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Netflix Buys Rights To Stream Chinese Sci-Fi Blockbuster 'The Wandering Earth' (npr.org)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via NPR: Netflix announced this week that it has acquired the rights to stream Chinese sci-fi blockbuster "The Wandering Earth," which has already grossed more than $600 million globally and hit number two in the all-time Chinese box office rankings since it was released in theaters Feb. 5. Netflix will translate the movie into 28 languages and release it in more than 190 countries. The movie, based on a short story by Hugo award winner Liu Cixin (author of "Three Body Problem" and "Ball Lighting") is set in a distant future in which the earth is about to be devoured by the sun. Using propulsive engines, humans turn earth into a spaceship and try to launch it out of the solar system and the planet is saved by a Chinese hero (rather than American ones as typically seen in Hollywood sci-fi movies.)
For China's film industry, the release marks a major milestone. "Filmmakers in China see science fiction as a holy grail," Raymond Zhou, an independent critic, told The New York Times. "It's like the coming-of-age of the industry." Two sci-fi movies, "The Wandering Earth" and "Crazy Alien," which is also inspired by Liu's work, topped this Chinese New Year movie season. Inkoo Kang wrote at Slate that the film "understands what American blockbusters are still loath to admit: Responding to climate change will pose infrastructural challenges on a massive order and require drastic measures on a planetary scale. Perhaps it takes a country like China, which is accustomed to a manic rate of construction and grandness of organizational possibility, to seriously consider how dramatically humanity will have to reimagine our ways of life to survive such a catastrophic force."
For China's film industry, the release marks a major milestone. "Filmmakers in China see science fiction as a holy grail," Raymond Zhou, an independent critic, told The New York Times. "It's like the coming-of-age of the industry." Two sci-fi movies, "The Wandering Earth" and "Crazy Alien," which is also inspired by Liu's work, topped this Chinese New Year movie season. Inkoo Kang wrote at Slate that the film "understands what American blockbusters are still loath to admit: Responding to climate change will pose infrastructural challenges on a massive order and require drastic measures on a planetary scale. Perhaps it takes a country like China, which is accustomed to a manic rate of construction and grandness of organizational possibility, to seriously consider how dramatically humanity will have to reimagine our ways of life to survive such a catastrophic force."
We could have made movies out of Niven novels at any time in the last three decades with similar "big engineering sci-fi wow" scenarios. A World Out Of Time springs to mind.
I've read Three Body Problem and found it terse and unremarkable. I must be getting too old to "get" new stuff, or read so much all I see is recycled ideas.
Mostly random stuff.
which leads to wars...
Stop with the limited geographical borders BS
You are not better or worse than anyone else due to the place you where born or your ancestry....
GET OVER IT
This reminds me of that movie where the solar system is saved from a wandering black hole by pushing jupiter into it...
Saving the earth from a catastrophic force... laughable.
this is not sci-fi. with their organization skillz and ability to put personal gains on the back burner for a better society as a whole, all that is required is to plant 1 billion tree seedlings in china at the same time.
thanks to newtons law of action = reaction the growing seedling will push the earth in one direction thru their roots whilst growing up and away. so if you time it right, you can totally push earth into a higher orbit.
^_^
dubbed like anime?
My thoughts, too. They have virtually made propaganda and lies into an artform. We are their economic butt monkey, and Silicon Valley loves their loose ethics, it's that simple.
This is why we need to colonize Mars, so when the sun swells into a red giant, we can survive the earth being devoured. Mars funding needs to be a top priority, before it is too late.
They're always portrayed as asexual in Hollywood...
Earth doesn't have enough matter to produce a propulsive force large enough to get it out of our solar system. Even with a massive solar sail.
Enjoy your Extinction Event.
and the planet is saved by a Chinese hero (rather than American ones as typically seen in Hollywood sci-fi movies.)
