好英语网《星球大战》为何总在中国遇冷？
The assault was swift and sustained: 500 Stormtroopers stood on the Great Wall. X-Wings swooped into Shanghai and Beijing. Lightsabers crackled in theaters across the country.
攻势迅猛而持续：500名帝国冲锋队员站在长城上。X翼战机在上海和北京城中穿梭。光剑在全国各地的影院里交错，发出噼啪的声响。
And millions of moviegoers responded: This again? Who cares?
数百万观影者的反应是：又是这些？谁在乎？
2015年，为了给《星球大战：原力觉醒》的上映造势，数百名风暴兵出现在长城。
One after another, “Star Wars” movies have flopped in China, defying efforts to bring one of the most successful franchises in history into a market that has printed money for the heroes, monsters and robots of other films. The latest “Star Wars” movie, “The Rise of Skywalker,” has followed the trend by grossing nearly a billion dollars worldwide and barely breaking $20 million in China.
《星球大战》(Star Wars)是历史上最成功的系列电影之一，然而，尽管努力打入中国，它在这个为其他电影中的英雄、怪兽和机器人贡献了大量票房的市场接连遭遇惨败。最新的《星球大战》电影《天行者崛起》(The Rise of Skywalker)仍未摆脱这一趋势，在全球范围内获得了近10亿美元的票房，在中国的票房只是勉强突破了2000万美元。
The episodes that came before it didn’t do much better, for reasons that include history, geopolitics and a distinct lack of the nostalgia that drove viewers in the United States. Thousands of Americans lined up in costumes for each premiere: “The Force Awakens” opened to almost a quarter-billion dollars in the United States in 2015; two years later, “The Last Jedi” made nearly as much; and “The Rise of Skywalker” raked in $177 million in its first few days last month.
之前几部也好不到哪里去，原因包括历史、地缘政治，以及中国观众明显缺乏美国观众的那种怀旧情绪。2015年，《原力觉醒》(The Force Awakens)在美国的首映票房接近2.5亿美元；两年后，《最后的绝地武士》(The Last Jedi)也取得了同样的成绩；《天行者崛起》(The Rise of Skywalker)上月上映的头几天就获得了1.77亿美元的票房。
In China, those movies opened to $52 million, $28 million and $12 million, respectively.
在中国，这些影片的首映票房分别为5200万美元、2800万美元和1200万美元。
Chen Tao, who manages China’s biggest fan website, Star Wars Fans China, estimated that China’s fan clubs have fewer than 200 members in all.
管理中国最大星战迷网站“星球大战中文网”的陈弢估计，中国影迷俱乐部的会员总数不足200人。
As ticket sales for “The Last Jedi” dwindled in China a few years ago, a college student in Beijing, Xu Meng, told The South China Morning Post that the filmmakers should try new stories, new characters — and a new name. “If the new ‘Star Wars’ sequels were not named after ‘Star Wars,’ it would be better,” she said.
几年前，随着《最后的绝地武士》在中国的票房下滑，北京大学生徐梦（音）在接受《南华早报》采访时说，电影人应该尝试新故事、新角色——以及一个新名字。“新的《星球大战》续集不冠以《星球大战》这个名字会更好一点，”她说。
Another student, Lang Yifei, called the series “heavy and gloomy,” adding: “I think they need to give up on the old stories.”
另一名学生郎逸飞（音）说这个系列“沉重阴郁”，还说，“我认为他们应该放弃老故事。”
The diminishing returns from the series in China are in spite of Disney’s aggressive marketing efforts. The company deployed miniature Stormtroopers and life-size starfighters, and collaborated with Chinese partners on a host of projects, including translated books and a music video by a Chinese-Korean boy band.
尽管迪士尼做出了积极的营销努力，但该系列在中国的收益仍在不断减少。公司用上了微型帝国冲锋队员和真人大小的星际战机，并与中国合作伙伴在一系列项目上展开合作，包括翻译相关书籍，制作一个中韩男子组合的音乐视频。
The campaign underscores how much money is at stake in the Chinese film market, now the second largest in the world. The latest “Avengers” movie grossed more than half a billion dollars there, and series like “Transformers” and “The Fast and the Furious” consistently make hundreds of millions of dollars.
