Text | Linghu Boguang Zhuiguang's latest animation "White Snake 3" has been released for more than a month. The current box office is more than 400 million, and the predicted box office is almost there. In general, although this series is not the only domestic animation series (t

Text | Linghu Boguang

Chai Guang’s latest animation "White Snake 3" has been released for more than a month. The current box office is more than 400 million, and the box office forecast is about that. In general, although this series is not the only domestic animation series (the one that has been filmed more often is of course "Bear Bears"), among the Chinese mythological animations in recent years, it can be regarded as one of the best, even Make three movies.

The problem is that its box office is not very high among domestic animations. The box office of the three films is around 500 million, which is very stable.

I personally think that light-chasing animation is still improving. After "Chang'an 30,000 Miles", it can finally tell a better story (previously, "Yang Jian" and "Nezha Rebirth" all had poor stories). I think Fusheng is an excellent sequel to Yuanqi, but it itself is not very good, and this series needs a real ending. The second part is not suitable as the ending (completely in the style of the New God List series).

We are currently promoting a side story by Bao Qingbozhu. We hope that this side story can be done well and that the "White Snake Trilogy" can be completed into a complete storyline.

The only trilogy in the Chinese mythological universe? "White Snake" is quite significant.

Perhaps many people who don't pay attention to domestic animation don't know that "White Snake 1" was released in January 2019 (the summer release of this year was the break of "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World" box office record), and Mo Tong is owned by another rival animation company, Caitiaowu. In 2015, Tian Xiaopeng's "The Return of the Great Sage" was a great success with a box office of nearly 1 billion.

(This animation has nothing to do with Caitiaowu. Guangwang originally invested in it, but at that time domestic animation was not profitable, so it withdrew its investment. As a result, the box office exploded and Caitiaowu was established to take charge of animation. Later, " Big Fish and Begonia " and "Magic Boy" "Come to the World", "Jiang Ziya", "Deep Sea", etc. are all from Caitiaowu).

The reason why I say this is that in 2016, Chai Guang also launched his debut work "小门神", but Chai Guang's animation has very obvious problems until now (the story is not told well), which led to an investment of 80 million in that animation. But not at the box office, and it lost money anyway.

As a result, the two consecutive animations "The Adventures of Atang" and "Cat and Peach Blossom Land" were losing money one after another.

If it weren’t for the fact that the boss, Wang Wei, was a capitalist (former founder of Tudou.com), any other animation company would have gone out of business long ago. The problem with the first three animations can be said very clearly in the Chinese animation industry, that is, the boss is obviously a capitalist but has an artist's heart. There is no problem with the technology of the first three animations, but the story is not good because Boss Wang is both a director and a screenwriter.

At this time, "The Origin of White Snake" appeared. Although the box office of 500 million was not very high, it saved Chasing Light to a certain extent.

The most important thing is that domestic animated movies have not solved the problem of "bad stories" until now. If you go from "The Return of the Great Sage" in 2015 to now in 2024, it has been ten years, but domestic animated movies with good stories , you will find that "The Origin of White Snake" is the best. The first part of

was a ground-breaking work. For the domestic animation industry that was busy at that time, the first part was ahead of its time both in terms of plot and performance. It was a well-deserved highlight of national animation. However, today, the model rendering is a little rough. , the plot is a bit old-fashioned, but this is indeed limited by the times.

I think "White Snake 2" is the most imaginative and grandest work, but it is also the most regrettable. First of all, its style is out of touch with the audience of this series, and it is too different from the other two works. This is undoubtedly fatal from the perspective of commercial animated films. If the audience's expectations/needs cannot be met, they will naturally be dissatisfied with the film.

Secondly, although the views of "men are unreliable" in the film are Xiaoqing's biased opinions, the plot of the story is really not told well; including the story of White Snake turning from male to female, and finally going around and around and liking White Snake again, although I It is understandable that the director wanted to express Qingbai's friendship that transcends species, gender, time and space, but the design was too radical and advanced and did not take into account the huge ideological differences between people in China.

Finally, its plot is weaker than other aspects. The main body generally has no logical problems, but overall it is not compact enough. Many details can be deleted, and some details have slight problems, which is very regrettable. Audiences who like this subject may be able to ignore these small details and get a better experience, but audiences who have not met their expectations will be even more anxious when seeing these problems.

Before the release of "White Snake 3", due to the return to the classic IP ancient style animation, Lenovo's second part was out of touch and mythological punk animations such as "Nezha Rebirth" and "Yang Jian" were not good at the box office. My personal conservative prediction is that after the official release, it will achieve at least The box office is pretty good, and of course it has the potential to become a hit.

is the best in terms of traditional culture and the most acceptable to the public.

As a result, the plot itself lacks bold innovations and attempts, the watchability is weaker than the first part, and the imagination is conservative compared to the second part. On the basis of maintaining excellent audio-visual standards, the plot adaptation is quite cautious and smooth. Some of the plot designs are refreshing and generally follow the lines of 1 and 2.

The whole drama describes traditional culture and urban life in the Song Dynasty in a very delicate and natural way, and it feels like it has absorbed the successful experience of "Thirty Thousand Miles from Chang'an". But the ending ended abruptly, although it was said to be to connect the plot of the second part, but it also made the third part a bit regretful, which ultimately led to this one being neither good nor bad.

You said that as a movie alone, it is an animation of "The Legend of the White Snake". The story adaptation is relatively conservative and does not have much new ideas (the only highlights of the adaptation are the lines of Zhui Guang's original character "Little Fox" and Xu Xian is no longer cowardly). As a third party, you said The ending of the part is obvious and overwhelming.

