Conditions for Attracting People

On the second weekend of May, all the media were marveling at the box office performance of Levi's movie.

Levi's film caused a wave of craze as soon as it was released this summer, which the media had not expected before. Although Levi's movies have always had a good reputation, he is not a great director in terms of box office. 

This time, he shot a blockbuster. 

Although the media hype was huge, it was more to help promote the movie. People are more cautious about this movie.

However, it turns out that Levi's movie was once again successful, and, to people's surprise, this time, Levi's film was not successful in word of mouth but at the box office.

Levi's movies have good reputations, and people are used to them, but it's still a bit surprising that his films have high box office.

Soon, people also turned their attention to this movie. What is the reason for this movie's box office success?

First of all, what people are targeting is the structure of the movie.

The three lines go hand in hand, seemingly completely unrelated, but the suspense in the three lines attracts people to continue watching. While the three lines gradually explain the suspense layer by layer, the relationship between the three lines is explained, making the three lines more interesting. 

The stories are intertwined to form the same story, and finally, a new peak is achieved by integrating the three stories, pushing the movie to the top. This kind of film narrative technique can be considered extremely novel.

It is difficult to portray a comprehensive story by focusing on one clue when attempting to reflect a large idea. And if it is divided into several clues, it is easy to become scattered. 

How to narrate a movie with multiple clues and still form a story clearly and smoothly is a major test for the director. 

A problem that multiple clues in narration can easily cause is that the audience forgets the previous part after watching it and cannot remember anything. As a result, the more you watch, the more confusing it becomes. They don't understand it at all.

But Levi did an excellent job in this regard. Although his movie has multiple clues, they never give people such a scattered feeling.

In fact, a big key to the problem lies in the setting of those questions.

The story in Three-Body Problem is essentially a process of decryption. As the story progresses, the mysteries are solved one by one. 

The reason why Levi's films last is because he does not ask the audience to remember the story but only allows the audience to remember the questions.

How a story is narrated can often be forgettable for people after watching it. However, certain questions require more thought from the audience and are usually related to the plot of the story. 

When a story is complex and involves the audience in the plot's progress and makes them start guessing, it becomes impossible for the audience to forget the previous plot.

Of course, doing so also requires these stories to be intrinsically connected. The plots and characters of the three stories may not have any relationship, but the inner core of the three stories must have a certain relationship so that these questions can be repeated continuously.

Films can be disjointed, but the film's essence cannot be undermined. The structure may be scattered, but the spirit should remain unified.

On the other hand, the questions used to engage the audience should not be so difficult that they cannot be understood, nor should they be too simple. 

People should understand it at a glance, and at the same time, it should not keep the audience's appetite for too long. It needs to answer questions to satisfy the audience's curiosity constantly and, at the same time, raise new questions to make the audience understand.

Rhythm control ability is a huge test. This is very important for the script and the director.

It's truly impressive that Levi managed to accomplish this feat. With just five years of experience and a top-notch team, he was able to film without any issues. 

Despite the fact that the Three-Body Novel wasn't initially well-suited for the big screen, Levi and his team did an excellent job of transforming the story into a well-crafted movie.

The movie poses a series of interconnected questions that are presented in a layered manner. Each layer is peeled back as the story progresses, unlocking new and deeper connections between the characters and the plot. 

These methods are why Levi's structure works.

It is precisely because of these questions in the movie that the story is connected as a whole, and the audience can't stop watching.

Another success of the movie is that although the film relies on this suspense to attract the audience to think, it does not deliberately show off.

Science fiction movies are movies based on scientific fantasy. Such stories often have a big possible problem: they are too fantasy and too far away from reality, and the audience cannot understand them.

A big reason why blockbusters are so popular is because they can create scenes that don't exist in the real world. Because these scenes do not exist in reality, people find them novel and beautiful. 

However, while it is novel and beautiful, one thing that must be considered is whether the audience of this movie can understand it. The more bizarre it is, the harder it is for people to understand, and how to make the audience understand is also a problem.

This can also be said to be an important reason why science fiction movies are difficult to shoot: many science fiction works themselves are too far away from reality, and it is too difficult for the audience to understand them.

However, the Three-Body Problem Levi chose avoided this problem very well.

There are not too many surprises in the technological principles of the Three-Body Problem: Although it is a science fiction movie, except for the device for playing games, all the other technologies in the film can be found in the current era.

