Within a few years, the “Wandering Earth”, which has a long and fortunate life, is almost the highest peak of Chinese science fiction movies visible to the naked eye.
文 | 史圣园
Edit | Fang Ting
“Wandering Earth opened a door to Chinese science fiction, and “Shanghai Fortress” was closed again.”
In the face of comments from netizens, director Teng Huatao said frankly that he was “very sad.” “This is not only dissatisfaction with the film, but also the expectation of Chinese science fiction movies.”
“I am really sorry, because I believe that no one wants to close this shining door. As a director, I did not take everyone on this road to go further, but I know that everyone They are all working hard forward.” Teng Huatao wrote on Weibo.
Afterwards, the author Jiang Nan also publicly apologized: “Disappoint your expectations.”
At the beginning of the year, the final box office of a “Wandering Earth” approached 4.7 billion. The gratifying results made the media’s “2019 is the first year of Chinese science fiction movies” seem to have a little bit of enthusiasm.
However, the collapse of “Shanghai Fortress” may make us realize that “science fiction first year theory” is still too early. The production of “Wandering Earth”, which lasted for 7 years and finally hopes to be in the right place, is like a lightning bolt. The latecomers of Chinese science fiction are still unable to replicate its myth.
Every year, at least two domestic sci-fi movies have been successful, and “the first year of the science fiction theory” is justified. However, there are many fate in a few years. The lucky enough “Wandering Earth” is almost the highest peak of Chinese science fiction movies visible to the naked eye.
If you want to produce a good science fiction film, you need three success factors: one is a good story, the other is an industry standard, and the third is the cultural core accepted by the public. These three elements must form a closed loop and a tacit understanding.
At the moment, we don’t have the ability.
Chinese Science Fiction Brief History
The original Chinese sci-fi movie attempt was inspired by foreign novels.
China’s first film with science fiction elements dates back to 1938, and Shanghai Xinhua Film Co., Ltd. producedGoing to the beach ten years later. The film involves sci-fi elements such as the resurrection of the dead, memory transplants, and weather manipulation, but these imaginations about the future and technology do not have native Chinese genes. According to the director Yang Xiaozhong’s recollection, the work was inspired by the novel “Sleepy Hundred Years” by Her Joe Wells.
In 1963, the movie “Little Sun” was released. Its script is not original in China, but is adapted from the Soviet novel “Man-made Little Sun”, and Liu Cixin praised it as “having a huge sci-fi kernel.” However, as a children’s educational film, it is inevitable to have genes with younger age in the setting of plots and scenes.
And the first true Chinese original science fiction movie will not appear until 1980. In 1978, Tong Enzheng created the literary and scientific “The Dead Light on the Coral Island”. Two years later, the story was successfully adapted into a movie. According to the public’s “Tenth Screening Room”, there was no special effects equipment at that time. The red laser ray was drawn on the film. The nuclear mushroom cloud at the end of the movie was shot through the clear water in the clear water. Then flip it up.
In 1983, the “Clear Spiritual Pollution” campaign began, and science fiction was characterized as “spiritual pollution.” Literature creation entered the winter, and film and television became long nights. During this period, the only magazine that insisted on publishing science fiction was called “Science and Art”, and in 1989 it was renamed “Qi Tan”, which is the predecessor of “Science Fiction World”.
In the 1990s, science fiction ushered in a new spring. In 1991, “Qi Tan” magazine officially changed its name to “Science Fiction World.” “New generation of science fiction four people” Han Song, He Xi, Wang Jinkang, Liu Cixin have made their appearance here.
Good story, good movie is still on the road.
In 1988, “Beibei” and 1990 “The Lost Atmosphere” started from the perspective of children. The starting point is still science and education. In 1992, “Poison Kiss” was taken up to the next level, taking care of environmental issues, but it is said that science fiction movies are still slightly far-fetched.
Time has entered the 21st century, and Chinese science fiction literature has ushered in a golden age. Outstanding works such as “Three-body”, “Country Teacher”, “Wandering Earth”, “Sadness”, “Deep Impact”, “Kunlun”, “Red Ocean”, Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang won the Hugo Award, Science Fiction Literature has also begun to enter the mainstream vision.
