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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."
Numerous novels invoke deus ex machina under the guise of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo. James P Hogan's Entoverse posits a universe-spanning computer network that communicates by some sort of sub-atomic phenomena.
Maybe it was a ten dimensional post-biological sapient parallel universe that became conscious. This is all trite nonsense. To me, I've read all this shit before.
It's just meaningless prattle.
At least Rudy Rucker's "ware" books were hilarious. He had conscious beings that could encrypt themselves as some sort of particle that would materialize on Earth and had multi-dimensional time and could see forwards and backwards in time at the same time. Or whatever.
It's all the same.
Look, I just invented a 12 dimensional computer that's as small as a quark.
See, it's one dimension bigger and one particle smaller.
How is this interesting or a great idea? It's sophomoric.
Mostly random stuff.
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)
Everything I don't like is deus-ex-machina
Yeah, heard that one before. Guess what it's not?
If you've decide ahead of time there's nothing new under the sun, you're not going to like anything. Sounds like an unpleasant way to go through life.
Three-Body problem was his first book, IIRC, and he didn't get the hang of writing characters in a compelling way until towards the end. What he did start, and improved throughout the series, is great perspectives on how humanity would react to certain new technologies and new events that make us realize how small we are. All from a perspective very different from American and British writers.
The technology in these books makes a solid attempt at not being science fantasy, but the technology isn't really the point of these books, or of non-schlocky SF in general. Good stories are about people, and how they are changed by events.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
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.
A few billion years ago, "we" were single celled organisms. Likewise, a few billion years from now, "we" will be a completely different species, in the unlikely event that our genetic line still exists then. Why should we care about this remotely related species, when we don't even care about animals going extinct today, who are much closer related to us ?
And "too late" is a huge joke. We've only been making rockets for a century. We can easily spend the next million years perfecting them before attempting to settle on Mars. Either we will get more advanced, making the job easier, or civilization will collapse, saving us a lot of wasted effort. Win-win.
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.
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"