(or Indian ones as typically seen in Bollywood movies)
(or Japanese ones as typically seen in Japanese movies)
(or French ones as typically seen in French movies)
(or Nigerian ones as typically seen in Nigerian movies)
(etc)
understands what American blockbusters are still loath to admit: Responding to climate change will pose infrastructural challenges on a massive order and require drastic measures on a planetary scale. Perhaps it takes a country like China, which is accustomed to a manic rate of construction and grandness of organizational possibility, to seriously consider how dramatically humanity will have to reimagine our ways of life to survive such a catastrophic force."
vs HitchHiker's guide to the Galaxy
The Golgafrinchans realised that were three types of beings on the planet of Golgafrincham: the leaders (or thinkers), the workers (or doers), and the middlemen.
The leaders contained the artists and "achievers". The workers were the people who "did all the actual work", and who made and did things. The middle management was comprised of hairdressers, lawyers, telephone sanitisers, and other such "worthless jobs."
The three classes of Golgafrinchans, as seen in Episode 6 of the TV series.
The group of leaders built a ship and convinced the middlemen to leave Golgafrincham by telling them several different reasons, including: that the planet was going to crash into the sun (or perhaps the moon was going to crash into the planet), that the planet was being invaded by a gigantic swarm of twelve foot piranha bees, and that "the entire planet was in imminent danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star goat."
Be sure to sanitize the telephones before you all go wouldn't want a plague to break out here.
Sci-Fi allows to handle sensitive topics in the current Chinese society in a way that doesn't concern the conservative censorship, just like it did here in the other side of the world. As a sci-fi fan I can't wait to see what they transfer to the film next, and if they experiment with the deeper characterization and emotional motives than is the tradition in the Chinese movies.
I don't know if anyone else saw the movie and would like to discuss it here. I watched it about 2 weeks ago in the theater.
I was pretty impressed with the first opening scene, and the final scene where the dad [plot spoiler, etc]. Those scenes had the music, pacing, narrative that seemed like it was to the quality and emotional sophistication of like Ridley Scott or someone similar.
However, much of the middle of the movie was low brow explosions, unbelievable story line, and cheap humor like it came out of the ass of Michael Bay or something. Such a schizophrenic movie production. Worth streaming though I think.
Reminds me of Space: 1999, where the moon got ejected from its orbit after the explosion of nuclear waster stored on its surface.
Totof
No, it takes a dictator to realize this isn't a peasants-only problem: That wealth will not guarantee another disposable employee to supply the scarce, overpriced food, water and fuel still remaining on a overheating planet.
This has been in the public consciousness for 35 years but politicians still don't have an action plan: We've just exited a decade of total dishonesty about the problem. The US still votes for war heroes and "tough-on"-criminals legislation, not policies that make the world a healthy, co-operative living space. Many US allies show the same not-a-real-problem mentality and laziness towards change.
As long as it's cheaper to make new goods than recycle, change will be near impossible. Worse, the cost of recycling begins at the point of consumption. When it's not economically viable to separate food scraps from plastic scraps, separate daily dirt and grease from plastic bits, we are rewarding the have-it-now mentality of modern manufacturing.
Maybe, we do need a robot revolution: Their job will be picking-up our garbage and disassembling it.
I don't remember Integral Trees well enough to opine on its suitability as a movie, but I've wanted a Ringworld movie for quite some time...
Are there any movies that have even had that concept, or a Dyson sphere in it? I can't think of any. Seems like there must have been some movie that had something on that scale, even if just in passing...
Mote in God's Eye would be really great as well. So much you could mine from classic SF.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In Space: 1999 it was the moon that was blasting around the universion. As sci-fi shows went, the acting and plots were ok, but I could never get over the utter stupidity of the premise. No, you are not going to drive around the universe on a planet.
On the Earth, just think what happens to the oceans when you accelerate. *slosh*
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The premise is so ridiculous, so I'll give it miss
In the eyes of the public, scientists are often not good sci-fi movie audiences, they will pay too much attention to the scientific details in the film, and can not enjoy the story. But I want to defend this sentence. Apart from the cinema, how many opportunities does the scientist have to observe a future world? What's more, only good science fiction movies can lead people to think about the scientific problems behind them. The crappy science fiction movies are just crappy movies, and "Wandering Earth" is undoubtedly an interesting film that will cause scientists to think. But we need to know that it is a very bold and imaginative idea to remove the whole earth as a spaceship when the entire human crisis is facing, although from a scientific point of view, human capabilities in the foreseeable period. can not achieve. But film as an art, it is not entirely a complete reproduction of life or science, so although this film contains many unscientific imaginations, we still need to applaud. Science is the driving force for human progress, and imagination has pointed the way for human progress.