Now on the surface, the ending follows the second one, but the adaptation of the second part is too far-fetched and has too many contradictions.

has a box office of 300 million in 10 days after its release? "White Snake 3" did not engage in myth punk. What was the mistake?

"White Snake 3" itself is in a very awkward position. I think this awkward position is because of the second part. The first part is a newly edited prequel (end) Paying homage to "The Legend of White Snake"), the third part is the main story of "The Legend of White Snake". Although it is uneventful, at least it is not a failure. The third part of

has to pay tribute to the classics and inherit the continuation of the first part. The most important thing is to fill in the pitfalls of the second part. The reason why the second and third parts of

were separated was the collapse of the reputation of the second part, which led to the third part to set up Xu Xian again in order to restore the reputation and box office, so that although he was not as brave as Ah Xuan in the first part , but it is better than Jinshan Temple at the beginning of the second part.

The reason why the first part of "White Snake" is highly praised by everyone is because of the innovation of the plot and character setting of "White Snake", which breaks away from the familiar story. Ah Xuan did not hesitate to change from a human to a monster for Xiao Bai, and finally sacrificed himself. This kind of love It is what everyone yearns for, so the first part achieved success and good reputation.

At the beginning of the second part, Xu Xian’s character has turned into a cowardly and useless loser in the traditional story. In addition, there is the contrast between Asuan Zhuyu and Shura City, which is like a waste like Resident Evil or Chicken Eating. The background of earth-punk is completely unrelated to the story and cultural background of White Snake, so everyone feels that it is separate, and its reputation is naturally poor.

The third part brought back Xu Xian’s character in order to restore reputation and boost box office, giving him the courage to sacrifice himself to fight against Fahai. However, since the battle of Jinshan Temple was already shown in the second part, Xu Xian was cowardly. The performance of incompetence has been seen by the audience first, so even though the third film tries its best to make it more harmonious, the sense of separation between the two films is still easy to feel.

I thought of a reconstruction for the second part. The White Snake has been trapped under the tower for twenty years. You can just write that the Green Snake has also been trapped in the underworld for twenty years. The Shura Field is just like an ancient underworld city. It is in With the help of some of White Snake's souls, it is enough to defeat Fa Haishe's obstacles and escape. The overall story outline does not need to be changed too much. There is no need for so many gratuitous settings.After

came out, it happened to correspond to the plot of rescuing White Snake. The family reunited, which was perfect. It might be a bit cheesy, but I think this is a better ending for a long animation. And even if the screenwriter who chases the light just doesn't like perfection, the way the second part ends the ancient line is just to set up a trap for the first or third part, and the way you end it is untenable.

10 years later, "The White Snake Trilogy" proves that chasing light can still tell a bad story

In general, the first part is the innovation of plot and character design that allows people to understand another version of the White Snake story, while the second part is huge The split caused the reputation to decline. The shaping of the background and the restoration of the characters in the third part tried hard to restore the reputation, but the audience seemed not to be interested.

It can be said that the second part is the biggest failure of the series. On the one hand, its story and background are separated from the series. The biggest problem is that the second part gives the ending of the series before the third part, that is, Xu Xian becomes a monk and is unable to save the little boy. Bai, and the outcome of Xiaobai being suppressed and leaving orphans and Xiaoqing.

This led to the third part trying to come back to save the reputation, but the big ending and direction could no longer be changed, and could only be made up from other places, leaving regrets in the plot of the series.

Moreover, when "White Snake 2" was released, I also wrote that it is not impossible for you to do myth punk to chase the light, but can't you just do it with "New God List"? "White Snake Series" is a complete Chinese classic IP ancient style animation , the first part is newly edited to pay tribute to "Xinbai", the second part is to pay tribute to "Green Snake", and the third part is a complete completion of the main story.

The results are now neither good nor bad, just like the box office of this series. I can't love it and can't bear to criticize it.

just hopes that the boss who chases the spotlight will do nothing and stop warming up to play. He has good intentions but has been fucked down so many times. It is said that the plot of the second part is because the boss gave a sentence, about Green Snake fighting the Bullhead Brother in the wasteland style city and winning. I just gave it to the screenwriter and was speechless. I felt that no one would watch it, so I risked my life. Written under this framework, we get the strange look we see.

If this is really the creative environment, I have to say that he is quite talented, so I hope there will be another one with a happy ending.

If you really can't cut or reset the two, if you write the lives of two modern sisters to give White Snake a reasonable explanation for his obsession, I think this series may still have a better ending.

Finally, the company Light Chaser Animation has now become the leader in domestic animated films, producing a high-investment and high-quality work every year (not to mention whether it is good or not, but objectively speaking, the production quality is indeed the top in the country) , and finally formed a mature high-quality animation film assembly line. In each film, I can see new attempts and innovations as well as better use of technology.

I believe that if it persists for a few more years, even if Chasing Light cannot become China's Disney, it will become "China's Dream Factory" and become a representative in the history of Chinese animation. It goes without saying at the beginning of the last three parts of "Little Door God". The "White Snake" series became a pity, and Mythopunk was a hodgepodge.

At present, the long-form narrative style of "Chang'an Thirty Thousand Miles" is very stable. If "Three Kingdoms 1" is also stable, it will be stable.

By the way, "Liao Zhai: Lanruo Temple" will be released next year, which is another new mythology, let's see how it goes!