The year 2021 that has just passed can be said to be the first year of the "metaverse", and the NFT is also on fire along with the "metacosm". In early 2021, an NFT digital painting by artist Beeple titled Everydays – The First 5000 Days sold at Christie's for more than $69 million, shocking the art and financial circles, and the topic of "metaverse" has since exploded.
In fact, most people's concept of "metaverse" is still in a vague state, so how to simply explain this concept? The analogy is usually used between two movies, one is Spielberg's Ready Player One and the other is The Matrix. As early as 20 years ago, "The Matrix" has put the concept of virtual world and brain-computer interface on the big screen, opening the road of exploration of the metaverse, and advanced thinking has made science fiction movies enter new milestones. And the subsequent "Matrix 2: Reloaded" and "Matrix 3: Matrix Revolution" have achieved good results because of their artistic and commercial value, and it is conceivable that when this classic movie with cross-era significance, after 18 years, how many fans are looking forward to launching a sequel.
However, this time's "Matrix 4" disappointed the audience, a sentence to summarize the feeling of the view, the old fans will cry when they see it, and the new fans will look at the question mark. If the original movie is a divine work, then this new work after more than ten years can only be said to be very perfunctory.
How The Matrix went from being a pioneer to a follower
Even people who have not seen "The Matrix" should have heard of the "red pill" and "blue pill" in the movie, the red pill represents the real but cruel reality, the blue pill represents the virtual but beautiful dream, and the two drugs run through the "Matrix" universe, which also opens up a new understanding of the world for many people.
The first three films of The Matrix explore these issues in depth, while avoiding the boring, lengthy, and slow problems of science fiction philosophy films. "The Matrix 1" was definitely a breathtaking movie for that year. The film tells the story of artificial intelligence defeating humans and building a matrix for human beings - matrix, but human genes exist in computer people, thoughts exist in the mother, the mother can observe various human activities to achieve self-learning, and the learning results are used for maternal upgrading and artificial intelligence mechanical transformation. The film has been exploring the difference between the real world and the virtual world, involving various religious worldviews, and has a strong humanistic feeling, elevating commercial films to a philosophical perspective, from art to connotation to visual effects, Hollywood commercial films have been elevated to an unprecedented height. Winning four Oscars in one go, "Bullet Time" has also become a classic picture in film history, and has been paid tribute to by many films.
In The Matrix 1, we see a giant human farm and a never-ending underground pipeline, and by The Matrix 2: Reloaded, the matrix not only doesn't stand still, it's upgraded. The real appearance of Zion City has emerged, the problems discussed have also been upgraded, machine learners have begun to transform themselves, the matrix has been upgraded and evolved, and the powerful learning and absorption capacity has foreshadowed the extinction of mankind. In Matrix 3: The Matrix Revolution, we see machine cities and the sky above the cloud cover, perhaps not the real sky, but another layer of virtual world.
The "Matrix" trilogy is a history of the growth of machine civilization. Humans are mere spectators, merely participating, without domination or choice, and never as protagonists. Just when everyone was waiting for the surprise brought by "The Matrix 4", what people did not expect was that "The Matrix 4" reinterpreted the process of awakening "The Matrix 1" Neo, and reinterpreted the grand perspective of the coexistence of humans and machines in the first three parts to the level of love. In order to create difficulties for Neo and Trinity's love, a seemingly reasonable but bizarre setting was forcibly added, such as the matrix analyst needing the energy generated by Neo and Trinity to build a "power generation incubator", and the two can only maximize their value by maintaining a specific distance. In order to maintain this just right distance, the two were connected into the matrix and continued to control their consciousness.
With such a successful trilogy in the front, by the fourth part, the audience does not want a middle-aged love action sequel. "The Matrix: Matrix Restart" also received one-sided bad reviews after its release, some netizens said, ""The Matrix 4" vividly explains what is called a dog-tailed sable", "the first middle-aged exhaustion version of the remake", "the most disappointing sequel in history, everywhere is full of strength", "The Matrix 4" finally went to the Hollywood circle money movie industry.
Hollywood classic IP follow-up lack of power?
