The taste of fan war under this item is too strong, so let's use a more serious film review to dilute it. Originally published on the WeChat public account "Yi Yi Min Ji", this article is the original unedited version.
As a teenager, LeBron James threw the Nintendo Gameboy into the trash can and became the beginning of a basketball legend. Since then, he devoted himself to basketball and eventually became a superstar.
As a teenager, Dominic James has a strong programming talent. He invented software that generates virtual modeling through cell phone camera scanning, and independently developed the basketball game Dom Ball, which takes an exaggerated and cool route. He was invited to participate in the game design camp of the E3 exhibition, but the basketball superstar father LeBron felt that he should stay in the basketball training camp to exercise his skills.
The different tendencies of the two generations towards basketball and games constitute the main line of conflict in the movie "Space Jam: A New Legacy" (hereinafter referred to as "Slam Dunk 2").
Catch up with Jordan's new track
In 1996, Warner teamed up with basketball superstar Michael Jordan to launch the movie "Slam Dunk in the Sky", which was a mixture of live action and animation. "Flying Man" starred himself in the movie, leading Warner’s classic animation "Looney Tunes" (Looney Tunes) such as Bugs Bunny, Duffy Duck, Tweety Bird, and Beep Bird in a basketball game with evil aliens to avoid cartoon stars from being outside Stars enslaved.
The film’s evaluation is not too high, with an IMDB score of 4.2 and a freshness of Rotten Tomatoes of only 31%. However, there is a mix of Jordan's gold-letter signs and live-action cartoons as a selling point, and the film's commercial revenue is excellent, earning 250 million US dollars in the box office. The sales revenue of various peripheral derivatives is claimed to exceed 4 billion U.S. dollars. Jordan starred in the movie and played the leading role, and has also become a classic case of sports stars' cross-border entertainment.
25 years later, "Slam Dunk in the Air" ushered in a sequel, and the leading star became James. James has always been regarded as a person who is qualified to compete for the "best basketball player in history", but to win this title, Jordan is a barrier that must be surpassed. In addition to fighting for more honors in the arena, James also hopes to achieve achievements comparable to Jordan off the court. Jordan started a business, James also started a business; Jordan invested in sports clubs, James also invested in sports clubs; Jordan was the protagonist of the movie, and James was also the protagonist of the movie.
After obtaining the filming rights for the sequel of "Slam Dunk in the Sky", James personally served as a film producer, and through his in-depth involvement in the film production process, he ensured that he showed his talent for acting on the big screen. Compared with the appearance of Jordan being pulled over by Warner Animation stars in "Slam Dunk in the Air" and a "tool man" appearance, James in "Slam Dunk in the Air 2" has more room for interpretation.
The theme of "Slam Dunk 2" is "father and son reconciliation." James hopes his son Dominic will practice basketball, but Dominic's greater interest lies in the development of games. An evil virtual algorithm seized this gap and brought both James and his son into a virtual world called the "Warner 3000 Entertainment Serververse" (Warner 3000 Entertainment Serververse) and let them fight on the basketball court.
In the process from separation to understanding between the two fathers and sons, James has many opportunities to show his deep paternal love. In the reconciliation paragraph, James even has to perform a crying scene, which can be described as a big test for non-professional actors. But James successfully used this opportunity to interpret a role that was more "dramatic" than Jordan's back then.
Taking the family line as the theme means that family roles are also very important in "Slam Dunk 2". Although the Jordan family members in "Slam Dunk in the Sky" are played by actors, they use the names of real family members. In "Slam Dunk 2", except for James' mother, the names of other family members belong to the original film. For example, the second son Dominic who is at odds with James in the movie is the second son, but the real James second son is named Bryce.
Flying basketball chaos
Like "Slam Dunk in the Air", the climax of "Slam Dunk in the Air 2" is also a basketball game. The main players against the two sides are James and Dominic, and the battlefield comes from the game scene of "Multiball".
The rules of the game also adopt the "Many Balls" mode. In addition to normal basketball scoring, the scoring method of the game also includes "style points." The cooler the scoring process, the higher the score. In the end, both sides scored more than 1000 points.
Although both "Slam Dunk in the Air" and "Slam Dunk in the Air 2" are fantasy works, the latter has fewer serious basketball scenes than the former. For example, Dominic blocked James in midair by stepping on the "bouncing increase" area of the court floor. And the real basketball star, "Brow Eyebrow" Anthony Davis guest starred, his character has huge wings and can fly in the air to score points. The basket frame can also move freely. The villain’s throw was crooked, and the referee “cheated” to move the basket frame to the position of the ball, so that the villain team scored 33 points.
The interesting element is precisely here. "Slam Dunk in the Air" is still a "basketball movie", while "Slam Dunk in the Air 2" is more like a "game movie".
"Slam Dunk 2" is clearly a project that the basketball industry uses to promote the power of Hollywood. The logos of NBA and Nike in the movie are constantly refreshing, and behind the scenes, they are deeply involved in the production with James. But the final effect of the movie is that the basketball community as a whole issued a declaration of "surrender" to the "new new mankind":
"Play your game, remember to bring us to play."
