"Speed ​​Snail": Has the racing theme become a tasteless one?

Amy 2021-12-17 08:01:18

Unconsciously, in the last three years I have watched 3.5 animated movies with racing themes: "Cars 2", "Boluru Adventure" and "Speed ​​Snail", the so-called 0.5 is last year's "Invincible Destruction" King". Therefore, when I knew that "Speed ​​Snail" was going to be released in China, I didn't prepare much psychological expectations for it. In fact, what can you expect from it? Is it expected that the protagonist will not be the first to cross the finish line after unremitting efforts, help from friends, depression and resurgence of mood?

The core reason why this subject matter has become tasteless is that the audience has guessed the whole ending before watching it. What's more, American animation has always been as bold as a cow in the process, but has always been as timid as a mouse in the ending.

Considering that a cartoon is not made in a day, but after at least two or three years, we cannot use today's theme library to measure whether the film is novel enough when planning. I checked the information. The earliest public information about the film was the film schedule as of 2014 officially released by DreamWorks Animation in February 2011. According to an explanation by director David Soren, we know that this film is actually 10 years old. It started brewing before. At that time, David Soren participated in the internal theme bidding meeting of DreamWorks, and successfully won the bid for his brilliant idea of ​​combining slow snail and fast car racing. But Soren participated in the creation of many films such as "Shark Gang", "Shrek", "How to Train Your Dragon", and so on. When he really had time to make his own film, he looked around and found that the racing theme was no longer there. No matter how novel.

If "Speed ​​Snail" is launched before "Cars", or at least between "Cars 1" and "Cars 2", its competitiveness will increase by at least 50%.

Another reason why the racing theme has become a tasteless one may not be considered unique to this theme, but a common feature of American animation, that is, it often expresses an idealistic path that the protagonist will inevitably succeed after self-recognition. A small person has a dream and insists on doing good things. In the end, he can always realize his dream, no matter how far away and difficult the dream is. Seeing one or two of this kind of things is moving, seeing three and four is acceptance, seeing five and six is ​​plain, seeing seven and eight is nausea, you don't need to look at all of them at all. Really so much? In fact, you don’t have to calculate carefully. In this summer alone, Hollywood has brought us three works on this theme: "Monsters University", "Plane Mobilization", and "Speed ​​Snail".

Perhaps it is precisely because there is no expectation, so the film can bring me some simple thinking. This movie is based on the forest of racing movies, and it is still a bit original. There are two main points: First, the snail is the protagonist, which was an absolute upset in the animation before. How to make a snail cute-the snail on the first poster released in this film looks mad, and the poster returns to a kind of cuteness in the later period; and how to describe the world of snails-the beginning of the film The various snails in the vegetable garden still have a imaginative and shocking sense. Second, the combination of snails and racing cars. This is the focus of the film and the value of its establishment. Therefore, the film has been creating credibility, making the audience believe that snail and speed can not only be combined, but also the combination is cool.

For example, it arranged a blue light trail dedicated to the speed snail Turbo, it arranged Turbo’s unique racing strategy-you can walk from the wall or overtake from someone else’s car, and it arranged the snail team and the human team in two camps. To escort Turbo's victory, of course, the scientific basis for the Turbo's speed up is negligible. Moreover, it also arranged an idol, carrying the dream of Turbo, and eventually became its ultimate opponent.

I personally feel that it is a bit wrong for the racing world champion to change from an idol to an opponent, from a hero of justice to a moral character, and finally let Turbo catch up from two aspects of speed and morality to complete the coming-of-age ceremony of becoming a new hero. It made me feel that the heroes we saw on TV were all fake, and they even had to use the vicious way of trampling on their enemies to defend their status. This kind of moral decay should not be carried by the word "idol". of. A more appropriate strategy may be to let Turbo inherit the unfinished business of the former world champion and its idol and challenge a new enemy, so that the audience may be more receptive.

Another intuitive feeling I have about the film is the sense of division before and after. The 30-minute performance in the vegetable garden is very down-to-earth and life-like. Both the narration of the snails’ living conditions and their relationship with tomatoes makes people immersed in it. We can almost be sure that the reason this part is so vivid must be that there is such a vegetable garden in the director's home, such a child riding a toy car, and such a group of snails inhabiting and living in the vegetable garden. However, when the film came to the scene of the car repair shop and the scene of the ultimate stadium, we gradually broke away from a comfortable state of life and entered into some moods that the director deliberately described, carefully arranged and deliberately elevated. That kind of comfort gradually disappeared.

From this point of view, snails are life-like, but speed snails are artificial things no matter what. Although this idea is outstanding, it is easy to show a sense of reality and credibility, but it is difficult to show a sense of life.

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Extended Reading
  • Burdette 2022-04-22 07:01:32

    Han Han, Xia Yu, and Chen Kun are such a good match! Also, what I want to say is that the CEO looks a lot like Hong Kong actor Kaohsiung! !

  • Isabell 2021-12-17 08:01:18

    http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjMwODU1NjUy.html

Turbo quotes

  • Smoove Move: The name is Smoove Move, I set the tone around here, you diggy dig? But right about now, I'm moving so fast, the whole world's going in slow

    [swivels in slow motion]

    Smoove Move: motion baby!

    BurnSkidmark: Whaaatttt...

  • [repeated line]

    Guy Gagné: No dream is too big, and no dreamer... too small.