But the accumulation of literature is not enough to push science fiction movies forward.
Search for “China” and “Science Fiction” on Douban. In the search results, “Reverse Time Rescue” and “Future Police” and other films have added technological elements, but they lack scientific logic and are essentially action movies. Although it is unthinkable, although there are alien creatures in “Yangtze River No.7”, it is still a human emotional story. It does not discuss the relationship between human beings and science and technology. “Time and space cohabitation” “Return to 20 years old” It’s farther away from science fiction: setting aside the time and space shuttle is a love story with a pink bubble; the “mermaid” and “Great Wall” claiming to be science fiction are actually fantasy works: The rigor of science is the biggest difference between science fiction and other fantasy literatures such as fantasy and fantasy.
The official stills of “Yangtze River No.7”. Image source: Douban
Even so, “Yangtze River 7” still won the “Best Film Award” in the 2016 Global Chinese Science Fiction Movie Nebula Award. The award was hosted by Xinhuanet Co., Ltd. Sichuan Branch and was the first award in China for Chinese science fiction movies.
The domestic hard science fiction film, consumers and the market have been waiting too long.
In 2019, “The Wandering Earth” came. This is a solid hard science fiction film: the science setting logic is basically established, and it also expresses the cultural core of the Chinese people’s love for their homeland; the visual effects and storyline are enough to meet the standards of qualified commercial films, approaching the final box office score of 4.7 billion. Especially eye-catching.
But the director Guo Fan said in an interview, “The film has many objective deficiencies. The reason for the success at the box office is mainly because of the tolerance of the audience.”
He said, Chinese sci-fi movies are 25 years to 3 compared to Hollywood.0 year gap; compared with top science fiction film directors Nolan and Cameron, there is still a gap of 100 years.
A sense of violation that needs to be overcome
Strongly and harmoniously, the “Wandering Earth” has also raised the market’s expectations for Chinese science fiction films.
Although “Shanghai Fortress” was not so bad, he went on the big screen smoothly, but hit the high-looking muzzle. The improvement of the market expectation also makes the author squeeze a cold sweat for other domestic sci-fi films such as “Tomorrow’s Battle” and “Texan”.
Chinese science fiction film released in 2019 and beyond. Organized according to public information
From the script, “Shanghai Fortress” is a soft science fiction, but the author Jiangnan is as popular as Liu Cixin, which is a big IP.
From the perspective of money and technology, the total investment of “Shanghai Fortress” reached 360 million. The companies responsible for the later stage of “Shanghai Fortress” and visual effects are also big manufacturers. The post production part was completed by Beijing Tiangong Weicai Film Technology Co., Ltd. As early as 8 years ago, they took on the special effects of “Painting 2”, and technical issues are not to mention. The visual effect part of the cooperation with the United States, South Korea, Russia and other multi-national teams, including the South Korean visual effects company Macrograph also participated in the production of “Wandering Earth”.
The core problem of “Shanghai Fortress” is two words: 尴尬. Or, we are academically a bit, and we can call it “a sense of violation.”
The sense of violation is first reflected in the casting: “Can the military have such a fluffy bangs? Can it look so weak?” Secondly, the scene setting: “noodle, dormitory, car, computer… all are modern The level of science and technology.” Finally is the story: “This is a story of the beginning of a love affair, hard to match a flat and unconvincing end of the world view.” Douban users of the difference is as high as 69%.
The sense of violation does not only exist in a film in Shanghai Fortress.
In 2017, the middle layer of the sci-fi film research report of Fanying Consulting mentioned that “the sense of violation” is a common dilemma faced by Chinese science fiction movies.
“The biggest obstacle for domestic audiences to accept domestic sci-fi is that there is a lot of sense of violation in domestic sci-fi. This is an aesthetic problem, and it is also a fatal problem for creators.” Guo Fan once said.
