A dystopian story that doesn't take the usual path.
Hunt for Monday, a dystopian story
In the real world, there are seven days a week. Most countries and regions work five days and have two rest days. If you only work one day a week, would you like it? I believe that many friends are rushing to live such a life, but the remaining six days must be hidden at home and risk being frozen all the time. Is it worth it? This is what happened in the movie "The Hunt for Monday". Whether it is science fiction or film and television works, they can "foresee" the future to a limited extent, and bring inspiration or warning to the present. How is "Monday Hunting" doing in this respect?
"The Hunt for Monday" stills
Cool world background
Many science fiction friends will be very concerned about the world background in which the stories in science fiction take place. If the setting that was thrown out at the beginning attracts readers, the novel will be a half and half. "The Hunt for Monday" first has a good setting and background.
The story takes place in the future. Due to environmental pollution, disease epidemics and other reasons, there was a worldwide famine. In order to solve the problem of food and clothing, scientists began to use genetic technology to modify crops on a large scale to obtain enough food to feed the world. But this technology has brought huge side effects. Humans have begun to have a large number of multiple births, and the world's population has begun to become surplus. The ruler promulgated laws stipulating that each couple can only have one child, and other multiple births need to enter the cold east cabin. . But Karen Settman's family was not reconciled. Grandfather wanted the seven sisters to enjoy life, so they lived a day where each person only worked one day a week. The world background is great, bringing in many things worth thinking about, such as world overpopulation, dystopia, etc. This is a good start.
A good beginning is half the battle. But most of the time a story needs to rely on characters and plot to win.
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Lower-middle story
There are usually two ways to explain the world background and setting. A kind of simple and rude, thrown out at the beginning of the film, the advantage is that it is simple and clear, without any twists and turns. The other is to explain the world background bit by bit during the slow appearance of the characters in the story. When the story reaches the climax at the end of the film, the audience can see the whole picture. The advantage of the latter type is that it has a good sense of substitution, but slow heating. This film uses the first type, which directly enforces the laws of the world when the future story occurs. The advantages are self-evident, and it also laid the foundation for this article, without too much brainstorming popcorn type science fiction film.
The story revolves around the contradiction between the status quo of Karen Settman's seven sisters all alive and not in freezing and the tough rules of the EU government. The plot advances cleanly, and Monday among the Karen Settman sisters soon has an accident. Proceeding like this is nothing more than telling why Monday went missing, how it went missing, how to rescue it, and what the result was. As far as the main plot is concerned, it can be pushed forward very quickly, to the end. Either go all the way, or burn your brain all the way to the end. Obviously the director is also aware of this problem. The plot is too short and can only pour water into it. No one can stop a director who insists on pouring water into the plot. The plot has been very weak in less than 20 minutes.
How to fill it with water? In order for the director to show all the seven sisters, each individual's personality and preferences need to take up some time. At the same time, a lot of dispensable plots and characters were arranged. For example, Monday’s opponent in the company got a bento inexplicably after appearing in two meaningless scenes. When everyone thought the story should have a happy ending, the wayward director directly killed five of the seven sisters. A good beginning is half the battle, but the director's ability to control the plot is too poor, turning the movie into a disaster. A well-deserved dystopian story, but it does not take the usual path, and it also hurts the good beginning.
Hunting Monday, the heroine plays the seven horns
Paper figures
In the film, the seven sisters are all rounded by Loomi Lapace, which is a test of the actor's skill. According to the director's understanding, seven gourd babies also have seven special effects. How can our identical seventuplets be better than this. So the Seven Sisters prepared various specialties for the plot. Noomi Rapace has appeared in many classic roles and won the Oscar nomination for Best Actress. He also performed well in "Prometheus", but he did not manage the seven individual characters well in this film. Same sisters. It seems that for Raomi Rapace, the seven sisters, because they are multiple births, put on a poker face when they are calm, and gnash their teeth and shout hoarsely when they are angry, but the director obviously did not set it like this. Although the director has designed different hairstyles, preferences, specialties, and personalities for each of the sisters in terms of settings, Loomi Rapace has all acted as one person.
