Around Halloween, major film media around the world are tirelessly selecting their own horror movie lists. Not surprisingly, although the films on these lists are different, there is always a tall figure - Frankenstein.
Why is this 201-year-old classic image enduring? Why can't people forget his story?
Today, let's talk to you about the "Frankenstein complex" in Hollywood movies.
Origins: The world's first science fiction novel
In 1818, the poet Shelley's wife, Mary Shelley, wrote a novel called Frankenstein– The Story of Modern Prometheus. It tells the story of a young scientist named Frankenstein who uses his knowledge to create a humanoid creature driven by scientific desires.
This artificial man was given life by Frankenstein, who, though ugly in appearance, is good by nature and yearns for beauty. But society doesn't accept it and sees it as a monster.
The cyborg asks Frankenstein to be another female cyborg for him, and promises to stay away from the world from now on. But Frankenstein feared that monster breeding threatened society, so he destroyed the female artificial man near completion. The monster has since embarked on the path of revenge, and Frankenstein has vowed to destroy his work.
The story ends tragically, frankenstein dies of illness and the monster sets itself on fire and disappears.
The novel caused a huge response and is considered the world's first science fiction novel. This is not just a science fiction or horror story, but a generalization and summary of human society.
Various versions of Frankenstein's novels
Human beings have no scruples, and while realizing their personal values and desires, they have caused great harm to society.
There is an eternal conflict between human habitation and technological development, and the abuse of science and moral issues unfold and unfold between Frankenstein and the monsters he has created.
In 1818, the communist pioneer Marx was born, Europe and the United States completed the industrial revolution, and science and technology continued to develop... Although the theme of this novel is agnostic and has a certain religious tendency, the characters and stories in the novel are timeless.
In today's increasingly developed science and technology, it exudes more perspectives, methods and social significance.
The doctrine of science fiction writer Asimov
More than 100 years later, the famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov painted another picture of the future world in his series of novels. In these stories, machines become more and more human-like, with appearances, appearances, and even intelligence and so-called souls that are no different from humans.
Isaac Asimov
Humans develop a sense of dread about machines. The themes of these novels bear some resemblance to Masahiro Mori and Freud's "uncanny valley" theory.
After writing these novels, Asimov gave a name to this state of mind of human fear of machines, frankenstein complex.
Further, the term Frankenstein complex, in constant change, means that the person who creates the monster will eventually be harmed by the monster, and the monster created by the man (and the robot with more high-tech scientific attributes) will eventually betray humanity.
Later, "Frankenstein" was also used to refer to monsters made by humans.
In today's literature, film and other works, the specific manifestation of the "Frankenstein complex" is that machines acquire artificial intelligence and begin to manage the world.
The boundaries between robots and humans are eliminated, and robots gain the ability to perceive, which leads to fear and forced to accept the management and domination of artificial objects such as "Frankenstein"—whether robots, monsters, computers, or other artificial objects with intelligent abilities.
However, in Hollywood, which advocates individual heroism, the saviors will not sit still, and their war with man-made machines to "maintain world peace" has just begun.
Frankenstein and its variants
The image of "Frankenstein" in the film has undergone several changes and has been adapted by Hollywood on many levels.
The first Frankenstein film
In hollywood horror movie traditions, Frankenstein always appeared as some kind of horrible, murderous maniac. On any level, Frankenstein is just a "humanoid" species, not a true human being.
But the shape and organs of human beings make it no longer a "beast". Therefore, the biological positioning raises various other problems. At the beginning of creation, Frankenstein was a "monster" with many problems.
For example, his gender is vague, his biological function is not perfect, he does not have a soul belonging to human beings, and his perception ability is lacking.
The first Frankenstein film, Frankenstein, was born in 1910, and every five years or so since then, Frankenstein will appear on the screen as original or adapted images, most of them pure-bred monsters, emotionless, created by humans and then regarded humans as enemies.
The 1931 edition of Frankenstein, later Frankenstein's appearance, is derived from this
In some films, Frankenstein is a species with a psychological disorder that has been hurt, and his temperament has changed drastically, turning into a monster.
