An excellent science fiction film can often lay the groundwork for it through various details.
or through a seemingly plain dialogue, elicits a thoughtful association;
, or through a seemingly insignificant object, brings out a plot full of variables.
allows viewers to have an endless aftertaste even after watching the entire movie for a long time.
such as Nolan's " Inception", through the introduction of the totem dialogue leads to the male protagonist's top, and by fixing the end of the movie to the spinning top On, let the audience still debate whether the male lead is still in the dream.
Of course, not every sci-fi film can have Hollywood's top configuration like "Inception":
Nolan personally wrote the script to ensure that the plot is enough to burn his brain; close to 200 million production Cost, so that the level of special effects is close to today 11 years later.
But as long as the director can handle the details during shooting, even if there is no "top-match" production conditions, a masterpiece can be produced.
The movie I want to introduce to you today is a sci-fi suspense film produced at a small cost-" upgrade ".
The director of "Upgrade" is named Ray Warner , and the name seems to be a little-known director.
But if you are a veteran fan of Wen Ziren, then you will definitely not be unfamiliar with Ray Warner, because he is exactly "Saw Cry", " Dead Silence", "Living", etc. The scriptwriter of the classic works is a member of Wen Ziren's "Queen Use" team.
Although it is backed by the "big tree" Wen Ziren,But Ray Warner did not rely on Lao Wen's resources when filming "Upgrade", instead, he acted as a producer himself and started with an investment of more than 5 million U.S. dollars.
In addition to the visual effects of Aman Gallo, who has participated in the Marvel series of movies, all the starring actors, including the male lead Logan Marshall Green, are all acting as green leaves in other movies. "Golden Supporting Role".
Such as Christopher Kabi, who has appeared in the second and third installments of The Matrix and The Former Destination.
Betty Gabriel of who has participated in "Escape from Breakthrough Town".
After all, the total cost is only less than 6 million U.S. dollars. After excluding special effects production costs, the part that can be used for film compensation becomes stretched. It is almost impossible to get a little famous celebrity. Things.
There are no well-known actors, and the production funds are limited. In addition, at this time, Ray Warner was criticized as "ruining the classics" because of the failure of the previous work " lurking 3 ", so "Upgrade" was released. It didn't attract much attention at the beginning.
However, after its release, the reputation of the movie began to increase, and the box office rose accordingly. In the end, the film won 16 million global box offices and received nearly unanimous praise from film critics at home and abroad.
Who said that suspense sci-fi films must be produced in large scales to produce high-quality products? Ray Warner, who has made up a good story, laughed and said nothing.
"Upgrade" was released in 2018. At this time, the audience is no longer excited because of some gorgeous light effects more than ten years ago, because you see you like it The star will cheer the "newbie".
has experienced being bombarded with "bad movies" by Nicolas Cage, and there are lessons from the past, such as " Green Lantern", "Jupiter Ascending" and other films. The first criterion used by the audience to judge movies has long been changed. The level of special effects and actor preferences are switched to "Is the plot excellent?" .
The success of Ray Warnall's "Upgrade" is the success of "both big with small", it relies on full details and cleverly arranged plots.
The movie starts with the male protagonist Gray repairing antique cars, and through his dialogue with his girlfriend Asha, he quickly outlines a future world full of high-tech, and establishes the male protagonist’s reluctance to accept artificial intelligence. Old school setting.
In just a few shots, it clearly explained the hero's setting and the background of the story, and paved the way for the plot to follow. Such a capable beginning shows that Ray Warner does have a certain degree of director skills.
During the conversation between the two, Gray said that he had just completed the repair order for the antique car of the tech tycoon Allen. Because Allen's underground mansion is remote, he hopes that Asha can go with him Deliver the car and drive him home afterwards.
Yasha naturally agreed to her lover's request without saying a word.
Unexpectedly, Yasha, who is an executive in a high-tech intelligent prosthetic company, happens to be an admirer of Allen. The two have the same views on artificial intelligence, and they talked very happily after meeting. Allen also enthusiastically introduced his new achievements to the two:
artificial intelligence chip-"Intelligent Brain" Stem.
