After 14 years, the sequel to "The Incredibles" has finally come out, and slow work is indeed A Pixar tradition, but this time it is also a little slower, and it is the sequel with the longest interval between them.
Time has passed, and now Pixar has been absorbed by Disney, no, it should be said that there are not many companies that have not been absorbed by Disney. Here is a crooked building, yesterday just came the news, Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox has entered the final stage, has been eight or nine inseparable, the reunion and X-Men in the same frame is just around the corner.
In 2004, superhero movies were not as arrogant as they are now, when the idea of "hero family fun" was still very fresh, the main objects of spoofing were Superman (clothes) and Batman (eye masks), and the first one was a huge success, winning most of the animation awards that year, and also became director Brad Bird's work in Pixar.
Here's a brief look at Brad Bird as a director. He looked a lot like NBA legend Larry Bird, and both had their last names, which made me think they were relatives.
Bird can be regarded as a gifted child, at the age of 11 he vowed to enter Disney as a director, and at the age of 13 he completed the first animated short film, is a collection of choreographers, directing in one of the all-rounders.
I've always heard a remark that animation directors should be professional and leave scripts to professional people to write, but if you look at the famous animation directors in history, most of them write their own scripts, at least in Pixar, Bird, Andrew Stanton, John Lasseter, these pillars are a combination of animators and playwrights, so it can be seen that animation education in the United States is to cultivate general knowledge talents, not just a simple craftsman, we still have a long way to go.
Brad Bird has a total of three feature films at Pixar, in addition to the Superman series, and "Food Story", which is also one of Pixar's signatures.
In addition, I especially recommend a "Iron Giant", which he made in Warner in 1999, which is very, very touching, and not long ago, "Ready Player One" also paid tribute to it in depth, you should not miss it.
Back to The Incredibles 2.
The story continues the previous one, although 14 years have passed, but the characters in the film have not aged, or the middle-class family of the couple plus three babies, since the last war, the super power people have been listed as "illegal" by the government, they must accept a plan called "relocation", which is equivalent to the government paying for them to be honest and cannot use superpowers openly.
In many superhero movies, there have been similar plots: "Heroes are rejected by the people because of mistakes, forcing them to hide their names underground." Chinese audiences may not understand this kind of plot, compared to the heroes' credit, it is a violation of a little law, compared with merit, what can be counted?
But these are not the sentiments of Hollywood film creators, but stem from their deep-rooted cultural traditions, mainly in two ways.
One is vigilance against power.
As early as the time of the Athenian city-states in ancient Greece, there was the so-called "pottery banishment method". Athenian citizens wrote on pottery tablets the names of figures of great social prestige, ability, and popularity, and cast out political figures who "might" threaten Athenian democracy by a vote.
Pottery ballots
That is to say, your ability and popularity are also a sin, and as a Chinese, I will feel that this system is too strange.
The second is the deep-rooted tradition of the legal system.
This point is particularly prominent in "Batman", you have to be a messenger of justice, but you can't break the law, and you can't do it against the law.
With these two points, you can understand why the Superman family in "The Incredibles" will live with their heads down, rather than flying around with all kinds of waves.
The story of the sequel is always difficult to make, because most of the characters' growth process is told in the first part. The most interesting thing in the first part is the initial relationship between the characters, such as Bob's non-fight and non-acquaintance with the elastic woman, marriage and children, falling into a midlife crisis, etc. In the sequel, unless it is about their next generation, it is necessary to find a new narrative momentum.
Super 2 found two points to break through.
One is feminine consciousness. This time, the bouncy woman is no longer just the woman behind Bob's body, she has taken on the burden of saving the world.
Bob became a housewife and a man, dealing with his daughter's emotional relationships, teaching math problems, and feeding little Jack.
The second is technological regurgitation.
This is mainly in the design of the villain, which is called "screen master", and its intention is like Huxley's words in the famous "Brave New World": "We will destroy what we love", this thing, that is, the modern mass media, and more specifically, those "glowing screens".
This kind of modern media reflection has already begun in Western intellectual circles, most famously Neil Bozeman's "Entertainment to Death", in which people are immersed in entertainment programs, soap operas, and talk shows, forgetting about real-world relationships and interactions.
If only in terms of these two innovative points, the "female consciousness" is well realized, after all, it is the old tradition of Disney, and even the Jedi knights of Star Wars can be turned into female dolls, which is not to mention.