In other films, Frankenstein is a complete monster with no specific vital signs, simply a zombie, with endless resentment and hostility, who comes to the human world to seek revenge.
Since 1910, a total of 39 films about Frankenstein have been released. In these films, Frankenstein offers a lot of horror elements, making people feel that this is a monster to be destroyed.
Instead, the scientist who created this monster is rarely mentioned. The reflections on science in the original have disappeared in these films.
It can be said that Hollywood, with its own revisionist aesthetics, has pulled this monster from a reflective perspective to the position of "horror character". Not only that, but Hollywood has also wrapped the story in genres of magic, romance, comedy, action, and so on.
Obviously, in the process of continuous revision and revision, the Frankenstein or Frankenstein-like monsters in Hollywood films have retained only the three attributes of ugliness, artificiality, and humanoidity.
Humanity's nightmare about technology
After entering the so-called nuclear age and the Cold War, Frankenstein's monsters have in some ways become a nightmare for human technology. There are many people who think that the role of the "Hulk" has a certain Frankenstein color.
The human-created but uncontrollable nuclear energy represented by the Hulk does bear some resemblance to frankenstein's monster setting. In addition, similarly, there is the Godzilla who inexplicably appeared in the "Godzilla" movie and originally represented the destructive power of nuclear energy.
However, like the Hulk and Godzilla completing the entertainment transformation on the screen, in many films now, Frankenstein does not appear in its original appearance, on the contrary, it has become a complex and hidden worry, and the progress of science and technology has made human beings afraid of technology and machinery itself.
Many of Asimov's novels reveal the theme of humans enslaved by machines—and in such corrections, computers, robots, and even code with higher efficiency, greater execution, and no emotion become new variants of Frankenstein.
The computer HAL9000 in "2001" terrified pilots
In "2001: A Space Odyssey", the computer HAL9000, which constantly plays psychological warfare and lip reading, is one of the representatives. Such a computer, although it does not have a human appearance, has human emotions, intelligence and means.
They do not control humanity by violence, but through psychological tactics. When HAL9000 says "I'm afraid" on the screen, what the audience feels is definitely not to rescue the robot, but to consider how to protect itself.
The same is true of Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
It was originally created to help the members of the Avengers reduce the labor intensity, and was actually a labor robot, but when it upgraded its INTELLIGENCE and judgment, it became the enemy of humans and the opponent of the Avengers.
In fact, no matter how imperfect the human world is and how much it needs to be upgraded by "ethnic cleansing", defending this non-mutilated world is the only goal and expectation of many superheroes. Thus, the two sides, each representing a worldview, began to fight.
Ultron, created by Iron Man in Avengers 2
The Frankenstein complex, in the present, is just a kind of expression of "doing what you can't do, but asking for yourself". Losing a certain degree of fear of technology and losing the reflection on the abuse of technology by human beings, it has become a simple plot and clue of "revenge" and "revenge".
In many movies, superheroes or positive characters inadvertently offend their fans and feud with their admirers. Then this obscure little fan began to be angry and strong, against the superhero, becoming a negative role in the film - the purpose is to make up for the cold treatment he received.
From the animated film "The Incredibles" to "Iron Man 3", such an entertaining adaptation is actually far from Frankenstein's original intention.
Anti-Frankenstein complex
Of course, screenwriters centered on human cognition, emotion, and needs don't create a script of total human enslavement, so the "anti-Frankenstein complex," a variant of the "Frankenstein complex," came into being.
This complex mainly expresses the robot's dedication to humans, loyalty to humans and no regrets to humans.
Such robots have dual attributes, one is to obey the "three laws of robotics" proposed by Asimov; the second is the emotional attributes of humans. When the robot has emotional ability, the audience will have a violent empathic effect and projection of psychology.
At this time, the robot already has the sociological characteristics of a human being, although physiologically it is not human, but emotionally, it has become human.
A pair of robots in Artificial Intelligence
In movies like Machine Butler, robots have the ability to love.
