The American media are embarrassed? Hollywood blockbusters failed miserably, not because of the "Domestic Protection Month"

Text | Ling Hu Boguang

The summer file of 2023 is actually almost over, although there are still about 10 days before the official end of August, but you see that the domestic summer file "All or Nothing" is the final peak of this schedule, and the "Learning Dad" and "Assassination Storm" released last week cannot be said to be pounced, but there is really no splash.

By the time the box office of domestic films reached the 17th, it had exceeded the 17.8 billion yuan in the same period of 2019, locking in the "strongest summer file in history" 14 days in advance.

The most important thing is that among this achievement, it is basically monopolized by Chinese films, and Hollywood movies are completely insufficient.

This phenomenon has also been discovered by the American media, including the American media "Variety" has reported: this year's Hollywood films finally entered the summer season, breaking the past "domestic film protection month" convention of introducing films from June to August every year, but these films were actually "exploded" by Chinese domestic films.

This question has been analyzed before, but mainly from the crotch pull of the Hollywood blockbuster itself, and now the answer is very simple.

Hollywood blockbusters can sweep the world mainly by the blessing of hard power such as national strength, military, science and technology, and economy in reality. Pop culture is only these embodiments, if you have to go to the perspective of the film, there are probably two levels, one is the strong instillation of the hard power of technical representatives, and the other is the cultural soft power wrapped in technology to convince you.

Hollywood encounters Waterloo in China? We know it by watching "Fengsheng"

Movies are the art of dreaming, and Hollywood has the most advanced film technology in the world, in fact, Hollywood was before the 90s. Nor has it completely played European art films, Japanese films and Hong Kong films, completely after "Terminator 2", "Jurassic Park", "Titanic", "The Matrix" and "Lord of the Rings" in the 90s.

That is, after revolutionizing the technology of the digital special effects era, it began to open up movies in other markets around the world and occupy the market.

To put it bluntly, it is still the cliché definition that technology is the primary productive force.

I don't know one thing that you have not found, that is, Hollywood blockbusters are getting worse and worse at the technical level alone, and these film investments are often scary, with $203 million invested at every turn.

Strictly speaking, there has been no regression in technology (and progress on some levels), but there is really nothing wrong with the audience's perception of regression. Take the old tokusatsu as an example, a large number of detailed prop models can bring you the strongest sense of realism, and "Iron Man 1" also understands this truth, so there are also many props.

But now various industries have become more and more deformed in the Internet era, whether it is animation music or movies, assembly line production is no longer a problem, which leads to their quality is often uneven. The visual effects and plots of old movies are not less bad than the current ones, so why do we feel that the current ones are worse?

It's the same as the assembly line I said, because we can see too many garbage assembly line products in a year. In the past, we may have seen at least a good looking movie like "Avatar" and "Interstellar" within a year, and the few bad movies in the middle may not be able to remember what they are called.

But now it's often the reputable brand like Marvel DC that makes something that is especially bad, and then 10 movies you may watch in a row in a year are rotten Naturally, there will be better ideas before.

In summary, I think the reason is that too many props of CG are abandoned, the production of the assembly line is too fast, and the quality is uneven.

Of course, strictly speaking, people's technology is still improving, such as "Avatar 2" is obviously able to see progress, and animation has become the most obvious technological progress works, such as "Spider-Man Across the Universe", including watching an animation "Monster Girl Nienna" some time ago.

Hollywood live-action blockbusters are superhero movies, and the proliferation of IP movies, there is no breakthrough in technology and aesthetics (the audience is already prone to aesthetic fatigue), and they begin to abuse CG and cost to stars or others, resulting in the special effects of blockbusters getting worse and worse.

For example, compared with "Superman Man of Steel" in 2013 and "The Flash" in 2023, it has not advanced for ten years.

The development of special effects in China is just the opposite, and too many movies with poor special effects before have aesthetic fatigue of the audience. By the time Guo Fan's "The Wandering Earth 2" and Wuershan's "Feng Shen" come out, everything is afraid of comparison, and Chinese audiences will feel that the progress is obvious.

At the same time, there is an important problem, in fact, even if the CG special effects of "The Wandering Earth 2" are general, "Fengsheng" can't do it because of the company's thunderstorm post-special effects, and everyone doesn't think their CG special effects are great.

The point is that both films have invested a lot of money in art, and they have served these real scenes.

