《頭號玩家》:斯皮爾伯格的懷舊遊戲

It isn’t going too far out on a limb to predict that “Ready Player One” will turn out to be one of Steven Spielberg’s more controversial projects. Even before its release, this adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 best seller — what one writer called a “nerdgasm” of a novel — was subjected to an unusual degree of internet pre-hate. That was only to be expected. Mr. Spielberg has tackled contentious topics before — terrorism, slavery, the Pentagon Papers, sharks — but nothing as likely to stir up a hornet’s nest of defensiveness, disdain and indignant “actually”-ing as the subject of this movie, which is video games.

如果預測《頭號玩家》(Ready Player One)會是史蒂文·斯皮爾伯格(Steven Spielberg)比較有爭議的作品之一，不會有很多人反對。這部電影改編自歐內斯特·克萊恩(Ernest Cline)2011年出版的暢銷小說（一位作家稱之爲“死宅高潮”），早在發行前就在網上遭到極大厭惡。這完全正常。斯皮爾伯格以前處理過有爭議的話題——恐怖主義、奴隸制、五角大樓文件、鯊魚——但沒有哪個像這部電影的主題——電子遊戲——一樣，可能會惹來防範心態、蔑視和憤憤不平的“事實上根本不是這樣”的麻煩。

And not only video games. “Ready Player One,” written by Mr. Cline and Zak Penn, dives into the magma of fan zeal, male self-pity and techno-mythology in which those once-innocent pastimes are now embedded. Mr. Spielberg, a digital enthusiast and an old-school cineaste, goes further than most filmmakers in exploring the aesthetic possibilities of a form that is frequently dismissed and misunderstood.

不僅僅是電子遊戲。克萊恩和扎克·佩恩(Zak Penn)聯合編劇的《頭號玩家》探究了粉絲的熱情、男性的自憐，以及曾是無足輕重的消遣、現在卻已根深蒂固的科技神話。斯皮爾伯格是數字愛好者，也是老派電影人。對於一種經常遭到無視與誤解的形式，他卻探討它的審美可能性，在這方面，他比大部分電影人都走得更遠。

Aided by his usual cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, and by the production designer Adam Stockhausen, he turns a vast virtual landscape of battling avatars into a bustling pop-cultural theme park, an interactive museum of late-20th- and early-21st-century entertainment, a maze of niche tastes, cultish preoccupations and blockbuster callbacks. Mr. Spielberg navigates this warehouse with his usual dexterity, loading every frame with information without losing the clarity and momentum of the story.

在御用攝影師雅努什·卡明斯基(Janusz Kaminski)和美術總監亞當·斯托克豪森(Adam Stockhausen)的協助下，他把宏大的虛擬化身打鬥場景變成了一個熙熙攘攘的流行文化主題公園；一座展示20世紀末與21世紀初的娛樂的互動博物館；乃至一個由小衆化品味、粉絲的狂熱迷戀和對大片的回憶組成的迷宮。斯皮爾伯格用他慣用的嫺熟技巧駕馭着這座倉庫，賦予每一幀畫面以信息，又不破壞故事清晰的條理和勢頭。

Nonetheless, the toy guns of social media and pop-up kulturkritik are locked and loaded. Mr. Spielberg will be accused of taking games and their players too seriously and not seriously enough, of pandering and mocking, of just not getting it and not being able to see beyond it — “it” being the voracious protoplasm that has, over the past three or four decades, swallowed up most of our cultural discourse. Whatever you call it — the revenge of the nerds, the franchising of the universe, the collapse of civilization — it’s a force that is at once emancipatory and authoritarian, innocent and pathological, delightful and corrosive.

