if you cheat, you must achieve the conditions. Then, in the whole film, no matter how powerful the villain is, it is still necessary to meet this condition in order to obtain property rights. This is a business law, which is above everything else. Even, to get the easter egg, you must get three keys, and this condition cannot be achieved by detour. That is to say, in the climax paragraphs that are praised as explosive by many professionals, no matter how despicable the villain is, he must follow the rules to fight, and in the end, he must be willing to gamble and admit defeat. No villain has ever thought of jumping out of the rules of the game, which is really touching. Kind and bad guy.
Then, all the storylines built on it must follow this hard logic, which is what we call rogue logic. Based on this logic, we look through the whole film and talk about a group of marginalized people who are accepted by their peers because they are heavily addicted to games and pursue freedom. They save and conquer the world in a way that does not harm morality. In the spirit of the contract, the story reflects the respect for individual personality and demands, and conforms to universal values. Everything in this story is to "win", win the key, win the menu, win the villain, and win the world. Naturally, it tastes like chewing wax.
The so-called climax is very "burning". We all know that it is a game. We can all see a group of young people who pursue freedom liberate their compatriots, but what we can't see is how unbearable the real world is? How hard are our main characters? What price did they finally bet on to fight? How deep and concrete will the crisis in the virtual world have on the real world?
Thinking of this, a question suddenly arises: "Is the purpose of the game to enjoy the game or to win?" This question itself is very boring, and it seems that I have heard it somewhere. My thoughts jumped away suddenly, thinking of last summer, "Summer", "Summer War" talked about in one of the episodes.
● conspiracy • home
"Summer Wars" tells the story of a family of four living in the same house. At a routine family gathering in midsummer, they suffered a disaster. It was a devastating crisis caused by the collapse of the virtual world system and then spread to the real world. The whole family will do their best to fight the big devil in the virtual world. Users all over the world are inspired to sacrifice every ego to gather a protective force of love to defeat the source of evil in the virtual world, and the world will return to peace. The Jinnai family in Japan, living in the quiet and long-standing mountains and forests, saved the world calmly, continued to complete the annual gathering, and bid farewell to the wife of the family, who loved and revered.
How did this seemingly grand legend come about? Breaking the question, starting with two high school students. Kenji has almost nothing except mathematics. He has no watermelons, fireworks and girls during his summer vacation. He can only do part-time work in front of the cold computer screen - maintaining the virtual system of OZ. The prelude of the story, with a brief world view guide clip, show what OZ is? It is not a kingdom in The Wizard of Oz, it is an Internet virtual social platform, everyone in OZ has their own ID and avatar, and uses this avatar to socialize freely. Of course, the protagonist Kenji, who is working hard, is no exception: his appearance on OZ is a dumb mouse, as honest as himself, and will not attract any attention of the opposite sex. When he complained about not being selected for the World Mathematical Olympiad by a tiny margin while working, his goddess, Natsuki-senpai, suddenly appeared in front of him and invited him to work for her alone. Who could say no to such a tempting summer job? The content of the part-time job is to go on a country trip with the goddess! It was only when Kenji got on the pirate ship that he realized that the essence of the part-time job was to pretend to be Xia Xi's boyfriend to attend the annual Xia Xi family gathering, and also to go to Xia Xi's great-grandmother---Jinnei's wife Jinnei Rong—— Happy birthday.
From Tokyo to the family base in Ise Mountain in Ueno, Kenji accompanied Natsuki to three modes of transportation, one of which was behind the other, and finally walked to the gate of Jinneifu on foot. At this point, the narrator seems to have completely forgotten about OZ, and instead explained the ins and outs of the Jinnai family through a family dinner, and naturally led to Kenji's rival in love - Xia Xi's unrelated cousin - Wabisuke . At this time, the impatient audience began to wonder: this is obviously a family love story, what does it have to do with the virtual world? The author took pains to go around in circles and draw his own field. Next, everything about the OZ virtual system is played in this field. This is the opposite of American sci-fi blockbusters. American sci-fi stories are about me rushing out of the gourd to explore the world, while "Summer Wars" is about me pulling the world into my gourd. No matter how grand the world view is, I will only take a scoop of water.