Stem needs to be implanted in the human body to function, and its function is to "assis" the host to process more information and manipulate the body more accurately.
Looking at Asha and Allen cheering for Stem,The old-school Gray expressed his concerns:
If everything has to be handed over to the artificial intelligence to "assistance", then what does the human brain do?
Gray's soul torture left Asha and Allen speechless, and the trio's chatting was also unhappy.
On the way home, Asha found that Gray was unhappy, so she took the initiative to show her courtesy and wanted to "sleepwear" Gray in the car.
But just as the two of them were you and me, Gray found that the smart car was seriously off the route and drove them to the slums.
Is it Yasha’s act of “driving” at a disagreement, angering the smart car that cannot be controlled manually during automatic driving?
The smart car is very angry and the consequences are serious.
The out-of-control smart car crashed in the slum and eventually overturned. Gray and Asha were so dizzy because of this, they were easily subdued by a gang of thugs. The mob not only robbed them of their belongings, but also killed Asha and wounded Gray.
When Gray woke up again, he found that he was completely paralyzed and turned into a useless person. Facing the inaction of the black girl police officer and his own powerlessness, Gray completely lost confidence in life.
Undoubtedly, this is a story that uses the male protagonist’s counterattack template. The next plot is basically that the male protagonist turns on the phone accidentally and takes revenge all the way, and finally fights life and death with the big boss. After the bitter battle, the enemy was slashed, and the curtain came to an end.
But if "Upgrade" completely follows such an old-fashioned plot, is it possible to become a well-known masterpiece?
is obviously not possible, so the obvious flaw is actually the smoke bomb deliberately released by Ray Warnall, the purpose is to guide the audience to regard the movie as an old-fashioned story of the male protagonist's counterattack.
He even asked the tech tycoon Alan very intimately,The person with the highest suspicion of this big boss immediately exposed his "criminal motive."
After Gray failed to commit suicide, Allen came to the door and proposed that his brain could be implanted into Gray's body to allow him to "recover".
I just went to your house and something went wrong, and when I was finished, I even came to do illegal experiments to test the fit between the brain and the human body. If I were Gray, I would have dialed the black girl's phone and asked her to take a good look at this. The person with the word "bad" written on his face.
But Gray is a male protagonist after all, and his IQ must be dropped at a critical time, so he just struggled with his thoughts and gladly accepted Allen's invitation and successfully loaded his own plug-in.
With the help of the brain, Gray not only recovered his mobility, but also gained strong dynamic vision and far beyond ordinary mobility. He could recognize the tattoos of his enemies at a glance, and used physical skills to kill those who were once the navy. A mob of a member of the Marine Corps.
Although the killing vows gave Gray a lingering fear, the joy of revenge made him unable to calmly think, and he did not notice that this so-called "assisting" his body regulation intelligence brain not only has his own thoughts, but is also step by step usurping him. Control of the body.
What’s interesting is that this time even viewers with a God’s perspective can hardly see the tricks of the brains at a glance.
First of all, in order to deceive Gray's trust, Wisdom Brain needs to ask for the consent of the other party every time he uses Gray's body in the early stage. His gentleness and obedience make it difficult for people to detect his unruly heart.
Secondly, misled by the preconceived notion that the "tech tycoon" is a bad guy, the intellectual brain who has been helping Gray to get revenge will naturally be regarded as a member of the protagonist's formation, and will not think of him the first time. Behind the scenes.
In the end, although Ray Warner has used a lot of plots to imply that the brain is seizing power, he has adopted very clever ways to avoid directly revealing the intention of the brain.
For example, when extorting a confession in the Old Bones Bar, the intellectual brain disregarded Gray's order to kill the opponent, but used the intelligent prosthetic number in the opponent's body to cover up, seemingly to dig out the secrets in the opponent's body before slamming the killer.
Another example is when looking for hackers to remove the control of the tech giants, there are exactly two groups of killers who are creating a sense of urgency to race against time. It is easy to overlook that the brain can ignore Gray’s wishes after the restrictions are lifted. Directly control the harm to the body.