儘管如此，社交媒體的玩具槍和快閃式的文化批判已經鎖定目標。斯皮爾伯格會被指責太重視遊戲和遊戲玩家，也會被指責爲不重視遊戲和遊戲玩家；會被指責爲迎合，也會被指責爲嘲笑；會被指責爲不懂“它”，也會被指責爲無力超越“它”——這裏的“它”指的是過去三、四十年裏吞噬了我們大部分文化話語的那種貪婪的物質。無論怎麼稱呼它——死宅的復仇、宇宙系列大片、文明的崩潰——它是一股既解放又專制，既無害又病態，既令人愉悅又具有腐蝕性的力量。

Mr. Spielberg and some of his friends helped to create this monster, which grants him a measure of credibility and also opens him up to a degree of suspicion. He is the only person who could have made this movie and the last person who should have been allowed near the material.

斯皮爾伯格和他的一些朋友參與創造了這個怪物。這讓他獲得了一定的稱道，也讓他遭受了一定程度的懷疑。他是唯一一個有可能拍出這部電影的人，也是原本最不應該被允許獲得這一素材的人。

That material has issues of its own. Mr. Cline’s book — readable and amusing without being exactly good — is a hodgepodge of cleverness and cliché. Less than a decade after publication, it already feels a bit dated, partly because its dystopian vision seems unduly optimistic and partly because its vision of male geek rebellion has turned stale and sour.

這一素材有自己的問題。克萊恩的書可讀性強、有趣味、但又確實不算出色，它是小聰明和陳詞濫調的大雜燴。出版不到十年，它已經感覺有點過時了，部分是因爲它的反烏托邦願景似乎過於樂觀，部分是因爲它的男性極客反叛願景已經變得老套和乏味。

In the film, set in 2045, Wade Watts (a young man played by the agreeably bland, blandly agreeable Tye Sheridan) lives in “the stacks,” a vertical pile of trailers where the poorer residents of Columbus, Ohio (Oklahoma City in the book), cling to hope, dignity and their VR gloves. Humanity has been ravaged by the usual political and ecological disasters (among them “bandwidth riots” referred to in Wade’s introductory voice-over), and most people seek refuge in a digital paradise called the Oasis.

電影背景設定在2045年。韋德·瓦茨（Wade Watts，一個年輕男子，由乏味得令人感到親切，又親切得令人感到乏味的泰伊·謝里丹[Tye Sheridan]扮演）住在“疊樓”，即垂直的一堆拖車裏。在那裏，俄亥俄州哥倫布市（原著中是俄克拉荷馬市）較爲貧窮的居民緊緊抓住希望、尊嚴和VR手套不放。人性被常見的政治和生態災難（包括韋德在開篇的旁白中提到的“帶寬暴動”）摧殘，大部分人都在一個叫“綠洲”(Oasis)的數字天堂裏尋求慰藉。

That world — less a game than a Jorge Luis Borges cosmos populated by wizards, robots and racecar drivers — is the creation of James Halliday (Mark Rylance). After Halliday’s death, his avatar revealed the existence of a series of Easter eggs, or secret digital treasures, the discovery of which would win a lucky player control of the Oasis. Wade is a “gunter” — short for “egg hunter” — determined to pursue this quest even after most of the other gamers have tired of it. Among his rivals are a few fellow believers and Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), the head of a company called IOI that wants to bring Halliday’s paradise under corporate control.

那個世界與其說是一款遊戲，不如說是一個生活着巫師、機器人和賽車手的豪爾赫·路易斯·博爾赫斯(Jorge Luis Borges)式宇宙，它是由詹姆斯·哈利迪（James Halliday，馬克·裏朗斯[Mark Rylance]飾）創造的。哈利迪去世後，他的化身透露，遊戲中存在一系列“復活節彩蛋”，或者說祕密數字寶藏，發現它們的幸運玩家將贏得對綠洲的控制權。韋德是尋找彩蛋的人，簡稱“尋蛋人”之一。即使其他大部分玩家都已經厭倦了，他依然決心繼續尋找。他的競爭對手包括幾個同樣堅信不疑的人，此外還有諾蘭·索倫託（Nolan Sorrento，本·門德爾森[Ben Mendelsohn]飾），他是一家名爲IOI的公司的負責人，該公司希望將哈利迪創造的天堂置於自己控制之下。