Feeling Xia Xi's love for his uncle, the lost Kenji didn't sleep all night, and accidentally received a text message, which turned out to be a string of 2056-digit passwords. Kenji picked up the pen and paper subconsciously, and kept counting until dawn, when he unlocked the password. He just treated it as a math problem and sent the answer back. Unexpectedly, this led to a relationship between him and the Jinnei family, the Jinnei family and the OZ system. A fierce battle between. Because the password was inadvertently cracked by Kenji, the entire OZ system became a mess. The rich and diverse social scenes were changed overnight, and they were all forced to be converted into a single "battle" mode, and everything that followed would be resolved by violence. Kenji's account was stolen and he became a wanted criminal, and the secret between him and his senior sister was instantly exposed in front of the Jinnai family.
How deeply will the OZ virtual system affect the real world? At this time, the author gave the most Japanese answer through family life. Originally, the police officer from Jinnai’s family was going to close the case with Kenji, but he was blocked on the road. While he was cursing, the angle of view jumped, and we saw that the entire Japanese highway and railway system, and even the emergency system and fire fighting system had fallen into a mess. The big devil in the OZ system has become an omnipotent master by cannibalizing other accounts, and it arbitrarily steals user accounts with a background in public service. In this way, if the user is a train dispatcher, the train schedule will be tampered with at will; if the user is a firefighter, the fire alarm will also be triggered at will. Implemented at the result level of "influence", first, the high school baseball league broadcast was cut off, then traffic jams, navigator failures, water pressure failures, medical alarms, fire alarms... These macro results are only information, not plots, we But I am amazed that the author has made it into the details of daily life, every detail. Of course, the author will not stop here, but will also draw a circle back to the story: due to the traffic breakdown, the family cannot arrive at the old house in the array on time, and the old lady's 90th birthday will become deserted and chaotic, and the pair The characters in the story are scarier than the sky falling!
Here, the author has already turned the virtual crisis into a real crisis, which in turn leads to a family crisis. The author used nearly a quarter of the space to draw a circle, and finally put a sci-fi story setting into this circle.
Next, the author used the historical hat of Takeda Shingen's retainer in the Warring States Period to add a halo to the circle of "home". Through the passage of "Rong の Activity", he arranged for the 90-year-old old lady to ascend to the altar. It can be described as the most incredible paragraph in the whole film: a 90-year-old old lady, at the moment when the OZ system collapsed and caused a world crisis, She actually sat in the study and made another phone call. The caller was a descendant of the former Takeda retainer. We saw that the surnames of famous ministers in the Warring States period such as "Iantomi", "Itagaki" and "Sone" were written on the phone book. The old lady made a few phone calls, or encouraged, spurred, motivated or forced, and found all the dignitaries in Japan's various systems. The words were all in retreat, but they received miraculous results. Japan's various public service emergency systems actually gradually stabilized. Just when we were about to question whether this behavior was too exaggerated, the author used the words of Jin Nairong to say, "Now it is the same as before, the important thing is to take care and communicate between people." Universal service, those who questioned can only shut up and watch this old lady strategize and win thousands of miles away.
From a story point of view, having a circle and having a halo is not enough, because no one can explain the question "Why must the savior be you?". That is the question of the legitimacy of the hero. Why must it be your family who will save the world in the end?
The seemingly awkward role of wabisuke finally comes in handy. Just after Kenji was clarified, an alien appeared in the seemingly peaceful family. It turned out that the big devil in the OZ system—the hacker AI—was actually developed by Wabisuke! At that time, Wabisuke, as the son of the former head of the family, was adopted by the kind-hearted Rong as his own. Even when his family business was in decline, Rong actually sold the mine to Wabisuke to study. And Wabisuke also has the ambition to revive the family business. He developed a super hacker artificial intelligence, which was favored by the U.S. military. The U.S. military's price was so high that Wabisuke "can return home with his head held high." After the truth was revealed, Rong pulled out her spear and nearly hacked Wabisuke to death. She was extremely disappointed, and the last words she said to the whole family were, "I have to clean up my own mistakes." After that, Rong Ping passed away, her death and Wabisuke's ambitions constituted the motivation of the whole story, and also gave the Jinnai family the legitimacy to save the world.
After that, the whole family fought together, and touched the whole world and made everyone sacrifice their ego. There are many stalks carefully hidden by the author. The names of the OZ guardian whales are combined with the names of Lennon and Yoko. 1. The most moving line of "Seven Samurai", the way of playing Japanese flower cards, and even the equipment of the sentence "protect others can protect yourself"... Everything is logical, because the author has painstakingly plotted in the first and second scenes of the story. articles.
● What are we "burning"?
