The plot of "Bad Travel" in the third season of "Love x Death x Robot" is completely analyzed, and the structure of the supernatural story is dismantled!

The third season of "Love x Death x Robot" is worthy of being "Love x Death x Robot". This time, it still boldly discussed many topics, including science fiction, philosophy, women, life, etc. The art style is diverse, combined with advanced animation technology, no matter It is the highest visual feast brought by the movement of mirrors, light and shadow, and character movements.

In the third season, I really liked the second episode of "Bad Journey", its plot is tight, complete and interlocking, the characters are delicately portrayed, and the struggle between the characters brings out a strong dramatic tension.

The following will analyze the plot structure and arrangement of "Bad Journey", and see how a good story can create characters, build conflicts in just 19 minutes, and pull the audience into the sticky, fishy fishing boat, and with the trustee Lin fights the malice of Sanapad and others together.

Spoiler alert, please watch the original movie before watching it, so as not to spoil the viewing experience.

In general commercial drama works, it is very important to let the characters set goals, to help the audience judge whether the progress of the story is good or bad, and also to resonate with the characters.

In "Bad Ride," Sanapad eats a bunch of crew members and hides in a catch warehouse within a minute of the beginning. It's a very powerful opening, and without even having to explain it, the audience immediately understands, "Oh, shit, this group has to be in the same boat with the big crab, what are they going to do?"

The main goal of the story was thrown out at once - "survival under the threat of Sanapad". This is actually a type of movie plot. A group of people are locked in one place, facing some kind of terrifying creature, and the situation is very dangerous. "Jaws" and "Jurassic Park" are representative works.

(However, in "Bad Journey," the protagonist faces more than just scary creatures. We'll talk about the secondary goals of this game later.)

In this first scene, there is actually some information, the one who shouted: "Sanapad, upwind", from the voice, it can be heard that she may be a woman (an interesting arrangement), and she is the ship at the helm, so she should be the captain, and Thorin, standing next to her, should be the co-captain. When the captain was eaten, the horrified expression on Thorin's face also made the best interpretation of the emotions at the beginning of the story.

But at this moment, the direction of the plot is still unclear, we are not sure who the protagonist is, whether this is a story of people fighting monsters, and whether this is a typical Cthulhu story.

It is followed by a scene of "drawing lots". What should be paid attention to here is the number of characters in this work. There are 10 people in total, including crabs and people who died at the beginning, which is a lot for a short story. In order to shape the characters , Generally speaking, the number of characters will be kept below 7, so that everyone has the opportunity to speak, and the audience will remember the characters.

But this work is more streamlined and meticulous. In this scene where the characters are introduced, most characters are given a shot of expressions to create an uneasy atmosphere, and only a few characters are given lines to show their positions and the relationship between the characters. Give subtle information. Several subsequent multiplayer scenes are also handled in the same way.

First, Thorin was in a leadership position, which was his power as chief mate. The assistant who helped Tolin get the visa was the bald man. It can be seen that there is a relationship of trust between Tolin and the bald man at this point in time. In the next few shots of everyone, it can also be seen that the bald man plays a pivotal role in the picture. s position.

Seth, who was the first to draw lots, was probably the youngest crew member (so at the end of Seth's body, Thorin looked regretful). The second lottery is the fraternal party that embraces faith and has strong bonds.

The third draw is the strong brother who jumped the queue. When he decided to usurp the throne after the bad draw, others might want to rely on or fear his mighty power. Soon, Thorin's power was overthrown because the relatives In comparison, Thorin looked very thin.

And the rapid reversal of everyone's attitude also revealed that they were dishonest, selfish, easy to incite, and even a little stupid (Torin was the first mate who decided the direction of the sailing), and no one was on Torin's side.

Immediately afterwards, Tolin went downstairs to investigate the crab. After learning that the crab could communicate, Tolin's situation changed from "send death" to "negotiation". He not only asked the crab not to touch him (maintain the main goal of the story), but also Figure out a way to compete with others. Thorin's short lines of dialogue show his ingenuity, boldness, and change the mood of the plot (from disadvantage to advantage), and also give some new puzzles to the main goal of the story - "The Crab is Hungry", "Going to Fayden" island".

Back on the deck, after the chase (the crew still lost their knives, which shows the intention to kill), Tolin got the gun (power) that originally belonged to the captain, and held the gun at everyone. At this moment, the story was established The protagonist is Thorin, which also hints at the story's secondary goal - "to fight the selfish people".

We can also foresee that the rest of the story is the process of Thorin's journey to the target. In order to build up the climax of the plot, Thorin's confrontation with the enemies "Sanapad" (the main target) and "The Selfish Man" (the secondary target) It is bound to bounce back and forth between advantages and disadvantages.

We all know that guns are more threatening than muscles. With the gun, Tolin once again has the right to speak, and the muscle brother has also become the food for crabs. Here, too, it proves once again that "other selfish people" are a piece of sand, easy to incite and have no loyalty at all.

