阿湯哥 好萊塢最後的真正巨星

The helicopter had the star’s name painted on it, the letters coming into focus as it landed on the retired aircraft carrier, which was adorned for the occasion with an expansive red carpet and a smattering of fighter jets. Tom Cruise. Top Gun. Maverick.

直升機上漆有這位明星的名字，當它降落在舖有寬闊紅地毯及數架戰機停放的退役航空母艦上時，湯姆克魯斯。捍衛戰士。獨行俠。幾個大字映入眼簾。

It couldn’t have been anyone else.

就是他，不作第二人想。

Decked out in a slim-fitting suit, his hair a little shaggier and his face a little craggier than when he first played Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell more than three decades ago, Cruise took the stage on the USS Midway while Harold Faltermeyer’s iconic theme music played in the background.

比起30多年前首次扮演彼得「獨行俠」米契爾上尉，阿湯哥的頭髮更厚長，臉上皺紋也更多。在哈洛德．佛特邁爾的經典音樂中，穿著合身西裝的阿湯哥登上航空母艦「中途島」號的舞台。

Gesturing to the spectacle around him, including the crowd of fans and media members, Cruise said: “This moment right here, to see everybody at this time, no masks. Everyone. This is, this is pretty epic.”

阿湯哥指著周圍的盛大場面，包括大群粉絲和媒體記者說：「此時此刻，在這看到所有人都沒戴口罩。每個人。這真是太好了。」

It also felt like a time capsule. The three-hour promotional escapade — which included a batch of F-18 fighter jets executing a flyover to the sound of a Lady Gaga song from the film — harkened back to the halcyon days of Hollywood glamour. Days when Disney didn’t think twice about shuttling an aircraft carrier from San Diego to Hawaii for the premiere of Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” in 2001. That kind of extravagance seems almost unthinkable today, when the streaming algorithm and its accompanying digital marketing efforts have replaced the old-fashioned boots-on-the-ground publicity tour with stars circumnavigating the globe, and studios spending millions to turn movie openings into cultural events.

這也讓人感覺像是個時間膠囊。這場長達3小時的宣傳活動，包括一批F-18戰機伴著電影中「女神卡卡」唱的歌曲飛越上空，讓人回想起好萊塢的美好輝煌歲月。2001年，為了麥可貝的《珍珠港》首映會，迪士尼毫不猶豫地從聖地牙哥安排一艘航空母艦前往夏威夷。這種大手筆在今天看來幾乎無法想像，串流媒體演算法及其隨之而來的數位行銷活動，已取代了老式的明星周遊列國親身宣傳，以及製片公司花數百萬美元將電影首映變成文化活動。

Making these events go were the film’s megastars. They are the kind of stars who no longer really exist. Now, it’s the characters that count. Three actors have portrayed Spider-Man and six have donned the Batman cowl for the big screen. Audiences have shown up for all of them. The Avengers may unite to huge box office returns but how much does it matter who’s wearing the tights?

促成這些活動的是主演電影的天王巨星，不復存在的巨星。現在，重要的是角色。演過蜘蛛人的有三人，六名演員曾在大銀幕上披上蝙蝠俠的蒙頭斗篷。觀眾為了他們進電影院。《復仇者聯盟》也許合力帶來巨大的票房營收，但穿上緊身衣的是誰又有多大的差別呢？

Yet there is Cruise, trundling along as if the world hasn’t changed at all. He’s the last remaining global star who still only makes movies for movie theaters. He hasn’t ventured into streaming.

然而，阿湯哥還在，緩緩走來，彷彿世界一點都沒有改變。他是專為電影院拍攝電影，碩果僅存，尚未涉足串流媒體的國際巨星。

There is a moment in “Top Gun: Maverick” where Ed Harris, playing Maverick’s superior, tells him, “The end is inevitable. Your kind is headed to extinction.”

《捍衛戰士：獨行俠》中有一幕，扮演獨行俠上司的艾德哈里斯告訴他：「結局無可避免。你們這類飛官遲早會被淘汰。」

And Cruise, still holding on to that brash self-confidence that made him a movie star four decades ago, grins at him and replies, “Maybe so, sir. But not today.”

