msmithbooks Chapter 277 The Shock of Breaking the Fourth Wall, the Prelude to Transcending Time and Space
Chapter 277 The Shock of Breaking the Fourth Wall, the Prelude to Transcending Time and Space
Inside the IMAX theater, the huge screen emitted a dim light, illuminating Old Tang's shocked face.
This opening move, "breaking the fourth wall," brought him a new experience.
He originally thought this would be a conventional linear narrative theatrical version, but he never expected that Gu Nan would play such an ingenious meta-narrative!
In the world of movies, Ultraman Gaia is just a TV tokusatsu program? And the protagonist is Xiao Mian, an ordinary third-grade elementary school student living in 2030 who gets scolded by his mother for watching TV too late.
Old Tang sat in the large leather seat, even his breathing became careful, for fear of missing any detail.
In this parallel world, all the viewers, including myself, are ordinary people sitting in front of the screen watching Ultraman.
Through the character of Xiao Mian, Gu Laozei directly drew all of us viewers into the movie.
……
On the big screen, the plot continues to unfold.
In the dead of night, while his mother was asleep, Xiao Mian secretly got up, took out the video disc of "Ultraman Gaia," and prepared to continue watching the exciting scene that had just been interrupted.
Old Tang couldn't help but smile slightly as he watched Xiao Mian's actions on the screen.
The unique perspective of the children as protagonists, a feature of the special effects zone, is quite innovative on the big screen.
But just as Xiao Mian was getting engrossed in watching, a sudden change occurred!
Suddenly, the surround sound system in the theater emitted a low-frequency hum, a sound that seemed to penetrate directly into a person's chest.
The television image on the big screen began to flicker and distort violently, and a strange and intense light suddenly shone out from the television screen, instantly engulfing Xiao Mian!
Surrounded by hushed whispers, Old Tang felt a strong sense of suspense and suspense wash over him.
The scene shifts, and Xiao Mian is swept into a dimensional space filled with chaos and strange light and shadow.
At the deepest part of this space, a glass sphere emitting an eerie red light floats. Below the red sphere, an endless sea of fire burns fiercely.
Amidst the sea of fire, stood a little girl in a red dress. The firelight illuminated her expressionless face, making her appear exceptionally eerie.
The little girl slowly raised her head, her ethereal yet icy voice echoing throughout the IMAX theater: "The ending of destruction cannot be changed."
Old Tang suddenly shivered. The line, coupled with the top-notch Dolby sound effects, felt like it was being whispered right next to his ear.
He was subconsciously touched.
The production quality is amazing! The suspense and sense of destiny in the opening are incredible! What exactly is that red ball? And who is that little girl?
Immediately afterwards, the screen collapsed like shattered glass, and Xiao Mian woke up with a start, covered in sweat.
It turns out, it was all just a dream.
The pace of the plot then quickens.
The morning sun shines on the vibrant city streets of 2030.
The film uses an extremely smooth montage technique to quickly depict Xiao Mian's daily life.
Because this part of the plot had already been revealed quite a bit in previous behind-the-scenes footage and trailers, the way it was handled in the main feature was short and quick, yet packed with information.
On his way to school, Xiao Mian excitedly described his strange dream from the previous night to his friends, only to be met with their impatience and ridicule. Upon arriving in class, the teacher announced that a new student had transferred.
When the transfer student named "Li Sha" walked into the classroom, Old Tang, like many other viewers in the theater, involuntarily held his breath.
Li Sha is the little girl standing in the sea of fire in Xiaomian's dream last night!
In the video, Xiao Mian finds Li Sha during break time.
"Um... I had a weird dream yesterday!" Xiao Mian said tentatively.
Li Sha's eyes held a mystery beyond her years as she tilted her head slightly: "A dream?"
"That must have been a precognitive dream!" Li Sha suddenly laughed. "My chance encounter with A-Mian was destined..."
Then, with a smirk, she half-jokingly added, "Yeah, right!"
Old Tang watched the big screen, speculating about the plot.
This young actor is definitely a key figure with a huge secret!
The subsequent plot development proceeded smoothly and effortlessly.
After school, Xiao Mian went to his secret base—an abandoned old warehouse.
There, he actually found a red glass ball that was exactly the same as the one in his dream!
With a blinding flash of light, the red ball emitted a voice, claiming it could grant Xiao Mian any wish.
To prove to her friends that she hadn't lied, the next day, Xiao Mian took her two best friends to the secret base and, in front of them, held up the red ball with both hands and loudly made her deepest wish.
