MAX
When I heard that Lao Si was going to make "Ready Player One", I immediately went to understand the outline of the original work.
Glancing at it, isn't this the YY starting point of the YY starting point of otaku Diaosi's infinite streaming feelings with countless anime and game characters and virtual PK of evil companies ?
But it turns out that Lao Si is worthy of being Hollywood's "number one player".
After all, Spiel in Spielberg means "play" in German .
"Ready Player One" obviously tells us that even if it is a street stall novel , Spielberg can make a super A-level masterpiece that makes the whole people carnival .
Turn off the lights special, please do not reprint
Text / Cheese Rich Max
It is said that this film was first shot by Nolan, hehe
A little digression first.
1993 was the year of Spielberg's consecration.
His Jurassic Park and Schindler's List were released in less than six months .
That is to say, when "Jurassic" was still in the late stage, Lao Si had already started the shooting of "Schindler".
As you can imagine, he may have been discussing the roar of the Tyrannosaurus Rex with a group of special effects artists at ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) a few days ago, and a few days later in the vast Holocaust Victims Memorial.
What a role-switching ability this is !
In the end, "Jurassic Park" won the Oscar's three "decoration awards" .
"Schindler's List" has won seven golden statues including the best picture and the best director. It really does not leave any chance for its peers.
The reason why I want to review this glorious history of Lao Si is because I think he still maintains this peak creative energy today.
But don't forget, his "Washington Post" was just released two months ago. Although he ran with him at the 90th Oscar, he at least won the nominations for the best picture and the best actress.
From a time point of view, the "Washington Post" and "Ready Player One" are also operated by Spielberg at the same time.
This once again proved his strong leadership of serious subjects on the left and entertainment masterpieces on the right .
Comparing the two films, I made an interesting discovery.
Lao Si's "Washington Post" is to complicate simple things and artificially increase diversity in an otherwise relatively thin scene.
Because the people in this movie are always doing the same thing:
meeting
Sitting in a meeting, standing in a meeting, calling a meeting, walking while walking...
This kind of dialogue scene between several people is the most difficult to shoot. If it is handed over to a director with mediocre qualifications, it is estimated that it will be similar to surveillance video.
Spielberg is like a professor in the director department , telling the younger generation with practical actions: Don't worry, I will show you the tricks one by one.
Therefore, the movement of the camera in each meeting scene in the film is different.
With a rotating lens and a mirror to the end
with hand-held follow-up
There are also various scene switching
Where is this filming? It's like writing a textbook!
In the future, whenever a young director wants to shoot a scene in a meeting, he can just pick an imitation from the Washington Post.
Ready Player One is the exact opposite.
In this huge work that mixes and matches various genres and pays homage to the elements, Spielberg is actually trying to improve the narrative efficiency as much as possible.
Lao Si's first magic weapon is to let the picture speak for itself , and use less narration to explain various backgrounds and rules.
For example, the first shot of the whole film is to push from the long shot of the stacked building area to the hero Wade, and then use a long shot to show his acrobat-like downstairs action.
On the one hand, it shows the male protagonist's agility and vitality.
At the same time, he also explained the environment in which he grew up - a dystopian slum built from old cars, which is very spectacle.
More importantly, through the windows of old cars, we see that everyone living here is wearing VR glasses, some are playing games, some are playing the piano, some are pole dancing.
A long shot completes the display of people, places and social appearances at one go.
Another example is the introduction of the second character Archie.
Archie's first appearance was on the battlefield. In addition to showing off all kinds of explosive battle scenes, this short segment also used several shots to show the way to win gold coins .
In this way, in the next game session, the audience will naturally understand this rule without further explanation.
In contrast to domestic film and television works, the most favorite thing to do is to let the characters talk like a host , for fear that the audience will not understand.
Then the film quickly gets to the point.
The main mission is very clear. To complete three challenges in the virtual world of "Oasis" and find three hidden keys , the winner can inherit the $500 billion fortune of the genius game designer Halliday.
The first level is racing.
In this scene, there are Fast and Furious, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and King Kong. Lao Si once again showed his textbook-like ability to control various types of films.
Compared with "Pacific Rim 2" released in the same period , the first climax of "Ready Player One" is enough to kill it.
To give the simplest example, do you feel like watching a group of toys fighting when you watch the Battle of Mount Fuji in "Pacific Rim 2"?
The reason is that this paragraph uses too many head-up angles , but this paragraph that expresses a behemoth should obviously use more looking up.
Hey, I don't understand such a simple truth, I can only say that the director of "Ring 2" is too scumbag.
Whether it's a big dinosaur or a gorilla, most of the time in "Ready Player One" is shot upwards, which is full of oppression.
A more important question is, with so many visual elements (explosions, rollovers, monsters...) in a short period of time, how can we quickly guide the audience's attention and keep everyone following the director?
Spielberg offered his second magic weapon: sound .
The human ear can help the eyes very well. When there is too much content to see on the screen, let the most important thing make a sound , so that the eyes know what to look at immediately.
While all the runners are racing hard, King Kong rages on a light rail train in the background. In these few seconds of footage, Spielberg deliberately muted most of the sound effects, leaving only the whistling and exploding sound of the light rail .
In this way, even the audience who didn't notice the background just now can immediately get the director's intention.
Another example is the slow-motion scene where the male protagonist drifts under the tanker to suck gold coins . The most visually prominent explosion has its sound effects hidden, leaving only the clinking sound of countless gold coins.
Although this little trick is simple, it requires repeated polishing of the details. Spielberg seems to be holding a magic wand in his hand, saying to the audience from time to time: "Now look here, now look there."
If you are interested in revisiting Lao Si's other works, you will find that this is a method he often uses.
