The recently released promotional video of "Charles the Tank Engine" has become unexpectedly popular. On the one hand, everyone feels that this game plays on the underworld plot of "Thomas the Tank Engine". On the other hand, many friends think that Charles is actually not as scary as Thomas - this It resonated with the author, and combined with his own feelings and experiences, he wrote this analysis article. I am writing this casually, so please bear with me. Before we begin, please enjoy the promotional video of "Charles the Tank Engine".
"Charles the Tank Engine" is a horror game. To be more specific, it is "driving a train to fight a train": you drive an old-fashioned water tank steam locomotive that can be equipped with machine guns and other weapons to fight a monster with a ferocious face and spider legs. train. Although you can upgrade the firepower and armor of your little train, after all, the train can only run on the rails. The little train Charles relies on spider legs to get rid of the constraints of the tracks. The video also focuses on showing the process of you escaping back to the train while using a machine gun to repel Charles, and it is only repelled rather than killed, further increasing the sense of horror that terror can strike at any time.
If the developers didn’t refer to the various underworld secondary creations surrounding Thomas, I don’t believe it. The old steam locomotive with spider shape may itself come from Thomas’s spider-shaped robot modified by an expert (of course it may also be someone’s spider-shaped robot). Thomas' Spider MOD):
Since "The Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim", Thomas has become a frequent visitor to the MOD industry, playing in "Monster Hunter World", "Sekiro", "Resident Evil 2 Remake", "Resident Evil 8", "Kingdom Hearts 3", etc., and often He is a BOSS-level ruthless guy. Under the dim light, the huge Thomas appears as a BOSS, and he does have a sense of power. Although the power of the Dynamax Pikachu is given a strong attack, it is not small, but Thomas That face is indeed more suitable for being a BOSS in some more underworld environments. Compared to Thomas, Charles the Train, who is truly the boss of the hunt-and-kill horror game, although ferocious enough, personally feels a little lacking in spookiness.
Thomas MOD for "Resident Evil 2 Remake"
Since we analyze the cause of fear, we first exclude the train part. After all, although this kind of train is old-fashioned, it is normal, and it even appears in amusement parks because of its short, stubby and cute shape. So what about the train’s long face? Actually, it’s okay. The cars in “Cars” all have human faces, but it has nothing to do with being scary or spooky. Then the remaining problem obviously lies in the details of the face.
There's nothing eerie about the cars with mouths and eyes in "Cars"
Both Charles and Thomas transformed the front end of the steam locomotive into a human face, with a round face and big round eyes. The difference is that Thomas' design is more dedicated to making him look more like a chubby person. The face of a child is too cute (at least this is the original intention of the designer), while the face of Charles combines the horror elements of zombies and alien monsters. Charles, who wants to go a scary route, is not as scary as Thomas, who goes for a child-like and cute style. Isn't it a bit shameful? It's really not the case, because Thomas really hit the ground accidentally and has a relatively strong horror element - even if the designer's original intention was not like this.
This official picture can clearly see the facial details of Charles the Train
"Thomas and Friends", which aired in 1984, used real-life stop-motion animations for models. Although it was more economical than the traditional animation production method at the time, it was also due to the material issues of the model itself and the steel-like body of the car. From the moment Thomas was born, his swollen face lacked the softness of a real child (even a child in a puppet show), and because it was white - as a face, this pure whiteness is almost equivalent to paleness, In dark situations, it will appear grayish white, giving people a bloodless look. This kind of gray complexion based on morbidity or even death often comes from reality, and is closer to life than Charles's zombie complexion that only exists in works of art.
The relatively normal Thomas the Tank Engine should also be the official promotional image.
The expression in the animation is...
Since Thomas's face lacks softness, in order to show the apple muscles of his cheeks where his smile always resides, it brings a sense of stiffness - generally speaking, as long as a person does not take hyaluronic acid, the apple muscles only appear when he smiles. If it is highlighted and raised all the time, it will give people the feeling of smiling but not smiling. Thomas and his friends all have such apple-shaped skin. Some trains with adult faces look even more attractive against the background of such apple-shaped skin. People feel sinister and even eerie.
