The legendary film version of "Three-Body Problem" has not seen progress for a long time, but it is an animated film "Kunta: Reversed Planet" for young audiences released during the National Day schedule, which is completed in a similar way, making people rekindle hope for domestic movies with science fiction themes.
It is not the "Quinta: Reverse Planet" of the big hit player in this schedule, who dares to carry out a large-scale screening in advance, and also dares to grit his teeth to overcome the disadvantages of low scheduling rate, and it is also like the three small protagonists in the film, the courage is commendable.
Quinta: Inverted Planet poster
The plot of the film is slightly pediatric for adult audiences, telling a series of adventures about three friends on Kepler Star, spinach (voiced by Lee Jeong-cheung), Milk Bubble (voiced by Tao Dian), and Gaga (voiced by Hong Haitian), looking for the energy creature Carralo and stopping the sabotage plot against Kepler Star.
Similar animated films with environmental protection elements, such as the domestic animation "Bear Haunting Fantasy Space" at the beginning of the year, the American animation "The Story of Old Reese" in 2012, and even the more distant Japanese animation "Princess Mononoke", if the audience still has an impression, they can find some shadows with similar plot settings in "Quinta: Reversed Planet".
The Story of Old Reese (2012), Bear Haunting Fantasy Space (2017)
Unlike the aforementioned films, Quinta: Inverted Planet is unique in that it tells the story from a hardcore sci-fi perspective, although it downplays and simplifies the preaching of scientific knowledge for the sake of catering to small audiences. From the plot setting, science fiction readers can even faintly see the shadow of Liu Cixin's short story "The Wandering Earth".
The film opens with a quick and friendly editing of the story. Even if the picture effect is not placed in the environment of domestic animation movies, and compared with Hollywood animation movies, it is not lost. The vast interstellar background and space opera-style soundtrack make the film look imposing.
The movie scenes incorporate a variety of sci-fi elements, such as mecha equipment, wasteland, wild desert, punk-style primitive tribes, and avatar-like paradises. Switching between scenes, following the character's adventures, unfolds naturally and doesn't seem blunt.
Since "Avatar", the computer technology's imagination of Wonderland Taoyuan has been basically the same, and if the audience has watched "The Story of Old Reis", "Crazy Primitive Man", "Smurfs: Looking for a Mysterious Village", and even "Bear Haunting Fantasy Space", it is inevitable that the scenery of the valley where the energy creature Carralo grows will inevitably be visually tired.
Saturated and too high a color tone, small audiences will feel bright, adult audiences will feel dazzling and tacky. However, several wilderness scenes in the movie are reminiscent of the surface of Mars in Hollywood science fiction movies such as "Alien Battlefield" and "The Martian Rescue", which are rare scene designs for domestic movies.
Stills from Quinta: Inverted Planet
Compared with the excellent scene graphics, the character modeling in "Kunta: Inverted Planet" is slightly inferior. Probably in consideration of maintaining consistency with the previous game in the series, spinach, milk bubbles, and gaga in "Quinta: Reversed Planet" still follow the appearance of the big body and small body in the previous game.
Quinta: The Box vs Quinta: Inverted Planet
Although the painting is noticeably more elaborate, the static poster still looks a bit of a "cottage feeling" that is difficult to say. However, the dynamic effect of the character in the movie is good, and the design of the silicone skin texture is also suitable for subsequent development as a derivative toy.
The film is only 85 minutes long, and although it is friendly to children who can't sit still, the screenwriter's ability to write long stories still needs to be strengthened. The 85-minute plot still has the problem of not being able to continue in one breath.
A scene in which the spinach group lingers in the town and participates in a bird race before entering the volcano is slightly weak, lacks gripping appeal, and is easy to distract the audience. A short scene of the four-eyed green haired small team is obviously borrowed from "Despicable Me", although interesting, it also lacks relevance to the main plot, like a gag that is purely to delay time.
More and more movies are designing hidden villain bosses in terms of narrative strategy, which is not necessarily a good thing. The plot is reversed for the sake of reversal, and watching too much will only make the audience feel that it is a waste of spirit.
The apparent villain in the design of Quinta: Inverted Planet is the bluff Louis 88. This character is inward-looking, reminiscent of the cat-eating robot mouse in Zheng Yuanjie's fairy tale "Shuk and Beta", but the screenwriter's attitude towards the character is inconsistent, affecting the coherence of the plot. The pompous performance of Louis 88 after being debunked makes the role ridiculous and pitiful. The writers seem to give up on this role, and after a self-aggrandizing performance, it no longer becomes the focus of the plot.
The hidden villain of the film arrangement is Dr. Vance, a human who lives on the planet Kepler. For children's animated films, this writing is really bold. The transformation of Dr. Vance's two faces was enough to frighten the young audience. The role may be borrowed from Dr. Mann, played by Matt Damon in Interstellar. Vance is obsessed with returning to Earth and is preoccupied with destroying other people's homes. "Quinta: Inverted Planet" sets the stage for Vance's behavioral logic, and finally makes the characters wake up after failure, reducing the dark component of the film's portrayal of real human nature. However, in the climactic scene of the war between good and evil, it is still a bit heavy to write gaga's father as a supporting role.
Western films deal with similar subjects, and in the past they often carried a sense of colonial self-superiority. The perspective of a considerable part of the work is condescending: in "Avatar", the self-help of the indigenous people is inseparable from the leadership of outsiders; the veterans of the American Civil War in "Alien Battlefield", who are lonely and nameless on the earth, have become legendary heroes when they reach Mars. The box office failure of "Alien Battlefield" proves that the audience has become tired of and disgusted with the "white man saves the world" routine.
Quinta: Inverted Planet sets the story on a non-human alien planet, where humans instead become the object of protest and expulsion by the natives. This setting, in the current context and world pattern, is quite difficult to ponder.
What is slightly embarrassing about the movie is that as a pure domestic animation film, the setting idea of the story is always Westernized. Even the names of the characters in the film, Louis 88, Dr. Vance, etc., are foreign names. Of course, there is no soil for science fiction survival in traditional Chinese culture. Whether it is science fiction literature or science fiction movies, they are all imported products of western learning and eastern learning. However, since Chinese science fiction literature already has a group of excellent authors in continuous creation, the great development of science fiction films may only be a matter of time.
Another bonus that Quinta: Inverted Planet offers viewers is probably the dubbing. Tao Dian, the voice actor of the character Milk Bubble, enjoys the reputation of "the youngest children's voice" in the industry. The supporting role of milk bubbles in the movie is the most personalized and the most pleasing, and Tao Dian's voice acting vividly shows the characteristics of the character's milky voice, which can be described as icing on the cake.
In 2017, there were many good domestic animation films. "Quinta: Inverted Planet", as an animated film focusing on young children, does not perfunctory to small audiences, and its sincerity is commendable. Excellent picture effects, especially people are impressed by the technical strength of domestic animation films. However, the technical shortcomings are easy to make up, and the improvement of storytelling ability is far from overnight. Although the film still has many shortcomings, it still makes people optimistic about the prospects of domestic animation films.