"If all wishes could really come true... then I want to see my dream! The Ultraman Gaia from the TV show!"
At that moment, the subwoofers in the entire theater were instantly turned up to full power!
"BOOM—!!!"
On the big screen, the originally clear sky suddenly transformed into an inverted ocean.
Just when everyone thought it was a mirage, the ocean waves were cleaved apart by a fighter jet!
A silver-gray afterimage, trailing a long tail of flame, smashed through the dimensional barrier and landed with a thud on the plaza not far away!
That's XIG's EX fighter!
Old Tang was so excited that he gripped the armrests of his seat tightly with both hands. It was finally time for the special effects!
"Holy crap! That's so damn cool! The special effects! The sense of gravity!"
The sonic boom cloud created by the fighter jets skimming the air, and the dust and debris kicked up when they crashed to the ground—this is definitely a case of budgets burning like crazy!
The sense of oppression from watching such a colossal object descend on the big screen is simply incomparable to that on a small television!
In the scene, Su Ye, who plays Gao Womeng, struggles to climb out of the fighter jet, looking completely bewildered, having no idea how she suddenly came from the Bermuda Triangle to this unfamiliar place.
But this incredible miracle completely ignited the children's enthusiasm.
However, the secret of the red ball was also exposed.
Hiroshi Shikata, a senior student and school bully, along with two followers, forcibly snatched the red ball.
"If it can grant all my wishes, then let's try summoning a monster first!"
Hiroshi Shikata shouted angrily.
The red ball instantly erupted with an even more eerie and violent red light than before.
The sky tore open again, and the massive Gob, accompanied by a roar that shook the entire theater, crashed heavily into the center of the city!
The entire audience was deathly silent, with only the roar of the monsters destroying the city in the movie breaking out.
Faced with the crisis, I didn't hesitate at all; he took out the Blue Sapphire Cone amidst the swirling dust.
"Gaia—!!!"
As the iconic red beam of light shot into the sky, Ultraman Gaia's massive body appeared amidst the trembling of the earth!
Old Tang stared wide-eyed, unwilling to miss a single frame.
The quality of the suit, the lighting, and the use of macro lenses in the theatrical version perfectly showcase Gaia's godlike muscle lines.
The battle erupted instantly. Gaia and Gob engaged in a brutal, hand-to-hand combat amidst the city's buildings.
Just watching the brutal, realistic fight scenes made Old Tang feel that it was worth the ticket price!
This action choreography is absolutely phenomenal!
The fight scenes in the theatrical version are significantly more realistic and powerful than those in the TV version. With each collision, you can see the dust kicked up by the suits, creating a kind of rugged aesthetic reminiscent of Hollywood action movies!
However, after fighting for less than a minute, the color timer on Gaia's chest began to flash rapidly!
The long blast of the red light made everyone's hearts leap into their throats.
What happened? It ran out of energy so quickly?
Old Tang frowned.
Could it be that this is not Gaia's original universe, so the battle is taking place across time and space, or that the rules of this world are different, leading to a rapid depletion of energy?
Even with energy running low, I still displayed extremely high combat skills.
In the extreme struggle, Gaia seized Gob's weakness and unleashed a sharp photon ice blade that instantly blasted the monster into countless fragments!
Before the joy of victory had faded, I, exhausted, dreamed of turning back into a human.
The next scene is the famous scene that was previously shown in the behind-the-scenes footage—I dreamt that I was chased all over the street by a group of enthusiastic elementary school students who knew me, and finally I had to hide in a toy store in a sorry state.
Because this real-life "battle royale on set" had already caused a sensation during the promotional period, seeing it in the final cut still elicited a burst of good-natured laughter in the theater.
Old Tang was overjoyed.
This blend of the absurd and the real, the combination of the virtual and the real, is precisely what makes this storyline so compelling.
I dreamt of watching my own DVDs on TV and seeing the monster toys I'd fought on the shelves. My worldview seemed to be collapsing, which made everyone around me burst into laughter.
In particular, the huge Chase Lights logo inside the toy store was also unknowingly ruined.
As the plot unfolds, Wo Meng, Xiao Mian, and the others return to their secret base.
Faced with that mysterious red ball, I dreamt of the meticulousness befitting a genius scientist.
He took out a simple analyzer he carried with him and tried to analyze the composition of the red ball, but it would take time.
At this moment, Xiao Mian took out the book "Gulliver's Travels".
