The Pathetic Movie: City of Lost Things/可悲的電影：失物之城
by Steve Wang
Scource:Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling
If you only have an hour and thirty minutes to live go watch the movie, City of Lost Things because you would feel like you have lived for an eternity. The movie has a good message but a terrible story. The main message it was trying to deliver is, recycling but the delivery was terrible. To take things into perspective, a boy is talking to a girl he really likes but he is very nervous. He keeps stuttering and ends up losing her attention. He wanted to say something good but it ended up not getting the message through. It was the same situation with the movie. It was so boring that some of our classmates were getting up to talk. It also did not successfully get it's message through to us. I am now going to give a background of the movie. Then, I will talk about it's problems and the solutions to those problems.
The movie is about a boy who thought he had nowhere to go. He then faints on the streets. When he woke up, he was in a completely different place with talking, walking and moving pieces of trash. Next he meets a truck which sucks the trash and tries to suck him in the process. Then, try to burn them. However, he is too strong to be sucked in by the trucks so the pieces of trash try to talk him into helping them get out of the city of lost things. Instead of helping his new friends by getting them out, he tells the king of the lost city about their intentions of trying to escape. The second time, he tells trucks where to go to trap them when they are escaping the city. He claims that he is only doing this to stop them from leaving so that they can all be together forever. Still, in the end, he has a change of heart and he saves the lives of the pieces of trash he put in danger.
There are more than a few problems with this storyline but I will only be talking about the major few. For this review, I will be using Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling to find the problems. I have used Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling because Pixar has won many awards including eighteen Academy Awards, ten Golden Globe Awards and eleven Grammy Awards. One of the rules the movie, City of Lost things has broken is rule number 1, which is talking about having to admire the character more than for their success. I do not admire the main character at all because he almost got his new friends killed on multiple occasions by betraying them when they gave him food, water and shelter when he had nothing. His friends also provided him with a loving home to stay in. The second problem with the movie is it broke Pixar's 14th rule which is about the belief and theme of the story. The theme of the story is recycling but it talks very little about recycling. In fact, it talks more about friendship and betrayals than recycling. They did not even mention the concept and the importance of recycling. The third problem is it broke was Pixar's 16th rule which was talking about having stakes which gives us a reason to root for the character. However, the stakes for the main character at first was that he could lose a few friends. Instead of accepting it or helping them, he broke their friendship and almost got them killed. The final problem is that it broke Pixar's 21 rule which is talking about if you were in the same situation as the character would you act that way. I think, if I was in that situation, I would not act that way. If I were in the same situation, I would have stronger emotions and I would not try to kill my friends.
Even though there are many problems with this movie, it can still be fixed. To fix the problem about making the charactor admirable, the storywriter could make the main character easier to empathize with and make him more relatable. To fix the delivery of the theme, they could have talked more about recycling and explain the importance and concepts of it better. To do that, they could make the main character ask more questions which will explain it to him making him and the viewers understand. Another thing to fix would be to get us to root for the main character. To do that, they could increase the stakes by allowing the trucks to have more effect on the main character. They could also give the main character less abilities. To fix the issue about how the charactor is acting, they could have deleted the second betrayal. The reason the character gave for betraying his friends for the first time was he wanted to be with them forever. However, when he betrayed his friends to the trucks, it felt like he wanted to kill them instead of making them stay.
In conclusion, City of Lost Things is a terrible and boring movie because it has many problems and a horrible story. To fix those problems it has to fix its storyline. I would not watch this movie because I would be wasting my life. The most important thing I learnt from the movie is, if the concept and message is great, it has potential for it to be a good movie. However, if it is delivered in the wrong way, it could flop and become an increadibly tiresome experience for anyone who watches it. Just don't watch it, you would just be spending money to take a nap. Instead maybe you should spend your time by making sure you don't stutter when you meet someone you like.
