05-12-2019, 07:48 AM
After that half-breed was puking in his helmet and then there was an emergency and everyone had to don helmets and he was unsuccessfully trying to grab someone else's, there's a cut away and then back to the three of them all wearing their helmets, and his is spotless as is the others -- unless I just didn't see it right. I was thinking they should have hired Linda Blair as a continuity consultant for that sequence.
Yeah, I checked around (wiki), and Cixin's original novella didn't have any of the drama with Jupiter that the movie added. Earth was being rocketed out to Jupiter to get a gravity assist en route to another star system, and the big issue in the novella was debate over whether the Sun really was going to go ballistic, and whether project Wandering Earth was even necessary. It was more philosophical and political. So 75% of the movie (Jupiter absurdities, including virtually all of the ticking clocks) were not Cixin's. That's pretty much what I was thinking, because it lacked even a first grade grasp of science and physics. Film is a visual medium, and I'm okay with script changes that make a story more visual, but in this case I would have preferred something closer to Cixin's source material (which I'll have to read someday).
The movie felt surprisingly pedestrian in a lot of ways. There was so much big truck driving across desolation -- lots of trucks, lots of demolition, reminiscent of Road Warrior. I don't think the director and screenwriter knew how to use an outer space setting for drama.
Still, I'm happy for Cixin. China has been slow to venture into science fiction movies -- especially ones set in space. This is a big win for Cixin.
Oh, as for Wu Jing, it sounds like he agreed to do a cameo. Later on, when he read the script, he saw that they had made him a main character. I don't know contractually how that held, or whether he just said, "Fine, I'll go for it."
Yeah, I checked around (wiki), and Cixin's original novella didn't have any of the drama with Jupiter that the movie added. Earth was being rocketed out to Jupiter to get a gravity assist en route to another star system, and the big issue in the novella was debate over whether the Sun really was going to go ballistic, and whether project Wandering Earth was even necessary. It was more philosophical and political. So 75% of the movie (Jupiter absurdities, including virtually all of the ticking clocks) were not Cixin's. That's pretty much what I was thinking, because it lacked even a first grade grasp of science and physics. Film is a visual medium, and I'm okay with script changes that make a story more visual, but in this case I would have preferred something closer to Cixin's source material (which I'll have to read someday).
The movie felt surprisingly pedestrian in a lot of ways. There was so much big truck driving across desolation -- lots of trucks, lots of demolition, reminiscent of Road Warrior. I don't think the director and screenwriter knew how to use an outer space setting for drama.
Still, I'm happy for Cixin. China has been slow to venture into science fiction movies -- especially ones set in space. This is a big win for Cixin.
Oh, as for Wu Jing, it sounds like he agreed to do a cameo. Later on, when he read the script, he saw that they had made him a main character. I don't know contractually how that held, or whether he just said, "Fine, I'll go for it."