Time Writer | clory is eager to praise pop culture.

I still remember the animated film Inside Out released by Pixar in 2015, which personified people’s five basic emotions and made people re-examine their emotions in laughter.

This time, Pixar applied the creative idea of "everything can be anthropomorphic" to natural elements, bringing a brand-new fantasy story-

Crazy element city

Fire, water, wind and earth live together in a dream city.

They seem to repel each other, but they can influence each other, colliding with crazy and interesting chemical reactions, and even bringing a love story of "fire and water are incompatible"?

On the occasion of the upcoming film release this Friday (June 16th), Time Jun will take you to see what new elements Pixar has brought to the audience from the picture to the story.

Technical force explosion

In fact, the idea of anthropomorphizing elements is not novel. After all, many people have played the flash game "The Man in the Forest" in the computer room:

But to present this idea perfectly on the big screen requires an extremely professional industrialization process and world-leading technical force.

In this regard, we can always trust Pixar’s technology-

When the gate of Element City is opened, you are greeted with a visual feast that you can enjoy to the utmost.

Absent-minded clouds that come and go freely have injected a trace of cure and accident into the city:

The soil looks dirty, but it is the hero who built and supported the whole urban structure:

Hot and active fire, with a steady stream of energy and energy, provides a solid foundation for the city:

Water full of curiosity always protects and nourishes the natural environment of the city;

In these special urban residents, we can feel that Pixar has created a new height for the presentation of dynamic effects.

For example, Pixar has made great efforts to describe the movement track of "fire", observing the flame in the real world, looking for inspiration, and then performing artistic processing.

So, you can see that when the fire is moving rapidly, sometimes part of the body disappears and rises again:

The audience can feel that this is really a group of "fire people", not a person with "flame skin".

Of course, it takes explosive technical force to make all kinds of elements lifelike, but it takes imagination and sincere observation of life to make these elements truly "characters" and have their own lives in a logical way.

In the trailer, we can see a lot of people who can’t help but sigh "so imaginative, but so real!" The details.

Fire Baby’s stroller is an oven, and milk powder is engine oil;

Fire can also make a hot air balloon heated and take off for a romantic air date:

When water glides on the surface of the lake at a high speed, it can stir up spray and hang a rainbow on the horizon:

Of course, sometimes jokes will be made, such as the fire accidentally hitting the soil wearing a "turf coat" and burning him bald in an instant:

The elements live in this city, and every interaction between them can collide with interesting events, which makes the world truly convincing.

Stimulation of technical strength and imagination, sincere love for life … These "creative elements" complement each other, which is the reason why Pixar animation touches people’s hearts again and again.

Fire and water love

In the gorgeous and magical element city, the classic story of "boy meets girl" is also staged all the time.

However, the two protagonists of this love story are fire and water, Xiao Yan and A Bo.

The gap between the two is so deep that it seems to span an entire periodic table, and it is completely impossible to have a happy ending.

Xiaoyan lives in a traditional family and has the responsibility of inheriting the family business.

Her family has always taught her that "elements are incompatible" and excluded other elements. She has also been taught and has never left the fiery town where the fire elements live.

It was not until Po suddenly jumped out of the burst water pipe that a bigger world slowly opened in front of her.

Contrary to Xiaoyan, A Bo lives in an optimistic family, free and unrestrained, and Xiaoyan is also welcome to outsiders.

The acquaintance with A Bo made Xiao Yan curious about the larger element world, bravely took the step of exploration, and began to pursue his true inner desire.

This is not only a romantic love story across ethnic groups, but also a story of finding self-identity and embracing more possibilities.

In Pixar’s past classic feature films, love rarely served as the main narrative theme, but through some descriptions with little ink, the innocence and sincerity among them have moved the audience to tears.

For example, in Travels around the Flying House, Grandpa Carl and his wife were childhood friends, and the montage clip of their love for a lifetime was tearful to the whole world, explaining what is plain and true:

The pure love between Wali and Eva in Robot Story has also brought happy childhood memories to countless people, telling us that true love may not need the pretense of words:

As for the love between fire and water in Crazy Element City, can Pixar bring us another romantic adventure?

I look forward to how they can overcome many obstacles, know each other and love each other, turn compatibility into compatibility, and turn the impossible into possibility.

Asian perspective

As Pixar’s brand-new feature film masterpiece, Crazy Element City is in full swing and has assembled a gold medal team.