Cleverly concealing the brain’s conspiracy is the same as treating the tech tycoon as a smoke bomb. It is hoped that the audience can regard the movie as a counterattack by the male protagonist, and don’t think too much. The deep question of how artificial intelligence should get along with humans.
In addition, the fighting lens of the movie uses a very rare shooting technique. With the blessing of the fist to the flesh, it can greatly arouse the audience's sense of curiosity, and there is no time to think about the brain and the hero in the process of revenge. It is the problem of the action leader.
It can be said that Ray Warner really did everything in order to confuse the audience.
And the reason why he tried to conceal the clues of the brain is that when the mystery is revealed at the end of the movie, the audience can have an uproar of "it is so": turns out that the brain is the only one. The real man behind the scenes!
Because the artificial intelligence crisis is already a common topic, if "Upgrade" adopts a flat and straightforward method, and introduces the brain as a villain to the audience from the beginning, it is undoubtedly difficult to arouse everyone's desire to watch, after all, similar stories are too much Duo
Ray Warner made the audience mistake the wisdom brain as a partner of justice through clever arrangement, until finally he was completely "reversed" and killed the insiders on the scene, and completely occupied The body of the male protagonist is completed, and the "upgrade" from machine to human is completed. A narrative like
is refreshing,The question was placed at the right place, and the audience was "lied" to be convinced.
What is even more admirable is that he also wanted to release some seemingly BUG plots, and left a lot of foreshadowings to echo, allowing the audience to further extend their thoughts on the film during the discussion.
For example, why does wisdom brain have so many people not to choose, but choose the male lead?
Because the male protagonist is one of the few "natural persons" who have not received the transformation of artificial intelligence technology.
In the film, we can find that everything from the street mess to the doctor performing the operation has modified the body.
Combined with the dialogue between Asha and Allen when they met, it is not difficult to find that the male protagonist is indeed the best experimental subject for the brain.
So, in the era when the whole people are transforming their bodies, is it possible that the brain is not the only artificial intelligence that has awakened?
Another example is that Zhi Brain has already controlled Allen’s company. Why are you afraid of being recycled by Allen?
When Allen found that the brain was out of control, he immediately wanted to start and terminate the program to destroy the brain, showing that Allen himself was not under control.
Intellectually influences the company indirectly by providing "suggestion" to Allen. He is a set of advanced Siri before he acquires the body.
It’s just from the wisdom brain’s performance on Gray’s infatuation and temptation that he is very familiar with how to influence human choices, and Allen estimates that he is often fooled by him every day.
The brain is not all-knowing and omnipotent, and there are things he can't do, so he can only entrust a hacker to crack Allen's termination program.
But the hacker did not follow the method provided by Zhinao to crack the program, and deliberately instructed the male protagonist to "not let them win" when Zhinao restarted. It can be seen that the hacker discovered Zhinao's conspiracy and kept a hand.It is very likely to be a weapon for the male protagonist to regain control of the body.
Combined with the first thing the male protagonist does after waking up in virtual consciousness is to glance at the ring he was robbed in the car accident.
Obviously he doesn't really believe what he sees and hears in front of him. If the intellectual brain simulates some scenes that make Gray feel alienated in virtual consciousness, will the male lead wake up and regain control of the body?
To sum up, although the movie "Upgrade" seems simple in plot and the special effects are not cool, it has done a very good job of handling the details and extending the foreshadowing.
It seems that there is a "pit" left, but in fact it creates space for the sequel and provides space for discussion for the audience. It is indeed a masterpiece.
It is also worth mentioning that the sequel to "Upgrade" is already on Revonar’s schedule. It is said that it will appear in the form of a TV series, telling the story of the film a few years after the occurrence, STEM has been completely integrated The story of society.
If the drama version can fill in the "pits" of the film version one by one, then it will surely become a masterpiece.
I am a dangerous building. What do you think about "Douban 8.1 points, how to make a good work at a small cost? Revornal said, "Brother depends on the details""? Welcome to leave your comments below.
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