When the movie happens to be an adaptation of one of the most beloved children’s novels of all time, the potential for disappointment looms especially large. But director Mark Osborne’s “The Little Prince” turns out to be a respectful, lovingly reimagined take on Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classic 1943 tale, which adds all manner of narrative bells and whistles to the author’s slender, lyrical story of friendship between a pilot and a mysterious extraterrestrial voyager.

　　当影片恰巧是根据深受广大儿童喜爱的小说改编过来的时候，(期望越大)人们的失望可能也就越大。但事实证明，由马克·奥斯本执导的《小王子》是对安东尼·德·圣埃克苏佩里1943年经典之作的重现——既尊重原著，又十分有爱。故事讲述了一名飞行员和和一个来自于异星球的神秘漫游者之间的友谊。电影以形形色色的叙事，为原作者情节简单、抒情诗调的故事锦上添花。

　　Published a year before Saint-Exupery disappeared somewhere over Corsica in his Lockheed P-38 fighter plane, “The Little Prince” took its inspiration from an earlier air disaster, in which the author, trying to break the record time in a Paris-Saigon race, crashed in the Sahara desert, near the Nile delta. From that, Saint-Exupery spun a fanciful, faintly ethereal fable about a downed airman who finds himself face-to-face with a curious, blond-haired young boy who claims to be the sole inhabitant of a distant asteroid (#B-612), and who regales the pilot with tales of the interplanetary travels that eventually brought him to earth.

　　《小王子》这本书是圣埃克苏佩里开着自己洛克希德P-38号战斗机在科西嘉岛某个地方消失前一年出版的，灵感来源于早前的一场空难，那场灾难中，作者试图打破巴黎到西贡飞行比赛的记录。但却意外坠落在尼罗河三角洲附近的撒哈拉沙漠中。从那件事中，圣埃克苏佩里构想出一个关于落难的飞行员和一个小男孩面对面的离奇、有些许不现实的寓言故事。这个好奇的小男孩有着一头金发，自称是一个遥远星球(B-612)的唯一居住者，他和这名飞行员分享自己星际旅行的经历，并最终把他带回了地球。

　　Those adventures consist largely of meetings with puffed-up, self-important adults who imagine themselves to be powerful despots but are, in fact, just orbiting the universe alone on their own similarly uninhabited rocks. But there are also touches of melancholy romance and a darkly poetic ending that can be interpreted as either a salvation or a suicide. Seventy years later, the book’s influence can be seen in everything from “The English Patient”to “The Lego Movie.”

　　这些冒险很大一部分，讲述了小男孩遇见了一些官气十足、自以为举足轻重手握大权的大人，但事实上，他们不过是在自己无人居住的星球上独自徘徊于宇宙罢了。但是故事中也不乏些许忧郁的浪漫情调，和一个腹黑又有诗意的结局，可以被解读为一种救赎或是自杀。70年后，这本书的影响可以从电影《英国病人》细数到《乐高大电影》的方方面面。

　　The book was scarcely enough material for a feature film, which didn’t stop Hollywood from trying one in 1974 — an ill-advised live-action version. For the new film, Osborne (“Kung Fu Panda”) and screenwriters Irena Brignull (“The Boxtrolls”) and Bob Persichetti have taken the generally more effective tack of nesting Saint-Exupery’s story within an elaborate framing device set in the kind of modular modern metropolis prophesied by Jacques Tati’s “Playtime,” full of technology and free of wonder.

　　这本书作为拍电影的素材而言略微单薄不够丰富，但也没阻止1974年好莱坞尝试翻拍真人电影——但是不好意思，这个版本弱爆了。但是在这部新作中，奥斯本(《功夫熊猫》)、编剧伊莲娜·布里格努尔(《盒子怪》)还有鲍勃·佩尔西凯蒂，将圣埃克苏佩里的故事高效的在一个精心制作的道具背景中构造出来，这个以雅克·塔蒂在《梦想乐园》里预言的现代大都市的背景，充满着科技和自由的想象。

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（编辑：何莹莹）