It is true that "Ready Player One" is a film above the average commercial film level, and it is also a relatively good one among Spielberg's commercial films in recent years. However, what I want to discuss here is, from a movie perspective, is this a good enough movie to be praised one-sidedly, and is it really that good?
From a plot point of view, Ready Player One is out of the loop, and it's stuck in it. The most obvious question is why love? From the perspective of commercial film models, love is an essential element. Yes, elements, not the natural development of the character's emotions. Many people also see that the emotional line between the hero and heroine develops too quickly. Love becomes a compressed biscuit in this multifaceted film. Is it necessary? We'll talk about it later, but I remember that in "ET", "Jurassic Park", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", love is almost absent, but it does not affect the quality of the film or the emotion of the characters; further, "Ready Player One" Can the love in "Move people?" Obviously not. An untouchable love, in the movie, is not as contagious as ambiguous and flirtatious.
Of course, when it comes to the "necessity" of love in "Ready Player One", Spielberg obviously has his own considerations, which is to point out the "reality", which is why the server is shut down on Tuesday and Thursday. The male protagonist found the female protagonist, so he told us to cherish the people around us, but the problem is that you can cherish the people around you even if you don't shut down the server. Since I haven't read the original, I don't know if the setting for shutting down the server on Tuesday and Thursday was written in the book or added by Spielberg. In any case, the logic of shutting down the server stops the conclusion that "the game will seriously affect the quality of real life". From the middle of the film, it repeatedly emphasizes the meaning of reality, and it also reinforces this point through the narrative technique of parallel editing of games and reality. The original intention is correct, but the conclusion is bad. In addition to the preaching, there is also a feeling of "a bowl of cold water".
The reasons for this feeling are very complicated. The first reason is that if some people can only find a sense of superiority, happiness and presence in games, for them, the importance of games is far greater than reality. In other words, they have no interest in reality and no control over it from the beginning. They don't think that indulging in games is wasting time, but they think that living in reality is like a year. Well, if you shut down the server two days a week, it's obviously a penalty to them;
The second reason, the conclusion that "games affect the quality of real life" eventually separates games from reality. This knife is cruel, like a vindicator's dull knife. But from the point of view of the whole film, "Oasis" is charming and "reality" is terrible, so why do people have to find that delicate balance? Does this request feel a little paradoxical? Of course, it's easy to talk about this level, but it always makes you feel uncomfortable, it feels like you have a good day with a famous prostitute, and it turns out that this is a sex education class in your dreams.
The third reason is that I think "Ready Player One" is not so good. It has not escaped the stylized prison of Hollywood movies, and more importantly, it has no desire to escape. In other words, Spielberg chose the safest way to end and elevate the film, and that "fascinated" feeling also vanished in the final paragraph. From character setting to emotional elements to plot development, Ready Player One is not even as good as a Marvel movie. Especially in terms of character design, the people in Marvel movies are both good and evil, but in "Ready Player One", the good people in the game must be good people in reality, and the bad people in reality must be bad people in the game, here we go. This time, it is disappointing that the game and reality are not separated.
Spielberg is a fan of Kubrick, and the film's restoration of "The Shining" is evident. But it is also sad to show that Spielberg will never reach Kubrick's heights, and Spielberg's films, especially after Schindler's List, always lack the natural thickness and the "mouth of God" ”, that is, out of stylized tolerance. Although at his peak, Spielberg had reached the top of Babel. For example, in the early years of "Jurassic Park" and other films, the "thickness" was just right, and after "Rape of Nature" was pointed out, it was supplemented with the plot; when it came to "Ready Player One", Spielberg could only choose to directly Said way to increase the thickness of the film too.
This is a step backward.
To put it bluntly, the sense of fragmentation in "Ready Player One" is actually serious, but the film hides the cracks through wonderful passages and dizzying easter eggs. This separation presents three dimensions, rationality and sensibility, games and movies, fantasy and reality.
Spielberg is a movie fan, not a game fan. In "Ready Player One", the setting of the movie stalks is far more distracting than the game stalks. Even in the final battle between the full server players and the villain company, the ghost baby Chucky almost robbed the Gundam scene. Of course, it is entirely up to the audience to follow the stalks. Game fans pick up game stalks, and movie fans pick up movie stalks, but if you chew on it carefully, you will still find that the whole film of "The Shining" is done with heart and soul, even if it is as exciting as the first For a period of racing competition, the most brilliant ones are still the Tyrannosaurus Rex and King Kong belonging to the movie world. In this way, the problem arises. A gamer needs to understand the movie meme in order to understand the fun of the game, which is somewhat tortuous.
At the level of fantasy and reality, this is actually a bit contradictory from the beginning of the setting of "Ready Player One". When I look at it, there is no doubt that, no matter how fascinating the fantasy world is, we must return to reality. This conclusion avoids the possibility of fantasy replacing reality, and only uses fantasy as a foil for reality, which seems unfair to "unreal". In other words, Spielberg did not have the courage to engage in a discussion similar to "Artificial Intelligence" in his later years. This is understandable at first, but since the needle tip has already pierced this layer, not piercing it will definitely show timidity, or, in other words, the experience of an old man.
As for the emotional and rational layer, it is a very subjective accusation, in the final analysis, it is my personal tired of Hollywood narrative stylization, tired to the level of hostility. In other words, for Spielberg, for the setting of "Ready Player One", I had another expectation. As I said at the beginning, why should there be love? Why are the characters absolutely good and evil? (The last shot that the villain businessman didn't fire, I don't think he made his character full, but looked a little naive and ridiculous) Why is the paragraph of "The Shining" so cramped and loses the feeling of terror? Why the final battle has become like an Easter egg fair...
Of course, all kinds of questions are higher requirements, which sound like pretending to be X or harsh requirements. I still want to emphasize that Ready Player One is an above-average commercial movie, a movie with exquisite details and a lot of emotion, but how good is it? If you use the quantitative scoring system, I think it will be around 75 points. It is incomparable to the work of Spielberg at his peak. Within a year, people will forget this film; after three years, when you rewatch this film even in the most IMAX theaters, the only thing that will excite you is the racing competition, and the fans will have "The Shining". , game fans still have a few seconds of "Gundam". that is it.
After watching "Ready Player One", I am more convinced of one thing. The integration of games and movies will become more common in the future. There will be some young directors who understand game culture and shoot some movies with a more gaming experience. Of course, the beginning of everything is difficult, and Spielberg should be able to start this beginning, obviously it should not be more demanding. However, I still want to learn from Mad Girl Luna's dad - the naysayer.
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