text | Entertainment values, author | Chen Tong, editor | Meiqi
At the end of 2020, the popularity of "Soul of Chess" made the live-action comic adaptation drama a focus of heated discussion in the industry. Since then, Chinese comic adaptation has not only set a new benchmark, but also Standing at a new starting point.
Starting from 2021, "Once Upon a Time on Lingjian Mountain", "Young Master's Journey to Dali Temple", "Young Song Xing", and the drama version " Under Strangers " have been released one after another, and have been recognized by the market and the audience. From group ridicule to "real fragrance", the counterattack of live-action comics has opened up a new pattern. Especially the drama version of "Under the Stranger", which ended with a score of 8.1 on Douban last year, still has great stamina. Topics such as its actors, creators and plot continue to be active in the public eye. It has the highest score among domestic dramas adapted from comics. The record has never been broken.
Just when everyone thought that live-action comics had entered a relatively mature and stable creative cycle, two blockbuster works this year poured cold water on this genre. The movie version of "Under the Stranger" directed by Wu Ershan was a seed candidate in the summer movie. After it was released, it aroused verbal criticism from the audience and the box office performance was also very unsatisfactory. "Fox Fairy Matchmaker: Moon Red", which aired in June, has always been one of the most anticipated dramas this year. However, after it was aired, the drama gradually failed to catch on. The number of viewers for a single episode increased sharply from more than 400,000 in the early stage. It was reduced to 40,000 in the later period, a cliff-like drop. Finally, Douban ended with a score of 5.3, failing to achieve a miracle of recovery. The ups and downs in the quality and reputation of
's works once again prove that this genre is still the hardest hit area for "overturns" in film and television dramas. Really wanting to "break out" of live-action comic adaptations requires courage, strength, and even more accumulation of methodology.
What minefields do the two new comic adaptations fall into?
"The comic book version of " Shanghai Fortress "", this is the evaluation given by many viewers after the movie "Under the Stranger" was released. It is not very harmful but extremely insulting.
After the second viewing, I re-examined the various criticisms and ridicules of "Under the Stranger" on the Internet with a calmer mood. While acknowledging that the movie does have many shortcomings, we should not avoid the many exaggerations and following trends. abuse. The adaptation of live-action comics itself is inherently bad. Many fans of the original work use a magnifying glass to find faults, and fans from the outside are easy to follow suit and make complaints. The slightest carelessness will lead to negative reviews across the entire network.
Comparing the original work and the drama version, the movie "Under the Stranger" tells the story of Zhang Chulan before participating in the Stranger Competition in two hours. It mainly tells the story of Zhang Chulan's acquaintance with Feng Baobao and then the battle with the four crazy people. Online attacks on the movie for "modifying the original work" and "shrinking the plot" are fierce, but objectively speaking, due to the limitation of the length of the film, it is impossible not to delete the original work. Director Wu Ershan's narrative ability is remarkable, and memories Part of it is presented in the form of animation, concisely and clearly explaining the past of Zhang Chulan and his grandfather, the origin of Feng Baobao, how Feng Baobao protects Zhang Chulan and other plots of the original work.
In the opinion of the entertainment value officer, the plot flaw of the movie "Under the Stranger" does not lie in the "modification of the original work" and the "shrinking of the plot", but the lack of novelty and ups and downs. When the various temperaments and fantasy settings of the original work are Diluted, the film's plot is reduced to a tired martial arts routine.
After the secret of college student Zhang Chulan's special skills was learned, it triggered a competition among various forces in the world. After overcoming many difficulties along the way, he gradually got closer to the truth about his grandfather's murder, and finally defeated the villain with his magic power. Such stories can be seen everywhere in martial arts novels and Western superhero movies, and they lack highlights.
At the same time, the movie "Under the Stranger" also lacks attractive characters. All the characters are reduced to paper narrative tools, and the plot is greatly compressed, making the original single character motivation even more thin and dull. The core of the character creation in the original work is to let people see how the protagonist Zhang Chulan, as a strange person with a special life experience and abilities, grows and faces in this complex environment where people and strange people coexist. Due to the deletion of a large number of small details that depict the characters in the movie, the growth and arc of the male and female characters are not obvious enough, and the characters become thin and stiff.