In the real world, IOI encourages Oasis fans to run up debts that it collects by forcing them into indentured servitude. Sorrento’s villainy sets up a battle on two fronts — clashes in the Oasis mirroring chases through the streets of Columbus — that inspires Mr. Spielberg to feats of crosscutting virtuosity. The action is so swift and engaging that some possibly literal-minded questions may be brushed aside. I, for one, didn’t quite understand why, given the global reach of the Oasis, all the relevant players were so conveniently clustered in Ohio. (If anyone wants to explain, please find me on Twitter so I can mute you.)

在現實世界中，IOI慫恿“綠洲”的粉絲們大筆舉債，通過迫使他們接受奴役契約來蒐集債務。索倫託的邪惡勢力在兩條戰線上展開戰鬥——哥倫布市街頭的追逐反映了綠洲裏的衝突——這激發了斯皮爾伯格施展精湛的剪輯切換技藝。這場戲速度很快，扣人心絃，所以一些比較實際的問題可能被沖淡了。比如說，我不太明白，既然綠洲是全世界都在玩的遊戲，那麼，爲什麼所有重要的玩家都如此便捷地聚集在俄亥俄州（如果有人想解釋，請去Twitter上找我，這樣我就可以拉黑你了）。

But, of course, Columbus and the Oasis do not represent actual or virtual realities, but rather two different modalities of fantasy. Wade’s avatar, Parzival, collects a posse of fighters: Sho, Daito, Aech and Art3mis, who is also his love interest. When the people attached to these identities meet up in Columbus, they are not exactly as they are in the game. Aech, large and male in the Oasis, is played by Lena Waithe. But the fluidity of online identity remains an underexploited possibility. In and out of the Oasis, Art3mis (also known as Samantha, and portrayed by Olivia Cooke) is a male fantasy of female badassery. Sho (Philip Zhao) and Daito (Win Morisaki) are relegated to sidekick duty. The multiplayer, self-inventing ethos of gaming might have offered a chance for a less conventional division of heroic labor, but the writers and filmmakers lacked the imagination to take advantage of it.

但是，當然，哥倫布和綠洲並不代表真實或虛擬現實，而是代表兩種幻想的模式。韋德在遊戲中的身份帕西法爾(Parzival)召集了一羣戰士：修(Sho)、大東(Daito)、艾奇(Aech)和阿爾忒密斯(Art3mis)。阿爾忒密斯是韋德的愛慕對象。當這些角色在現實世界中對應的人物在哥倫布相聚時，才發現他們跟遊戲中的角色不太一樣。艾奇由麗娜·維特(Lena Waithe)飾演，她在綠洲中是高大的男性，但該片仍未充分利用網絡身份的靈活性。在綠洲內外，阿爾忒密斯（又名薩曼莎[Samantha]，由奧莉維婭·庫克[Olivia Cooke]飾演）都是男性幻想中的酷女郎形象。修（趙家正[Philip Zhao]飾）和大東（森崎溫[Win Morisaki]飾）被降級爲幫手。多玩家參與和自我創造的遊戲精神本可以提供一個機會，塑造不太傳統的英雄分工，但編劇和製片人們缺乏充分利用它的想像力。

The most fun part of “Ready Player One” is its exuberant and generous handing out of pop-cultural goodies. Tribute is paid to Mr. Spielberg’s departed colleagues John Hughes and Stanley Kubrick. The visual and musical allusions are eclectic enough that nobody is likely to feel left out, and everybody is likely to feel a little lost from time to time.

