Text/Nanke Documentary
Editor/Nan Ke Documentary
<<——Preamble——>>
Film is an art that is highly dependent on the audience, and the aesthetics of reception points out that in artistic creation, the agency and subjectivity of the recipient cannot be underestimated.
As the pinnacle of American science fiction films, the "Star Trek" series of movies has endured since its inception, enriching the inner world of generations of audiences and inspiring their creative thinking.
Conversely, the audience's needs and aesthetic preferences also influenced the creation of the Star Trek film series. Examining Star Trek through the lens of "aesthetics of acceptance" helps us open up new horizons in our understanding of the series.
<< - nostalgia in the field of vision - >>
From the perspective of anticipation, when the audience watches a movie, the audience's own experience and memory will participate in his movie-watching activities. This experience and memory may come from both the film and the audience's personal life experience.
Together, they push the viewer into a unique emotional state that creates anticipation for the film.
The "Star Trek" series of movies was born out of the "Star Trek" TV series, and the TV series was originally born from 1966 to 1969, with a long 79-episode "Star Trek: The Original Series".
As far as the popular trend of popular culture is concerned, content such as magic and fantasy has begun to rise, and science fiction themes are still active on the big screen despite the compression of the market, and there are also two problems, the first is that hard science fiction themes are quietly turning.
Hard science fiction tends to focus on cutting-edge scientific developments, which has led to the new focus of biology and IT in films.
The film "Star Trek" has maintained a considerable box office performance, which is related to the fact that the film meets the needs of the audience to the greatest extent possible from the perspective of receptive aesthetics.
The creators of the new generation of "Star Trek" movies are very clear that when the movie is classified as a "nostalgic" theme, they simply dig out the characteristics of the movie that are enough to make the audience recover lost memories and long-lost excitement, and ensure that some potential audiences are bound with feelings before expanding their market influence.
Especially when the series is composed of as many as 12 parts, it is even more necessary to adhere to tradition. This pandering to "Trekkies" is mainly manifested in two ways.
Exploration is a constant theme in Star Trek, and it's a key factor in Star Trek's epic work.
The starship Enterprise is a direct manifestation of that thrilling spirit of exploration and adventure, and the full name of the USS Enterprise is the same name as the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and space shuttle in the United States.
The chauvinism and national pride of the great powers behind this have been filtered out by the times, leaving behind a very masculine spirit and an inspiration for exploring the unknown.
Another example is that every movie retains a phrase inherent in TV dramas: "The universe, the last frontier of mankind." This is the voyage of the Starship Enterprise. Its mission is to explore new and unknown worlds, to find new life and new civilizations, and to bravely sail into unforeseen territories."
The act of exploring new frontiers and opening up uncharted territories itself transcends human behaviors such as war and peace, aggression or alliances, whether it is the Silk Road Age, the Age of Exploration or the Aerospace Age, the spirit of exploration is universal, and it is the propeller of the development of human civilization.
The second is a "tribute" to the old version in various details and plots. For example, in Starspin 2: Dark, Captain Kirk is faced with a dilemma: to save Spock's life or expose the Enterprise to the Nibiru people, violating the supreme guiding principle of not interfering with other races with advanced civilizations.
At this time, the highly sane Spock said, "The needs of the many are greater than the needs of the few." ”
The implication was that Kirk wanted to give up on him. This line is clearly a nod to Star Trek 2: Wrath of the Khan, which Spock utters twice in the film.
As expected, Kirk, who is more emotional, still violates the highest guiding principle to save Spock. Here is a repetition of Star Trek 4: Rescuing the Future.
<<·——New Aesthetic Significance——·>>
The "Star Trek" series of movies is designed in great detail in terms of hard science fiction, but it retains an undetermined character setting, which has always attracted the imagination of audiences of all generations and complemented the entire "Star Trek" worldview.
The trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy is generally interpreted as representing will, reason, and sensibility.
Kirk is the captain with decision-making power, Spock is responsible for the team's logical thinking and information analysis because of his Vulcan heritage, and McCoy has compassion and concern for others as a doctor.
The trio's collaboration represents the most powerful side of human beings, but judging from Spock's many times being disturbed by human emotions, this interpretation may not be comprehensive.
Another example is the "Four Protectors", Scott is considered to represent the British, Uhura represents African, Sulu is Asian, Khofu represents the Russians, and Kirk and McCoy represent the northerners and southerners among the Americans, respectively.
For American audiences, the convergence of these figures aboard the Enterprise represents the convergence of the world in the American mind. But for Chinese audiences, this social significance in the film may not be understood.
For viewers who watch the British drama "Sherlock" and the American drama "The Big Bang Theory", they can have a new imagination of the characters in "Dark Unbounded", such as Spock can be regarded as a "thank ear" placed in another time and space, and the villain John Harrison is the dark side of "Juan Fu".
In this way, the characters have a new aesthetic meaning such as coldness and impersonal feelings, and audiences who have not watched the above two dramas will not be inspired to understand this way.
<< - Stunts in the "Age of Consumption" - >>
Since the advent of "Star Trek 1: Infinite Space" directed by Robert Wise, the "Star Trek" series of movies has gone through nearly 40 years, which is the nearly 40 years of rapid development of film special effects technology.
While it's widely accepted that George Lucas, who directed Star Wars, was instrumental in ushering in the era of visual spectacle in cinema through the use of special effects, Star Trek's first film can't be ignored.
Star Trek 1: Space Infinity was nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction that year.
The Star Trek film franchise has never lagged behind in following the trend of spectacle, erasing the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds as much as possible.
From the point of view of receptive aesthetics, the use of special effects is also the reason why the Star Trek film franchise has been able to stand still in the age of consumption. From the premise of accepting this behavior, the current visual effects have become an important consideration for the audience to accept a movie.
Cinema itself is a kind of plastic art, and Alfred Hitchcock once pointed out that regardless of the theme of the film and the performances of the actors, pure visual effects can evoke strong emotions in the audience.
What's more, in today's many forms of entertainment, whether the big screen has irreplaceable advantages seems to be largely dependent on whether it can give the audience a selfless environment, and use the picture to stimulate and catch the audience's attention, which is to promote the audience.
As a recipient, a key factor in deciding whether or not to go to the cinema for a movie.
In science fiction films, it is more important to give the audience a fresh, unfamiliar, and completely different scene from the real world, and without visual spectacle, the audience cannot talk about the special pleasure experience of thrilling and exciting.
Communication and reception are a pair of opposing and unified concepts, the two influence each other, the audience forms and increases the demand for spectacle in the reception, and the filmmaker will also determine his own communication method based on this aesthetic tendency of the audience.
Therefore, starting with Mérieux's "A Trip to the Moon", directors who have dabbled in the science fiction genre have done everything in their power to maximize the power of stunts within their budgets.
That's why Lucas preferred to shuffle the narrative and shoot Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope first.
In the whole act of acceptance, the spectacle and dilapidated picture is also an important part of the audience's aesthetic evaluation.
<<·——Conclusion——·>>
From the analysis of the "Star Trek" series of films, it is not difficult to see that the audience's viewing, the preset of audience feedback, etc., is extremely important for the creation of a movie.
Embracing aesthetics isn't just about helping us understand Star Trek themes.
At the same time, it allows us to understand the perspective of long-term vitality of film, and it is also a theoretical category that helps filmmakers create more dynamic science fiction films and improve the outdated way of filmmaking.