Airship in the film Wandering Earth

Characters in Wandering Earth

Crazy Aliens

The biggest winners of the 2019 Spring Festival are two science fiction films. From the grand narrative of human destiny, Wandering Earth has set off an upsurge of watching hard core science fiction films. Crazy Aliens has successfully grafted alien themes locally, making domestic science fiction films more grounded. Two science fiction films have achieved great box office success, occupying the first and second place of the most golden Spring Festival film. Some people can't help but conclude that 2019 is the first year of Chinese hard core science fiction films.

Is the first year of Chinese hard core sci-fi movies really coming?

"The birth of Wandering Earth is a milestone, which indicates that Chinese science fiction has moved from magazines and books to a new era of film and television"

"Wandering the Earth" is a landmark work for the upgrading of Chinese films and the transformation from a film power to a film power. It is also a microcosm of the revival of national civilization. "

"It is certain that Chinese science fiction has entered a new era, but whether this type will become an important part of Chinese films still needs to be observed."

Chinese science fiction has gone through ups and downs

"If Crazy Aliens is a skilled craftsman who can perform well in temple fairs, then Wandering Earth is a great hero who has finally made great contributions and shocked the world." Jia Liyuan, an assistant professor of the Chinese Department of Tsinghua University, said, "The two major science fiction blockbusters of New Year's Day are one in harmony and the new year stars shine, which makes science fiction fans like me feel very excited. ”

The grand science fiction dream has always been rooted in the Chinese literature and art. Jia Liyuan said that since Liang Qichao, Lu Xun, Wu Jianren and other cultural elites introduced and created science fiction at the beginning of the last century, Chinese science fiction creation has gone through more than a century, and experienced several ups and downs.

Eighty years ago, China's first local sci-fi film, "Sixty Years Later, Shanghai Beach", was released, which was popular all over the country. However, with the outbreak of the Anti Japanese War, the domestic film market began to decline. Until the 1980s, outstanding science fiction works such as "PHS roaming the future", "Flying to Sagittarius", "Dead Light on the Coral Island" and so on emerged, and Chinese science fiction experienced a short golden age.

Yao Haijun, deputy editor in chief of Science Fiction World magazine, said that since the publication of Science Fiction World in 1979 and before the publication of Liu Cixin's Three Body series, Chinese science fiction has been in the magazine stage. Science fiction writers lived around one or more magazines. During this period, the social and economic value created by science fiction works was very limited.

In the field of Chinese science fiction literature, Liu Cixin, Wang Jinkang, He Xi and Han Song are recognized as the "Four Heavenly Kings" by science fiction fans. Among them, Liu Cixin, who once won the "Oscar" in the fantasy world - the Star Cloud Award, is famous at home and abroad because of "Three Body". The publication of the "Three Body" series also marks that China's science fiction has entered the era of best sellers. The influence of science fiction is no longer limited to its own small circle, but has become a social topic, starting to create greater social and economic values. It is reported that the output value created by "Three Body" books has exceeded 100 million yuan.

Jia Liyuan said that Liu Cixin's "power of one's own" is actually the long-term efforts of Chinese writers to explore the future of mankind based on the experience and impulse of their own nation on the basis of learning and learning from foreign outstanding science fiction works. He believes that "Liu Cixin should be regarded as a phased master of Chinese science fiction art over the past century".

Although the development of Chinese science fiction literature has a long history, excellent science fiction films and TV works have been dominated by Hollywood. Why can't China make good science fiction films?

Li Zhongze, a graduate student of the Dodge Film School of Chapman University and a veteran sci-fi fan, believes that the lack of superb visual effect technology genes in domestic film production teams and the lack of tradition of watching sci-fi films among domestic audiences may be the reason for the stagnation of domestic sci-fi films for many years. In his opinion, the appearance of "Wandering Earth" really gave the first satisfactory answer to science fiction fans.

