Stills from the movie “Black Panther 2”
Liang Junjian
“Black Panther 2” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy” (referred to as “Ant-Man 3”) have been released in domestic theaters successively, allowing Marvel fans to watch this long series on the big screen again after many years of the latest two works.
Among them, “Ant-Man 3” was released simultaneously in China and the United States on February 17, and it is the head work of the fifth phase of the Marvel series. The film followed the plot of “Reunion 4”, telling the story of “Ant-Man” Scott and “The Wasp” Hope accidentally and their daughter Cathy and others strayed into the quantum realm. In this strange and unknown world, they not only encountered the “indigenous” residents here, but also met the strongest villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe-Kang the Conqueror.
The release of “Black Panther 2” was delayed by three months compared to North America, but as the first Marvel movie to return to the Chinese mainland film market after the epidemic, it still attracted enough attention. The film followed the plot of “Black Panther 1”. After the tragic death of the young king “Black Panther” T’Challa, Shu Rui and others need to continue to protect Wakanda, resist those evil forces that covet Zhenjin, and accidentally meet with The people of the seabed started an all-out war.
However, the box office performance of these two films in the mainland is very different from that of domestic films in the past Spring Festival. The word-of-mouth and evaluation of the films are also hovering around the passing line. The weakness of the market. It can be said that the attitude of Chinese movie audiences towards Marvel movies is gradually changing. This is not only closely related to the creative issues of the two films themselves, but also reflects the ever-changing consumption needs and cultural values of the new generation of young audiences.
With the support of super IP, “movie universe” has become a hot word in the industry
Time goes back to 2008. At that time, the Chinese film industry was advancing all the way driven by the industrial reform at the beginning of the century. The box office scale continued to expand. The strong commercial demands of theater films gave birth to “blockbuster movies”. , but Chinese audiences at that time were gradually tired of the empty characters and chaotic plots in platter movies. The introduction of “Iron Man” made the audience shine at that time. The brand-new packaging of old IP stories, the vivid roles played by Robert Downey Jr., coupled with hard-core visual effects and strong enough dramatic narratives, all bring the latest trends in world movies to Chinese audiences. With the integration of different movie characters and story lines in “The Avengers”, the concept of “movie universe” supported by super IP has officially become a hot word in the industry, and it has also whetted the audience’s appetite time and time again. From the mainland box office of “Iron Man” less than 100 million yuan, to “Avengers 4” ranking third in China’s annual box office with a far-forecast 4.25 billion yuan in 2019, the Marvel series has become a frequent visitor to Chinese movie theaters, not only It has won a cumulative box office of more than 20 billion yuan, and has also cultivated a group of fans of superheroes.
However, with the continuous development and maturity of the Chinese film industry, Marvel’s obvious product advantages over domestic films in the past few years are gradually disappearing.
New mainstream films such as “Changjin Lake” and “The Journey of Thousand Miles”, warm and realistic films such as “I’m Not the God of Medicine” and “Life Events”, animated films such as “Legend of the White Snake” and “Feng Shen Bang”, as well as the “Wandering Earth” series. Chinese sci-fi films all show an increasingly mature level of film industrialization, not only becoming the darling of the Chinese film market, but also forming a profound social and cultural influence, which is a hot topic in the discussion of China’s contemporary development.
In contrast, although the Marvel movies that have entered the third and fourth stages continue to have a high conceptual level, they are gradually drifting away from the mainstream cultural needs of Chinese audiences. At present, what Chinese audiences look forward to seeing is not only entertainment products on the big screen, but also contemporary film and television works that can arouse general empathy and express social mentality. In other words, the purpose of watching movies for young Chinese audiences is no longer just for catharsis and entertainment, but also to find resonance, to find their connection with society, and to find their own identity. The disappearance of Marvel movies, and even traditional Hollywood blockbusters, is closely related to the above-mentioned changes in Chinese film culture.