依然保持40年前讓自己成為電影明星那種傲慢自信的阿湯哥，露齒而笑：「也許是，長官，但不是今天。」

There are plenty of people in the movie industry who hope he’s right.

電影業有很多人希望他是對的。

俄烏資訊戰仍遠未結束

If the first casualty of war is truth, then the corollary in Ukraine is that information is the first battlefield.

如果在戰爭中第一個傷亡的是真相，那麼在烏克蘭則可想而知，資訊是第一個戰場。

That was where the war began, in early 2022, weeks before Vladimir Putin sent the first rockets, armored vehicles and troops into Ukraine, when he claimed that the massive buildup of troops along Ukraine’s borders was but another military exercise. And that was where the United States and its allies scored their first victories, when they made public intelligence anticipating the invasion and the pretext Putin would use for it.

那就是戰爭開始的地方，2022年初，在俄國總統普亭出動第一批火箭、裝甲車和部隊進入烏克蘭幾周前，他宣稱沿烏克蘭邊界大規模陳兵只不過是另一場軍事演習。而且那也是美國及其盟邦取得頭幾次勝利的地方，這些國家公布情資，預見這場侵略和普亭會用的藉口。

Then, when the invasion began in February, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, opened a second information front. He donned a soldier’s olive-drab T-shirt and issued a torrent of defiant tweets, speeches and images from devastated villages, much of it targeted at Russian audiences. His metamorphosis from a relatively unpopular president to a David defying Goliath has been instrumental in solidifying popular, military and economic support for Ukraine in the United States and Europe.

而後，當侵略在2月開始時，烏克蘭總統澤倫斯基開闢第二條資訊戰線。他穿起軍人的橄欖綠T恤，發表大量不屈不撓的推文、演說和全毀村莊的影像，其中多數針對俄國觀眾。他從一位相對不出名的總統蛻變為對抗歌利亞的大衛，有助於強化歐美人民、軍事和經濟上對烏克蘭的支持。

In these first information battles, the Americans and Ukrainians showed that they had learned the lessons of 2014, when Russia had the upper hand in propaganda, assaulting Crimea and eastern Ukraine while claiming to be responding to pleas from Russian-speaking residents.

在頭幾場資訊戰裡，美國人和烏克蘭人展現出他們從2014年學到教訓，當時俄國在宣傳上占據優勢，一邊攻擊克里米亞和烏東，一邊宣稱是在回應說俄語居民的懇求。

But the information war, like the physical war, is far from decided. Fourteen weeks into the war, many Russians seem to accept Putin’s narrative. Around the world, many countries remain on the sidelines or, like China, are on Russia’s side. While Washington’s public comments have served to bolster the Ukrainians and rally their allies, some of those comments have played directly into Putin’s claims of a malign America determined to neuter Russia, as when President Joe Biden said of Putin, “This man cannot remain in power,” and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declared that America’s goal is a “weakened” Russia.

不過這場資訊戰就像實體戰一樣，勝負完全未定。戰爭開打十三周，許多俄國人似乎接受普亭的說詞。在世界各地，許多國家仍作壁上觀，或像中國大陸一樣站在俄國那邊。雖然美國的公開說法是為了鼓舞烏克蘭人並團結他們的盟友，但其中一些說法直接迎合了普亭的訴求，也就是邪惡美國決心讓俄國一蹶不振，如美國總統拜登稱普亭「這個人不能繼續掌權」，美國國防部長奧斯丁宣布，美國的目標是「削弱」俄國。

As the war enters a new phase, as the images and horrors become familiar and the costs rise, it will become ever more difficult for the Biden administration and for Zelenskyy to sustain their early lead in the information war. That makes it all the more imperative for the West to press the message that this is not a war Ukraine chose and that the cost of allowing Putin to have his way in Ukraine would be far higher than the sacrifices required to block him.

隨著戰爭進入新階段，這些影像和恐怖變得很常見，戰爭代價也上升，拜登政府和澤倫斯基將更難維持他們在這場資訊戰初期的勝利。對西方而言，散播這些訊息變得更加緊要，也就是這並非烏克蘭選擇的戰爭，任由普亭在烏克蘭胡作非為的代價，會遠高於阻止他的必要犧牲。