The sense of disobedience in the integration of “Chinese elements” exists in three aspects: visual elements, plot movements and values.
For example, an actor is one of the visual elements. Fan Ying pointed out that in terms of casting, newcomers and acting stars are more suitable for domestic science fiction films. “The strangeness of the newcomer helps the audience to feel a sense of distance. The audience does not have a stereotype of the newcomer. The actors who can shape a variety of roles and are not “labeled” in the audience’s mind can also be competent. There is a sense of distance.” One of the male stars of “Wandering Earth”, Qu Chuxiao, also satisfied the sense of distance and freshness.
The selection of “Shanghai Fortress” is undoubtedly a failure. The audience is too familiar with Luhan, he also has an idol’s face; Shu Qi is known for his love movies, and the appearance of lazy beauty also lacks the determination of the female commander; the most terrible thing is that there is really nothing between them. Cp feels that Shu Qi looks like a little cockroach.
In the plot action, Fan Ying Consulting pointed out that the subjects such as “superhero” and “outer space” are far away from our cultural and technological level, and it is difficult for the audience to produce empathy. It is a subject that needs to be carefully selected. Themes such as “disaster” and “comedy” are the best choices for domestic science fiction films. In addition, the behavior of the characters in the play should also be consistent with the Chinese people’s way of life.
In terms of values, the core of Chinese science fiction should also be Chinese. “What is Chinese sci-fi? Looking for a carrier that truly expresses our cultural core and spiritual core can be called Chinese sci-fi, otherwise we just imitate others to tell a similar American story.” Guo The sail once said.
Liu Cixin has also expressed a similar expression: “Many deep things in Chinese culture, such as our love for homeland and the way of life in Chinese philosophy, will be reflected in our science fiction movies. .”
Don’t rush to shout “Science Year of the Science Fiction”
The slogan of “Science Year of Science Fiction” may be more meaningful than actual meaning.
“The first year is a thing that has to go back and say something retrospective afterwards.” Previously, Zhang Xiaobei, the founder of Shifang Culture, said in an interview with the entertainment observation that the slogan “The first year of the movie” is capital. The combination of ambition and market expectations.
In post-production and special effects processing, if we talk about technology alone, we may not be bad: in “Wandering Earth”, 75% of the special effects are produced by the domestic team, and the final effect is not surprising.
But what we lack is the awareness of the entire industrial production and the control of the engineering nodes.
At this point, “Wandering Earth” is lucky. Director Guo Fan went to Hollywood to study and study in 2014, and got some understanding of the special effects production process. In the film preparation stage, special effects companies have joined the discussion, reducing the cost of communication in the later period.
The lack of funds also limits China’s ability to mass-produce sci-fi movies.
If Hollywood’s post-effects are technology-intensive, ours are more labor-intensive—even if the final renderings are similar, the logic behind them is far apart.
The cost of Hollywood special effects companies is mainly in research and development, they will develop new design software and programs according to the needs of a movie. Needless to say, the benefits are naturally saved, the work is more standardized, and the time is more controllable. But the cost of doing so is naturally expensive.
According to Caixin.com’s previous report, the Hollywood A-class special effects movie has a difficult time of 7 seconds to 15 seconds, which cost 120,000.Science fiction movies.
Before slogan “Science and Technology First Year”, we also need mature technology, a thorough understanding of Chinese culture and science fiction talents, standardized production operations, and a richer business model.
In a conversation with Cameron, Liu Cixin once said that science fiction movies are the product of the great era. That is to say, China must be in the process of rapid modernization, people have a strong sense of the future, and science fiction movies have a broad market.
Time and market seem to be ready, and then, look at the performance of science fiction literature and the film industry.
Let’s look forward to the day when the first year of the “Science Fiction” really came.
References:
How do you share the “violation” of domestic science fiction films?
Special Reports | “The Wandering Earth” Revelation. <Caixin.com>
Without them, “Is there a Chinese science fiction?” <Southern Weekend>
China has no first year of science fiction movies.<Entertainment >
Chinese Science Fiction Incomplete History.<10th Screening Room>