Spider-Man: My life is up to me!

I once conceived a story, the protagonist is an unpopular novelist, when creating a certain work, his characters suddenly pop out of the book, telling the protagonist that your level is too poor, no wonder the book can't be sold, you can't write me like this, I have to write my ending... However, this story is only at the stage of conception. Now a similar setting is found in "Spider-Man: Across the Universe", good guys, my concept was copied by them before I could think about it!

Just kidding, but "Spider-Man: Across the Universe" (hereinafter referred to as "Across the Universe"), entering various "Spider-Man" worlds with Spider-Man, and is about to change the setting of his fate, is worth saying.

The "Spider-Man" series, since the 2002 Toby version came out, no matter how many reboots, or what universe, has followed an unwritten law - the second is better than the first. "Spider-Man 2", "The Amazing Spider-Man 2", "Spider-Man: Far From Home", these "head text 2" works, even have a chance to become the best in the series, of course, this law also applies to "Across the Universe".

But whether this film will become the best in the series, we will not easily conclude until the third "Beyond the Universe" appears. But at least this film continues the pattern of the series - beyond the first one.

Simply put, if you are a fan of Spider-Man, this film is a carnival for bug fans, with a large number of surprise elements that make people can't help but applaud; If you're just a regular viewer, the film's superb entertainment and visual effects will definitely satisfy you, this is the top popcorn commercial blockbuster.

If you want to pick a fault, it is that you haven't seen enough, and you want to see the follow-up story.

Story: My life is up to me

The first "Parallel Universe", which beat Disney and Pixar to win the Oscar for Best Animation that year, received numerous praises. I like the film very much, but in my opinion, the most powerful thing about the movie is the technical means and fun, the story is relatively not so surprising, to put it bluntly, it is the old way of the growth of young heroes (yes, we watched the story of the origin of Spider-Man again, the fourth time in 20 years), integrated into the concept of a parallel universe (piggyback on the foot to talk about Spider-Man's midlife crisis), the brain hole can actually be opened a little bigger.

"Across the Universe", to some extent, meets my expectations of "opening the brain", that is, compared to the previous work of less than 10 parallel universes of Spider-Man, this time the bug is definitely enough, after all, the Spider-Man League has appeared, only you can't think of it, there is no Spider-Man that you can't see, even Toby and Garfield's Spider-Man universe is involved.

And the origin of the story, in fact, continues the characteristics of "Spider-Man 2" / "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" - the identity authentication and existence of the little spider after becoming famous.

The classic of "Spider-Man 2" that year was that the movie described the inner struggle of the protagonist "whether to be a hero or not". The movie spares no effort to show Spider-Man's troubles, because to be a hero, there is no energy to complete school, even his own family, he is misunderstood by his best friend, and he does not dare to confess to his beloved, and various negative chain reactions have led to superpowers that not only failed to make the bug stronger but became a burden.

"Across the Universe" presents the above arguments and further explores this proposition. And it is this "further" that has become the biggest highlight of this film.

★ The so-called heroic growth path turned out to be an inescapable fate?

What's even more outrageous is that Miles found that without that (first episode) accident, Peter Parker in his own universe would not have died, he would not have become Spider-Man, and he would not have entered the vortex of fate...

According to common sense, the setting of Little Miles should enter that state of self-defeat, that is, to ponder "How good it would be without me" and "If only I didn't appear"... But this film does not, because this routine has already been played once in "Spider-Man: Homeless".

Therefore, this film no longer deliberately renders the Spider-Man characteristics of "little people's frustration", after all, the three generations of Spider-Man on the big screen, and even the standard characters in comic books, are as simple as reducing the little bug hero to an ordinary person.

★ "Across the Universe" has taken a sharp turn - that is, "my life depends on me".

Superpowers have not become a burden for me, although there is some trade-off between chivalry and real life, but superpowers are my strength, I have to try to offset the conflict between reality and heroes, not only to fight criminals, but also to protect my family, but also to break fate.