There is a core team that once created Soul and other excellent works with high scores, the chief creative officer of Pixar Studio, and Pete Docter, who directed Inside Out’s Travel Around the Flying House and other Oscar classics, as the producer.

As for Peter Sun, an Asian director who once participated in the production of Summer Friendship Day and Travel Notes around Flying Houses, many people may not be familiar with him.

Most of the time, he is active in animation as a voice actor, and his voice (Ganke Lee) is in the recently released Spider-Man: The Vertical and Horizontal Universe.

He is a new director, but he also has impressive works.

For example, in 2009, the animated short film "Violent Clouds and Crane Delivery" recounted an ancient western legend with a bold and unconstrained style and healing warmth.

For more than five minutes, the soft and changeable "violent cloud" made people feel warm:

What makes people smile is that we can also see the lovely cure of the same paragraph in the "wind" in "Crazy Element City":

In Crazy Element City, we can see Peter Sun’s Asian perspective and narrative about cultural conflicts.

The love story of Xiao Yan and A Bo, which is "incompatible with fire and water", comes from his marriage.

Born in a Korean family, he has been shouldering the responsibility of continuing the tradition since he was a child. Grandma’s expectation for him is "marry a Korean!" .

However, he fell in love with a white woman and got married, which caused many dramatic events in two families.

A small detail can be seen in the trailer. A Bo tried to eat very hot food and burned himself to deformation.

The details of this life also come from the director’s emotional story. He took his wife and her family to a Korean restaurant, but as a result, her wife was not used to eating too spicy food and made some accidents:

At first, the two could only associate behind his parents’ backs, but fortunately, in the end, true love prevailed, and both families finally accepted each other, and they also found many things in common in this marriage with different skin colors.

From this, we can also see that individuals who seem to be "incompatible with fire and water" can actually merge into one as long as they have love to cross obstacles, bringing incomparable touch.

Besides the love story, the setting of Element City also comes from the director’s life experience. As the son of immigrants, the residents in Element City are very different, which obviously refers to the ethnic diversity in the city.

It can also be seen from the choice of directors that Pixar attaches importance to and encourages Asian groups.

From "Metamorphosis of Youth" to "Crazy Element City" today, new directors are boldly used, and the audience can witness more works from Asian perspectives.

In both works, there are themes about the "heavy love" of traditional East Asian families and the identity of immigrants, which are quite cordial to East Asian audiences.

Of course, I also expect these Asian directors to bring more narratives that are not limited to identity, so that audiences all over the world can resonate.

From March 20th to April 6th at 8: 00 a.m, the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) received a total of 37,560 opinions. Among them, 37,067 opinions were put forward through websites such as China People’s Congress Network, 100 opinions were published in newspapers such as People’s Daily and Legal Daily, and 393 letters were received. On March 27th, we announced to the media the first stage of the draft labor contract law for comments. From March 28th to April 6th, compared with the first stage, the number of opinions received increased significantly, which shows that all sectors of society attach importance to and pay attention to this law. In addition to continuing to put forward opinions on the scope of application of the draft, the short-term labor contract, the probation period and the standard of economic compensation, the opinions at this stage mainly reflect the following aspects:

First, the purpose of labor contract legislation should seek a balance between the rights and interests of workers and the rights and interests of enterprises. Some opinions suggest that law is the regulator of social relations and social interests, and any legislation is the allocation of rights and obligations and social interests. Legislators must find a combination point among multiple interest subjects and strive to find a balance of interests among various interest subjects, especially between the opposite parties in the same contradiction. As far as labor relations are concerned, the laborer is weak at any time. However, if legislation excessively expands the rights and interests of laborers and increases the responsibility of enterprises, it will bind the autonomy of employing people in enterprises, make it difficult to implement flexible management of survival of the fittest, affect the optimal allocation of human resources, and ultimately affect the market competitiveness of enterprises. "If the skin doesn’t exist, the hair will be attached." If the enterprise collapses, the workers will lose their jobs, and it is impossible to protect the rights and interests of workers. On the other hand, if the protection of workers’ rights and interests is not in place and there are too few requirements for corporate responsibility, it will affect the supply of labor force and is not conducive to the formation of a high-quality and healthy workforce. Therefore, labor contract legislation should establish a correct legislative concept, find an appropriate balance between citizens’ labor rights and interests and employers’ rights and interests, and ensure that labor relations are not unbalanced.