As a result, its plot of pursuing love like a human being has become reasonable. Films such as "Frankenstein Dogs" carry the attributes of "monsters" from humanoid creatures to pets and exist in the movie as family members.
"I, Robot" fictionalizes the story of a "robot savior" who saves mankind. And "Robocop" uses the "hybrid" of half-human and half-machine to tell the story of machines serving humans.
Of course, the highest form of the "anti-Frankenstein complex" is not the contradiction and war between humans and machines, but the machines helping humans to upgrade races, evolve societies, and change generations —of course, this is the picture of the binary world depicted in "The Matrix".
Directors like Stanley Kubrick go even further, and in Artificial Intelligence, "directed" by Steven Spielberg, he not only gives robots the ability to love, the ability to envy, but also the ability to speculate, and also to pursue the answer to the ultimate question of the human world.
Although such a plot has been shown a little in "Terminator", it may be difficult to understand what is an "anti-Frankenstein complex" in an overly entertaining adaptation.
In the bigger-brained films, marvin, the robot in "A Guide to the Galaxy," is nothing more than an unambitious genius and philosopher—but that has nothing to do with Frankenstein.
They also makeovers
Films of the "Frankenstein Complex" generally only appear in the United States, and are rare in Japan, where the robot industry is equally developed. Because the attitudes of these two countries to robots are completely different.
De Niro also played Frankenstein
The Japanese always used machines and machine armor as tools or as part of a tool, and they didn't give life to machines on more levels and in more sense.
Therefore, the Frankenstein complex rarely exists. What's more, in many American movies, robots have become the public enemy of the nation, the threat of humanity, and even the enemy of the universe.
Therefore, this requires superheroes to turn the tide and become the savior at the same level as the individual heroism and heroic behavior of Americans.
In the age of horror films, Frankenstein and the monsters he created brought countless screams, praises, and fans to Hollywood, because the characters and stories had strong symbolic significance.
It can symbolize the ethical relationship of human beings, it can symbolize the "father-killing" fantasy, it can also represent agnosticism and the key issues of religious belief— such as the creator can only be God, and so on.
In this era, the product of frankenstein complex is just a robot that has been manufactured and deviated. His fate was similar to that of Frankenstein's monster.
After spending the honeymoon period with humans, he discovered the hypocrisy and conspiracy of human beings, so he wanted to destroy human beings and realize the world of unity in his mind.
However, this violates the rights of human beings. After the Great War, human society will continue as always, and high-tech robots may reappear in a makeover...
An incomplete inventory of Frankenstein's films:
Frankenstein as the protagonist
Frankenstein 1910
Frankenstein 1931
House of Frankenstein 1944
The Curseo f Frankenstein (1957).
The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958).
Lady Frankenstein (1971).
The Walking Dead by Andy Warhol's Frankenstein 1973
Eddie Frankenstein, Blackenstein 1973
The New Frankenstein (1974).
The Bride (1985).
Frankenhooker 1990
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein 1994
Frankenstein Corps, Frankenstein's Army 2013
Frankenstein vs. The Mummy by Frankenstein vs. Frankenstein. The Mummy 2015
Frankenstein, Frankulstein, 2015
Victor Frankenstein 2015
Frankenstein as a supporting character, a villain
Abbottand Costello Meet Frankenstein 1948
King Kong Breaks the Royal Nightclub, Casino Royale 1967
Frankenstein: The True Story 1973
The Rocky Horror Picture Show 1975
"Crazy Beauty of Living Life" May 2002
Van Helsing (2004).
Stan Helsing 2009
Hotel Transylvania 2012 series
Other adaptations
The Monster of Frankenstein (1920).
Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
Son of Frankenstein, 1939
The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942).
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957).
Frankenste in Conquers the World 1965
The War of the Gargantuas (1966)
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973).
The Monster Squad (1987).
Frankenstein General Hospital, 1988
Frankenstein Unbound (1990).
Frankenstein Dog by Frankenweenie 2012
I, Frankenstein I, Frankenstein2 014
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