(Old article moved, first published on January 11, 2014)
Taking advantage of the reputation on the Internet and the popularity of Minions, "Despicable Me 2", which was delayed for half a year in China, grabbed 30 million box office on its first day. Since its release, the film has raked in $918 million worldwide, and its performance in the Chinese market is related to whether it can break the $1 billion mark.
"Despicable Me 2" is a Hollywood animation with a simple plot, correct values and plenty of jokes, suitable for children to watch. In fact, compared to the first one, which was amazingly imaginative, the sequel has taken a lot of backwards in terms of characters and plot settings, and there are no surprises. So I was a little shocked when I heard that this film was nominated for this year's Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
Three years ago, "Despicable Me" offered us the peculiar idea of flying sky and stealing the moon, going beyond the "reasonable" limits of Hollywood blockbusters, creating a complete world view out of thin air, making people regain the excitement of watching cartoons when they were young . In that movie, the little yellows are similar to the various aliens in "Men in Black", and their functions are to hunt for novelties, to cheer, and to assist in promoting the plot.
The biggest feature of "Despicable Me 2" is that the minions robbed the protagonist Gru's scene. How many supporting roles can you remember? Gong Xinliang ("If You Are the One"), Zhao Ming ("Let the Bullets Fly"), Li Man ("Golden Armor in the City") are not counted as those who show their flesh. Wang Baoqiang from "A World Without Thieves", "Crazy Stone" The characteristics of Huang Bo are almost the same as those of Minions: silly, cheap, and cute.
The film goes to great lengths to make the Minions play cheap and cute, so that it doesn't matter what the plot is. The reason why the creators claim that the second film is a big hit is that adults and children can find interesting elements, but in my opinion, the so-called "adult elements" are just a Hollywood cliché that we see and know by heart.
But movies need to make money. The producer Universal knows that Minions are more popular with audiences, and the audience is there to see Minions. No matter how good the plot is, you will forget it after watching the movie; and the image of Minions can be extended to every corner of daily life: from dolls to keychains, from mobile games to McDonald's, they attract you day after day and contribute Give out a piece of silver.
Of course, the image design of Minions is really ingenious, simple, abstract, and highly recognizable (except for the big sweet potato with a height of 1.45 meters and an IQ of 50 in "Old Master"), and the most important thing - cute, very suitable for Network culture, easy to spread, is an ideal animation derivative. In the initial design plan, the image of the minions still conforms to their "bad guy" identity, which is a typical "ugly", but later it was gradually transformed into what we see: big eyes, round, not scary, no public nuisance. In this regard, China's Grey Wolf is also doing very well.
Universal Corporation discovered the potential of the Minion image as early as the first film, and deliberately made it a classic image: At that time, the Minions accounted for a large proportion of the posters. Before the release of "Despicable Me 2", Universal launched a parkour game "Minion Rush" (Minion Rush), which has now reached 150 million downloads for this free game. The author tried it out, and it was quite entertaining. Running and running, you really thought you had become a yellow capsule.
In addition, Universal launched a Minion hot air balloon in Europe, deployed an A-150 airship (one of the largest in the world) in North America, spent six months traveling around the United States, and arrived in Hollywood for its premiere, Do it like the Olympic torch relay. In the Universal Studios theme park, the image of Minions is very popular, even surpassing the dinosaurs of Transformers and Jurassic Park... Can Chinese animation practitioners be inspired?
PS: Universal, which has tasted the sweetness, will also shoot "Despicable Me 3" with Gru as the protagonist, but before that, the audience will first see a "Minions" - this time Minions became The true protagonists of the film, their origins will also be revealed. This is much taller than the short story "Little Yellow People Extra Story" circulating on the Internet.
First published on Zhejiang Online Public Wechat
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