When I sat down to chat with Mamoru Hosoda, he was already talking about the metaverse, and everyone was talking about Facebook's name change. Hosoda was promoting his latest film, a modern reinterpretation of Beauty and the Beast that was set in a metaverse-like virtual world. He didn't expect Facebook to change their name during the promotional campaign.
Hosoda's animated film, Mirai, was nominated for best animated picture at the Academy Awards. He has been exploring the idea of virtual worlds for a while. He began directing with a pair ofDigimon movies, and then released Summer Wars, in which a rogue artificial intelligence wreaks havoc on a virtual world. The idea of the internet caught him by surprise, he says.
The internet has changed a lot in the two decades since the debut ofDigimon Adventure. The film uses its classic inspiration as a way of exploring the dual lives people often live online, starring a shy young girl from a small village who becomes a world-famous singer inside of a virtual space known as U.
It's a clever take on Beauty and the Beast, with a mysterious, monstrous figure who is more than they seem, but more than that, it's a poignant story about our always-online culture. It was a chance for Hosoda to update a fairy tale he long admired, and also to update his vision of what a global virtual world might one day look like. U is a virtual town square filled with skyscrapers and 5 billion users, which has become the kind of virtual town square that Jack Dorsey could only dream of. You are almost there if you think of it like Times Square crossed with a game.
With the movie coming to theaters in the US this week, I talked to Hosoda about the movie, the evolution of his ideas about the internet, and where the metaverse might go from here.
Noupscale is a file on thechorusasset.com.
Mamoru Hosoda is the director of the Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast".
The photo was taken by Stefania M. D'Alessandro.
This isn't the first time you've tackled these topics. What keeps you reading about virtual worlds and the internet?
The theme of the internet was the one that I remember creating movies about in the 2000s. I was fascinated by the idea that the big events that occur in this space can affect our reality as we understand it. The internet seemed like it was for a younger generation, and I felt like it had the hope of younger kids breaking the old values that we had and creating a new world. The idea of the internet caught me.
A lot has happened in the last 20 years with the internet, and a lot of the things that were science fiction are now reality. How have your feelings changed? Do you have the same optimism?
The internet has changed a lot in the last 20 years. One of the biggest changes is the idea that we all interact with the internet in some way. The internet affects your life in many ways. Our reality and the other reality that exists in the internet world have become much closer in the last 20 years than they were when the internet was younger. We carry a lot of our issues into the internet space. A lot of parents say, "Well the internet is bad, and we don't want you on the internet." and they might take their kid's iPad away. I believe that the internet is not necessarily bad, but it is some of the more negative sides of us as a species. The issue isn't so much the internet but us as humans, and how this anonymity changes us and changes behavior.
I think that the internet remains the same, and that the younger generation will always find a new way to use it to push the status quo further. I think there is still hope.
What was the starting point for the girl? Did you want to explore this topic again and the story fit well, or did you start with a different story and come up with the metaverse concept?
When I was younger, I loved the story of Beauty and the Beast. I think the idea of re-interpretation of Beauty and the Beast came first. What fascinated me about this story was how the values seemed to be different in a number of ways; what we think is pretty turns out to be ugly, and what we think is beautiful on the inside. 30 years ago, I wanted to make my interpretation of Beauty and the Beast. It took me 30 years to do it.
I realized that the internet and Beauty and the Beast share the same idea of being in two different places. In Beauty and the Beast, the beast has a violent exterior, but what is inside is quite different. With the invention of the internet, we have a version of ourselves that is in reality and another that is in the internet. I thought that the narrative and a lot of the themes would be able to work and come forward because there is a similar duality happening.
What was the hold up? Is it just finding the right way to tell the story?
I've tried to explore certain concepts from Beauty and the Beast in the past, but this is the first time I've consciously taken it to this level. Wolf Children, where we have a wolf man falling in love with a woman, and Boy and the Beast, where a father and son tell a Beauty and the Beast story, are both examples of how a father and son tell a story. I have tried to explore the issue in my filmography, but this is the first time I really went for it.
It took 30 years due to the fact that a lot of the shifts that happened around us in the world can be traced back to Disney's interpretation from 30 years ago. If you trace the original work back to it, you'll see that the definition of beauty was very male-dominated. There were only a few ways that women could check out what it meant to be beautiful.
I think Disney explored the idea of the beast having two sides in their version 30 years ago. I think that the concept of beauty is related to the idea of duality, where the hero has to overcome obstacles to gain strength and almost feed it to herself, and in many ways the way that she exerts this strength is very beautiful.
What was it like figuring out how the virtual world in the movie would work? Were you aiming for something that felt plausible, that viewers could relate to with all of the tech they use in their lives, or were you going for something more futuristic and sci-fi?
In the last 20 years, I think the internet has changed a lot, and if you look at some of my earlier movies, I chose a white backdrop. It felt incomplete and vast, like it was the frontier. If you will, a blank canvas. It was open to all, not just boys, and anyone who had something to contribute.
The internet has become closer to reality as it has shifted a bit. We ended up with what you see in U, which is a space that doesn't have an up or a down, a left or a right. These structures are skyscraper-like. It feels a little bigger. It is not as open as it was in my previous films. It feels like the center of the world, but it is hard to tell where the horizon begins and ends. The internet has evolved into that visual translation.
Is it like that when you go on the internet? Is it just overwhelmed?
When I used to go on the internet to search for things, I used to feel a sense of discovery, but I haven't felt that way in a long time. It has lost its sense of being a frontier, and perhaps the metaverse will fill that void and become the new frontier. I feel bad for the younger generations because they don't have as much of a frontier to push innovation and the status quo in the internet space.
:noupscale,cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorusasset/file/BELLE_Image03.
The metaverses or virtual worlds that exist now or the ones that companies are talking about building in the future are always very commercially driven. They have a lot of things to buy. There isn't a lot of that in U. I wonder if that was intentional and why you went that way.
The internet is a representation of what a global world might look like, where languages and borders don't play as much of a role as they used to. It is intended to capture that sense of humor.
I question if it is possible, and that ties into the commercialism of the internet space. The internet is heavily influenced by the mega-corporations. They are a global corporation, but they are also very much US-based companies that are in charge of what direction the internet is going. I believe that we need a space or reality that can help the corporation.
The social media icons were part of the new U-verse. The various social media networks are part of the platform. I believe that a leap needs to happen for us to have this world.
What has it been like promoting a movie about a global, virtual world and seeing all of the companies you mentioned say they want to build one of their own?
I didn't think Facebook would change their name during our campaign. In some ways, I was trying to depict something that was a bit closer to reality than fiction would have you believe. The shift is happening in real time, as the movie is spreading throughout the world. There is still a bit of a gap in the way that you can immerse yourself in a world without virtual reality glasses. A lot of the issues that were raised in the movie will come into play as we continue to make this transition. Hopefully it will speak to the audience in that way as we move into the next phase of the internet.
The movie will be showing in IMAX theaters in the US on January 12th.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
