From the American drama "Heroes" and "The Flash", to the movies "X-Men", "Super Runaway", and then to "My Hero Academia", the stories of these superpowers will always attract me. This is probably because the superpowers satisfy the child's heart. At first, superpowers were always tied to hero status; later, some anti-hero superpowers appeared on the screen. But no matter how creators deal with superpowers, we all know that superpowers are just an attractive "gimmick", and the unique world and characters behind superpowers are what we want to know. I just finished watching CodeName 8 not long ago, so let's talk about this anti-heroic superpower movie.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (1) plot and characters</h1>
CodeName 8's worldview goes like this — on the eve of the industrial age, super-powered people are popular workers who are born with their abilities. However, as machines replace workers, the safety hazards of super-powered people themselves have aroused people's vigilance, discrimination, and exclusion, and even new drugs made of spinal fluid of super-powers, and the use of superpowers also needs to be applied for. The story of "CodeName 8" takes place in modern times, in order to save the seriously ill mother, a powerful but poor super-powered person who robs the bank and the stolen goods seized by the police.
After watching the movie, I can only say that "CodeName 8" is a robber story cloaked in a superpower shell, and it does not meet the audience's expectations for superpower movies. If you change your superpowers to modern weapons, CodeName 8's story logic framework still works. When "CodeName 8" is regarded as a robber story, it will be found that its plot is actually more ordinary, whether the main plot or the sub-plot only stays at the surface of the twist, lacking deeper contradictions and conflicts.
In the main plot, the relationship between the protagonist and the crime team members remains basically unchanged, like a passerby; the confrontation between the protagonist and the police is only similar to the boss that must be overcome through the game clearance; the drug trafficking crime syndicate that the protagonist finally confronts does not escalate the negative forces to another level. It can be said that the main plot has too many scenes and twists that the audience has seen too much, and it seems to be nothing new.
In the second plot, why did the protagonist's father commit a crime in the first place? How does the protagonist see his father? How does the mother teach the protagonist from an early age? What kind of person is the mother? None of these suspense was answered. Due to the lack of full story content, the super-powered movie "CodeName 8" is less than 90 minutes long, and it is not surprising that it is difficult to satisfy the audience.
In addition to the shortcomings of the plot, the characters of Codename 8 are basically flattened. Although the film adds the sub-plot of the mother to enrich the emotions of the protagonist, the protagonist still lacks action like a pawn, and the desire motivation is not further portrayed. For example, the mind reader feels the anger of the protagonist, which is the anger formed in the long-term discrimination and exclusion of life, but this anger is not triggered in the movie.
The crime team boss in the film also conveys various points of view when teaching the protagonist how to use his abilities. These views are largely abetting crimes and tend to focus on personal desires. The protagonist gently does something bad, teaching the shopkeeper who is not friendly to his mother, but does not do anything else bad to satisfy his desires. In fact, CodeName 8 is desperate to portray the protagonist as a good and good person, and even somewhat downplays his criminal mistakes. Moreover, the film does not deepen the contradictions in the protagonist's heart, after all, he is doing bad things, and he is good in his heart.
It can be seen that the protagonist wants to work and live like an ordinary person. If Codename 8 digs in this direction, makes the protagonist see superpowers as a curse, and strengthens the protagonist's struggle between curse and nature, the story will be even more exciting. After all, the protagonist's superpower to unleash lightning, as well as the ability of other superpowers, are basically based on destruction. "Destruction, anger" vs ." "ordinary, kind", forcing the protagonist into a dilemma, the story has great potential.
Characters other than the protagonist are more flat, often just adding some settings. The people in the crime group are basically pawn characters, and the daughter of a policeman is a superpower, and the situation of this character can be used to reflect the contradictions of the world, and can indeed be reduced to a stereotypical police image. And the protagonist's mother is also very potential to tap, to maintain kindness in a world full of discriminatory vision, this is not an easy task, why does the protagonist mother have these qualities? Can she act more actively when she learns that the protagonist has committed a crime?
In short, the plot and characters of CodeName 8 are isolated and fragmented. It seems that the plot logic is not flawed, but it lacks internal relevance. In a way, CodeName 8 mistakenly sees superpowers as a selling point without seriously polishing the story.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (ii) superpowers and worldviews</h1>
For the superpower story, the most exciting thing is "what impact superpowers will have". Under the influence of superpowers, watching the protagonist step by step towards the hero is the story framework that heroic superpower stories have tried and failed. As for anti-hero superpower movies, the direction of development is more diverse.
One direction of development is to focus on the impact of superpowers on the personal life of the protagonist, such as "Super Power Out of Control" and "Runaway Love Traveler". To some extent, Code 8 and Super Runaway are similar, both of which focus on the super-powered people at the bottom, conveying a pessimism that "even with superpowers, life will not change fundamentally."
However, "Super Runaway" is obviously better, the story closely focuses on the impact of superpowers on the life of the protagonist, and the second half of the film forces the protagonist from the aspects of friendship and family affection, which prompts the protagonist to make more crazy actions. In CodeName 8, the protagonist's life is blank. Aside from basic information, we don't know how superpowers affect the protagonist's life or how they get along with friends and family. The protagonist's life is so blank, how to show the impact of superpowers on the protagonist?
Another direction of the anti-hero superpower story is to start from the big picture, with concepts and groups as the core, and then show the impact of superpowers on society. The "X-Men" series is to embed racism into the story, making the story full of dramatic tension; "Black Pickets" metaphorically portrays super-powered people as the dark side of the social system, constructing a black worldview. Both series have their own unique set of worldviews and evolve more possibilities with the choice of different characters.
"CodeName 8" begins with intensive, fragmented news to explain the worldview, but in fact, in the follow-up story, the impact of this worldview is not large, basically staying on the surface of the police force, new drugs and the like. However, CodeName 8 does have its own set of world backgrounds, but it has not yet formed a unique worldview. In CodeName 8, super-powered people first appeared on the eve of the industrial age, they were socially useful people; after machines replaced workers, super-powered people became social tumors. I think there is a lot of potential for storytelling at a time of this alternating mindset.
Just imagine, the previous day's social heroes, the next day will become a social tumor, such a drastic change under the superpowers will do what will do? Will superpowers protest and fight for their rights? Friends and family of super-powered people, will their lives change? When the media all take the policy guidelines as the direction and begin to smear the super-powered people, will anyone complain about the super-powered people? Who can guarantee that their offspring will not be super-powered, and if this happens, will the parents of the original denial of super-powered people change? ......
The stories of super-powers in the old era are still rare, and if combined with history, they are also promising. Even if we don't use the old era as the background of the story, let's say that the production of modern new drugs, what is the impact of new drugs? Will someone kidnap superpowers to make this drug? If the super-powered daughter of the police father goes missing, and others discriminate against and exclude the super-powered and stand by, the helpless police father does his best to pursue the daughter and finds a darker truth than the other. Isn't it interesting that this is a bit like the story of Hurricane Rescue, coupled with a unique worldview?
CodeName 8, however, wobbles between these two directions, losing sight of both. On the one hand, "Code 8" wants to tell the impact of superpowers on life from a personal perspective, but does not go further; on the other hand, "Code 8" wants to tell a different superpower world view, but the background of the story is reduced to a decoration. All in all, I believe that CodeName 8 still has a lot of story potential, but it needs more imagination.