I found that movies really need to combine physical props and special effects that really can't be done, and this effect is the best. The result is also that the physical props of "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Fengshen " are very outstanding, but they cover up the lack of CG special effects in the later stage. Plus the director team has a breakthrough in art aesthetics.

Chinese audiences naturally prefer Chinese special effects blockbusters that conform to their own aesthetics and have a sense of freshness.

This is like this year's special effects blockbusters around the world, except for "Avatar 2" and "Spider-Man", all of them are "Mission Impossible 7", "Transformers 5", "The Flash", "Indiana Jones 5", "Fast and Furious 10", "Black Panther 2", "Ant-Man 3", "Guardians of the Galaxy 3", "The Little Mermaid" and the like.

And if you compare "The Wandering Earth 2", "Fengshen "and "Chang'an 30,000 Li", Chinese audiences definitely like these movies more.

Why are Hollywood blockbusters getting harder and harder to watch? In addition to political correctness, everything else has deteriorated

The second reason is that when Hollywood movies were strong in the past, such as Hollywood movies in the 90s and 00s, the protagonists were handsome guys and beauties, and now they are not good-looking or black people are politically correct, right, but "Fast and Furious 10", "Indiana Jones 5", "Mission Impossible 7" and other films, tell you that there are still those who adhere to aesthetics.

But why these two movies also pounced, because its plot, characters and expression are not good.

In the past, when I watched Chinese movies, the scenes were usually common, there was no sense of novelty, and the content emphasized meaning and thought, and the result was that the familiar scenes and faces could not make people feel substitutionary. Watching foreign movies, the lifestyle and scenes are novel and advanced, the picture production is more exquisite, and the themes are also diverse.

Now it's completely different, Hollywood blockbusters, the plot and characters are still familiar routines, even the IP has not changed, the biggest change is LGBT set.

In fact, for example, "Mission Impossible 7" and "Indiana Jones 5" have not changed, but are a little sad. Because Tom Cruise is 60 years old and Harrison Ford is 81 years old, the past Hollywood blockbusters familiar to Chinese audiences are all supported by a group of old men.

It's like now all Andy Lau, Koo Tianle and Kwok Fucheng's Hong Kong movies, all old people can not feel tired?

Coupled with the Chinese audience's understanding of American culture after the Sino-US trade war. After the epidemic, Chinese audiences are paying more and more attention to the practical problems around them, so the film shines into reality to resonate with the audience. "Disappearing Her" and "Desperate" are adapted from real cases, and there is indeed such a group of children who change their fate by punching in "Octagon Cage".

Hollywood movies can't shine into reality, superhero blockbusters have become satirical movies, whether it's a derailed drug train, a wildfire that extinguishes the door, a raging school shooting, the people not only can't see superheroes when they are desperate, but even the departments that should be responsible are collectively rotten.

And Hollywood movies adapted from fairy tales cannot be reflected in reality, and those beautiful and beautiful people imagine are smashed by ugliness, which is why Hollywood failed in the Chinese market.

Not selling well in China? The Waterloo of Hollywood blockbusters may have just begun

Not to mention the increasingly widespread political correctness in Hollywood movies, more and more Chinese audiences realize that Hollywood superhero movies are routines + special effects + political correctness, the thick black nobles in the movie that have nothing to do with China, BLGT makes Chinese audiences feel inexplicable, and political correctness destroys the movie.

The phenomenon of Hollywood-style blockbusters is becoming more and more widespread, and gradually in the minds of Chinese audiences, Hollywood productions and inferior movies are equated.

Now Chinese audiences choose Hollywood movies no longer to see who starred but who directed, and it is difficult for directors without a good reputation to attract Chinese audiences. If you analyze it at a deeper level, you will find that Hollywood blockbusters are only not selling well in China, but they are still selling well in the United States and the world. Because this happens to be in line with the results of the export of strong power and cultural soft power of the United States.

China has its own civilizational values, but also because of the rapid improvement of its economy and national strength, including the rapid improvement of cultural industries.

Like this year's "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Feng Shen" this time is very strong, all kinds of special effects are the top level, the service is the top, the actors have drama bones, the expression is very strong, can completely compete with Hollywood, in recent years Chinese films are not at all as in the past few years even India is not as good, the new generation of filmmakers level is very high, it is worth looking forward to.

These announcements of the rise of Chinese cinema also illustrate American pop culture, which is just like that.