In the history of world mythology, the Nordic mythology, which is famous for its incompleteness (one said to be unevolutionary), has attracted many fans for its majesty and desolation. The three brothers, the main god Odin, killed the giants at the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty and created the world with their corpses. The maggots on the corpses turned into elves and dwarfs; Odin created men and women from trees and multiplied human beings; the descendants of the giants occupied the other side of the earth, with Protoss love-hate entanglement, war and uncertainty. The basic system of the entire European fantasy story was established from this, and the subsequent knight novel series, the Dungeons and Dragons series, have the same origin. It was not until the "Dragon Gun" series and "Lord of the Rings" and other masters appeared that the world outside Europe began to understand the whole system. The United States used it to make movies, and China used it to imitate countless plausible so-called fantasy novels. However, fantasy novels belong to the post-80s generation. For those born before, their first exposure to Norse mythology is probably through the game series “Saints of Norse”, “Legend of Galactic Heroes” and “Age of Mythology”.
The distinctive feature of Norse mythology is that the entire Protoss is destined to be destroyed, the so-called "Twilight of the Gods". In Greek mythology, although Zeus knew that he would eventually be replaced by a child, after the death of Prometheus, this topic was never mentioned again. In Norse mythology, the sufferer becomes the god himself. It is because of this that countless moving themes have been perfunctory, one of which is the "Ring of the Nibelung" that we are going to mention today.
In order to gain the ability to predict the future and all the knowledge of heaven and earth, the main god Odin willingly dug out one eye and plunged into the fountain of wisdom, thus seeing the end of the entire Protoss. Since then, he has walked in the human world in the image of a one-eyed old man, searching for the heroic souls of warriors everywhere to serve as a force for the Protoss side in the doomsday war; in order to quickly increase his reserves, Odin even provoked wars in the human world, so that the best warriors return to heaven as soon as possible. He placed the souls of warriors in the magnificent Valhalla, where he fought during the day and drank honeydew and wild boar at night. Therefore, the Nordic warriors believed that heroic fighting was the best worship to the great god Odin, because the heroic souls on the battlefield could enter the temple of Valhalla, while those who died of old illness could only go to the dark and terrifying Underworld. Vikings conquered the world because of this militant belief. It is said that the most heroic man can enter the state of "mad warrior" when he exerts himself to the extreme. The well-known history textbook game Age of Empires II is fully embodied.
No matter how powerful Odin is, he can't collect all the souls of the warriors in the world, so there is a group of goddesses, called Valkyrie, who help him pick up his leftovers and fill up the ques, and fly to and from the battlefield to collect heroic spirits. They will also join a party according to their own preferences, so later generations call them Valkyrie. "Ring of the Nibelung" tells the story of the tragic fate of the head of the Valkyrie, Berenser.
But it is said that the great hero Siegfried defeated the invincible queen of Iceland, Brenhill Miyan, in an encounter, and the two even fell in love because of this. They agreed to stay in Iceland after Siegfried completed his travels get together. It coincides with the awakening of the evil dragon Fafnir, and the treasure it is waiting for, the gold of the Rhine, attracts the coveting of heroes from all walks of life. The explorers all broke the dragon's cave, but Siegfried went out of his way to slay the dragon by himself, and bathed in dragon blood. This also becomes the only fatal place for the hero). But while obtaining the dragon's treasure, he also inherited the curse in the treasure. After that, under the design of King Gunter of Burgundy and his minister Hagen, he forgot his former lover, married the king's sister, and even helped King Gunter to marry Bermshire. The film ends with Siegfried recovering his memory and being killed by Hagen, and Burren Hill avenging his death and burning the remains of his lover.
The biggest highlight of the characters in the whole play is undoubtedly the Valkyrie Braun Hill played by Christina Loken. Loken went into battle naked in "Terminator III" but still got a bad reputation as a box office poison. This time, he finally counterattacked in this film and completely eliminated the notoriety of the vase. Loken, who was a model, is tall, and played the role of Valkyrie in several appearances. In the ice field battle in the marriage proposal scene, Burun Hill was heavily armored and commanded a long soldier, like a god of war; People fight again, with sharp spears in hand, and no one can straighten their front. Martial arts are so impactful, and literary dramas are even more reborn. Different from the pale robot in "Terminator III", Loken has many love scenes in this film, from the passionate love after being defeated at the beginning, to the unforgettable love in Iceland after separation, from discovering the truth and swearing revenge. Deep-rooted hatred, and in the end, he committed suicide in the fire, Loken performed the entire epic love to the heart, especially the reunion in Iceland. Just by looking at it, you can be romantic, but those who have the same disease will be very concerned. Throughout the whole film, the Valkyrie opens and closes, daring to love and hate, Loken's heroic spirit and Burun Hill's heroic spirit are integrated into one, and it is natural.