Thomas's friend Gordon's smile
red train james smile
Although we understand that the faces of models and toys cannot be so detailed, no matter what expression the apple muscles are bulging for a long time, coupled with the pure white or gray complexion, this stiff smile can easily be associated with death, such as freezing. Even if we have never seen the dead, paper figures, etc., the fear and discomfort caused by humans avoiding death in order to increase their survival rate have also been retained in human genes. In a sense, this is the reason why some older friends feel eerie about the big-headed men in our traditional culture.
The traditional Chinese folk big-headed man also has a "permanent smile"
However, now many actresses who are keen on taking hyaluronic acid are still active on the screen after they are a little older and have the same apple muscles of Thomas and Big Head. Everyone has gradually become accustomed to the idea that such stiff apple muscles can also grow in life. The setting of "on a human face" may subtly alleviate this fear to a certain extent. Even so, Thomas's towering and bulging apple muscles still engraved stiffness on his face, and some angles would remind people of a witch's high cheekbones.
Because Charles the Train wants to highlight its huge mouth, there is no room for the apple muscles. Even if the corners of his mouth are always turned up, what you feel is a sinister smile that is in control of the prey rather than the eerie feeling caused by the stiffness - and The facial expressions mentioned above are similar. The ferocious feeling brought by the mouth full of sharp teeth comes more from beasts or even man-made monsters, which are far away from people’s lives; but human beings’ instinctive avoidance of corpses and the derived reactions Stiff fear, as mentioned above, is engraved in genes.
Another similarity and difference between Thomas and Charles is that they both have round eyes. In terms of shape, Charles should be based on Thomas’s round eyes, which may come from cute images such as babies or cats. However, it may be because the train cannot turn around and requires more room for the eyes to move. Thomas’s black eyes Jin has a lot less Byakugan Jin, which makes Thomas (and his friends) only look at each other squarely when they face each other, and most of the time they look sideways, making many of them look a bit sinister. And this kind of eyes with big round eyes and small black round eyes are in harmony with the dead fish eyes in both spirit and form. Therefore, although the eyes rotate frequently, they still feel dull, empty and even lifeless.
Charles, who was originally designed as a monster, has pure gray-white eyes. This setting is very common in traditional Eastern and Western works. Due to the opacity of the corneas from corpses, it can easily arouse people's fear of the death instinct. feel. However, because Charles's eyes are too big and a little bulging, sometimes due to the shadows, it doesn't feel like they are all staring intimidatingly with gray eyes.
The title picture of "Charles the Tank Engine", because the shadow makes the eyes look less pure gray
Generally speaking, compared to Thomas, Charles's face design tries his best to be closer to corpses and monsters to show their ferocity. However, compared with the lifeless eyes of Thomas and his friends, the stiff smiles due to the always bulging apple muscles, and the pale/grey faces, the fear is still a little worse. The former emphasizes the extreme evil, while the latter emphasizes the evil. The stiff external feeling triggers the inexplicable fear of death that is left in the genes. The difference between the two feelings is probably that after encountering a vicious dog chasing people and biting people on the street, you find the corpse next to you when passing by a person doing errands. The paper-tied boy and girl suddenly smiled at you...
Of course, these feelings are mainly from the perspective of adults, because adults and children have different views on many things, so many children are very happy to watch Thomas, but from Thomas's various "underworlds" From the perspective of "secondary creation", it also shows that most adults recognize the fear caused by Thomas' stiffness.
Put Thomas's face on the face of Mrs. Bashiku from "Resident Evil 8", can you feel the oppression?
Then replace Thomas with another face? Is there no fear at all?
But even if Thomas is scared, Thomas and his friends in the original book are still harmless trains on Sodor Island. In "Charles the Little Train", you not only have to be alert at all times to guard against the monster-turned-Charles, but will your little yellow train, which has been strengthened by parts obtained by defeating monsters, eventually let you go? Driving may also be a question mark...
Is it really okay to enhance the train on an island where it can turn into a monster?