In the post-world movies such as "2012", "Interstellar", "The Day After Tomorrow", "I Am Legend", and "Busan Trip", people see countless ultimate pictures.
Every time apocalyptic movies emerge, there is a collective anxiety of survival as a background. During the Cold War, the initiators of doomsday movies are often arms races and nuclear weapons wars, the Cold War is coming to an end, and a large number of superheroes have appeared in doomsday movies as rescue roles, so that the end of the world can finally be safely passed, and human beings can at least board the "Noah's Ark". By 2012, the force of majeure natural disasters and cosmic forces had led many heads of state to openly declare powerlessness. Faced with a doomsday ending, many doomsday movies have no choice but to open a narrow window of compassion but no avail, to remove the last rays of light exposed by the clouds and mist — so that lovers can snuggle more closely, and hands can hold hands more and race against the clock.
By 2012, the force of majeure natural disasters and cosmic forces had led many heads of state to openly declare powerlessness. /Movie "2012"
What will destroy humanity for? Where to go on the last day of destruction? At the end of the world, what can I do to survive? After surviving, how do you face the tragic loss and the reconstruction of loneliness?
In The End of the World, the author argues that doomsday does not necessarily collapse and collapse as fully as in the novel Lord of the Flies. The mass demise of humanity, while technological civilizations and supplies remain, will provide a grace period for survivors of the rebuilding of human civilization to gain a foothold before relearning all the basic functions of a self-sufficient society and preventing degradation from going too far.
<b>Get out of the stagnation of growth</b>
Last October, a doomsday movie, Love and Monsters, was released in North America. Unlike previous apocalyptic movies, the tone of "Love and Monsters" is not a tragic fight, nor does it have any intention of telling the apocalyptic way of survival in hiding, but more like helping a young man complete the adventure story of growing up - you can't refuse the sun because of the danger of the ground, live forever in the safe underground, the sun is dangerous, and the sun is also the right to live. From this point of view, "Love and Monsters", released in the midst of global anxiety, is also timely.
You can't refuse sunlight because the ground is dangerous, and always live in a safe underground, sunlight is dangerous, and sunlight is also the right to live. /Movie "Love and Monsters"
In Love and Monsters, 16-year-old boy Joey Dawson survived a meteorite-hit disaster in a hard-hit area where almost no one survived. Joey lost all his family and had to be separated from his lover Aimee. From that day on, the world was dominated by giant, mutated insects and frogs, and humans were reduced to the bottom of the food chain.
Joey was rescued by a group of older survivors and hid in an underground bunker for 7 years. It's dark, cramped, short of supplies, and short of electricity, and the others never trust Joey, the smallest and weakest fighter, to venture out and forage. When a huge ant monster invaded the fortress, he froze directly in place and became a joke. More crucially, all the survivors of the underground fortress had a companion except him. Calm and safe, but for 7 years, Joey suddenly felt that something was missing in life, remembering the promise he had made with Aimee, "I will definitely go to you."
Joey was rescued by a group of older survivors and hid in an underground bunker for 7 years. /Movie "Love and Monsters"
By radio, he learned that Aimee lived in another bunker 80 miles away and decided to venture out to find her. The other survivors were very worried that Joey wouldn't survive — no one survived on the ground for more than 72 hours — but still gave him a map and a crossbow. Building an underground fortress with the warmth of its companions is director Michael Matthews' "anti-doomsday routine," in which "when most people are knocked down, everyone is desperate, the world is over — and the people who survive aren't trying to take each other." They value social relationships more, and humanity becomes more important because they know that there are not many truly valuable people left around. It's great to have real people, not just to survive on your own. ”
When a young boy is trapped in a bunker for 7 years, he is bound to lose many key stages of growth. Michael Matthews mentioned in interviews with other media outlets, "In terms of socialization, he has developed stunted. We want to see this: he's 23 now, but in a sense he's still 16. There were many things he hadn't experienced. There is a kind of naivety, and there is also a kind of embarrassment. A bit underdeveloped stuff, charming. "At the time of the performance, the actor who plays Joey, Dylan O'Brien, happens to have this naïveté and clumsiness.