"Youth Culture" ≠ "Subculture"
Children born in the Internet age are called "Generation Z", and their growth has been accompanied by digital entertainment. Electronic games, social networks, live video broadcasts... Fast-paced, highly exciting digital content is the entertainment method favored by "Gen Z". Even though traditional sports are packed with singing, dancing, and beautiful shadows, they have already noticed the impact of digital entertainment. They have a deep sense of crisis, believing that they are gradually at a disadvantage in the competition of "Gen Z" entertainment methods.
Young people like digitalization, and traditional sports are trying their best to transform into digitalization. Opening social network accounts, entering streaming media platforms, interacting with e-sports...traditional sports have made a lot of efforts.
But in these past efforts, traditional sports has always carried a big brother attitude: our content is perfect, but we need to use the means that young people like to deliver the content.
However, James said very bluntly through "Slam Dunk 2" that we are no longer the boss. If we don't change our concept, we can only become the old almanac in the end.
Looking back at history, basketball culture-to be precise, American basketball culture-has always been an important channel for various youth subcultural phenomena to enter the mainstream. Rap, graffiti, street dancing, sports shoes... these everyday social and cultural phenomena that are familiar to the public today have all become popular since the basketball circle.
However, the above elements themselves are closely related to basketball. Therefore, it is not that basketball contains subcultures, but basketball itself has subculture elements. After the professional basketball promoted by the NBA became popular, these subcultural elements were recognized by the mainstream of society.
Although video games and digital entertainment represent the "youth's choice", they cannot be completely equated with subculture. After all, this era has been called the "digital age", and digital is one of the key words of the development of human science and technology. At the same time, electronic games and digital entertainment are not inherent characteristics of basketball. Therefore, the acceptance relationship between basketball and games cannot be completely modeled on the relationship between basketball and rap graffiti.
In the final analysis, how to coexist in competition with digital entertainment is a difficult problem facing traditional sports.
Lao Zhan orders to play the game
From the perspective of "Slam Dunk 2", James is not only optimistic about the battle between traditional sports and digital entertainment, but also believes that the way out for the former is to become a part of the latter.
On the surface, "Slam Dunk 2" wants to express "respect" and "understanding". James doesn't understand the children's passion for game creation, which creates a gap between the two sides and almost leads to the evil result of being trapped in the virtual world forever. At the same time, when the James team fell behind the villain team, James also found a chance to comeback through understanding and accepting the nonsense playing style of the "Looney Tunes" stars.
From the inside, James understands that the content of "respect" and "understanding" is the enthusiasm of young people for digital entertainment.
The cool basketball game at the climax is completely designed for young people who like fancy and fantasy. This unfettered arena conforms to the young people's unwillingness to accept the constraints of the old rules. The traditional basketball image has been beaten into the cold.
The main line of father-son love is the ultimate reflection of James' thinking. Dad threw Gameboy when he was young, and his son developed games when he was young. The opposition of generational concepts is entirely represented by games.
James emphasized that the older generation is working hard to eliminate this opposition, and the next generation is completely free to choose their own path. So in the movie, James' wife asked James to play a game developed by his son and praised his outstanding achievements. James is also very open-minded and immediately accepted his wife's suggestion, but because of a program error in the game (this program error became a foreshadowing of the climax of the battle), it was too late to praise his son.
During the climax battle, James finally praised the game developed by Dominic as "exciting" and apologized for not knowing the superiority of this game earlier. This apology pulled Dominic back from the villain's camp and is another key to the reversal of the James team.
Industry predictions for business wizards
James is not only successful on the court, but also very business-minded. He said in 2008 that the Beats headphone brand acquired 1% of the company's shares. Later Beats was acquired by Apple. James made 30 million U.S. dollars from it. He is also a minority shareholder of the Premier League football club Liverpool. After Liverpool has won the Champions League and the Premier League in recent years, James has also reaped five or six times the return on investment. The pizza restaurant Blaze Pizza, which he invested in 2012, has undergone a period of rapid expansion and has become the fastest-growing restaurant chain brand in the history of the American restaurant industry. It has soared from two branches to 200 in four years.
Regardless of whether his investment ideas come from expert advice or personal experience, James' business talent should not be underestimated. Therefore, when this basketball superstar who is eligible to be elected "the best in history" turns a "basketball movie" into a "game movie", his judgment on the future of the industry is also worth paying attention to.
The most intriguing part of "Slam Dunk 2" lies in the ending. The relationship between the father and son that had returned to reality has been untied, and Dominic is holding the basketball, ready to go to the basketball training camp. But James sent him to the E3 exhibition site, Dominic was surprised and happy, and gave a bright smile.
Dominic walked into the E3 venue, but still holding a basketball in his hand. This is what James wanted to say: "Take me to play."
James took great pains to apologize and praise on behalf of the older generation. It seems that this is what Dominic is willing to take the basketball into the E3 venue. Otherwise, he throws basketball aside, as if to imply that young people will also throw traditional sports to the antique showroom in the future.
The subtitle of "Slam Dunk 2" is often translated as "new legend", but in fact "Legacy" itself is more focused on the meaning of "legacy" and "inheritance". James gave the basketball to his son and his son entered the game show with the basketball, implying the three "seems" of "Zhan Huang": He can only expect that the increasingly developed game industry will still have the shadow of basketball in the future to maintain basketball. Inheritance; he seems to be predicting that the future of basketball will eventually become a basketball game; he does not seem to have the burden of a "basketball man" on his body. He is only doing business, believing that numbers are a world with more lucrative profits than traditional sports. .
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