And they're full of the usual old clichés; "Are we really doing this?", "You GOTTA be kidding me!", "What... just... happened?", and other childish pretentions, all to make Americans look like the coolest heroes on the planet. It appeals to the American intellect and that's why it's made that way I suppose.
It'll be interesting to see a more serious big movie, and I'm happy China (and also India) are starting to step into the global movie industry.
But, be prepared for lots of petty American hate and racism. Nothing hurts the massive, sensitive American ego as much as other countries achieving grand things.
This Liu Cixin sounds like the brothers Strugatsky of China.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Can you guys write some new ad copy? Steve Jobs isn't even alive anymore.
You mean exactly as the US have? I think the US is much better at telling lies and pushing propaganda into the world.. So before starting pointing fingers, look to yourself.
I remember what used to be a blockbuster. Looked like a cube, wrapped in twine, loaded with TNT... or maybe black powder. Used to pay a mark for those babies. Lost of few eyes and fingers and toes with those babies. Motherfuckin T.N.T. It's Dyn-o-mite! babies.
There was an old sci-fi about the struggle to build giant thrusters in Antarctica to push the earth out of the way of life killing asteroid.
Forgot the name though.
Those who aren't satisfied with moving the Earth can still read Feersum Enjinn by Iain M. Banks (or at least the parts that aren't a mix of gibberish and Cockney) in which someone has left the residents of a cyber-feudalistic Earth a way to move their solar system.
Moving a solar system naturally starts from moving the star, and in the story Banks tells, only the activation of the process is depicted. The end result will take a while to accomplish.
What a novel notion - a Chinese SF thriller would have a Chinese hero, unlike American SF thrillers, which have...American heroes....
Yeah, we're supposed to be really surprised that Chinese movies have Chinese heroes, and be really appalled that American movies have American heroes.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Come to think of it this one explanation is acceptable tho - sun changes its radiation volume and this causes problems. The rest of it is I am afraid not so clear cut. But hey - who am I little worm to question the green religion? If I am allowed to continue I may even claim reproductive organs are not a cultural construct but a real thing....
Text block of the post was great until it tried to associate "global warming" with "flying into the sun"
Idiots
The nuclear stockpile on the moon went critical, causing an initial explosion that propelled them out of orbit. Following that the ion fountain remaining from the nuclear waste continued to propel the moon out of the solar system where it eventually ran across all sorts of other strange phenomena.
Really it was just taking the lost in space plot and providing it to a whole base's worth of people helping to cut down on actor costs and allow the possibility of replacing cast members as required.
Just watched the trailer and I still have no idea what it is about. From some scenes it seems like the earth is some sort of spaceship (even more ridiculous than the campy Space: 1999), but in most of the trailer everything looks like very near-future. Plus the effects seemed uneven between trailer scenes, so I don't know what to expect there either. Not sure if its worth a watch, perhaps stick with what Chinese cinema does best (comedic fantasy stuff like the 2013 Journey to the West?).
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
The book is much better, unfolds on a more realistic time scale, has a much more believable twist leading to people being unfairly persecuted. Totally hated the Hydrogen explosion at Jupiter saving the Earth in the movie.That said a great first try by China at a big budget Sci-Fi, as good or better than the average American big budget Sci-Fi. Not China's 2001, more like China's Armageddon.
Please China don't mess up The Three Body Problem (they've already shelved one failed attempt). Despite a comment in another thread. The Three Body Problem is the best Sci-Fi trilogy I've read in 40 years. The book Wandering Earth pails to insignificance compared to TTBP.
Letter To Iran
I hate sci fi movies try to make a plot when I know the physics behind it makes it impossible. No, you're not going to ever move the Earth's orbit.
Saw this movie at the local theatre. It's really not that good of a sci-fi movie.