Afterwards, Tolin told everyone about the crab's request. If Tolin obediently sailed to Fayden Island according to the crab's wishes, then the story would be over, and it would never be so exciting. Tolin shows another personality trait here, he is kind and upright, and he is unwilling to hurt countless innocent people in order to survive. On the one hand, this personality trait allows the audience to have a connection with Tolin's values, and on the other hand, it increases the difficulty of the story goal again.

In the process of discussing whether to go to Fayden Island, selfish people still said selfish words. The conflict between Tolin and everyone gradually rose. Tolin proposed to vote to suspend the conflict, and everyone cast a key vote.

Let your conscience be your guide.

At this time, the story cleverly did not let the audience know the votes everyone voted, laying the groundwork for the ending. Although the smart Tolin knew the content of the vote, in order to maintain the manpower to drive the boat, he only fired one shot, killing two brothers who were obviously a small group among the crowd, leaving the others scattered. Before the shooting, the young Seth showed an expression of "I'm going to die", burying the suspense for the truth of the vote. It was obvious that Seth had a cross, but why didn't Thorin kill him?

Afterwards, Thorin says "We're finally united", all characters know it's not true, Thorin shows that he has no tolerance for selfish people, he's declaring war, he's making people fear, and reaching three factions for mutual benefit balance of terror. Thorin had the upper hand, thinking the two bodies would buy them time.

The apparent peace was maintained, and the ship continued to sail. In order to increase the tension of the continuation of the play, after Tolin's advantage passed, the two camps that were hostile to Tolin took turns to make moves to pave the way for the final climax.

The secondary target "Selfish Man" arranged for a sneak attack by the bald man. Although he was suppressed by Thorin, it showed that they had gradually united and were dissatisfied with Thorin.

The main target "Sanapad" gave birth to a litter of small crabs, which means that there is not enough food (two dead people), and these crabs will bring more disasters.

The conflict escalated higher and higher, pushing Thorin into a more difficult predicament step by step.

Then, Fayden Island was about to arrive, and Thorin and the "selfish people" conducted a round of verbal persuasion with each other. The suppressed negative emotions were about to erupt, opening the prelude to the next massacre.

The five people in "The Selfish Man" failed to assassinate and were killed by Tolin. While throwing food (dead people), the story revealed the truth of voting and the ugly true face of everyone, and threw the bald uncle as crabs. This is a very brilliant turn.

An interesting discussion was "Should the bald man die?" Since he wasn't involved in the final assassination (and helped with the aftermath!), should Thorin spare his life.

But from Thorin's point of view, he has been betrayed three times by the bald uncle (the strong brother rebels, voted, and the bald uncle sneaks up), and after watching the film carefully, the last assassination, the scene from the down angle of the deck, there are actually six people slowly walking towards the captain room, perhaps implying that the bald man fled at the door, betraying the selfish camp (locking himself in a box?). Being alone with this kind of person could be backstabbed by him at any time.

From the perspective of storytelling, if he survives, it will destroy the surprise of "everyone votes a cross", and destroy all the previous arrangements and the final climax. Under the careful plot logic, the bald man must die.

At this point, the protagonist tackles the story's secondary goal of "fighting against selfish people".

If you look back, you can find the symmetrical structure of the story. At the beginning, the main goal and the secondary goal are thrown out in sequence, and at the end, the secondary goal is solved first. Finally, Thorin finally has to face the big devil, the main goal " Sanapad".

The story also needs a plausible, creative ending.

Relying on the flesh and blood provided by the crew, Thorin successfully stalled time and brought Sanapad to a suitable location. When talking to Sanapad, Thorin first explained the meaning of the boat (don't forget that they went out to sea to fish, the story background of the fishing boat was well chosen), stabbed the oil barrel with a knife, and then He pulls out the gun that runs through the plot, and the death of the captain, regaining power, fighting the crew, and even fighting the crab are all tied to this gun.

Torin said "It's not for you" at the gun, which may be an answer to Sanapad's statement that "hard shells are protective", so "this bullet is not intended to hit your hard shell, but to to set fire." Or perhaps Thorin meant "it's not against you", but to avenge the captain, or to put an end to this human struggle. This sentence can be interpreted differently.

After firing the bullets, Thorin threw the gun away because there was no need for power (and no more bullets). Then a magic mirror, Thorin escaped from the boat in a thrilling way.

Fire-roasted crab. Big crabs and small crabs are cooked at one time.

The burning ship and the monster's cry tell us that the main target "Xanapad" has been solved. The story doesn't need to be explained any more, Tolin's relieved expression change is the ending.

This is the end of a thrilling ordeal of survival. The audience also regurgitated the aftertaste contentedly.

We can't help but admire the intentions of the production team. Looking back at the whole story, the plot is extremely accurate, and every scene has a function. To pave the way for this unique ending, Tolin's boldness, intelligence, kindness, and cruelty are shocking. Although the plot is describing the struggle of human nature, it is very simple and easy to understand. Coupled with the plot of the protagonist fighting monsters and killing each other, the whole work is very entertaining, but leaves a lot of room for discussion.

In the third season of Love x Death x Robots, I really liked the second episode "Bad Journey", how about you? If you have any thoughts on "Bad Journey", or want to discuss other episodes of "Love x Death x Robots" Season 3, please leave a message to me!