To put it simply, the character and story motivation of the film reverse the causal relationship of "the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility", and become "the responsibility is great, so the ability is greater". There is also a scene in the movie where Miles singles out the spider alliance.

This setting is in line with the rebellious and radical personality of teenagers, and it also makes Spider-Man, a character stereotyped on the big screen and in the minds of the audience, a little different. This is an improvement in the story of this film.

In the same way, both Miles and Gwen in "Across the Universe" have extremely complex inner worlds, and the changes in the direction of the story and the characters can be said to complement each other and achieve each other.

PS。 Remember the DC event "Dark Night: Metal" a few years ago, which was the "Dark Knights" composed of a bunch of Batmen led by the Laughing Bat, and various parallel universes of Batmen emerged one after another. Now seeing "Across the Universe", let me, a double fan of Spider-Man and Batman, be a double chef ecstasy.

Technology: Step into comic books

The technical level of "Across the Universe" is definitely the biggest attraction of this film, and it is more evolved than the first part, and together with the style of the first part, it is not an exaggeration to call it a work of art.

The visual style of the movie is also as brilliant as the plot brain hole, don't underestimate the animated movie, the unique vitality of animation will create a visual style that surpasses the live-action movie.

Whether it's realistic action effects or exaggerated comic book style, plus high-speed photography, fighting effects, and environmental changes, and completely disregarding the limitations of physical space. For this alone, CG animation can sometimes create more exaggerated visuals than live-action films.

Just as the colorful color blocks in the movie overflow every corner, making Marvel's live-action movies look like realistic blockbusters heading for the Oscars.

As in the previous publicity, the biggest feature of "Across the Universe" is that it has created different artistic styles according to different parallel universes, and the official propaganda has a "six-fold painting style", but in fact, there are not only six, very many.

★Earth-65: Gwen's Overworld, a very typical "impressionist" watercolor and my favorite style, inspired by the pre-booming art scene in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood in the '90s.

The most obvious feature is the color of the world, which changes with Gwen's mood, just like watching the MV, I don't know if you found this gimmick.

★Earth-50101: Indian Spider-Man, Mandala painting style, derived from traditional Indian illustrations, coupled with mysterious and deep Buddhist ornamentation trim, to achieve such a very distinctive style.

Strictly speaking, Spider-Man India is not a Marvel original, but created by a comic book company called Gotham Comics, which is a company established in the United States to distribute comics to India, and has cooperated with Marvel and DC.

"Indian Spider-Man" was created by them in 2004, of course, it was also licensed by Marvel Comics and belongs to the genuine version. It's a bit like our "Transformers vs. Nezha" official collaboration.

★Earth-928: Home of Spider-Man 2099, a bit like "Metropolis" or "Blade Runner", but according to Wikipedia, this part of the art style belongs to neo-futurism, characterized by high-tech appearance and technical elements, such as the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is a very typical neo-futuristic style.

Miles' fight with Spider-Man on the cloud train reminds me of the space elevator in "The Wandering Earth 2".

★Earth-138； Punk Spider-Man, for the time being, has not revealed his world view (only know that he is from London), but the style of this street graffiti + sticker puzzle is very eye-catching, too dazzling, this appearance of the shot, dazzling.

In fact, this look is also famous, thanks to the PS console game "Marvel Spider-Man", the punk spider suit is one of the suits available for toys, and the special skill is "bombard enemies with electric guitar sonics". Toy manufacturer hottoys has also produced toys with this shape, which is very classic.

★ Other styles: Spider-Man League scenes, you can see a variety of incarnation styles.

For example, Scarlet Spider Ben Riley is in the style of 90s comics, especially like Todd McFarlane's "Spider-Man" style published in August 1990 when he was employed at Marvel.

There is also the opening vulture, from Italy at the end of the 15th century, whose style is a reference to the design drawings on yellowed grass paper left by the famous painter Leonardo da Vinci when he invented it, and the charcoal pen line is thick.

Plus the animated version of 1994, the ancient animated version of 1967, the PS game Spider-Man, the black and white negative space Spider-Man... There are too many to list.