Although the other actors are not as eye-catching as Loken, they are also leading the way. The easiest person to match is probably Samuel West, who plays King Gunter of Burgundy, who played Frankenstein the Frankenstein in the Hollywood blockbuster "Van Helsing". Just a decent green leaf. The role of the big villain Hagen is rather disappointing. Originally, the villain should be easy to play, but he always has a demeanor in the film, and even the final plot against Siegfried is clueless. A shot in the back of the brain does not give our hero a chance to sway around ninety-nine times before dying: (The actor Benno Forman is quite satisfactory, with a sunny smile and a healthy style. It is said that he is still " The German dub of Puss in Shrek II shows that the local influence is not small; well, the voice is really a bit like Anthony Banderas - it's just that he doesn't match Loken, the two kiss when they are in love, Lo Ken was about to lean over to meet him, and the photographer even came to take a long-distance panorama, which is vicious enough.
Compared with "Troy", which is also a mythical epic, "Ring of the Nibelung" better fits the majestic and tragic style of Norse mythology. This should be attributed to the film's derivative basis, Wagner's famous opera "The Ring of the Nibelung". Wagner was inspired by the end of the world in Norse mythology, Regaluk, or "Ragnarok", and planned to adapt the German folk epic "Song of the Nibelungen" into an opera. Most people think this is impossible, an opera can not afford such a huge plot, but Wagner finally succeeded. In order to achieve the most perfect effect, Wagner's admirer, the Archduke of Bavaria specially built the Bayreuth Theater, which took two years. On the day of the premiere of "The Ring" in 1876, Bayreuth was full of crowns, and musicians from all over Europe came to this small place on the Rhine River, and there was even a food shortage in the local area. The opera has achieved brilliant success, and many of its famous passages, such as "The Galloping of the Valkyries", have produced a huge radiation force, and even "Star Wars" has a faint shadow of her. The Japanese sci-fi masterpiece "The Legend of Galactic Heroes" ” pays tribute to it everywhere.
Due to the limited length and form of expression, the film cannot fully reproduce the entire opera. Therefore, most of the mythological backgrounds in the opera, such as the origin of treasures, the interference of the gods, and the fall of the Valkyries into the world, are discarded, and only the colorful chapters and main scenes are captured. Contradictions form a chapter by themselves: the great hero started from the grass and looked down upon the world but was ridden by the villain, the Valkyrie is virtuous and affectionate, and has been unable to return to the sky. pour. Wagner's original emphasised Berron Hill's love as the hope of a new world to save humanity, a theme the filmmakers did not carry on, instead, a conflict between Christianity and Nordic polytheism.
Although I've always been fascinated by Christianity, that doesn't hide the big mistakes this religion has made in history. In the process of the gradual penetration and spread of Christianity, the Germanic people who originally believed in Norse mythology were gradually assimilated. In the dark Middle Ages, only Christian (today bishops and Anglican) priests could master cultural power, while the thoroughly brainwashed monks Pagan myths and legends certainly have a fanatical urge to destroy and use it to gain a recognized sense of sacred mission, just like those who fought to tear down Beijing's city walls in the 1950s. Numerous documents on Norse mythology were burned in the name of the gods; statues of the Odin protoss were torn down as pagan idols for piety. After the "Thirty Years' War" in AD 1618-1648, the Norse mythological documents were completely lost, leaving only the English epic "Beowulf", the Icelandic mythological poem "Edda", and some heroic legends. The Saga, and the Nibelungenlied, known as the "German Iliad".
At the beginning of the film, a narration briefly introduced this history, and a legend was opened in the lush and powerful music, and this legend, like its protagonist, was lost to annihilation. It is quite significant that at the end of the film, the new king of Burgundy looked at the fire and said, "Today, the ancient gods are resurrected", but his lover looked lonely: "No, the ancient gods died with them today." Misty sadness In the end of the film, I think of the bloody battle of the Norse gods when the end of the day comes, and MacArthur's famous words come to mind:
——Old warriors never die, they will only gradually disappear.
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