The first time I saw the movie "Fantasy Elf Event Book" was many years ago, in the midnight theater of somewhere. Because I was undertaking quite heavy study tasks at that time and did not have sufficient leisure time, I had to turn off the TV and bury my head in reading after watching it hastily for half an hour.
Despite such a quick glance, this title-like, fantasy-inspired film seems to take root in my heart. Later, I also found the original film to make up for my previous regrets.
Strictly speaking, Fantasy Elf Event Book is a children's film with an adventure theme.
The film is based on the best-selling children's novel of the same name by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, who are also the film's writers.
The film creates for us a fantasy world where humans and elves coexist.
Single mother Mary-Louise Parker moved into an old villa with her daughter, Sarah Bolger, and twin sons Jared and Simon (Freddie Highmore).
While exploring the secrets of the old house, son Jared discovers a magical notebook that turns out to be a guide book that records the various magical creatures around us. Because the guide is so comprehensive and detailed that it attracts the attention of the evil forces, the terrible ogre is eager to get the book in order to achieve the purpose of controlling and dominating all kinds of creatures.
In terms of story content, "Fantasy Elf Event Book" is a decent children's work: the commonplace mysterious treasure, the clichéd confrontation between good and evil, the expected happy ending, and it seems to be a popcorn movie that coaxes children.
However, the film can quickly grab the audience's attention in a short period of time, and has received many professional media praise after its release, which definitely has its commendable place.
<h1>A complete worldview</h1>
For science fiction and fantasy movies, the construction of a worldview is an extremely important part, and it is not an exaggeration to even regard it as the foundation and soul of the film.
So what exactly is a worldview, and how to understand the worldview in the movie?
To put it bluntly, a worldview is a basic view and perspective of the world. For the general public, the worldview is mostly spontaneously formed, and it can be constantly updated, continuously improved and optimized through our practice in life.
The worldview in the film can be understood as the views and perspectives of the directors, screenwriters and other creators on the world they shape in their films.
From the perspective of the audience, it is a collection of a series of world structures in the film, such as time, space, socio-economic system, character value orientation, and so on.
Making up a virtual or overhead world is actually very simple, but how to make the world stand firm and stand, so that "words are reasonable, words have things", can really be convincing; at the same time, how to make the world view and the film in the plot narrative, character shaping, theme ideas, contradictions and conflicts organically combined, which is an extreme test of the director's professional skills and personal ability.
And the "Fantasy Elf Event Book" is very good at building the world view.
Some films will introduce the basic situation of the whole world at the beginning of the film, so that the audience can quickly understand the world framework drawn out by the director and screenwriter.
The Fantasy Elf Event Book takes a more euphemistic and subtle approach: Jared, one of the twins, after discovering the magical guidebook, quickly reads the contents of the book, and then acts as a commander in the process of contacting and confronting various monsters and elves. Through his description, we can understand the general habits and characteristics of various beings, and then gradually find out the context of the whole world. All kinds of magical creatures in the film, some beautiful and kind, some cruel and fierce, under the construction of the director and screenwriter's ingenious ideas, each of them has a full image and a distinct personality.
Of course, a reasonable and orderly world view not only helps to shape a three-dimensional character image, but also establishes contradictions and conflicts and promotes the development of the plot.
The elven world in the movie is unpredictable and mysterious, and not only do humans know very little about it, but even the goblins themselves cannot grasp all the laws and laws.
So Arthur Spetvik, the author of the guide book in the film, saw the discoveries as a lifelong effort, desperate to protect their results.
This has also led to conflicts and confrontations between the two factions of good and evil, and the interlocking story has begun.
The film presents the audience with a real, reasonable, mysterious and orderly fantasy world, which is like a universe parallel to our side, constantly attracting the audience to understand and explore.
<h1>High degree of completion</h1>
In fact, the word "degree of completion" can not be clearly defined in many professional dictionaries, but in film reviews, everyone seems to like to use "degree of completion" to describe the degree of realization of a movie from the expected effect in the early stage to the final presentation effect.
From a personal point of view, if you want to replace this "non-professional" word with a popular expression, then it should refer to the completeness of the story, the reasonableness of the logical setting, the success of the character shaping, the fluency of the film editing, and the scientific degree of scene construction. With this definition, it is obviously not an easy task for a film to obtain a "high degree of completion" evaluation.
For the movie "Fantasy Elf Event Book", we will call it a "higher" degree of completion.
The film is adapted from a best-selling children's book and invites the original author to participate in the screenwriting, so there will be no major deviation in the presentation of the story, the shaping of the characters, and the grasp of the core ideas.
The film is also extremely neat in editing and scene scheduling, and there is no obvious hard injury. The only thing that has been criticized is the rationality of the logical settings.
Some people believe that the plot points in the film are based on the characters' stupidity, that is, the internal driving force that drives the story forward is the willful behavior of the characters and the unprovoked death. What's more, he felt that the ending's treatment of destroying the Demon King was too casual, "simply ridiculous enough to make people laugh." Such a view cannot be said to be wrong, but at least it is biased.
Indeed, Jared, one of the protagonists, is the "initiator" of most of the dangers and dilemmas, and his series of decisions and choices can make the audience angry enough. But we can't jump out of the character's design to judge his behavior.
Jared is a rebellious teenager who is obsessed with his father's love and desperate for attention in a family of three children. Such a teenager, in the face of mysterious events full of temptations, we cannot stand in the perspective of reality to harshly demand that he "follow the rules".
Admittedly, some of the film's plots are marked by artificial conflict, but they are still within a reasonable range, and at best they are a few edge balls.
And if you carefully analyze the final battle scene, in fact, there is a certain rationality. The pig elf, who plays a key role, has always been the main force against the evil forces, but his ugly appearance and unreliable personality make the audience ignore the importance of his existence.
The director also laid the groundwork several times in the first half of the film, suggesting that the pig elf has the ability and "plan" to destroy demons.
For the outcome of the final war, it is not so much a "random" handling as a small cleverness and cleverness. Combined with the characteristics of children's literature, directors and screenwriters have actually found a great balance between storytelling and audience acceptance.
<h1>Excellent special effects</h1>
Another sought after advantage of "Fantasy Elf Event Book" is its powerful special effects, and even professional media have commented on it as a "special effects guide". The film's special effects were directed by Berkeley's Tippetett Studios. The studio's founder is industry pioneer Phil Tippett, who was the hand of the alien bug army in the classic sci-fi action movie Galaxy Squad. In this film, Phil Tippett takes on the role of Monster Effects Supervisor.
Compared with the same period and the same type of movies, in terms of special effects, "Fantasy Elf Event Book" does not have the extravagance of "Golden Compass" and does not have the dazzling of "The Legend of Narnia", but the rich character settings and complex deformation effects also show a good level.
One would argue that many of the special effects shots in The Book of Fantasy Elves are remarkably similar to the well-known Harry Potter series. Indeed, looking at it now, in the movie, such as the texture of the shield of the guardian magic, the shape of the giant snake and the griffin are all familiar. However, considering the time difference between the two releases, it is difficult to determine whether there is a possibility of mutual borrowing from each other, and the only thing that is certain is that the stunt effect of "Fantasy Elf Event Book" is not lost in the latter.
As a film adapted from children's literature, "Fantasy Elf Event Book" did not fall into the strange circle of low and superficiality, but fully excavated and enlarged the whimsical and strange elf world in the original work, allowing us to experience a stimulating and invigorating journey to another world. Such fairy tales, even as adults, we have to love.