Rating C+｜The Wandering Earth II: Tech Online, Story Offline

The Wandering Earth II was an unexpected choice for me. A hard-core sci-fi film from China, these two labels inevitably seem awkward when put together. Three years ago, I watched the previous work of the series, The Wandering Earth. At that time, my impression was generally good. It was a qualified science fiction film with a mature industrial design. After The Wandering Earth 2 released, the word-of-mouth has soared, which aroused my curiosity.

I’m not a sci-fi fan, and my favorite sci-fi films can be roughly divided into two categories. One is hard science fiction like Moon", which is full with humanistic emotions; One is soft science fiction, such as "Dune", which focus on creating an epic atmosphere to revitalize an cliché story. So I still look forward to watch Wandering Earth 2 that combines hardcore technology and grand narrative.

After watching it, I only feel that this film is a semi-finished work with enough effort and insufficient effect. At three hours long, it doesn't bring a good enough story with nearly 3 hours long,

1

The main plot of The Wandering Earth 2 talks about three crises in total-the space station crash crisis, the planetary engine ignition test (political crisis), and the moon crash crisis. The ending is that the moon fall crisis has been resolved with many solidarity, and humans continue the "Wandering Earth" plan.

And what makes me feel the most uncomfortable in the movie is that there are too many sensational parts. Montage is almost abused here, several flashbacks have been inserted in any plot. At first it may be moving, but after too many times, I only felt that my emotions were being consumed. The unrestrained emotional expression is the biggest shortcoming of the whole film.

In addition, there are some typical male gaze shots in the work. For example, when the male protagonist notices the same rebels appearing on the opposite side in the space elevator, the director gives a close-up shot of a woman’s breasts, which is obviously a blunt joke to cater to the male audiences. The director did not consider the female audience at all, so that female audience would not accept this part.

There are even more male gaze shots. When the battle is fierce, the final climax unexpectedly shows the heroine Han Duoduo who was angry that her flower was destroyed. At this time, the director use two-minute shot to show her slow motion movements, which is blunt, old-fashioned, and embarrassing. What’s more, as a female astronaut selected by the same selection criteria, why can't she fight when a disaster occurs instead of being protected by the male?

Of course, it was not the most ridiculous part. At the climax, the technicians try hard to restore the Internet, but the progress was not smooth. Zhou Zhezhi, the leader of the coalition government, said nonsensically that we must continue even at the risk of tearing the earth apart. I don't know where this unwarranted confidence comes from, I just feel embarrassed.

2

However, there are still some advantages. For example, the movie plays a trick in the narrative, hiding the real ending in the Easter egg.

The easter eggs tell us directly that all the crises are created by the artificial intelligence 550 series. "(I did this) to overcome your obsession with history, the present, and the future... The best way to continue human civilization is to destroy you."

There are a lot of close-ups of monitors in the movie, which are used to hint the reversal in the end. But I found that I had overlooked the two most important shots of the surveillance camera-the first and last shots of the movie after watching it twice.

These two can also be said to be the same shot, they are both the close-ups of the red dot in the middle of the monitor. In such a frame, the entire screen becomes an eye, so the audience and the characters have the same situation under the situation—being watched (by artificial intelligence).

It seems like a multi-line narrative, but if we regard moss as the protagonist, then it actually has only one storyline, which is the story of moss observing human history from the perspective of God.

But what is its target?

Let’s go back to a seemingly unrelated scene—in exchange for his family’s place in the dungeon, Liu Peiqiang went to interview the pilot of the space station, and the interviewer was 550W. During the interview, a question is raised: What is the best solution to the "crisis" of Liu Peiqiang's family?

Liu Peiqiang believes that the best solution is to sacrifice the father-in-law and let his child enter the dungeon, while the wife acts as the guardian.

But the optimal solution given by 550W is that his wife who has been ill should die, and the father-in-law and son should enter the dungeon.

We can make a replacement that replace the "wife" with a human being here, and you will find that it is exactly the real ending. The opposition between the choices of humans and artificial intelligence can be seen here. They have the same purpose, but have different ways to solve..

Then we can think, what is the essential difference between these choices?

I think it is the difference in the definition of the word "optimal".

When humans consider the optimal solution, they will consider emotions, not the same as AI . The optimal in their eyes is a rational analysis. It calculates that the success probability of the "Wandering Earth Project" is far lower than the probability of human beings turning into "digital life", so it must kill everyone and stop the implementation of the Wandering Earth Project to save mankind.

Therefore, this is actually a struggle for the "right to define". The two are actually not superior. Different positions, different choices.

3

Generally speaking, The Wandering Earth 2 is a satisfying film. On the industrial level, the design of the "space elevator" allows us to see the combination of best technology and extraordinary imagination, and that scene is very thrilling. The story line of Tuhengyu in the movie is also impressive, and the discussion about "digital life" is fresh.

But I think there should be more content that can be put in a three-hour-long film. The two main lines seem irrelevant, and a large number of fighting scenes make people sleepy. The staff have proved that they can surpass themselves in technical aspect, but in the version presented today, they should learn how to do subtraction.