《頭號玩家》中最有趣的部分在於它熱情慷慨地分發流行文化中的好東西。片中向斯皮爾伯格去世的同行約翰·休斯(John Hughes)和斯坦利·庫布裏克(Stanley Kubrick)致敬。它廣泛引用了大量視覺梗和音樂梗，沒有人會覺得自己被忽略了，但每個人都很有可能會不時感到失落。

Nostalgia? Sure, but what really animates the movie is a sense of history. The Easter egg hunt takes Parzival and his crew back into Halliday’s biography — his ill-starred partnership with Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg), his thwarted attempts at romance — and also through the evolution of video games and related pursuits. The history is instructive and also sentimental in familiar ways, positing a struggle for control between idealistic, artistic entrepreneurs (and their legions of fans) and soulless corporate greedheads.

懷舊？當然，但真正讓該片充滿活力的是一種歷史感。尋找“復活節彩蛋”的活動將帕西法爾和他的團隊帶回到哈利迪的傳記中——他與奧格登·莫羅（Ogden Morrow，西蒙·佩吉[Simon Pegg]飾）的不幸合作關係，他在情場上的失敗嘗試——也讓他們經歷了電子遊戲以及相關追求的演變。這段歷史很有教益，也令人感傷，它講述了一個常見的故事：具有藝術情懷的理想主義創業者（以及他們龐大的粉絲羣體）與貪婪的、沒有靈魂的企業老闆對控制權的爭奪。

Halliday is a sweet, shaggy nerd with a guileless Northern California drawl and a deeply awkward manner, especially around women. Sorrento is an autocratic bean counter, a would-be master of the universe who doesn’t even like video games. These characters are clichés, but they are also allegorical figures.

哈利迪是一個可愛的、不修邊幅的死宅，帶着北加州樸實的拖腔口音，舉止笨拙，尤其是和女人打交道時。索倫託是一個獨斷專行、精打細算的人，自詡爲宇宙未來的主人，他甚至不喜歡電子遊戲。這些人物的特徵都很老套，但同時也具有諷喻意義。

In the movie, they represent opposing principles, but in our world, they are pretty much the same guy. A lot of the starry-eyed do-it-yourselfers tinkering in their garages and giving life to their boyish dreams back in the ’70s and ’80s turned out to be harboring superman fantasies of global domination all along. They shared their wondrous creations and played the rest of us for suckers, collecting our admiration, our attention and our data as profit and feudal tribute.

在該片中，他們代表着對立的原則，但在我們的世界裏，他們基本上是同一個人。許多在七、八十年代在車庫裏敲敲打打、幻想將一生奉獻給兒時夢想的DIY人士最後都變成了懷着超人幻想的全球統治者。他們分享自己奇妙的創造物，哄騙我們其餘這些人，收集我們的讚賞、關注和數據，作爲利潤和貢品。

Mr. Spielberg incarnates this duality as perfectly as any man alive. He is the peer of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and a Gandalf for the elves and hobbits who made Google, Facebook and the other components of our present-day Oasis. He has been man-child and mogul, wide-eyed artist and cold-eyed businessman, praised for making so many wonderful things and blamed for ruining everything. His career has been a splendid enactment of the cultural contradictions of capitalism, and at the same time a series of deeply personal meditations on love, loss and imagination. All of that is also true of Halliday’s Oasis. “Ready Player One” is far from a masterpiece, but as the fanboys say, it’s canon.

斯皮爾伯格就是這種二元性的代表，和其他任何活着的人一樣。他堪與史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)和比爾·蓋茨(Bill Gates)並駕齊驅，就像甘道夫指引着精靈和霍比特人，他們也指引着那些創造了現實世界“綠洲”中的谷歌(Google)和Facebook等組件的那些人們。他既是長不大的孩子，也是影業鉅子，既是天真的藝術家，也是冷漠的商人，既因爲創造了這麼多精彩的作品而受到讚揚，也常常被指責破壞了一切。他的職業生涯既是對資本主義文化衝突的精彩演繹，也是對愛情、失落和想象的一系列深刻的個人思考。哈利迪的綠洲也是如此。《頭號玩家》遠非傑作，但正如它的癡迷者所說的，它是經典。