In terms of visual effects, it can be seen that the creator used a lot of non-realistic lighting and scenery in order to restore the comic texture. However, because it is neither close to realism nor has a comic feel, there is a cheap smell everywhere. The full mid-range shot of the characters and the poor camera movement make the expressiveness far worse than the static storyboards of the original work. The AI animation in the movie also caused a lot of controversy. Most viewers believed that such creativity did not add points to the movie, but instead seemed abrupt and perfunctory.
Similar to the movie "Under the Stranger", the failure of "Fox Fairy Matchmaker: Moon Red" is also concentrated in the three dimensions of plot, characters and visual effects. After it started airing, there were more and more complaints about "boring", "inappropriate plot", "baby fairy", etc. Many viewers thought that this drama was a simple splicing of plots that may appear in various ancient puppet dramas. , the plot is completely anecdotal. The growth and changes of the characters have no obvious context and logic, lack personality and charm, and make it difficult for the audience to empathize and empathize. In terms of special effects processing, this drama is also relatively rough and distorted, which reduces the overall look and feel of the drama.
Adaptation to the original work, reasonable innovation
From the many positive and negative cases of live-action comic adaptations in recent years, it is not difficult to see that adaptation is the most important and the most difficult mountain to climb in front of comic adaptations. The so-called adaptation includes not only the adaptation of plot, characters and casting, but also the resonance with the original work at the emotional core level.
For a successful comic work, the most basic thing is whether it has a tenable world view and characters that impress the audience. However, in the process of live-action adaptation of film and television dramas, no matter what deletions and choices are made, the original work will not be the same. The world view, temperament, character design and story core cannot be changed magically. This has been verified by users and the market.
The reason why the drama version of "Under the Strangers" is successful is that it respects the essence of the original work. In terms of plot choices, the drama version of "Under the Stranger" chose to retain the secret of the Jiashen Rebellion and its extended truth about the "origin of Qi Ti" and Sister Bao'er's life experience as three major "hooks" to promote the narrative, maximizing the The most outstanding structure of the original work is retained. At the same time, the series cleverly brings forward important characters such as Taoist Wang Ye who appeared in the second half of the original work, and uses the relationship between ordinary people and strangers to promote the advancement of the plot, which naturally brings out the content structure of the original work.
The adaption of the characters in the drama version to the real person has also successfully avoided the minefields of the movie version. "Zhang Chulan does not shake the green lotus, Zhang Lingyu does not change his mind. Zhuge Qing does not listen to gossip, and he is penniless." This jingle is familiar to fans of the original work in the real person. It's still smooth in the drama version, and the character is fully restored.
More importantly, the characters in the drama version have internal logic and growth arcs. Just like the original work, every character in the drama is imperfect and has various character flaws, whether it is Zhang Chulan who had a loose and chaotic personality at the beginning, Wang Ye is still too sober, and they both have the most true temperament. In the face of setbacks and hardships, the teenagers gradually grew up and rebounded, gradually stimulating their potential "Qi" in crises and responsibilities, and then looking for different "Tao". Only the most authentic and down-to-earth "foreign heroes" can resonate with young people in real society.
On this basis, live-action comic adaptations need to make innovations that conform to the rules of film and television creation, build a clear story structure, and replace segments suitable for the performance of the drama. The two-dimensional world has its own unique style. If you blindly copy the two-dimensional original works to the three-dimensional world and rigidly satisfy the so-called restoration needs of fans of the original works, it will often end up being nothing like the original.
