"Cut, not bad." This time, Liu A'dou was directing himself and felt great about it.
The actors didn't have a lot of scenes, so shooting went smoothly.
Ben was really excited because he was acting with his idol. Now he finally realized that Liu A'dou was actually Elsa's agent. What did that mean? It meant he could see his idol all the time from now on. The young man had bounced back from his pain and was facing his new life with energy, sharpening his fighting skills. Still, it didn't stop him from being a fan.
Elsa played a super dramatic high school student in the movie—a real change of pace. But, to Liu A'dou's surprise, Elsa did a fantastic job. Later, he found out Elsa was just imitating her little sister Anna. Anna was a dramatic, innocent little girl, so Elsa just copied her.
No matter what, the filming was smooth. On the other side, Jarvis had already finished a third of the special effects shots—unbelievably efficient. Liu A'dou thought, 'No surprise, this stuff is nothing for Jarvis. It's just a test of his abilities.'
On set, the older wife and younger husband were glued together all day, making everyone else get goosebumps. Most people on set were single, so Liu A'dou and Ada showing off their love was basically torture. Every day, a ton of fiery eyes wanted to burn Liu A'dou to ashes.
But after Ada showed up, everyone worked a lot harder. What could be better than getting attention from a beautiful queen-type? The single guys did their best to show off, so the work moved along faster than ever.
Satisfied—Liu A'dou was absolutely thrilled. So he treated the whole crew to a big meal.
Elsa, Ben, Kailan, Liu A'dou, and Ada sat together. Ben clearly still wasn't used to being so close to his goddess. In the movie, he had scenes with Elsa and was always super nervous—he hadn't adjusted at all.
It made Kailan think Elsa wanted to steal her underling. Both royals, Kailan's princess attitude was even bigger than Elsa's. Plus, since there were only two Green Elves on Earth, Kailan basically treated Ben as her personal property. It was like one of those proud, tsundere princesses you see in Japanese anime.
Elsa was helpless, dragged into the mess between Ben and Kailan. But the truth was, Elsa wasn't even a little interested in this kind of puppy love.
"This salad is made especially for you guys," Liu A'dou said, pointing at the veggie salad, trying to pull everyone's attention to the food. Elsa was nice to look at, but Liu A'dou worried that if things kept going like this, Ben would starve to death sooner or later.
Everyone ate happily and praised Liu A'dou for being so generous.
This movie depended completely on these crew members. Only with their support could filming go so smoothly. Liu A'dou didn't mind treating everyone. Besides, this Transformers had a way bigger scale than any of the four movies made on Earth, and the story had a lot of changes.
The plot of this movie went like this: Elsa's character, the female lead, had parents who ran off because of debt, the house got repossessed by the bank, and she was left with nothing but a beat-up old car—even the bank didn't want it. That car turned out to be Bumblebee, the first Transformer to appear in this story.
Jedi Ben, while investigating the AllSpark, got badly hurt after being chased by the Decepticons. He crash-landed on Earth and met Elsa. To protect them, Bumblebee revealed his true form and fought the pursuing Decepticons.
Later, while Ben was recovering, Bumblebee explained his own background, the conflict between Autobots and Decepticons, and a bit of their shared history. There were also some cool scenes of old cars being restored.
Once Ben got better, he told Elsa and Bumblebee that they had to call in more Autobots to Earth to recover the AllSpark, because the evil Decepticons and the Sith had already learned the AllSpark was on Earth, and they'd be arriving soon.
As soon as the words were spoken, the black-clad Sith warrior Kailan made a cool entrance, quickly defeating Bumblebee and the injured Jedi to steal the map to the AllSpark. With no other choice, Bumblebee and the Jedi gave Elsa the mission to contact the other Autobots. The female lead went on a tough adventure and finally found the Autobots' leader, Optimus Prime. Then came the epic team-up of the justice side, and at the end, the big final battle between good and evil.
There were three main highlights: the Jedi, the Transformers, and Elsa without any superpowers.
In the movie, Elsa couldn't use any powers, so she had to overcome a lot of difficulties. The biggest challenge was having no money—she had to work at a supermarket pushing carts to make ends meet. For the first ten minutes or so, A'dou copied parts of The Terminal and gave Elsa a homeless but never discouraged lifestyle. Elsa was cheerful and optimistic and never let trouble beat her. Even without superpowers, Elsa was never less than any other mutant. The message was clear: don't give up. What matters isn't having powers but your attitude toward life.
The Jedi didn't get much focus in the movie—the main thing shown was their awesome swordsmanship, especially at the end when the Sith took on the Marines alone. It was basically Liu A'dou's version of taking down S.H.I.E.L.D. agents all over again. For regular troops, it was impossible to deal with a Force user's defense and bullet reflection. If you didn't shoot, nothing happened. If you did, your own bullets would bounce back. Ordinary soldiers could only lose or die.
Basically, everyone was sure the movie would be a hit. Confidence was sky-high. Liu A'dou already had Jarvis make the first trailer.
The official Frozen website changed overnight. A huge link sent users straight to a new page, and they were immediately drawn in by the cool robots. 'What is this?'
Transformers?
The mechanical-looking title was really striking. On the homepage, there were tons of black silhouettes—those were all unrevealed character intros. Only two were lit up: the female lead Elsa and the first-to-appear Bumblebee. Both had simple profiles, but most users just wanted to watch the video first.
The video was short, just over ten seconds. In that brief moment, a sports car transformed into a robot—it was awesome. The otakus' eyes nearly popped out. Everyone was blown away—what a wild idea! People in this world had never seen Transformers before, so the shock was next-level. And Jarvis's special effects were so real, lots of people thought there really was a planet called Cybertron out in the universe.
The Transformers' backstory was top-tier. After reading the synopsis, everyone learned that there were two robot factions on Cybertron at war over energy: the warlike Decepticons and the peace-loving Autobots. Of course, the factions weren't fixed—any robot could switch sides if their beliefs changed, but mainly it was Decepticons who switched to the Autobots.
This setup was amazing. Plus, it was all about aliens, so the trailer instantly went viral. People especially liked the first character, Bumblebee. Elsa's fans were super curious to see what she'd be like without superpowers in this movie.
The movie finally got everyone's attention. Sure, there were a few people saying it was just another alien copycat film not worth watching, and complaining that cars couldn't really transform. But other than getting roasted by fans, that kind of talk had no traction. The fans were all looking forward to it.