As I looked at the book, my eyes gleaming with wisdom, I spoke to the children in an extremely gentle voice: "In quantum physics, there is a hypothetical theory called the 'many-worlds interpretation.' This theory posits that different selves can exist simultaneously in multiple parallel worlds."
I closed the book in my dream, my gaze deep: "Just like this book, *Gulliver's Travels*. On the surface, it's a social satire, but if you look at it from another angle... Gulliver can also be understood as a time traveler who freely traverses countless parallel worlds. Just like me right now."
My Dream perfectly blends cutting-edge scientific hypotheses with the purest fairy tales, allowing adults to see profound meaning and children to witness miracles!
However, the heartwarming science fiction discussion was abruptly interrupted by the piercing sound of police sirens.
In this peaceful world without monsters, the illegal arrival of the EX fighter jet attracted a fully armed defense force.
Dozens of dark gun barrels were pointed at the secret base; they viewed my dream as a dangerous alien invader.
To protect the children behind her, I did not choose to resist.
He raised his hands, calmly walked out of the warehouse, and tried to communicate with reason.
But no one was willing to listen to his explanation.
At the moment the conflict erupted, the power of the red ball seemed to reach a certain critical point.
My body in the dream suddenly began to flicker violently, like a television screen with a poor signal.
"It's a dream!" Xiao Mian shouted in despair.
Under the shocked gaze of the defense force, Imu, along with the EX fighter in the distance, instantly transformed into countless particles of light and completely disappeared from this world that did not belong to him.
The scene suddenly changed.
The blinding sunlight shone on the vast Bermuda Triangle. Inside XIG's air base, Li Muzi's anxious voice came through the communication channel.
"Bermuda Triangle area, EX fighter jet, please respond! Can you hear me?"
"EX received." My dream came in a weak voice.
"My dream, you've been out of contact for two hours! Where did you go?" Li Muzi breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's probably at the bottom of the sea..." I dreamt with a wry smile, concealing the truth, but his eyes became extremely solemn.
Back at the base, I immediately connected to the supercomputer Pam and performed in-depth analysis of the data obtained from scanning the red ball.
During this process, the film's atmosphere once again becomes oppressive and somber.
Accompanied by eerie electronic synthesized sounds, the red ball's true nature materialized deep within my dream's consciousness.
"Is this your world of consciousness?" I asked in my dream.
"I am the ultimate machine created by humankind," the ethereal voice replied, as terrifying scenes of countless planets being destroyed flashed across the screen. "I am a human from another dimension, created to fulfill all the desires in my heart. I am the highest limit of material civilization... but I really shouldn't have been created."
Why?
"Because human desires have no end."
The red ball's consciousness was filled with endless sorrow: "People made all sorts of wishes to me, but in the end, they were destroyed by their own desires. Everything was destroyed. I could only watch it happen and then continue my endless journey through time and space."
This dialogue plunged the entire IMAX theater into a deathly silence.
Old Tang sat in the chair, feeling his breathing become heavy.
This red ball isn't some magical artifact at all; it's a combination of humanity's ultimate technology and boundless greed! Pandora's box!
It's like a mirror, reflecting the darkest desires of human nature.
Meanwhile, in Xiao Mian's world...
Hiroshi Shikada, dissatisfied with Gobu's previous performance, once again snatched the red ball.
He absorbed the ideas of his classmates with great enthusiasm, fusing the limbs of various monsters together.
"This monster will become the strongest monster in the entire tokusatsu region! I will destroy everything! I will utterly destroy this world!"
Hiroshi Shikata's eyes were now stained crimson by the evil light emanating from the red ball; he had become a complete slave to his desires.
"Destroy all you want, my strongest monster... King Orb!"
Meanwhile, in a quantum laboratory in another universe, I dreamt that the world of Xiaomian was about to face true destruction, and rushed towards the space-time transport machine, "Adventure," which was still in the experimental stage.
Old Tang couldn't help but sigh, "A hand-crafted time machine, is this what I dreamed of...?"
Faced with his teammates' questions, I didn't hesitate at all!
"I don't have time to explain now, but please believe me, there's a world facing destruction... I must go and save that world!"
I pressed the start button with unwavering determination.
Looking at the unwavering determination in my eyes, Old Tang couldn't help but sigh, "This is a true hero!"
The phrase "I have a responsibility to save them" completely established his heroic image!
On the big screen, the crises in both worlds have reached their lowest point simultaneously. An epic battle transcending time and space is about to erupt.
Old Tang clenched his fists tightly, his palms sweating profusely. The tension and build-up in the first half had been perfected; he knew that what followed was a scene of epic proportions that would go down in film history!