The climax of "Summer Wars" is moving because it truly achieves the connection between virtual and reality. The crisis acts on the most iconic details of life. The decisive battle is at the cost of human life. Heart will be moved. The death of the old lady was caused by the collapse of OZ in a sense, and such things will continue to happen. Therefore, before the decisive battle, the protagonist Kenji has already led the audience to mobilize before the battle. This is a decisive battle of life, this weight There is no comparison. Therefore, when the small accounts all over the world voluntarily sacrifice themselves, it is the most burning moment of the whole film. That "burning" is moving enough and credible enough, because the price is enough.
Comparatively speaking, the climax of "Ready Player One" was forcibly pushed up through one winning game after another. What is the weight of the decisive battle? It's not life, but the power to play games freely. Everyone bet this chip to fight the villain of the business empire to the death. The weight seems to be enough, but it is not real without flesh and blood.
The shaping of the villain also reflects the author's completely different views on the "virtual world crisis". The villain of "Ready Player One" is based on a commercial conspiracy, trying to monopolize the entire game world. In short, he just wants to win the world. The villain of "Summer Wars" is an avatar, an AI named Love Machine, and the person who created it has endowed it with a lovely and terrible "nature" - curiosity. This undoubtedly sowed a seed on the boundary of good and evil, allowed it to grow savagely, and eventually blossomed into a flower of evil that almost destroyed the world. But we see in the story that the villain doesn't want to "win", he is enjoying the game process itself, so the final battle is through the game, willing to bet and lose. Such a villain is chilling, because it is naive enough, but it can grow infinitely, it is simple enough, but it can also mature terribly in an instant. This complex enough character is enough to cause the audience to think about the "villain", which in turn triggers reflection on the "thirst for knowledge". The shaping of the "villain" reflects the gap between the two authors' understanding of "people".
Unlike "Ready Player One", the virtual space of "Summer Wars" occupies a significantly smaller proportion of the real space in the entire film. Based on the consideration of the layout of the story, we have to lay out the family space first. When we have done enough visually to make the family space real and textured, we believe that the family really exists, and then it is possible to believe that the next rescue of the world also depends on this. Family. The family kitchen, family dining room, courtyard... nowhere is the space full of family flavor, and then look at baseball, aquatic products, swords and guns, morning glory... It is also embellished with details, making it more complete and credible. Shinkansen, trams, buses, taxis and even motorcycles, all these commuting tools are for "going home". All these visual elements continue to consolidate the visual memory of the audience, and finally make the audience instinctively believe that "home is everything".
Compared with the conditioned reflex visual stimulation of "Ready Player One", the "home world" thinking of "Summer Wars" exudes a strong human touch, the interpretation of "home" and "family", and the identification of "home" and guardian, both reveal oriental wisdom. However, seeing the crisis in the virtual world as a beast does reflect Japan's national anxiety. In the story, OZ is essentially just a set of social systems that closely covers the whole society, and it is an existence of absolutely neutral instrumental significance. The real threat was born from within OZ. It was just that an AI with a "thirst for knowledge" stole the account. Just like in the world of Daqian, there are love flowers and heartbroken grass, depending on who they are using. This time, the picker is a self-abasement ambition, a "outsider" Wabisuke from the family, and the US military is taking advantage of his ambition, a "foreign" relative to the big family in Japan. Regarding the attitude of the United States, since the postwar period, many Japanese filmmakers have projected doubts and anxiety into their works. Hosoda Mori's works seem to call for world harmony and pacifism, but in fact it is difficult to conceal the taste of nationalism. The Jinai family is, after all, the most representative elite family in Japan, and the narcissism of this elite is overflowing in the Ise Valley, and it is constantly echoing. As a response, it is not difficult to hear its response to nuclear war. And even profound anxiety about the United States.
Although this anxiety is diluted by the love of the family, it is still anxiety after all. The deeper the anxiety, the greater the release of energy in the climax. After the audience cried, they would still spend their days with an aftertaste of anxiety. The "pseudo anxiety" and false crisis brought to you by "Ready Player One" are released through "winning the world". This pure and extreme heroism leaves only meal replacements with emotional labels.
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Tangerine Dreams at Midnight
Note: The film and television review podcast "Banjinbaliang" (full name "Banjinbaliang Movie") is updated synchronously on platforms such as Himalaya, Litchi, Dragonfly, NetEase, etc. It is basically broadcast every Monday at 21:12 (if the anchor is in a good mood), please kindly Tune in!
If you want to listen to Vol.115 "Summer Wars" - the ambition of pacifists, you can click "Read the original text" at the end of the page to listen to this program through NetEase Cloud Music. This program is inconsistent with the content of this article! Inconsistent!
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