"Kashen's golden sign is shattered in my heart."
Maybe a few years ago, when Robert Rodriguez took over from Cameron and put the big-eyed transformation girl into his 25th work, he did not expect that a few years later, "Alita: Battle Angel" ( Hereinafter referred to as "Alita") will make Oriental fans feel so sorry.
Only seven days after its release, it won less than 600 million yuan at the box office. "Alita" has completely hit the street. Cameron's hero has fallen, and Rodriguez may have to apologize to him.
Criticism and praise appeared almost simultaneously. Mixed in these two voices, some people also made a few witty jokes about Alita's life experience, "We were indeed picked up by our parents from the trash can, not given away by phone charges." with all the squabbles about this movie.
But that didn't make the audience forget its flaws and the disappointment it bred for Cameron for the first time.
After 20 years, Kashen finally handed over his homework, but unfortunately this time, it was written by someone else.
01 The Betrayal of Rodriguez
Rodriguez's performance in "Alita" is like a good kid.
This little-known director in the ears of Chinese audiences has never played cards according to common sense. Four years ago, Rodriguez once played a performance art, the film of his film "One Hundred Years" was put into a custom safe, and it would not be officially opened and released until 100 years later.
Just imagine, 100 years later, when people watch this old-fashioned film for the first time, imagine what happened a hundred years ago, in the movie in the theater, in the text of history, looking for this "Rodriguez" What an interesting picture for a B-level film director.
Fans will probably scream "cool!" for his move.
But who would have thought that this director, who used to be so punk in the release and release of movies, would have made such a sci-fi film full of routines.
With the double blessing of Cameron and Rodriguez, fans are looking forward to "Alita". But unfortunately, in this film, we can't see the thinking and creativity behind Rodriguez's bold, imaginative, and violent aesthetics. Even audiences who simply pursue visual pleasure seem unable to follow those routines. Feel the unique excitement in the mecha-style fighting.
Alita, the transforming girl Gary in "Bombardment", a berserker born out of a swollen human face, resurrected in Cameron's script, but turned into another templated by Rodriguez American hero.
Cameron's efforts to write 186 pages of script and 600 pages of notes seemed to be in vain, and Rodriguez finally betrayed himself for business needs. However, the routines and templates of American heroes are still invalid, and the story texts born in Asians are difficult to integrate with the commercial genes of Hollywood movies.
It can't keep up with the previous imported films "Venom" and "Aquaman", and it can't catch up with the domestic sci-fi "The Wandering Earth" that has been released for 24 days.
This is not touting domestic science fiction. "The Wandering Earth", which was released one round earlier, is in line with both the story text and the collectivist value orientation revealed in the movie (although this value orientation has been criticized by many people). China's current national conditions can bring psychological resonance to many audiences. I am afraid that even in the same schedule, the odds of "Alita" are still low.
02The climax is reserved for the sequel
When Norton took off his glasses and Alita pointed her sword at Salem, everyone had a hunch that the sequel would come.
As a comic book live-action film, this series of film production mode is not surprising to Hollywood at all.
The early attempts of Marvel and DC have confirmed the feasibility of this model. The only difference is that, compared with the output of the previous series of movie adaptations of American comics, this time, Hollywood is facing an original Japanese comic book. .
Whether it is in North America or around the world, this Japanese comic story about the battle and growth of the bio-modified man Gary is very niche, with a fragmented audience and a weak reader base, which not only gives the freedom of film adaptation and creation It brings convenience and creates trouble for the dissemination and promotion of the film.
Like all Hollywood commercials in the past, Alita's production team is also trying to start a new sci-fi series, but they also face the common problem that everyone else has faced in the past: how to create a climax at the beginning , Do not drag down the following series?
Few people have actually done it in the past, and Nolan's "Batman: The Dark Knight" series is almost dead.
Even Marvel and DC have had a bad start. The box office of "Captain America" was bleak, and the word of mouth of "Justice League" both hit the street. All kinds of experiences seem to imply that: Manga change live-action movies, opening ten nine " flutter".
"Venom" is an exception. The production cost of only 100 million US dollars, but it won the global box office of 855 million US dollars, which can be regarded as a hit. Some of these factors are the first portrayal of "anti-heroes" and the promotion of supporting roles in comics to the protagonist. In other words, the anti-routines set by the characters have given the audience a bit of freshness.
