The starting point of failure: "Dream Factory"'s pioneering work "Doomsday Alert"

Layla 2021-12-22 08:01:33

"DreamWorks" has become a legacy in the history of film. The kid who catches the moon in the opening is like a prophecy, heralding that a dream feast was finally ended by Paramount for $1.6 billion. The so-called "born in trouble and dying in happiness" is correct. A production company that lacks funds, directors, stories, and the market is finally reduced to the same kind of Don Quixote. It seems that the quality of the "American Dream" cannot be carried. Ideal or imagination, profit is the ultimate salvation for returning to the family.

Producers who are immersed in their own virtual world are destined to slide from guiding the audience to turning away from the audience, and despising the box office will eventually be despised by the box office. Many experts have already conducted many analyses on the production methods, distribution channels, and cooperation methods after the failure. "Sanlian Life Weekly" has also recently been reprinted by major film review forums. As an ordinary viewer, I always feel that "DreamWorks" movies, except for the miracles supported by Spielberg's genius, most of the works are lackluster, which makes us always a little tepid and helpless.

The 1997 "Doomsday Alert"/"Peacemaker" is a typical example. It is said that this film is the first film of "DreamWorks", and it was supervised by Spielberg himself. Judging from the director and actors he chose, this film is quite insightful. Let me talk about the director first: Mimi Teder is a middle-aged woman with no gender characteristics in her creation. She has a clean and cold narrative. Her "Clash between Heaven and Earth" ranks second on the Top Guns rankings. In this film, after Russian anti-aircraft missiles ruthlessly shot down an invading US helicopter, faced with the deaths of 9 robes, the actors were not as distraught as they were shown in other US war films. The existence was cruel for a time. Hit the hearts of the people.

When the film was prepared, the actor George Clooney was rapidly becoming popular because of the TV series "Emergency Room". "Doomsday Alert" laid the foundation for him to become a first-line star in action movies; and Nicole Kidman is now finishing his journey from Australia. The transformation of a village girl into an American star. This seems unbelievable: In this film, she is still full of red hair, buttocks, protruding thighs and thick thighs (although there are few shots of her lower body), but she suddenly turned into a soft waist and legs in "Broad Eyes Ring" filmed in the same year. Slender blonde beauty (so Kubrick can make her fully exposed). The protagonists and heroines became Hollywood's top players in a few years, and they couldn't help but admire the producers' foresight and observation.

In 1997, my personal luck was very bad. The bad fortunes in my career and family made me feel that my life was at a low point. Therefore, I had no mood, time or money to watch new movies for three years, so I missed a lot of wonderful visual enjoyment. If I could see this "Doomsday Alert" back then, maybe I would have been full of sincere goodwill like "True Lies". However, the continuous improvement of film production standards in the past 8 years has made this film look full of youthful and cramped. The excellent sound effects, including the clear metal bounce sound of the bullet shell falling on the ground, were enough to dazzle people's eyes at the time, but it has now become a must for B-level movies. The handling of the scene of the nuclear bomb explosion is also far behind the "Independence Day" produced in the same year. Moreover, the evolution of the current situation also made the turbulent situation in Southeast Europe no longer attracting attention. When the charm of special effects and subject matter fails, the narrative of the story and the hidden connotation in the lens language become the final quality guarantee of the film, but this is precisely the biggest flaw of "Doomsday Guard".

The film’s narrative is smooth and has a smooth structure, and it neatly completes the required actions of the genre. But the whole work lacks due moral care. Humanistic spirit should be a value resource that can be understood and shared by different civilizations, so there is no reason for the slaughter between races. But the killing of lives in the film appears numb and unreasonable. Whether it is the Vienna street actor who brazenly kills the gunman who has no ability to resist, or he orders the sniper to target the terrorist who has fled in the New York city, there is no inevitable reason for maneuvering, and he has also lost the humanity that lasted in American movies. .

Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the racist arrogance that is always revealed in the film. The six major production companies are based on the box office first principle and use "political correctness" as a talisman. Therefore, it is difficult for the production of films to have ideological expansion, but perhaps dream-making idealists can promote the white civilization of the New World without taboos. In their eyes, Old Europe has become a Sodom that must be cultivated and saved. I can't find grace, generosity, and tenderness in the dreams that Spielbergs are pursuing. Some of them are just the vain insistence on American justice by liberal intellectuals under the California sun.

Adam Smith believes that market economy can improve moral sentiment, and this law has been proven to be unequivocal at least in Hollywood today.

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Extended Reading
  • Linnea 2022-03-27 09:01:10

    Very egoistic American film, where Russia is described as an inefficient, incompetent, corrupt country at the top. . . He also pretended to get a female doctor to be the person in charge.

  • Ashleigh 2022-04-24 07:01:14

    George Clooney + Nicole Kidman, big enough, but watching this movie is boring enough. Although the background is linked to the turbulent Balkan Peninsula in the disintegration of Eastern Europe, and the nuclear weapons removed by Satan in this ss18, it is reasonable enough to be exciting, but as a main theme movie, these are too nothing new. The only saving grace is that the film was set in 1997, and the U.S. used force against Kosovo two years later.

The Peacemaker quotes

  • Ken: Colonel, the guy you bagged is Dr. Amir Teraki, Pakistani. PhD in Astrophysics, educated at Harvard.

    Colonel Tom Devoe: That's right, people. We educated half the world's terrorists.

  • Julia: Where the hell is my military liason?

    Devoe: Colonel Thomas Devoe reporting as ordered, ma'am. I'm sorry about in there, sometimes my enthusiasm gets the better of me.

    Julia: No problem. Would you like some coffee?

    Devoe: I'd love some.

    Julia: It's over there.