In the process of adapting "Young Song Xing" to live-action, more imagination and growth lines have been appropriately added to reinterpret the martial arts scenes and the chivalrous spirit. Such changes break the stereotype of mortals suddenly upgrading and cheating in the original work, and give the character's transformation a more realistic logic. It is precisely because of the emotional impact of the intertwined youthfulness and chivalry that it has a strong attraction and sense of involvement for the fans of the drama, which ultimately led to the success of the drama.The key to the success of
"Soul of Chess" is also its unique innovation based on respecting the original work. The drama version cleverly replaces the exaggerated Japanese elements of passion and middle school in the original work with the common memories of those born in the 80s and 90s when they were young. The Chinese-style campus life that revolves around college entrance examinations and club activities is convincing in details. It also adds Chinese-style relationships such as father and son, mother and son, and master and apprentice, which strengthens the emotional context of growth and family. After localization and adaptation, "Chess Soul" is very humane and very down-to-earth.
In fact, there is no problem with the adaptation itself. From comics to movies or TV series, it does need to be modified. The key is to be able to make the transformation from comics to film and television dramas without any sense of disobedience, to be loyal to the original work and to be reasonably innovative at the same time. This Balance tests the creator's understanding and ability to refine the core of the original work, and is also the biggest problem facing live-action comic adaptations.
The value needs to be expanded, the real-life comic adaptation is still in the trial and error stage
It has always been difficult to adapt the real-life comic, and it is often difficult to please both fans of the original work and film and television audiences. However, compared with previous years, the comic film and television dramas in the past two years have shown a prosperous state. Although "manga adaptation is easy to change" seems to have become a kind of "curse", but after repeated attacks, major platforms are still competing. According to the layout, this blue ocean is rapidly turning red, and the market is approaching saturation.
Currently, there are more than 30 live-action comic works to be aired or in preparation. The three major platforms of Ayouteng include " Nana ", " League of Legends ", "Spirit Cage", "Underworld", "Dartman" and "Fox" "The Fairy Matchmaker: Royal Power Chapter", "The Fairy Little Matchmaker: Bamboo Industry Chapter" and "The Drawing Begins!" Works such as "Shoujo Manga" will be released to the audience one after another.
The reason why the live-action comic adaptation has become more and more courageous is that on the one hand, the Z generation has become the main force of consumption, and its audience has a large overlap with the audience of animation IP. On the other hand, as the leading web IPs have been developed one after another, the popular comic IPs with diverse types, rich quantities and massive fans are more cost-effective and provide considerable imagination space for the creation of film and television works. Naturally, It has become a key track for major platforms to exert their efforts.
On the other hand, film and television has also further enhanced the commercial value of animation. Live-action comic adaptations have made animation no longer limited to the two-dimensional field and have broken through the boundaries of niche carnival subcultures. Nowadays, adapting leading animation works into live-action dramas is almost the only way to build the animation IP industry chain.
Although there has been an increase in the number of successful live-action comic adaptations in the past two years, the reality that it is difficult to break the dimensional wall and the increase in overturned works have repeatedly shown that domestic live-action comic adaptations are still in the early trial and error exploration stage. . Judging from the fatal reasons for overturning in recent years, the reasons for the failure of live-action comic book modifications cover all aspects of the entire industry chain. From the choice of IP, to the creator's adaptation, to the icing on the cake in post-production, any flaw in every aspect may lead to failure.
Overall, due to the immature IP industry ecology and imperfect comic-to-drama process system, in terms of how to grasp the audience's psychology, how to break through the second dimension, and how to formulate a business plan that matches the comic IP, etc., more It is "crossing the river by feeling for the stones". How to broaden the seemingly narrow "track" and precipitate a relatively mature and stable adaptation methodology has become the key to the continued progress of live-action comic adaptation.
At the same time, the value of comic book products also needs to be further expanded, requiring a more systematic production process and planning. Adaptations of the same comic IP, animation, movies, TV series, and games will be jointly developed in the future to form a closed loop, so that the value of the IP can be mined from multiple dimensions and promote the in-depth coupling of different forms of works.
In the final analysis, live-action comic adaptations still need to find a clearer direction for film and television development and form a matrix of masterpieces, in order to bring enough confidence to the audience and the market. Compared with the large-scale comic adaptation industry in Japan and the United States, China's live-action comic adaptation is still being explored. In this year, a big year for comic adaptation, after the failure of two new works one after another, we expect that Q4 will have a drama version of "The Stranger". The new hot model of "Under" has once again raised the ceiling of the industry.
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