这样的行动突显出在中国电影市场赚钱有多么重要。这里目前已是全球第二大电影市场。最新的《复仇者联盟》(Avengers)系列电影在中国的票房收入超过5亿美元，《变形金刚》(Transformers)和《速度与激情》(The Fast and Furious)等系列电影的票房收入持续达到数亿美元。
The difference, film historians and industry experts said, is that movies like “Hobbs & Shaw” or “Jurassic World” can mostly stand apart from the stories they followed, and that Chinese audiences have grown up with series like Marvel’s comic-book heroes.
电影历史学家和业内专家表示，区别在于《速度与激情：特别行动》(Hobbs & Shaw)和《侏罗纪世界》(Jurassic World)这样的续集基本上可以独立于前作而存在，而且中国观众是伴随着漫威(Marvel)漫画英雄等系列影片长大的。
But almost no one in China grew up with the original “Star Wars.”
但在中国，几乎没有人是伴随着最早的《星球大战》长大的。
“That basically wiped out the first six films of the franchise,” said Michael Berry, a professor of Chinese literature and film at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It didn’t have the opportunity to get its hooks in.”
“这样一来整个系列的前六部基本上就被抹去了，”加州大学洛杉矶分校(University of California, Los Angeles)中国文学与电影教授白睿文(Michael Berry)说，“没机会让人对这个产生瘾头。”
With “somewhat abstruse, complicated jargons and plots,” said Ying Xiao, a professor of China studies and film at the University of Florida, “it is quite difficult for a Chinese audience who was not raised along with sequels to comprehend, digest and appreciate the attraction.”
这部电影“有些深奥、复杂的术语和情节”，佛罗里达大学(University of Florida)中国研究与电影教授肖莹说。“对于没有看过整个系列的中国观众来说，很难理解、消化和欣赏它的魅力。”
And while the first three films inspired untold tons of merchandise — keeping interest alive after the credits rolled — the movies remained essentially unknown in China, except as picture storybooks that riffed on “Star Wars” images with no relation to the movies.
虽然前三部电影带来了无数周边商品，在上映期结束后依然保持着人们对影片的兴趣，但在中国，这些电影基本上还是默默无闻，除了一些照搬《星球大战》中的形象，却与电影本身无关的连环画。
Parents did not pass action figures, lunchboxes or VHS tapes on to their children. By the time the prequel trilogy was released around the turn of the century, with Chinese theaters opening up, Skywalker was still a foreign word.
家长不会把自己的《星球大战》玩偶、午餐盒或录像带传给孩子。在世纪之交，随着中国影院的开放，《星球大战》前传三部曲在中国上映，那个时候，“天行者”还是一个陌生的词。
“Most people would say that Disney did too little too late, that ‘Star Wars’ was dead on arrival,” said Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California who studies Chinese society and cinema.
南加州大学研究中国社会和电影的骆思典(Stanley Rosen)教授说：“多数人会说迪士尼做得太少、太晚了，《星球大战》一上映就死了。”
But the company made “semiheroic efforts,” he said, to make its latest films work in China.
但他说，迪士尼为了让它最新的电影能在中国上映，费了“一些劲”。
A spokesman for Disney did not respond to a request for comment.
迪士尼的发言人没有回应置评请求。
Ms. Xiao said that the current trade war hampered both Hollywood and the Chinese film industry, saying nationalistic sentiments made it “more challenging and formidable nowadays for films to break down the walls and to cross the national, cultural boundaries.”
肖莹说，当前的贸易战拖累了好莱坞和中国电影产业的发展，民族主义情绪让“眼下的电影要打破壁垒、跨越国家和文化边界变得更具挑战性，也更为艰巨。”
China’s box office has recently been dominated by homegrown competitors, Ms. Xiao noted. Those include “Ip Man 4,” the latest in a martial arts saga, and “The Wandering Earth,” an example of “hard” science fiction that Mr. Rosen said is more popular in China than the “science fiction soap opera” of “Star Wars.”