Excluding the Seven Sisters, William Dafoe guest-starred the grandfather of the Seven Sisters in the film. Although there are only a few scenes, the image of the old grandfather has been erected, especially the scene of hiding his face and crying in the middle of the night. profound. As early as in the old Spider-Man movie, William Dafoe captured the hearts of fans with a few shots.
Although the other supporting actors had a lot of roles, they all had no background to explain, and broke into the movie abruptly, and quickly received lunch. The biggest villain is following the rules of popcorn movies-very stupid.
There are too many protagonists in the film, and the time for everyone is limited. This is the culprit leading to the characters on the paper. If this is a movie from start to finish, the audience would not be so harsh. Maybe the "Black Widow" Scarlett will be the starring role, and the rating will be better than it is now.
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Greedy
One of my writing teachers once said that you can’t put all your thoughts into a novel. But the director seemed to think so, and stuffed too many things in. From the beginning of repressive rule and dystopia, to the sharing of the seven twins for a week, to the destruction of the villain Kaman’s conspiracy, every stage is packed with a lot of things, material, conscious, and even emotional. , But each one is just a taste, without going deep. Take out any of the above elements, and dig hard to avoid the problem of greed.
The film tells a small story under a huge frame, which conforms to the law of seeing the big from the small. This is also the growth story of a "little tailor", except that the protagonist has been changed to seven, and the small tailors grow up all the way and finally change the world, which also conforms to the routine of classic characters and plots. These classic character settings and plots have been selected through thousands of years of time. If they meet one of them, they will not fail too much. But the director wants, you are a movie, with seven heroines, and even the villains are washed out. Don’t you think there is not enough time?
Dystopia
Just looking at the setting, the film can be classified as dystopia, and the film does lean towards this side, but it is not very successful. The lack of material, the policy of obliterating humanity under the high-pressure rule, the repression of the people, the gloomy picture, looks a lot like a dystopian film. What's inside? The reason for the whole story is that Monday wanted to have a normal life seven days a week, so she explored her self-identity and then betrayed the other sisters. There is an old saying that people do not die for themselves, so some friends think that Monday is right, and brothers still settle accounts. The right or wrong of Monday is set aside, and the sisters’ mutualism in order to survive is not to express the good or bad of the system, but to dig out the good and evil of human nature. So this film can only be regarded as a suspected dystopian film, the director may want to make a mainstream science fiction drama that criticizes the selfish side of human nature.
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From big data
We talked about many shortcomings of the film, where is the root cause? The production company of this movie is Netflix, a world-renowned streaming media and DVD rental company. Once a smash hit "Women's Prison", Netflix upgraded from a streaming technology company to a content producer. "Women's Prison" is not only an excellent TV series, but also a product of big data calculation and analysis. Simply put, this company uses big data to analyze successful films, episodes, and audience preferences to precisely customize a film. They succeeded. The production of entertainment content is increasingly dependent on big data, which is what this company mainly does. This is sci-fi in itself.
Since "Hunting Monday" is also produced by Netflix, it cannot escape the shadow of big data analysis, so this film may be abusive, but there are still many viewers who go to theaters, rent DVDs, and buy movies on online video sites. . There are dystopias, seven heroines, handsome men and beauties, future world crisis, big conspiracy, old drama bones and other eye-catching elements in the film. This is also combined under big data analysis. It seems that the problem of greed and chew is not enough to let the director take the blame. In addition, the opening part talks about science fiction works through the future warning. The film has this effect, but it seems to be off-track, and the future may not be as shown in the movie.
A movie has a very good response, and at the same time the box office is also very good, and it has won many awards, which is probably what every filmmaker dreams of. But not every movie can be like this, either applauded or popular. Netflix's ambitions obviously do not stop there. They are looking for a balance between the two. Perhaps in the near future, movies made under big data analysis will become mainstream. As for when this science fiction era will come, let us wait and see. Right.
