Oscar for Best Animation, destined to belong to the new version of "Pinocchio"

Author of this article: Li Xiaotian

I like two fat directors in Hollywood today, one is Peter Jackson and the other is Guillermo del Toro.

Needless to say, Peter Jackson used a super-magical technique to direct the groundbreaking "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and has always been the first in my personal mind on my viewing resume.

For Guillermo del Toro, I've been in love with this geek since "Winger Warrior 2" and "Hellboy". I thought that he would only take the B-grade weird coffee route, but I never thought that he would immediately take out the "Labyrinth of Pan God" with excellent literary and artistic temperament, which completely made me his fan. His films always have some eye-opening ideas and some bizarre designs that always surprise people. His style is a bit like Tim Burton, but it goes further than the latter on an ideological level. Finally, in "The Shape of Water", he successfully climbed to the top of the movie, successfully won the Oscar for Best Director, Best Film and other awards, and became famous.

I thought that after Guillermo del Toro won the award, he would learn from the little plum and slow down his film pace. However, the "Jade Face Demon" immediately following shows that this is not the case. Peak state, since it is here, then last a little.

In 2022, "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" and "Guillermo del Toro's Whimsy", an animated film, a TV series, make Guillermo del Toro's sense of existence full.

Here, only the cartoon "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio". That's right, it's a modern adaptation of the 1940 film classic Pinocchio.

For the adaptation of "Pinocchio", in fact, it is not this version of Guillermo del Toro, he is not alone. In 2022, Oscar winner Tom Hanks teamed up with Oscar best director Robert Zemeckis to make a version of "Pinocchio". Pushed forward two years earlier, back in 2019, Roberto Bernini, who is also an Oscar winner, also starred in a version of "Pinocchio". These two versions of "Pinocchio" starring Oscar actors are super bad films, which cannot be seen at all.

Therefore, the adaptation of classic films is actually not easy. It's hard, quite hard.

There is also a classic adaptation of this year's Oscar for Best Film, namely "No War on the Western Front", which looks good, but compared with the classic 1930 version, there are still some problems. The boss has won the Oscar for Best Picture, and as for this new version, there is no drama.

Classic adaptations are not good to adapt and not easy to edit, but Guillermo del Toro did it, and as soon as he shot, the Oscar for Best Animated Film in "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" was stable, and there was no one to the right. Because the nominated "Shell Marcel in Shoes", "Puss in Boots 2", "Sea Beast Hunter" and "Youth Metamorphosis" nominated on the same list immediately dwarfs in front of the works of fat people, and they are not an order of magnitude at all.

These films are all in the family, playing small love, shaking and clever, but the works of fat people have a strong humanistic reflection, and what is higher than them is definitely not an order of magnitude.

The story is still that story, the characters are still those characters, the situation is still those scenes, but the fat man injects new vitality into the familiar feeling of everyone, which can not only attract people to sit and watch, but also arouse the resonance of the audience and produce a strong sense of identity.

At this point, another fat man, Peter Jackson, also did it. After filming "The Lord of the Rings", Peter the Great pointed the guide tube at "King Kong".

Borrowing the classic remarks of six-year-old children, "adaptation is not chaotic, adaptation is not chaotic", compared to the old version of "King Kong", Peter the Great's adaptation is not to abandon the classic elements in the classic film, the story framework is still the original style, but he made the story more reasonable, the characters are fuller, the background and details that drive the story forward are more convincing, the new version has been upgraded, new but not subversive, but also makes the old story more reasonable and convincing, but also more attractive, the whole film is more beautiful.

As a result, the new version of "King Kong" has also become a new classic.

For Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, almost the same thing was done. It boldly dismissed the clichés of the old version, but did not make major changes to the story. For viewers who have watched the old version, when watching the new version, because of the existence of the old version, you have already got spoilers, and you are very clear about the next story direction, but you have to watch it honestly, and you are not willing to walk away for a minute.

Why? Because it looks good, because it's worth it.

The biggest change that Guillermo del Toro made was to put the original story that took place a long, long time ago before and after World War I. And the implantation of this background makes the whole story quite rational. Moreover, he also filmed the reason why he made the Pinocchio for the carpenter in the film, which makes the story more believable.

The story of "Pinocchio of Guillermo del Toro" tells the story of an Italian grandfather who depends on his son. As a result, his son was killed by an airplane in World War I. The old grandfather, who was desperate to give birth, finally made a puppet Pinocchio from the tree that stood up from his son's grave. As a result, his longing for his son touched death, so Pinocchio was injected with life and became a puppet villain with life.

After that, the story is actually in the form of a road movie, strung together one little paragraph after another with Pinocchio. Guillermo del Toro explicitly adapted the story into a story of love and growth, about Pinocchio's journey from being a casual child to becoming a real child. The whole process is very round, it is not new to watch, but I want to see it. It's like "King Kong", you know the spoilers, but you still want to watch it, the same.

Of course, if you have to complain, the people and animals in the film are not cute enough, cute enough, and some are not very likable. But those who are familiar with Guillermo del Toro know that this is clearly his style. Especially the appearance of the god of death in the film is simply a copy of the god Pan in "The Labyrinth of Pan God". This kind of cute design is precisely the personal characteristic of Guillermo del Toro. It's not deliberately flattering, but it's also very attractive, at least you can't hate it.

In short, fortunately, this year's Oscar for Best Animation is "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio", which greatly raises the artistic index of the worrying nominee list. So what else to say, the best does not belong to it, it is simply insulting to Sven. It's not that Guillermo del Toro needs Oscar, it's that Oscar needs Guillermo del Toro.