"The birth of Wandering Earth is a milestone, indicating that Chinese science fiction has moved from magazines and books to a new era of film and television," said Yin Hao, a member of the Party Leadership Group of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology and the curator of the China Science and Technology Museum. For senior sci-fi fans such as Li Zhongze, on the one hand, they are happy that sci-fi is no longer a niche market and can be understood and loved by more people; on the other hand, they hope that this vast spiritual home will not be over commercialized, thus losing the background of sci-fi, "Both industry and market need a process of growth, and we hope that we can make a footprint step by step and not destroy the Chinese sci-fi IP".

Why do domestic science fiction films succeed naturally

As of February 18, "Wandering Earth" has earned 3.889 billion yuan at the box office in China, and in Australia and New Zealand, North America, it has also set the highest box office record for overseas Chinese films in recent years. From February 5 to 10, the ticket office of Wandering Earth in North America, Australia and New Zealand reached 2.63 million dollars. Its success has given strong confidence to the domestic hard core sci-fi film market. "There will be Chinese elements in the future world, which will undoubtedly improve the national image. In the past, we were used to the Hollywood style model of western heroes saving the world, and we have always doubted whether the sci-fi films produced by Chinese directors can be accepted by Chinese movie audiences." Yao Haijun said, "This doubt has now been broken."

La Peikang, one of the producers of Wandering Earth and chairman of China Film Group, agreed: "The film fully embodies the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, and fully demonstrates China's cultural core and Chinese style feelings of home and country in the context of science fiction. For the first time on the big screen, the story of the Chinese people leading the whole human race to conquer the earth and the world is displayed, instead of foreigners saving the whole human race. "

The emotional core of Chinese elements makes it possible for domestic sci-fi films to develop their own style, and the increasing level of technology has also improved our sci-fi imagination and ability to transform imagination into real works. Filming science fiction films can best represent the production level of a country's film industry. The effective guarantee of each professional link is the prerequisite for the success of science fiction films. Therefore, many people in the film and television industry believe that the success of Wandering Earth is not only the success of film art, but also a leap in China's film industry system. China's film industry started late and has been catching up since the reform and opening up. As a symbol of the transformation and upgrading of China's film industry, Wandering Earth has set a benchmark for the Chinese film industry in terms of production.

Rao Shuguang, director of the Film Arts Center of the China Film Association, said that the appearance of Wandering Earth is the result of our transformation from agricultural civilization in the 1980s to scientific and technological civilization and information civilization, the foundation and guarantee provided by world-class modern Chinese science fiction literature, and the improvement of China's film industry system and the upgrading of special effects technology, A natural result. "Wandering Earth" is a landmark work for the upgrading of Chinese films from a big country to a powerful country, and it is also a microcosm of the revival of national civilization. "

Just as the earth is on its way to a new home in the film, domestic hard core sci-fi films are also striding towards a new realm. Lu Liang, deputy inspector of the State Film Administration, said that Wandering Earth is of great significance to Chinese science fiction films. "In a sense, 2019 is the first year of a real domestic science fiction film. Wandering Earth is also full of ideas, and it is our successful exploration of science fiction."

"As early as 1968, American director Kubrick contributed such a classic work as" 2001: A Space Odyssey "to the field of science fiction films. Domestic science fiction films still have a long way to go," said Jia Liyuan. In Yao Haijun's view, the term "the first year of hard core science fiction film" is relatively new, but whether it is appropriate is not yet certain. In addition to the great success of science fiction in business and the widespread recognition of the society, it is also necessary to continue to emerge this type of works after this, so that the type of science fiction continues to flourish. "It is certain that Chinese science fiction has entered a new era," he said, "but whether this genre will become an important part of Chinese films still needs to be observed."

Is the rise of young people the hope of the hard core sci-fi market?