There were many things he hadn't experienced. There is a kind of naivety, and there is also a kind of embarrassment. /Movie "Love and Monsters"
The stagnation of growth seems to be another metaphor for this doomsday story. In spite of the protection of the underground, the boy's life experience seems to have not changed qualitatively, except for the peace of day after day, and the years seem to be only a number of increases. Length and breadth, safety and abundance are the questions of meaning that will be sent to life in both everyday and extreme environments.
<b>Find a new self</b>
Opening the heavy exit of the underground fortress, Joey saw the sun in a long time. Cars, houses, and the remains of various human material civilizations were abandoned on the streets, rusting.
Not long after crossing the suburbs, Joey was attacked by a giant toad monster. A stray dog named "Boy" suddenly sprang out and saved his life. The owner was long gone, and the boy was waiting alone in a motorhome. Adventure or doomsday movies often feature a cross-species comrade-in-arms character, and after the end of the world, humans and other species tend to be more like a surviving community.
Adventure or doomsday movies often feature a cross-species comrade-in-arms character, and after the end of the world, humans and other species tend to be more like a surviving community. /Movie "Love and Monsters"
Determined to follow Joey, boy took a red blanket that his master had used on the road. On the adventure, they meet two other survivors, Clyde Dutton, and his adopted daughter Mino. Because of the disaster, Clyde Dutton lost his own child, and Mino lost his parents, and the two survivors, like Joey and Boy, formed a new family form. It's hard to survive alone, and that seems to be a rule in doomsday movies. During the brief encounter, they taught Joey basic survival skills: how to fight, perceive danger, and find food. The two men's destination is to head north to the mountains, where colder weather and higher elevations mean fewer monsters and a more stable environment to live in. But Joey chose to go the other way and continue looking for Aimee.
At this point, the protagonist has the basic configuration of growth movies and adventure movies, partners, teachers, dilemmas and beliefs. Producer Sean Levy has been involved in many genres of narratives, such as Stranger Things, Arrival, Free Man, and other coming-of-age stories set in extreme environments. In Sean Levy's mind, love and monsters are more typical, "the journey of a character-centric adult hero that happens to take place at the end of the world."
The most touching scene of the film is undoubtedly Joey and Boy's adventure in an abandoned motel. Here, they found a damaged robot called Mav1s. When the end comes, it is bitten off by the monster, crawls into the ruins and takes refuge, shutting itself off to store electricity, hoping that a human can find it. After waiting 7 years, the moment of the restart, Joey asked in surprise, "Are you alive?" I mean, you're still online. "This moment is like a long-lost reunion between humans and civilizations, where technology is sometimes beyond human control and sometimes loyal. This moment is also very similar to Joey's original intention to find Aimee.
The most touching scene of the film is undoubtedly Joey and Boy's adventure in an abandoned motel. /Movie "Love and Monsters"
With only 51 minutes left, Mav1s turned his power into Joey's radio, providing long enough time to briefly contact Aimee. They are not far from their destination. After the call, Mav1s looked out the window into the night, "I haven't been out in a long time. "Joey carried it out of the hotel and the two of them sat on a couch." Would you like to see a magic trick, Joey? Mav1s suddenly turned his head and asked, "What is your full name and where is your birthplace?" After getting the answer, Mav1s' display scrolled through photos of family members who had passed away at the end of the world, and Joey looked intently at his parents as they used to look, "I don't even have a picture." "When all the physical evidence disappears, there are still traces of everyone's survival in the machine data. Joey, whose memories have been blurred, is reawakened with the emotions he once had, remembering the connection he shared with the world.
"Look!" Mav1s looked into the night sky, "It's the sky jellyfish!" They don't hurt people and are cute. "The huge transparent jellyfish float in the night sky, and in the darkness of human civilization and streetlight disillusionment, the dancing jellyfish emit a colored fluorescence of light and dark, which is a warm moment that nature rarely feels threatened after the end of the world." Would you like to hear a song, Joey? As the battery ran out, Mav1s played Stand by me on the spot, giving Joey his last gift. Halfway through the song, Mav1s' electronic expression went out and he lowered his head.