However, the director Rodriguez did not do this. He took out the details of the growth of the characters in the original work, the motives of the supporting roles, and the complex and multifaceted villains. The real climax of the story seems to be reserved in the subsequent plot for the smooth development of the subsequent story.
"The stunt is OK, the plot is indeed a little weak."
"The story is really old wine in a new bottle. The story of a Hollywood hero movie is the same, although the IP is a Japanese manga."
"There is no climax in the whole film. When you thought the climax was coming, it was over!"
Audiences, whether positive or negative, expressed this regret almost without exception: the plot is weak and there is no climax.
This isn't the first time a Hollywood blockbuster has been criticized for having a "weak plot". But looking back, neither the "Avengers" series nor "Venom" or "Aquaman" has ever been so significantly affected at the box office for this reason as "Alita".
After seven days of release, the attendance rate of "Alita", which has 40% of the highest number of films, is not even comparable to that of "The Wandering Earth", which has been released for 24 days. It can be said that Kashen, as the film's producer and screenwriter, was awarded by a local film for the first time. sniped.
The only thing that is fortunate is that Cameron, who has always cherished feathers, finally retreated bravely for a better "Avatar 2" and stopped being the director of "Alita". This is the luck of "Avatar 2", but it is also "Avatar 2". Regret for Rita.
03 I'm not a robot girlfriend
In the film, Alita seems to do only two things: fighting and falling in love.
Netizens complained on Weibo: Isn't this the CG version of "Me and My Robot Girlfriend"?
People who haven't read the original comics may think more. Alita's super fighting power has revived the childhood memories of some young audiences, "violent female version of Astro Boy Alita", they call this transformed girl .
Veteran fans will retort: "Transforming people and robots is two different things."
The focus of debate has shifted from the plot of the film to the characters themselves. Unfortunately, the sketch-like characterization of the film makes many characters too thin and flat.
The overly deliberate emotional line hardly provides any impetus to the main plot. The original story with a complicated background and a grand world outlook was interpreted by the movie as a story of transforming people to take revenge for love, perhaps to prepare for the sequel, and the heroine’s boyfriend left. The motives of Upper Salem and the secret of Nova, the big boss, have not given a complete and convincing explanation.
It is beyond the expectations of the audience. It is not a sci-fi blockbuster in people's imagination, but just a small and mediocre genre film.
Some people miss Nolan. In Nolan's films, there is never only visual stimulation. His human torture and philosophical debate have always run through all his works.
In fact, Salem in the original comic book is not only a symbol of power and hierarchy for the residents of Scrap Iron City, but also the belief and dream of some people. The desire for freedom is one of the themes to be conveyed by the story.
There is a similar space setting in "The Wandering Earth" and "Alita". The dungeon in the film is like Salem in "Alita". Humans need to shake their numbers to stay in the dungeon. This kind of rule does not seem to compare. The story in "Alita" is set as warm.
The setting of two types of living space, one represents the value positioning of the individual obeying the collective, and the other symbolizes the power and hierarchy.
If you've seen District 9, you'll understand that this kind of setting is not uncommon in Hollywood movies. The escaped aliens settled on the earth, and the "Ninth District" in the film became their only refuge. The world outside the ninth district is full of discrimination, prejudice and oppression by the earth's human beings against them.
On the other hand, as Cameron himself mentioned, how does sci-fi define people? Does the body become a machine or the brain is replaced by a machine, does it count as a human?
The self-positioning of future human identity in the sci-fi world is also one of the topics discussed in many sci-fi films. In "Robot Wall-E", this point was discussed. An ordinary garbage cleaning robot finally had the same emotions as humans.
Going back to the movie "Alita", we learned how Alita became a transformed person, and we also saw the widespread existence of transformed people in the future world, but the film did not tell us that when she became a transformed person In this process, what has mankind experienced? Maybe it will be mentioned in a follow-up story.
The problem of "Alita" also exists in domestic films. Chinese directors may not have this ability, but what they lack, I am afraid it is not only a technology, when the film industry starts to catch up with Hollywood, our broad perspective, Can it be transferred from the exploration of space and cyberpunk to the destiny of individual human beings?
Although "Alita" lost to "The Wandering Earth", their attempts provided useful experience for the following films. Domestic films also need to be tried, and failure is not terrible. Just like at the end of the film, when Alita raised her sword to the sky, the scar finally turned into armor, and she was extremely powerful.
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