But "technical anti-phagocytosis" is a little bit of meaning, how to say it, I am not cold to this villain design, mainly too unfree, but I can also understand, this will make the character appear more "deep".
But to be more serious, Pixar's cartoons are also pop culture consumer goods, are they those "things that people love"? This pit is more unclear, and the Pixar boss may stand up and say: DreamWorks counts, ours does not count...
I evaluate animated films in general two dimensions, story and technology.
Technology is still impeccable, Pixar is the golden signboard, the rendering quality of the picture, the fluency of the character expression, the design of the action, are obviously beyond the previous work, see those scenes that can almost be faked and real, some are not willing, when can the national comic reach this precision!
But in the story, there are some flaws.
Pixar's most powerful thing is to make new ideas in the old routine, looking at Pixar's works, I think two movies are outside the routine, one is "Monster Power Company", one is "Wall-E", and the other works titled "Total Mobilization" are mostly very mature story directions, small people to achieve their dreams or family members to achieve reconciliation.
However, "Super 2" as a sequel, without adding any new members, has some "hard edit" meaning.
The elastic woman's motivation for coming back is not bad, she does not want to be only a vassal of her husband, but wants to achieve self-worth. But it is the motive of the villain that I can't quite understand, she made that big circle, it seems to be just to gamble a gas, especially the effort to subdue the supermen, the way it is very unreliable, just bring them a pair of glasses that are easy to take off, will it be too dramatic?
This caused the end to be very hasty, and it was over in a vacuum, and if she wanted to achieve this goal, she could do it without such a lot of effort.
Although it is not convincing enough in the overall framework of the story, "Super 2" is still very good-looking, Pixar is really good at entertaining the public, this time the two biggest highlights: action scenes and little Jack!
The most popular is the elastic woman, rescue the ambassador, stop the high-speed train, cruise ship melee, etc., all good-looking, and then she also rode on an Akira-style red motorcycle, super speed, Disney will indeed shape female characters.
The highlight, of course, is the cute little Jack who is not worth his life!!
In the first part, Little Jack is still an ordinary baby, leaving a suspense, saying that his superpowers are unknown, in fact, after the release of the first part, Bird also created a 5-minute short film called "Little Jack's Attack", which allowed him to show several superpowers in front of the nanny.
The film Tencent video has it, very funny. This is a 2005 work, and if you look at the rendering quality, it's still not very timid.
In "Super 2", Little Jack seems to be the protagonist, and 80% of the funny points are piled on him.
The most interesting thing about this character is that the superpower is "unpredictable", you don't know what he will do in the next second, one moment into the fourth dimension, one moment into the burning man, the next moment into the monster, sneeze and fly into the sky.
Fighting with the evil cat and finally using him as a laser gun there really laughed me to death.
I have 28 movie tickets, of which 20 bought Little Jack's cute point.
In addition, Bob's awkwardness with children is empathetic, and I seem to see my future, when my daughter begins to enter a period of rebellion, when my son needs someone to help with math problems.
Overall I think it's a great sequel, and while it's almost the same story, not the best Pixar, it's still well worth a look.
I give 8 overall.
By the way, before the main film, there was also a short film of a few minutes, called "Bao Bao", I thought at first I went to the wrong movie hall, but after watching for two minutes, I actually watched it, it was really good, the scene inside was Chinese style, I thought it was an anime made by the Chinese, and I was a little happy in my heart, but in the end it was also shown to be produced by Pixar.
This short film comes from Shi Zhiyu, the first female director in Pixar's history, and the reason why it has Chinese elements is because she knows by looking at the name, she is Of Chinese descent. (Second-generation immigrants from Canada)
It was the first time I'd seen a short film before the film, and it seemed that Pixar was trying to win over the female director.
This kind of talent domestic film company should strive for more, please come back to bring us the national comic industry, before dreamworks came back Xu Chengyi is a more successful example. Every time I see the wonderful works of foreign manufacturers, I always think about when we can make animation films of such quality in our own country.
Shi Zhiyu's work full of Chinese style is said to have seen many people cry in North America, indicating that Chinese culture is not only Chinese can understand, but also can achieve considerable "universality".
I have always believed that politics may have to be divided into you and me, but human feelings have no borders.