In fact, objectively speaking, "The Matrix" also followed the footsteps of the times, and when "The Matrix 1" was released in 1999, it was the Internet that was just starting out, and people at this time were full of curiosity about the infinite possibilities of the online world. When "The Matrix 2: Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolution" were released, Taobao was launched this year, QQ's registered users rose to 200 million, and people have entered the stage of network exploration. This year,the concept of metaversity has exploded, people's understanding of the virtual world and the real world has improved, and "The Matrix 4" has repeatedly emphasized that "love" makes people feel real, but "love" is a bridge, a bond, and should not be the only pursuit and purpose. This kind of "love" that overemphasizes the truth and shows has a feeling of hard selling feelings, which makes the audience really unable to swallow.
However, hollywood classic IP sequels have not only gone down the altar of "The Matrix", but also "Fast and Furious 9" that was launched in the middle of this year and the "007" series that was just released not long ago are also Hollywood classic IP masterpieces, but this year's two word-of-mouth has plummeted. The plot setting of "Fast and Furious 9" can simply squeeze into the most speechless ranks of Hollywood movies, in "Fast and Furious 8", the creators are good and bad to talk about some logic, to "Fast and Furious 9" they directly let go of themselves, dead characters are resurrected at will, the enemy is raiding head-on, shooting from the top of the head, it is impossible to hit the protagonist, even the protagonists themselves also joked in the film: "Our protagonist aura is not too strong, how can not die!" Before the release of the film, everyone speculated that the last one had blown up the nuclear submarine, this one should have a breakthrough, and sure enough, the film directly drove the car to travel in space, it was simply speechless opened the door to the speechless, speechless to go home.
If "Fast and Furious" is a representative of people's adrenaline boost in specific scenes, then "007" is the symbol of the public for "secret agents". "007: No Time to Die" is not only the curtain call of the sixth "James Bond" Daniel Craig, but also the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the "007 series" in advance. Since 1962's "Dr. 007 No" (007 No. Nuo), 25 large-scale and high-grossing films (excluding two sequels) have made the classic image of "James Bond No. 007" a British agent internationally renowned. As a long-lasting classic IP, the 007 series can always be in harmony with the times, the Cold War, terrorism, globalization, hacking, etc. are all active "background boards" of Bond, in short, the appearance of Bond is a cool symbol.
However, this time Bond is not "cool" at all. Legendary Agent 007 fights to save the world, regards the interests of the country above all else, and is a playboy who does not stick to the leaves in the kaleidoscope. But "007: No Time to Die" Bond is more like fighting for "love", in the movie, Bond is hit by a gene virus that is harmless to himself, as long as he and his wife and daughter have physical contact, the wife and daughter will be poisoned to death. In order to save his loved ones and save the world by the way, Bond sacrificed himself. And can play 007, in this film to play is also very small, play is also very lack of sharp sense, many netizens on the film's comments are "tedious play, lengthy, villain face" "the action film made out of the internal logic of the ethical film" and so on.
In addition, whether it is a prop or a shot in the movie, the emotional terrier is all used to fry. For example, Bond's first shot pays homage to his classic scene in Casino Royale: half-naked upper body + boxer swim trunks + beach beauty. Meanwhile, Bond's classic car, the Aston Martin DB5, also went out with him. This sports car has appeared in many 007 movies such as "Casino Royale" and "Skyfall", and some special props will be added to each appearance. To sum up, "007: No Time to Die" is a film that is stacked with routines and feelings, and occasional highlights cannot save the overall mediocrity.
The villain of today's Hollywood blockbusters is no longer the pure villain of the past, in order to delay the time of the movie, one thing can be euphemistically circumvented for a long time, and the protagonist has almost been injured and shadowed. Unlike before, villains are either for money, or for revenge, or pure perversion, just wanting to be anti-social, simple and direct.
This is just part of the weakness of Hollywood's classic IP. Hollywood classic IP has been facing such an embarrassing situation in recent years, such as the previous "Transformers 5: The Last Knight", "Moving Maze 3: Death Antidote", "Jurassic Park" and so on are facing a lack of follow-up power. However, as the ceiling of global movies, Hollywood, with its excellent industrial production and its own top IP resources, can still attract the pace of viewers.