To start the storyline is totally ridiculous. A rip-off of Space 1999 (and 2001) but with Earth instead of the moon and the a bunch of relatively small engines (that apparently need no fuel) used for propulsion.
Will not watch. Just like I try to boycott films which have Chinese financial backing.
Hurt them where they really feel it. If an American company takes Chinese money to make a movie, I will not see it.
That simple. I'm done.
My next phone will be a refurb, I will not take the First Hit for no phone company.
Hurt. Them.
I just bought a whistle for dog training. Went with Acme (UK), not HJN WGOW (or whatever made-up name shows up on amazon) I would've bought USA but couldn't find a single one.
HURT THEM
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Scifi is generally very expensive, and thus risky. Now, if you make your universe the right way, are creative, and good with props, scifi can be affordable. Dr. Who was famous for this. The Twilight Zone was also good at it.
Since it is a foreign studio which has spent the money to make the film, why not spend the money adapting it to the USA? It can be as simple as dubbing the voices, or it can be like Saban's "Power Rangers", take most of the footage, make up a new story, and create new, cheap footage to go along with it.
Fuck china. This piece of shit movie will be at least 80% stolen material anyway. The remaining 20% will be chinese original material which is always guaranteed to be hilariously fucking awful.
Yeah, but Chinese films have lots of American heroes: Ming-Na Wen, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, etc. We traded them for Bruce Lee! They weren't born here like Arnold, Van Damme, Bruce Willis, or Statham but all are American heroes. Thou some might consider them British due to when the actor was born.
"Perhaps it takes a country like China, which is accustomed to a manic rate of construction and grandness of organizational possibility"
Along with abysmal human rights, concentration/reducation camps for those who don't believe the party line, horrible pollution, and construction standards so bad that entire buildings tip over, and roads collapse because they were built with trash filler...
If China tried to save the earth it's likely the (remaining) citizens would have wished they burned in the sun.
What??? Not a strong woman hero? Is there no Chinese Brie Larson available?
Sigh.... Racism, amirite? Why would they need to take a completely gratuitous snipe there?
It's a Chinese Sci-Fi movie for crissakes. It would be friggin' weird if the hero wasn't Chinese.
If we're playing identity politics, Garret Wang very often played the hero in ST-Voyager.
But of course, American media is consumed with racism and sexism in the guise of anti-sexism and anti-racism.
Now to the movie - I am pretty stoked to see a Sci-Fi movie from a different culture. It's on my must see list.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I knew the original game was set on a Ring, but was any of the video content set there? All I can remember was Forward Unto Dawn which I could have sworn was set on a planet. Was there some other movie?
There's a live action TV show coming out, but for me I was thinking mostly of movies...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Stanley Schmidt told a very similar sotry in "The Sins of the Fathers", and "Lifeboat Earth"...and, although I haven't read the short story or seen the series described here, I suspect he did a better job of it.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
What's good for the goose .....
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
The War Against the Chtorr is a series I would watch.
The more I learned about The Three Body Problem, the less I wanted to read/watch it. Seems like a lot of hand-waving introduced as characters make meaningless decisions about the last "mysterious" event or imminent threat.
"...understands what American blockbusters are still loath to admit: Responding to climate change will pose infrastructural challenges on a massive order and require drastic measures on a planetary scale. Perhaps it takes a country like China, which is accustomed to a manic rate of construction and grandness of organizational possibility, to seriously consider how dramatically humanity will have to reimagine our ways of life to survive such a catastrophic force."
Really? I though it was just a fucking movie based on a sci-fi writings. Where do you draw that sort of hyperbole?
Kendall truly you have zero life and will die an adolescent faggot.
Boycott Chinese culture, Chinese brands, Chinese fooda
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I've always been a huge fan of hers. I can't decide if my favorite is Pretty in Pink Noise, Sixteen Candlepower, or The Breakfast Cube.
Obviously, just a movie, there is a bunch of racial discrimination jumping out.
Some people like a lemon, they can smell a sour smell across the screen.
A poor pity that has been blinded by hatred.
awwww. Orange Fan Sad?
Let's begin movies rating on Slashdot. :)
Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
nice one admin