Li Zhiyi
Under the influence of the global epidemic, this year's summer movie show was particularly deserted, but at the end of this summer, "Out of Control Player" has become a dark horse with its excellent box office performance and reputation.
This is of course inseparable from its relatively smooth narrative, vivid characterization, and fine image presentation. However, this film featuring science fiction, comedy, and action also accurately captures the psychological expectations of global audiences in the epidemic era.
In the 1930s, Hollywood romance films and musicals made great progress. At that time, the United States was in an unprecedented dilemma of the Great Depression.
The dream world created by the movie provides the audience with a temporary escape from reality.
The hidden code that the protagonists are struggling to find in "Out of Control Players" also constitutes a metaphor, implying an expectation for the end of the real world epidemic and the restoration of security and peace.
Text that discusses the real and the illusion
"Out of Control Player" tells the story of an NPC (non-player character) "cover" in the "Free City" game. The code program hidden in its body is suddenly triggered, creating self-awareness.
"Gai" becomes the artificial intelligence in the game.
After opening all the way in "Free City", he finally became a "city hero" and gained true love. At this time, "Gai" discovered that his world was just an online game that was about to go offline.
Science fiction fans can effortlessly see the elements of many other films from behind the "Out of Control Player", this list includes but not limited to "Groundhog Day", "Trumen's World", "Blade Runner" and "Number One Player" "Western World" and other film and television works are familiar to people.
These kinds of "video games" or "artificial intelligence" movies focus on the relationship between the real world and the illusory world. They discuss whether intelligent life forms have the same right to life as humans, and whether humans can have emotions and emotions with non-human species. Physical communication and related ethical and moral issues.
The core of almost all sci-fi works is still concerned with human beings and their destiny.
Once the NPC in the game setting has self-awareness, the virtuality of the game is broken, forming another time and space similar to the real world, and the violence and ethical issues in it are highlighted.
The difference is that in Westworld, the NPC chose revenge to rebuild the real order in the virtual world, while the "cover" in the "Out of Control Player" appears to be "not out of control", choosing to use love and justice to save the impending destruction. world.
"The World of Truman" is a classic text that discusses the "relationship between reality and illusion" in the history of film.
Truman lives in a huge studio, everything around him is set.
His life is wrapped in ubiquitous cameras, and on the other side of the media are audiences who spend their time in front of the TV with expressionless faces.
In fact, even though the environment is false, Truman is the best "actor" in the world, and his feelings and experiences are absolutely "sincere".
Walking out of the blue door, Truman can return to the real world, although this real world is not necessarily more real and beautiful than the one in the studio.
When the audience lamented that NPC "cover" is like a real person, on the one hand it shows the blurry boundary between reality and virtuality in modern society, and on the other hand, it also points to the fact that "cover" is not a real human being.
For "Gai", there has never been another "real world". He cannot choose to stay or leave like Truman, because he is an image formed by code.
Therefore, the criticality of the topics discussed in "The World of Truman" and the reflection on the real world disappeared in "Out of Control Players".
After learning the truth, a word from "Guy" partner Buddy resolved his identity anxiety.
Buddy said, "So what, what I care about now is you. At this moment, all of this is real!" Living in a fully digitalized today, we have already learned to live with digital technology and will no longer do it. The millennium bug problem" and anxiety.
On the contrary, various digital technologies and virtual spaces are also playing an increasingly important role in providing human beings with emotional value.
Mixture of types has become a creative trend
Despite the lack of reflection on digital ethics and in-depth discussion of the virtual world, "Out of Control Players" still reaped commercial success. The key lies in the film's mixed genres under the high-concept setting.
The overall structure and narrative logic of "Out of Control Player" are almost the same as the "Number One Player" directed by Spielberg a few years ago.
Both films use the classic MacGuffin technique to build the narrative theme of "finding".
The key to the movie is not what it finds in the end, but a series of actions and stories surrounding the "search".
Just as in the movie history classic "Citizen Kane", everyone is exploring the meaning of the mysterious word "rosebud"; in "Number One Player", the protagonist is looking for an egg hidden in the game; the main storyline of "Out of Control Player" revolves around To find the hidden code of the game to expand.
Setting "Easter Eggs" in game themes and superhero movies has become a "routine" for this type of movie creation. Discovering the "Easter Eggs" hidden by the creators during the viewing process is also a big pleasure for movie fans.
The "flashing" and "showing faces" of various heroes in the film not only makes the major IP "dream linkage" and attracts more audiences to contribute to the box office, but also makes the movie itself a theme park-like image space.
Although director Martin Scorsese regrets this direction of film creation, it has undoubtedly become one of the development trends of film that cannot be ignored today.
Combined with the continuous development of virtual reality technologies such as VR, the high integration of offline theme parks and images will become a huge "selling point" of movies.
All kinds of movies are dedicated to creating their own "world" and "universe", which is also based on the development trend of movies from screen to reality, from two-dimensional to four-dimensional.
"Out of Control Player" pays tribute to the classic video game "Grand Theft Auto", which will undoubtedly make game fans hooked.
At the same time, since Twentieth Century Fox, the producer of the film, has been acquired by Disney, "Out of Control Players" has also won the support of major "IPs" such as Captain America, Hulk, and Star Wars.
As an original film not adapted from "IP", the superhero's "dream linkage" undoubtedly increases the value of intimacy between the film and the audience.
Unlike traditional sci-fi movies like "Blade Runner", "Out of Control Player" is not obsessed with serious philosophical discussions, but presents the characteristics of a mixture of sci-fi, comedy, and love.
The possibility of "cross-dimensional" love is also cleverly resolved with the romantic love confession "I am just a love letter he wrote to you".
However, the audience who walked into the theater may not be too entangled in the complex issues of virtual and reality.
In a hot afternoon, what they need may happen to be such a typical "popcorn" movie, an "ice cream" dedicated to the vision.