Of course, the Marvel series has its own thematic design and cultural references. Although film is a cultural consumer product created by the entertainment industry system, it also faithfully shows the changes in social values and cultural tastes, providing a unique “eye of the times”. The early successful Iron Man series and the Captain America series both reflected the human crisis brought about by geopolitical and cultural conflicts in the era of globalization. Revolving around the superpowers represented by superpowers, they are facing internal and external difficulties, and the existing political systems of Western countries are also crumbling under global challenges. Several recent films, represented by the Black Panther series, incorporate racial and gender issues into hero narratives. The success of “Black Panther 1” is largely due to the successful portrayal of an African-American superhero. Hero and protagonist, and criticize the history of Western colonization of the African continent through the fictional country of Wakanda, and express the just appeal of the third world countries in pursuit of independence and equality in the fictional story. However, the above-mentioned themes have not resonated widely in the current Chinese context. This is a common phenomenon of cultural discounting in film and television dramas in a cross-cultural context. The deeper problem may be that in order to maintain “political correctness”, it is difficult for these films to show the complexity of conflicts. The end result is that important issues are raised but naive answers are given.
“Cycle movie” law, a new challenge for the Marvel universe
Even without considering the changing attitudes of Chinese audiences, Marvel movies have generally faced creative bottlenecks in recent years.
First of all, this is closely related to the characteristics of the movie universe itself. In the middle of the last century, Western film scholars put forward the concept of “period film” when studying youth films, western films, gangster films and other types of films. They found that the popularity of a particular film genre is cyclical: when audiences tire of recurring narrative patterns, the genre sinks into a trough, waiting for a new round of creative and thematic innovation before entering the film. The new popular cycle.
For Marvel movies, it is bound to encounter periodic challenges. This is because the movie universe, movie genre, and IP all need to be constantly self-repetitive and self-referential, so that a solid brand and cognitive framework can be established in the minds of the audience. Among them, the most obvious is the use of easter eggs. However, as the number of films in the series increased, criticisms of formulaic narrative and thematic aspects began to mount, and audience tastes increased compared to the first few years, which is also a common challenge for all series of films.
In order to break through the “cycle law” of popular movies, the Marvel Universe launched innovative efforts from two aspects, and its successes and failures happened to be reflected in “Black Panther 2” and “Ant-Man 3”. The first aspect of the effort is to enrich the history of the characters, and to expand the richness of the product types. In addition to the Black Panther series, the films “Black Widow” and “Venom” in recent years, as well as the series “Wanda Vision” and “Rocky”, all follow this innovative route, and there is no lack of bright spots in creation. Different types of characters are also used to attract different audience groups, thereby expanding the fan base of the entire movie universe. The second aspect of effort is the continuous expansion of worldview. “Black Panther 2” built an entire ocean tribe and its underwater technology by looking for vibrating gold, which was compared with “Avatar 2: The Way of Water” by many viewers; It provides a huge world view and new villains for Marvel’s fifth phase.
However, the narration of the character’s previous history and the expansion of the world view also brought a lot of cognitive burden to the audience-compared with an already familiar Marvel universe, new characters and a new hypothetical world are both important for creation. Opportunity, but also danger. Reflected in “Black Panther 2”, it is the fatigue of watching movies caused by the excessive increase in the length of the film. Embodied in “Ant-Man 3”, under the setting of a huge world view, it finally tells a simple family fairy tale and the reconciliation of father and daughter. The gap between the film’s function of setting the world view of the entire series and the film’s own theme expression is too large, which reduces the dramatic intensity and theme depth that the story itself should have. For example, in the climax of “Ant-Man 3”, Ant-Man’s daughter Cathy hijacked the wireless communication and called on the “natives” in the oppressed quantum field. The weak people burst out with great courage and were not afraid of sacrifice. participated in the final battle against Kang the Conqueror. This scene is very similar to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”, but the artistic effect produced is very different: Compared with the emotional shock of courage and sacrifice brought by the latter, the “Ant-Man 3” This paragraph seems superficial, only serving the lively spectacle scene and the ultimate joint victory of Ant-Man and his daughter.
The creative problems in the above paragraphs actually exist in many places in these two films. When Marvel movies have to maintain a balance between self-repetition and self-renewal, how to better integrate the huge worldview and generally accepted shared values Integration is a major challenge.
(The author is an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University)
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责编：张晓荣 ]