她还指出，近些日子里，国产片已经占据了中国电影票房的大头。其中包括最新的武打片《叶问4》和《流浪地球》，骆思典表示，后者是“硬”科幻小说比“科幻肥皂剧”《星球大战》更受中国观众欢迎的实例。
And over the last decade, China’s film industry has matured across production, directing, marketing and acting, said Marc Ganis, the president of the entertainment company Jiaflix. He noted that “Star Wars” had struggled in other Asian countries with tougher competition at home, like Japan and South Korea.
娱乐公司家赋(Jiaflix)总裁马克·加尼斯(Marc Ganis)说，在过去十年里，中国的电影产业在制作、导演、营销和表演方面已经成熟。他指出，《星球大战》在日本和韩国等其他亚洲国家也遭遇了来自本国电影更激烈的竞争。
For the “Star Wars” spinoff “Rogue One,” Disney filmmakers cast two stars well-known to Asian audiences — Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen — to small effect.
对于《星球大战》的衍生电影《星球大战外传：侠盗一号》(Rogue One)，迪士尼采用了亚洲观众熟知的两位明星——甄子丹和姜文，但收效甚微。
In a 2018 interview, Mr. Yen attributed the film’s struggles in China to its long back story, which he compared with the relative simplicity — and success — of comic-book movies. “Marvel is a lot easier to understand,” he said. “‘Star Wars,’ there’s a whole universe out there.”
在2018年的一次采访中，甄子丹将该片在中国的失败归因于其漫长的背景故事，他把它与漫画改编电影的相对简单以及取得的成功进行了比较。“漫威电影理解起来要容易得多，”他说，“而《星球大战》里有一整个宇宙。”
As if to prove his point, “Avengers: Endgame” made more in its 2019 opening weekend in China than all the “Star Wars” premieres combined.
仿佛就是为了佐证他的观点，《复仇者联盟4：终局之战》(Avengers: Endgame)2019年在中国上映首周末的票房，超过了所有《星球大战》首映票房之和。
And some selling points of the original trilogy — like the special effects that awed audiences in the ’70s and ’80s — are more charming than revolutionary in the 21st century, said Aynne Kokas, a professor at the University of Virginia and the author of “Hollywood Made in China.”
弗吉尼亚大学教授、《中国制造好莱坞》(Hollywood Made in China)一书的作者孔安怡(Aynne Kokas)说，正传三部曲的一些卖点——比如在70年代和80年代令观众叹为观止的特效——到了21世纪更多的是可爱，没有什么革命性。
“‘Star Wars’ in the West is really a kind of generational phenomenon,” she said, “the experience of sharing your experience with your kids.” She noted that the arc of the series was largely about family and full of callbacks, an evolving mythology and generational transitions.
“在西方，《星球大战》真的是一种代际现象，”她说。“是一种可以与子女分享经历的体验。”她还指出，该系列的内容主要是关于家庭，充满回忆、不断演变的神话和世代变迁。
“What we’ve seen is a lot of derivative activity, a lot of derivative characters, efforts to recapture the magic of the original trilogy,” she said. “That hasn’t caught on with audiences” in China.
“我们已经看到了很多衍生品，很多的衍生人物，极力重现正传三部曲的魔力，”她说。在中国，“这没能吸引观众”。
Ms. Kokas said that the character known as Baby Yoda, from the series “The Mandalorian,” was an example of the franchise trying to recreate its greatest hits. “Yoda is gone, and we’re trying to bring the magic of ‘Star Wars’ into the next generation,” she said.
孔安怡说，电视连续剧《曼达洛人》(The Mandalorian)中的角色尤达宝宝是星战系列试图重现其经典之作的例子。“现在没有了尤达，我们正在努力将《星球大战》的魔力带入下一代，”她说。