Whether it is the mathematical problem of the Three-Body Problem, or the basic knowledge of the movement of celestial bodies, or even SETI and nanomaterials, these all already exist. 

As for the non-existent Ball Lightning, Levi only mentioned it briefly in the movie without going into detail. Although it is a science fiction movie, this makes the story more connected by whimsical ideas. 

Rather than relying on technology that has never appeared before to capture the audience's attention, this also makes the story much simpler for the audience to understand.

And there are some seemingly futuristic technologies in the story: the cyborg that appears in the fourth world and the idea of ​​turning a proton into a supercomputer. All of these can be said to be beyond modern science. 

However, these stories are foreshadowed by three stories, which quite well reflect the pace of technological progress in that world. When the futuristic technology appeared later, it was because there was a foundation. Naturally, it doesn't feel strange.

And even for these three stories, Levi chose different era backgrounds, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Middle Ages. The changes in these scenes also attract the audience and prevent people from getting bored. 

Compared to a simple introduction, this kind of fantasy tour is much better.

This movie tests the audience's thinking ability but does not test the audience's understanding ability. This is also an important reason why the audience likes this movie.

Certainly, if there is another important reason, it is the special effects.

"The special effects part of the Three-Body Problem movie can be said to be a masterpiece after The Lord of the Rings. Four different world destructions, one detonating a bomb, one cutting a ship, and the two-dimensional expansion of protons, these scenes are all enough to make anyone fascinated and Shocked."

In this aspect, all Hollywood reviews have given this movie high praise, and this movie deserves it.

On the one hand, this kind of praise comes from the fact that the film's special effects are indeed very well done - the technical level of Levi's special effects company is also one of the best in the entire Hollywood. Levi has given enough money again, so the quality of the pictures they produce will naturally not be a problem.

Of course, in Hollywood movies, there are many good special effects, and good special effects are, of course, not the most important reason for people's praise. More important are these images in Levi's film. It's really too surprising.

There are many gorgeous scenes in the story of the Three-Body Problem. Extreme cold, destruction where even the air can freeze, extreme heat, destruction where the earth is burning, and unimaginable anti-gravity, a world where everything on the surface is automatically suspended and destroyed - these different ways of destruction of the world are extremely exciting.

It's not that big scenes have never been shot in Hollywood movies, but no matter how majestic the scene is, no one has shot the destruction of the world. 

Moreover, it is enough to film the destruction of the world once. But, in this movie, the Three-Body world was destroyed four times and in different ways, causing the world to suffer multiple destructions. 

This kind of approach may be a bit excessive for the Trisolarans, but for the audience, they are very satisfied.

Anyone who sees a scene like the destruction of the world will be shocked once, let alone three or four times. Seeing countless civilizations being born on a planet only to be destroyed again and again, the vastness of the universe was also deeply implanted in the audience's mind during this process.

And even if we don't talk about the part about the destruction of the world, the other parts can also be surprising. The two-dimensional expansion of protons, the use of cyborgs, and the cutting of large ships by nanowires can also be considered rare and wonderful scenes.

Many times, in a movie, a novel and weird shot is enough to cheer people up, but in this movie, there are many incredible shots. 

In front of these shots, the shot of detonating a bomb to prevent a nuclear explosion, which in other movies can be regarded as the most important finale, is just a small thing in this story. Compared with those, just a nuclear bomb is simply a trivial matter.

These are also important reasons why a science fiction film can attract people. The use of various black technologies has always been one of the important reasons why people are interested in science fiction. And this movie also satisfies people's psychology.

Of course, the most important thing is the depiction of these technologies, which also makes people aware of the differences in technology between the two worlds and the cruelty of this collision - special effects serve the theme of the movie, and this movie does not forget this. 

Whether it is the momentum created by the big scene or the reason for the use of new technology, they all revolve around the theme, which is also the primary intention of the special effects.

The movie has too many wonderful scenes, which is also the most important reason why this movie is attractive.

If a movie can make people think with suspense and attract the audience with its pictures and at the same time, it is not too complicated and difficult for people to understand, this kind of movie has all the elements to attract people.

Since the movie was released, it has been understood that its box office will definitely not be bad.

*****

Thanks and kudos for my patreons 

Marcelo Maia

Britanna

Mandy G

Scott DePaepe

You can read advanced chapters on my Patreon account: https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.