★Earth-1610,: Finally, of course, the main world of Miles Morales - classic comic book style.

This is the motivation for the creation of the two "cosmic" series of Spider-Man - with 3D modeling as the background and 2D rendering as the way, the purpose is to make each frame of the film "look like a comic", let the audience walk into a comic book, or make the comic book image move.

Comic scene-like depth of field, static ink printing effects, deliberately misplaced colors (simulating minor typographical errors), simulated tonal gradients, crossed lines to create textures and shadows, as well as comic storyboards, onomatopoeia, dialogs on images, etc... And then apply all this to dynamic films. 

No matter how much words there are, it is pale, or seeing is believing. The two favorite scenes in the film - one is the scene of Miles and Gwen in their own world, chatting and flying over tall buildings, and the other is the fight on the cloud train in future New York, from the headquarters of the Spider-Man League to the cloud train, bringing dazzling visual enjoyment.

This time Sony Pictures must be commended... Its special effects company: Sony Pictures Imageworks, or SPI for short.

This is a Sony-owned special effects company, founded in 1992, that produces the special effects for most Sony-produced movies, including all Spider-Man movies.

Why talk about a special effects company alone? Because this company is more willful, it is probably related to the style of the parent company Sony Group.

Simply put, this company likes to engage in research and development, and in Hollywood in the era of pan-special effects, SPI is characterized by not following. In many of his own movies, he develops technology independently, and some are not compatible with other companies.

For example, in 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man", the 3D movie technology led by "Avatar" was all the rage, but the film did not use ready-made 3D, but developed a set of 5K 3D technology, even further than the 3D technology used by James Cameron in his films.

At the same time, in order to innovate the effect of Spider-Man bugs flying between the buildings and forests, SPI developed a set of CG dynamic models. Countless dynamic characteristics of long jump, high jump, pole vault athletes were sampled, and then Spider-Man's completely realistic flying effect was simulated - the critical speed of flying to the highest point, the acceleration in the fall, and the realistic physics of the bug under the pull of the spider silk.

Of course, these technologies have also been fully applied to all "Spider-Man" movies in the later period, including this film.

For example, the flying shot of Miles in the movie is the classic PSSE of the bug, and it also appeared for the first time in "The Amazing Spider-Man".

Therefore, I understand what kind of technical content is behind the visual effects that make comic books "move" and different artistic styles in the same frame in "Across the Universe".

Anyway, the Sony Group's main business is to do this, and they are engaged in image technology research.

Conclusion: Instantaneous universe

The young spider changes his life against the sky, the little insect people set up a sharp turn, with ridicule and subversion as their responsibility, melancholy and rebellion coexist, one surprise after another, comic two-dimensional electric flint, such as the multiverse intertwined with spider silk, the infinite connection across dimensions, like a pansilk hole like the Spider-Man Alliance, as well as dazzling visual aesthetics, and countless Easter eggs.

This is Spider-Man: Across the Universe, an exciting heroic path, although the same path, but the process is different.

Go and reverse fate, you will become a part of destiny, if not in this time and space, then in another universe, there is always a suitable one for you.

Painted eggshell? I only read it once, I can't count it anyway, and I'll definitely have to do it again.

By the way, just say one, that is, the real "Prowler" who is imprisoned in the Spider-Man League.

played by comedian Donald Glover played this role, it is estimated that many people are familiar with it, and there are also those who can't remember, this is the one in 2017's "Spider-Man: Homecoming", two hundred and five punks, that is, the one who originally wanted to buy a scare prop but sold the big killer, the second appearance made the Dutch brother glued to the back cover of the car, and the one with ice cream in the bag, he mentioned that I have a nephew living here.

In the film's abridged clip, it is confirmed that his nephew is named Miles.

At least, in "Across the Universe", the multiverse connects the two Spider-Man live-action universes of Toby and Garfield, as well as the "Venom" universe and the Lego universe, and also strings together the Marvel Cinematic Universe MCU.