The “controllable player” behind “FREE GUY”

“No one knows anything”, this is the opening line of the memoirs of William Goldman, a Hollywood screenwriter in 1983.

In the 1980s, the aesthetics and story of New Hollywood gradually weakened, and the theaters were weak. There was an urgent need for new movie types to stimulate audiences and boost the industry.

After that, we learned that major companies began active business explorations, and finally ushered in the era of “visual wonders” in the 1990s, and the box office and film industry standards have also risen all the way.

Back then, the script was repeatedly rejected, and William Goldman, who was at a sluggish career, was able to return to Hollywood because of this wave of revival.

Until we ushered in today.

Globally, theaters give way to streaming media, and the epidemic has worsened.

The film company died of the acquisition of the entertainment empire, and even the conservative Paramount could not support the launch of the online “Paramount+”.

As for the audience, they don’t know how many “+”s they have to pay to see the content they want to watch.

Looking at it happily, more abundant capital and more diverse platforms provide different gameplay and possibilities, but how do filmmakers develop at this moment?

All kinds of contradictions about “freedom-control-out of control” are concentrated in “FREE GUY”.

In the movie, a game NPC (non-player character) named Guy gains awakening and freedom because of love and becomes an autonomous AI.

He and his creator-programmers who insist on original game development, unite to fight against unscrupulous plagiarism monopoly game companies in the real world and games.

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This film, which was brewed three years ago, is now released as a theater line booster. However, the original original Fox Pictures has survived in name only, and it has become another first-line manufacturer that has been acquired by Disney after Lucas, Pixar, and Marvel.

As film critic David Ehrlich said, it was “swallowed alive by Mickey Mouse’s “Imperial Star Destroyer””.

And the story of “FREE GUY”-creators resisting the plagiarism of personal achievements by big companies-is hard not to let people think of “acquisitions.”

But instead of being the object of ridicule, shrewd like Disney is more willing to be the one who laughs together.

“FREE GUY” insisted on pure cinema screening.

This does not mean that Disney has any ritual obsession with cinema viewing. It can only be said that the development path of each of its sub-brands has been delineated quite clearly.

And “Mickey Mouse”‘s control of movies has long gone beyond the scope of movies.

The positioning of the Marvel superhero series is-movies/comics.

The two robot episodes of “The Mandalorian” and “R2D2” and “C3PO” are obviously planned as movies/TV series, aiming to drain the last drop of blood from the IP of “Star Wars”.

The actualization of their own cartoons and film and television IPs fills in the clue of the movie/park.

Now, “FREE GUY” seems to point directly to the ninth art-games.

The sequel of this movie has been confirmed to be released in three years, and it will be the only original sequel that Disney currently has no IP prototype.

This kind of powerful and controllable content products ultimately only has one direction, and that is to profit. What about movies?

Maybe after so many crossovers, we can no longer talk about movies.

Specific to “FREE GUY”, it is more like an assembled product.

There are good jokes and stalks, the shell of cyberpunk, the shadow of “The Truman Show”, the image spectacle that breaks the dimension wall, and the future middle class-geeks and programmers as the main body of imagination.

These elements are put together to become a bottle of eight-treasure porridge sold on the train on the screen.

“FREE GUY” has the basic plot of cyberpunk, that is, the marginal man investigates and resists a giant company that covers the sky through a detective story, but it has no corresponding texture.

The core of cyberpunk lies in the critical introspection of the gloomy world of the future, the vigilance of “high-tech, low life” and the high degree of polarization between the rich and the poor.

This point is presented in Blade Runner as a contrast between the pyramid palace and the metal cage house.

In “FREE GUY”, the shantytown is the protagonist and the lobby of the company is like a large Apple store.

But in this film, apart from the highly saturated Manhattan streets where tanks and missiles are rampant and the minimalist high-rise houses of Internet celebrities, there is probably nothing more “ugly” to challenge the lower limit of the audience.

Beauty and entertainment make cyberpunk’s critical power disappear.

The out-of-control future that has been interrogated and questioned by countless great science fiction works has also become a harmless and controllable illusion in the stupid words of “Muscle Deadpool”.

In “The Truman Show”, it is the phrase “I know, but I have no hesitation” at the end of the film.

At least outside the studio (the false world created in the movie), there is a real world that is questionable but certain.

On the other hand, at the end of “FREE GUY”, Guy completely became a passerby (he really stood on the road in the game), sent away his beloved girl warmly, and willingly stayed in the beautiful virtual world.

But we have to ask: What will it look like when the existence of this world depends on servers and power supplies?

“No one knows anything.” Long before Martin lamented that streaming media ruined cinema viewing and even public movies, movies may no longer be movies.

I don’t want to call it death. The more appropriate expressions are “rebirth from the belly” and “genetic modification”. It doesn’t matter whether the baby is born, it is inhuman or superhuman.

It is no longer a human being, this is based on the out-of-control caused by the controllable. This is exactly the double irony of “FREE GUY”.

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