Science fiction can be divided into hard science fiction and soft science fiction. Hard science fiction with strong high-tech elements is more popular in China at present. The acclaimed Wandering Earth is also adapted from hard science fiction literature. Among the "Four Heavenly Kings" of science fiction literature, Liu Cixin, Wang Jinkang and He Xi are all hard science fiction writers. In recent years, well-known young writers such as Jiang Bo, Chen Jufan, Xiu Xinyu, etc., who have emerged in the field of science fiction literature, are also more enthusiastic about creating hard science fiction works. Xiu Xinyu once won the first prize of the "Water Drop Award" for short stories awarded by the China Association for Science and Technology, Tencent and other units with her science fiction novel Farewell to Adam. Although she is a liberal arts student, her science fiction perspective does not focus on the platitudes of "manned spacecraft", "intelligent AI" and "interstellar migration", but on the concrete and subtle scientific research progress, It shows strong philosophical thinking and scientific literacy.

Xiu Xinyu said that compared with "hard core" science fiction, what is more advocated now is the concept of "core" science fiction, that is, the whole content should respect a certain core setting of science fiction and start around it, rather than relying only on some nouns and data accumulation. Li Zhongze, a science student, also believes that "scientific theory is the basis of science fiction imagination, and science fiction imagination also provides a lot of prospects for the development of theory, and the two are mutual achievements".

The vigorous development of hard core science fiction literature has given people rich imagination space, but it has also increased the difficulty of film and television presentation. "The general scenes of hard science fiction are very grand, and the requirements for special effects are very high. It involves a scientific setting and imagination of the future, which is difficult to transform into pictures." Yao Haijun believes that to achieve the transformation of science fiction works into film and television, not only needs technical support, but also needs some domestic artists who have courage and dare to "eat crabs" to explore. He called for young people to be allowed to try more and to imagine and create more freely.

Lu Hongshi, Deputy Director of the Program Center of the Film Channel, has a deep understanding of this: "We have seen the rise of the new generation of directors and the evolution of their ideas. They have refreshing creative characteristics. First, they are more grounded, more sensitive to the new changes of the times and life, and second, they have the aesthetic temperament of standing at the forefront and facing the future." The emergence of Guo Fan, Liu Cixin and other talents, It is also the result of the development and accumulation of China's manufacturing industry and scientific and technological undertakings over the years and the accumulation of industrial civilization. They have grown up in the process of the rise of China's great power, and also have a more magnificent world view and cosmology.

The vigorous development of domestic hard core sci-fi films can not be separated from the continuous supply of young creators, and is also rooted in the growing demand of a new generation of audiences for watching films. "It is very important to what extent people's scientific literacy has developed and whether they can accept science fiction works." Yao Haijun said, "This is closely related to our education. Only high-quality people can accept science fiction as a form of literature and art."

In the opinion of Li Zhongze and Xiu Xinyu, it is not necessary to list science fiction fans as a target audience group alone, and the threshold of science fiction is not as high as expected. "Anyone who enjoys the fun of thinking and can be touched by human nature can like science fiction". As the main force of movie watching, the "post-80s", "post-90s" and "post-00s" have a more comprehensive understanding of the virtual world and a stronger curiosity and imagination of the universe due to the influence of a more scientific and technological lifestyle, so their acceptance of science fiction films and television works has also generally improved.

According to La Peikang, China Film Group plans to release two science fiction films of the same magnitude as Wandering Earth this year. One is "Island of Hope", which is about Chinese people solving mysterious information from the moon and saving the earth. The other is "Shanghai Fortress", which is about to sink in Shanghai and a group of young people fighting against alien invaders.

Yao Haijun introduced that although it is not easy to transform hard science fiction into film and television, perhaps because of the driving effect of Liu Cixin and his works, domestic film and television companies are very interested in hard science fiction at present, and the copyrights of Jiang Bo, Chen Zijun and other works have been transferred to film and television companies for development. "Film and television companies are interested in works with rich imagination and solid technical skills." He said that science fiction books and films interact, and science fiction should rely on best-selling books or film and television works to enhance the type of social impact and attract more outstanding talents; Magazines should constantly cultivate new people and provide a steady stream of fresh blood for this field. Every link is indispensable. Only when these links are complete can Chinese science fiction be said to be healthy, which means more opportunities and possibilities. " Yao Haijun said.

(All pictures in this article are from the network)

Share to let more people see