Two, in some cases, the existence of oral labor contracts should be allowed. The form of labor contract cannot be limited to written form. Now is the information age, and there are many forms of signing contracts. Labor contracts should be allowed to use electronic documents, oral contracts and other forms. As long as factual labor relations exist, they should be protected by law, and the emphasis on written forms may be detrimental to protecting the interests of workers. In particular, for part-time employment, employment with a short contract period or the contents of the contract have not changed much, it should be allowed to sign the contract orally.

Third, everyone has different views on the provisions of non-competition. Some people think that if the employer needs to keep business secrets, it can agree on non-competition when signing a labor contract with the employee, and at the same time agree with the employee to pay economic compensation for non-competition when the labor contract is terminated or dissolved. Some people think that the restriction of non-competition is not conducive to the flow of talents, and the termination of the labor contract means that the workers will lose their jobs, so it is suggested to cancel the restriction of non-competition. Some people think that the standard of liquidated damages for non-competition in the draft is too low, which will inevitably lead to the consequences of malicious poaching between enterprises in the same industry; Some people think that the economic compensation paid by the employer is too high, and it is suggested to refer to the non-competition clauses of other countries and modify the economic compensation to 50% of the annual wage income. If the laborer violates the non-competition restriction, in addition to paying liquidated damages, he should also pay compensation if he has caused economic losses to the enterprise.

Four, some people think that the provisions of the draft on the conclusion of a labor contract without a written form may be abused. If this provision is made, some workers may deliberately not sign a labor contract with the employer to achieve the purpose of signing an open-ended labor contract. It is suggested that the situation of not concluding a labor contract in written form should be clarified. Some people also think that this provision will use the employer to apply an open-ended labor contract in disguise without signing a written labor contract deliberately to achieve the purpose of arbitrarily dissolving the labor contract. Because according to the provisions of article 32 of the draft, the employer is subject to fewer restrictions when it terminates the open-ended labor contract. It is not conducive to achieving the original intention of stabilizing labor-employment relations and effectively protecting the legitimate rights and interests of workers.

Five, the labor contract law shall limit the overtime work of the employer. Many workers report that some enterprises now work overtime regularly and universally. Some workers work more than ten hours a day, six days or even seven days a week, and there is no overtime pay. Some enterprises calculate overtime when determining the workload, and they can’t finish the work quota without overtime, so as to maliciously avoid paying overtime, which seriously damages the rights and interests of workers and affects their health.

Six, the draft should make a special chapter on collective contracts. Some trade union organizations and the masses have suggested that a collective contract is an agreement on the rights, responsibilities and obligations of both employers and employees. Collective contract is the basis of labor contract and the soul of labor contract law. The practice in many countries has proved that the collective contract is an effective measure to ensure the workers’ negotiating status, and it is also the cornerstone to stabilize labor relations. At the present stage, when the supply and demand of labor force in China are unbalanced and workers are in a weak position, the measure to coordinate labor relations and make them harmonious is to promote and standardize collective contracts. Therefore, while legislating to standardize the labor contract, we should also standardize the collective contract. At present, it is difficult to introduce the collective contract law, so we should make a special chapter on the collective contract in the labor contract law.

Seven, the legislation should be clear about the supervision responsibility of the labor and social security department on the labor contract. Many problems in labor relations are not that there is no law, but that the law is not enforced. The provisions of the labor law have been relatively comprehensive, but problems such as arbitrarily terminating labor contracts, defaulting on wages, and not giving employees social insurance still occur in practice, indicating that the law has not been implemented well. There are laws that are not enforced, and no matter how good the laws are, it is useless. Some opinions suggest that law enforcement agencies should be given more effective law enforcement power, and at the same time, it is clear that safeguarding the rights and interests of workers is the statutory duty of the labor security department. If the labor department fails to perform its statutory duties, it should bear corresponding legal responsibilities. The provisions of the draft on the responsibility of labor and social security departments are not clear enough, so it is suggested that legislation should make clear provisions on this.

Eight, continue to discuss the issue of labor dispatch, put forward opinions and suggestions. Some suggestions should further regulate labor dispatch. First, improve the entry threshold of labor dispatch; The second is to clarify under what conditions, in which positions and types of work, the employer can use the form of labor dispatch; The third is to clearly divide the responsibilities of labor dispatching units and receiving units; Fourth, clearly stipulate the time limit for labor dispatch, and prohibit employers from using dispatched labor for a long time; Fifth, strict legal responsibility should be imposed, and severe punishment should be imposed on the labor dispatching unit and the receiving unit for shirking each other or maliciously colluding to infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of workers.
(Provided by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) Legal Affairs Committee)