What would you do if given you an opportunity to see loved ones who passed away?
In less than two hours of film, Pixar spoke gorgeous romance about this "ghost story", all the audience moved to cry.
Pixar's new work in 2017, "Dream Travel" (COCO) released last week, watercress score of 9.3, watch the number of 65,000 people, word of mouth.This achievement is enough and has been hailed as the perfect "robot WALL · E "match.
It was a long-lost success, and Pixar's unique charm has not been felt for a long time after the "Agent Team" in 2015. Animation is still progressing, but the story is hard to hit the hearts of the people more and more obvious People began to question that once the "must-have boutique" studios also inevitably "suddenly all people carry on."
Pixar DNA: Rebellion and Transformation
"Wandering Dreams" far more than one significance for the Pixar breakthrough.
In 2015, after "The Minds Team", "The Dinosaur Goat," "The Finding Nemo 2," and "Cars 3" have not met the expectations of people. In contrast, "Crazy Animal City" and Kung Fu Panda 3 and other works are very popular.
Several works in recent years have not been as successful as expected
Unlike when it was time to start the first animated feature film "Toy Story," 22 years ago, Pixar is no longer a technically dominated animation studio. In the midst of Steve Jobs' rebellious spirit, And no longer have the style of "do not speak fairy tales, do not like singing and dancing, do not choose human beings as the protagonist" are no longer.
Before "Dream Travel", director Lee Unkrich's animated Toy Story 3 was not only popular, but also won the Academy Award for Best Animation.
"We started thinking about what to do next after the completion of Toy Story 3. There were a few different ideas at the time, one of them being a story about DNA for everyone, and I was always interested in traditional culture, so I wanted to understand that traditional families How people get together and how people retain memories of love, and we feel the need to go beyond a mere flash of innova- tions on the screen with a special story, to have a real emotional core. "
This is a real "big makeover" by Pixar and it is not easy to bring the Day of the Dead to the screen because, for Mexicans, the Day of the Dead is a very important holiday, when people sing and dance and marigold petals of marigold , Guide relatives to return from the underworld.
The Real Big Day of the Dead (Image by Odyssey)
In the movie, you will find multicolored Mexican towns, beautiful hand-cut paper, Mexican dancing, Mexico's accent of the protagonist, and the alebrije behemoth that appears in the heavens. Perhaps no one except Pixar wanted to be so devoted to the details At the same time, in order to avoid the horror brought by souls, the colors in the movies become soft and colorful, even the dead skeletons are full of decorative style.
Reality of the Mexican town
Mexican town in the movie
However, another part of the Day of the Dead - the underworld world is no way to restore the reality does not exist in the souls of the world what is the difference between their life and reality? There are no dead souls? How they and the real world Reunited loved ones?
Faced with these questions, Pixar not only conceived a petal bridge connecting the human and the hell, and the magnificent "Undead City" (from the primitive to the top like the most ancient Mexican history), as well as the incredible " Undead Order "- The Undead will also die, and when he is forgotten, he will disappear.
Undead City
Romantic and gorgeous pictures convey to the audience a new understanding of death - death is not terrible, as long as there are memories, people will never die, and life is as rich as hell.
These wonderful ideas are not only the result of the team's accumulation over the past six years but also the impact of the animated film The Book of Life. There is an interesting thing to do here. Directors of the two films have good personal relationships. As the book of life, When director Jorge Gutierrez learned of this story, he also loved the world presented by Travelogue.
Movie "Book of Life"
Starting from reality, while adding unique imagination, which allows Pixar to create a wonderful and warm souls of the world and "Toy Story" is opened, "Dream Travel" once again from the life to find the inspiration for the story.
Romance of "ghost story"
It is not always enough to construct a complete world, and people hope on the screen will always be a good story.
Telling the story is never an easy task. Under the clue of the pursuit of dreams by small people, "Dream Travel" tells the story of family and love.
The protagonist MiG's dreams and reality are full of contradictions. His clashes with his family, as well as the rules of undead in the underworld, the excessive love of the ancestral ancestors, the friendship of betrayal, these elements make the whole story not only stop in the main theme families and dreams, but also Another way of understanding life and death.
Ghost reunion makes people warm
"We've been digging up stories we have not seen before and trying to resonate with the audience. We want to show the audience what they are familiar with, but show them in something they have never seen before, show them something they have not seen before World. "John A. Lasseter once expressed Pixar's attitude toward the story in an interview.
Elements of the Day of the Dead are familiar, but the Undead is elaborately fantasy; dreams and family stories are familiar, but stories with the Undead are uncommon.
Breaking the tradition of joyful stories, discussing life and death with the cultural background of the Day of the Dead, discussing family and ideals, love and friendship, this includes the age-old and gender-sensitive emotional resonance.
Adrian Molina, an associate director, once said: "When you're connected to someone who has been away from you over time, that sounds great, and when you understand that When people's stories, you get closer to them. "
Just as with Pixar's classic classics, The Wandering in Dreams is still a story about growth, but it's wrapped in an unexpectedly fantastic shell, which is why it's so popular.
"The film's heart and emotion are the foundation, the emotion stems from the transformation of the experience of the human role, which is called the role arc. The characters usually appear as a basic image, but by the end of the story, they will change and become a better person." The hero who once defined the story of Pixar in this way.
For Pixar, the breakthrough of "Wandering Dreams" lies in the excavation of universal human emotions, which is still playing the whimsy, which makes people look forward to its future height.