The second level is the "The Shining" challenge that fans are most talking about .
Spielberg and Kubrick were friends from the beginning. After Kubrick's death, his unfinished "Artificial Intelligence" was completed by Lao Si.
Of course, the warm ending of Lao Si's version of "Artificial Intelligence" has also been criticized by many people, and it does not have Kubrick's cold sense of the future.
This time, "The Shining" challenge, is obviously Lao Si's self-help, expressing his little fanboy's feelings.
Personally, I think this episode is a bit high and low, and I was very excited when I first entered the villa, because it was really exactly the same as Kubrick's scene back then.
"ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY" on the typewriter is also used as a countdown, very creative.
Especially when I came across the bizarre twin loli at the corner, the first time I watched "The Shining", I felt this episode was the creepiest, so much so that I felt creepy when I saw the long aisle in the hotel.
But the flood-like CG reset plasma and Xue Ye's 3D maze are a bit too dazzling, without the bloody horror of "The Shining" and the suspense created by Steadicam in the maze motion shots.
Archie, who never watched horror movies, asked Axiu, who was dressed as a ninja, "Is The Shining scary?"
Axiu said, "I read it through my fingers."
One of the essence of "The Shining" is the sense of the unknown. When the Steadicam's low camera follows the little boy on the bicycle through the mountain villa, you don't know what he will encounter when he turns a corner.
No ghost is more scary than ghosts.
So the zombie dance party in the back of the second level completely destroyed the atmosphere of this section.
In the territory of God Kubrick, to actually pull the zombies in other movies to support the scene, it is really a bit low-level.
The reason for this is mainly to enhance the entertainment of this paragraph, which is Spielberg's calculation .
After all, many onlookers will get excited when they see the word "zombie".
The third level is to push the Spring Festival Gala-style hodgepodge to the apex.
The decisive battle between the Iron Giant and Mechanical Godzilla was super-burning, and the appearance of Gundam was even more explosive. I played two games in the cinema, and this scene was the most cheering and exclamation.
Of course, it's also for the sake of detail. Other characters are too quick to watch. Whether it is Overwatch or the Master Chief, they all shoot in biubiubiu, and there is almost no distinction.
In this paragraph, we can clearly see that Spielberg has uniformly reduced the contrast in the color palette .
When characters with different styles of painting come in like a tide, if they keep their original colorful colors, it will really become the Spring Festival Gala.
No matter how big these Easter egg characters are, since they are here to be extras , they can only give up part of the gorgeous colors.
In fact, in large-scale group gymnastics movies, this method is used to adjust the character modeling.
For example, Brother Hammer in Thor 3, because he is the protagonist, his body is rich in red and blue .
But in "Avengers 3", the individual can't steal the collective limelight, so each character is dominated by dark colors (the leftmost is the new look of Brother Hammer).
"X-Men" is the same reason, you know, Wolverine is yellow and blue in the comics .
The battle itself has nothing to say, the scene is shocking, and the movement of the mirror is like flowing water, which absolutely satisfies all your imagination of "blockbuster".
One of my favorite scenes in the whole film is a scene with no special effects.
Wade, who finally won, met him at Halliday's virtual home.
Don't forget that the real world is the only real world, Halliday told him. In fact, I feel sorry for my indulging in the "oasis", I can't open my mouth when I meet the girl I love, and my best friend is gone.
As Halliday's number one fan, Wade burst into tears . He sighed with emotion for his idol, which became the motivation for his later inner change.
It's a very simple shot, pushing slowly towards Wade's face wearing VR glasses, tears streaming from the glasses.
No original picture, please make up your mind
This slow-motion close-up of the face is Spielberg's most iconic feature. Like the Doctor in Jurassic Park who saw dinosaurs for the first time.
Or the old Ryan in front of the tombstone recalling the WWII years.
Or Meryl Streep, in tears in the Washington Post, who decided to fight the government to the end.
Simple enough to shoot, but packed with emotional punch.
What can be more moving than a human face full of expressions?
And this scene has a special meaning.
Wade is wearing glasses and is in a virtual world. And the tears are seeping out of the glasses, which means that the line between the virtual world and the real world has blurred.
Because the emotions are real, so is the virtual's impact on reality.
I'm not denying that Ready Player One is an excellent work, and it's incredibly well done.
Every frame has been carefully calculated, and every link reflects the consummate skills of the entertainment film boss.
But the film's biggest problem is that it doesn't take a stand, and its reflection on technology is so thin that it's negligible.
It can be described as "exquisite mediocrity" , which is what I feel when I watch the whole film.
The imagination of VR only stops at that, you can enter those worlds you were most familiar with, and do what you like with your favorite characters.
That's basically the level of brand advertising for any VR company .
It is said that in the original novel, the reason why IOI wants to annex the "Oasis" is because it can fully grasp the educational resources and brainwash the next generation .
All such plots were pulled out by Spielberg.
At the end of the story, Diaosi successfully counterattacked and became the new owner of the "Oasis".
But then what?
We didn't see where Olds wanted to lead us, nor how Wade could bring about substantial change.
In 2009, there was a very unknown science fiction film starring Bruce Willis called "Future Cop".
In the setting of this film, in the future, humans will no longer have to leave their homes, but only need to remotely control their own proxy robots to complete everything.
In fact, such films have an implicit theme, that is , how people can get rid of the dependence on technology .
So at the end of "Future Cop", Bruce Willis turned off the robots all over the world, preferring technology to zero, rather than living in a high-tech cage.
This is humanistic science fiction.
Whereas in Ready Player One, we only know that "the prince and princess lived happily on Tuesday and Thursday".
That's the ending Spielberg is looking for under the film's sophisticated exterior.
That's all, it's terribly superficial.
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