Why didn't the long-awaited myth of deification reproduce the "Nezha" effect?

"Can't boast, can't make trouble." A netizen's comment on The Legend of Deification is very representative. This work, which restarts the story of this deity from a contemporary perspective, took four years and gathered the painstaking efforts of thousands of China animators. It is exquisite in character design and visual presentation, which makes the audience find everything new and fresh. In the story telling, similar to Nezha's "My life is up to me" and "I will do my own thing as a god", but I failed to find a suitable emotional orientation and "landing point" in life. The seemingly grand theme finally failed to resonate with the audience. However, after the feature film ended, an egg played by Nezha's family for "Uncle Jiang's New Year" became the best in the audience, which just reflected the attraction of grounded life narrative to the audience.

It is a good thing that The Legend of Deification failed to reproduce the "Nezha" effect. This work not only improves the aesthetic standard of domestic animation, but also makes a more meaningful exploration-what kind of "new story" can enter the hearts of contemporary audiences.

Four years+thousands of people, the ultimate picture texture shows China's aesthetic artistic conception

Although it is the second work of Goddess Universe, actually, filming of Legend of Deification and Nezha started almost at the same time, with a production cycle of four years. Before the release of Legend of Deification, a poster making a full list verified the feelings of paying tribute to the originality of the works, which made the audience look forward to it very much. The list lists the names of the animators who participated in the production, and their entry time. The list of thousands of people, ranging from 28 years old to 1 year old, shows the legend of apotheosis and strong investment, and pays tribute to Guo Man's intergenerational inheritance. The ultimate ingenuity of picture creation is also the greatest advantage of The Legend of Deification.

The Legend of Deification has accumulated 23 17 concept maps for only one scene, and the average iteration of a single scene is more than 70 times. Many scenes use the superposition of two-dimensional hand-painted and three-dimensional special effects. At the beginning of the film, a second-dimensional animation of national style took the lead. This hand-painted two-dimensional fragment, which draws lessons from the style of Dunhuang murals, explains the background of the war between the nine-tailed fox family and mankind, and the scene is magnificent. At that time, when Well Lee, director of Deification Legend, showed Zhang Chun, director of Big Fish Begonia, the other party blurted out: "Your film is unprecedented." It is not only the beauty of the picture, but also the amazing workload that makes colleagues marvel at the doorway. Different from the static treatment of general two-dimensional animation details, every detail of this two-dimensional picture in The Legend of Deification is moving, whether it is human bewitched by Kyubi no Youko magic or natural details such as horses, rocks and waves. In order to withstand the scrutiny of the screen "magnifying glass", the team also used an oversized canvas to make it. Under such strict standards, there are more than 600 layers in a single scene in the clip, even exceeding the limit of hardware equipment. Even the top experts in the industry can only draw one or two frames a day, and the workload increases geometrically.

The design of the role is even better. Jiang Ziya's final appearance in the film was carefully selected by the team from the original 100 versions. Jiang Ziya's "feather cloak", carefully observed, is actually woven by the meridians of leaves, which also confirms his principle of not killing; The "god beast" deeply loved by the audience has been endowed with the characteristics of contemporary cute pets. In order to create natural and lovely hair, the team gave up the automatic napping system and chose the most original hand-painted one. It takes three months to adjust the sleep lens for only a few seconds. The traditional cultural details reflected everywhere also decorate the China aesthetic mood of the film. The master searched almost all the classic works such as Shan Hai Jing and described the jewelry and patterns in them. The image design of each important role has its origin. Take Twelve Jinxian, where the Giant Buddha was located in the early Yuan Dynasty, as an example. At first glance, Jin Xianren looks like a model, but in fact, the flowers on each headdress are different. The number of flowers on the headdress is three, which is taken from the saying that "three flowers gather at the top". Many viewers also saw the shadow of the bronze mask of cultural relics on Jin Xian's mask.

Without the consciousness of "grasping the land", it is difficult for grand concepts to be deeply rooted in people's hearts.

The middle-stream ratings and reputation of The Legend of Deification are related to the way his story is presented. Jiang Ziya, who was originally destined for heaven, did not agree with the concept of "giving up one person to save one's life", disobeyed the teacher's orders, gave up deification, and made a heroic declaration of "turning his Tao into his God". With the rise of individual consciousness, the "revolution in the depths of the soul" is full of idealism, and the topics involved are very grand. However, the story of Legend of Deification has never found a "family narrative" incision similar to that of Nezha, which has aroused a deeper and less touching resonance.

The legend of deification began at the end of The Romance of the Gods. After clash of the titans, Jiang Ziya felt pity for killing the fox demon and letting it escape, and was exiled and spurned by the world. The story tells the story of Jiang Ziya seeking truth and finding himself. Jiang Ziya's master Yuan Zun was set as the villain. In order to unify the three realms by weakening the power of the fox, he secretly traded with the fox family. This conspiracy enabled Jiang Ziya to complete the transformation from "worshiping God" to "overthrowing God". However, this obsession of sticking to the heart and doing good deeds to heaven has a weak internal emotional promotion mechanism, which makes the audience lack a sense of substitution. Contrary to Nezha, Nezha's "fate" not only comes from the fatalism of "magic pill", but also comes from his extreme cherish of family and friendship. Nezha is a "magic pill" falling from the sky, and also a "Xiong Haizi" that parents and teachers love and hate. Under the strong intervention of life narrative, both big audience and small audience can find their own projection on the characters in the film, forming emotional resonance, which also makes the declaration of "My life is up to me, not the sky" more emotional. The resonance of this kind of understanding is what The Legend of Deification lacks.

Interestingly, after the story of Legend of Deification ended, a "family fun" egg was praised as the biggest highlight by many viewers. In the clip, Jiang Ziya entertained the Nezha family who came to pay New Year's greetings with the exquisite New Year's Eve dinner made by himself. Unexpectedly, "Xiong Haizi" Nezha's table manners are zero, which makes the neatly arranged table messy, which makes obsessive-compulsive Jiang Ziya anxious. After dinner, Jiang Ziya recalled that Nezha couldn't sleep for a long time without wiping her mouth, and even went to Nezha's house to wipe her mouth ... The personalized details such as happy family atmosphere and obsessive-compulsive disorder in the short film once again let the audience find the fun of comparing their lives-animated films need profound themes, and more importantly, they need to let the audience take a look at themselves in the mirror.