Chinese Version
如果你的人生只剩下一小时三十分钟的时间，那就去看电影《廢棄之城》吧，因为你会觉得自己活了很久。这部电影有一个很好的信息，一个很兰的故事。它试图传递的主要信息是回收，但传递很糟糕。看大个比方，这就像一个男孩正在和一个他真正喜欢的女孩交谈，但他非常紧张。他一直口吃，最终失去了她的注意力。他想说些好话，但最终没有传达出去。电影也是同样的情况。太无聊了，我们的一些同学都开始睡觉和说话了。它也没有成功地将它的信息传递给我们。现在我要介绍一下这部电影的背景。然后，我将谈谈它的问题以及解决这些问题的方法。
这部电影讲述了一个男孩认为自己无处可去的故事。然后他晕倒在街上。当他醒来时，他在一个完全不同的地方，这里有着说话、走路和移动垃圾。接下来，他遇到了一辆卡车，卡车在吸垃圾并也试图吸他。然后，尝试燃烧它们。然而，他太强壮了，没有被卡车吸进去，所以垃圾碎片试图说服他帮助他们离开失物之城。他没有帮助他的新朋友把他们赶出去，而是告诉失落之城的国王他们试图逃跑的意图。第二次，他告诉卡车在逃离城市时去哪里诱捕他们。他声称他这样做只是为了阻止他们离开，这样他们就可以永远在一起。尽管如此，他最终还是改变了主意，他挽救了他置于危险之中的垃圾碎片的生命。
这个故事情节有很多问题，但我只会谈论主要的几个。在这篇评论中，我将使用皮克斯的 22 条讲故事规则来找出问题所在。对于那些不了解皮克斯讲故事的 22 条规则是什么的人来说，这是皮克斯员工发布的 22 条说故事的方法指南。电影《失落之城》打破的规则之一是第一条规则，即必须更欣赏这个角色而不是因为他们的成功。我一点也不钦佩这个主角，因为他一无所有的时候，当新朋友给他食物、水和住所时，他出卖了他们，差点害死他们。他的朋友们也为他提供了一个充满爱的家。这部电影的第二个问题是它打破了皮克斯关于故事信仰和主题的第14条规则：故事核心与初中。这个故事的主题应该是回收，但它很少谈论回收。事实上，它更多地谈论友谊和背叛，而不是回收。他们甚至没有提到回收的概念和重要性。它打破的第三个问题是皮克斯的第 16 条规则，该规则谈论的是赌注/利害关系，这让我们有理由支持这个角色。然而，一开始主角的赌注是他可能会失去一些朋友。他没有接受，反而破坏了他们的友谊，差点害死他们。最后一个问题是它违反了皮克斯的 21 条规则，即如果你和角色处于相同的情况，你会那样做。我想，如果我在那种情况下，我不会那样做。如果我处于同样的情况，我的情绪会更强烈，我不会试图杀死我的朋友。
虽然这部电影有很多问题，但它仍然可以改进。为了解决第一个问题，他可以让主角更容易产生共鸣，或让主角更无知。如果做出这些改变，观众可以更轻松地理解故事，让我们更好地与角色联系起来。为了解决第二个问题，他们本可以更多地谈论回收并更好地解释它的重要性和概念。要做到这一点，他们可以让一无所知的主角向其他角色提出这个问题，其他角色会向他解释，让他和观众理解。为了解决第三个问题，他们可以通过让卡车对主角产生更多影响来增加赌注。他们还可以减少主角的能力。为了解决最后一个问题，他们本可以删除第二次背叛。这个角色第一次背叛他的朋友的原因是他想永远和他们在一起。然而，当他把他的朋友出卖给卡车时，感觉就像他想杀死他们而不是让他们留下来。
总之，《失物之城》是一部糟糕而无聊的电影，因为它有很多问题。为了解决这些问题，它必须修改它的故事情节。我不会看这部电影，因为我会浪费我的生命。我从这部电影中学到的最重要的事情是，如果概念和信息很棒，它就会成为一部很棒的电影，但是如果以错误的方式传达，它可能会失败并成为任何观看它的人都非常厌烦的体验。