When all the physical evidence disappears, there are still traces of everyone's survival in the machine data. /Movie "Love and Monsters"
"It's a moving moment," says Sean Levy, whose Mav1s sequence has always been his favorite. "Joey meets an outdated robot that gives him the catharsis he's always needed, and that's what sets Love and Monsters apart from many other comedy or adventure movies. This is the place in the movie where people can breathe a sigh of relief and make you fully understand Joey' moment; Joey is healed. In that moment, how beautiful and ironic It is for Joey to reconnect his humanity and emotions through a non-human being. This is one of the most original ideas in the script. ”
Joey eventually meets Aimee. She was now leading a beach "colony" of elderly survivors and had become another independent and tenacious woman. After the two reunite, Aimee, although happy, has no romantic interest in Joey, and does not want to regain her old feelings, she is busy taking care of her old, sick and disabled new family, while contacting a person who claims to be a former Royal Australian Navy sailor captain to migrate to a safer place. Years ago, she had a lover and comrade-in-arms, and once again experienced a painful loss. Once a naïve lover who has grown into a fighter for life, Joey is disheartened and decides to return to his fortress to support, which is also becoming insecure.
Joey eventually meets Aimee. /Movie "Love and Monsters"
At this point in the story, although love is the theme of this doomsday movie, it is no longer so important. Sean Levy explains that it's about a boy crossing the doomsday landscape for a girl, but it's not about finding the love of life, but about finding a better version of yourself. "He went looking for a girl, but he eventually found himself. That's what Love and Monsters is all about. The adventure allowed him to discover his own heroism, a brave self. In the end, a better and more confident Joey came out of his quest to find Aimee. ”
Will Aimee and Joey end up together? Probably. But in the eyes of the creators, this has never been the point. The key is for Joey to find a new sense of self and confidence toward the future.
<b>Breathe in the fresh air and live a good life</b>
At the end of the film, Joey completes the final stages of growth. He exposes the captain's plot and saves Aimee and her fortress residents. When separated, two young lovers, survivors who have completed their own growth, kiss each other. Joey gives Aimee the Monster Survival Guide he drew along the way, and treks back to his camp again, where the doomsday family rejoices that the weakest survived on the ground for two weeks.
Joey gives Aimee the Monster Survival Guide he drew along the way, and treks back to his camp again, where the doomsday family rejoices that the weakest survived on the ground for two weeks. /Movie "Love and Monsters"
During a radio broadcast, Joey shared his experience with other "colonies", "The surface is dangerous, but hiding underground doesn't solve the problem, the outside world is big, beautiful, very spiritual, maybe you think it's impossible, but since I can survive, anyone can." A good friend told me that intuition is corrected by making mistakes, and if you make mistakes and don't die, you'll be fine. Open the hatch, get some fresh air, and live your own life. I walked 85 miles and found what I had lacked in the fort for 7 years, which had actually been above my head. Last but not, don't covet comfort, even at the end of the world."
As the director put it, it's a dystopian movie where the beautiful world of honey and milk doesn't exist, even before the end of the world. But "Love and Monsters" does not want to present a dark, bleak, unsaturated dystopian apocalypse movie, in which monsters also show their personalities, survivors occasionally loot, but cherish each other's help, "hope to give people a cold, imaginary feeling of the future, rather than give people a cold movie." Sean said in an interview.
As the director put it, it's a dystopian movie where the beautiful world of honey and milk doesn't exist, even before the end of the world. /Movie "Love and Monsters"
Although the film has been in preparation for many years, the time of release has undoubtedly produced a kind of observation of reality. Destruction and reconstruction in the real sense are much more frequent than the end of the world.
According to Louis Datner, a researcher at the University of Leicester at NASA, there have been many great societies that have flourished in history, and their intellectual wealth and technological power were shining like jewels in the world at that time, but most of these societies have stagnated somewhere, reached a static and balanced state, and there has been no further development, or simply falling apart. In fact, the continued progress of our current civilization is a historical anomaly.
In the era of anxiety, such a doomsday movie may seem "fresh" and "naïve", without giving the visual impact of "battle royale", nor providing more theoretical solutions, but for several years like a loyal dog who snuggled in the owner's relic, paid all his electricity to human beings to weave a silent night robot Mav1s, the cowards finally learned to protect their lovers, and the losers finally found new companionship, which made people inevitably get some comfort, even in the global reconstruction, Nor will he face shelley's words alone: "Around the ruins, only the yellow sand is reckless/lonely and desolate, stretching out in all directions." ”