When it comes to the "New Year Drama King", who can everyone think of?
From the perspective of data and performance in all aspects, 2 of the "drama kings" in domestic dramas in the past 5 years have performed very eye-catchingly.
One is "The Age of Awakening", which exploded in word of mouth in 2021, all the way to Douban 9.3, causing countless heated discussions.
The other is, of course, "The World", which exploded ratings at the beginning of last year, which is more than smacked in terms of the number of replays and replay ratings, and has become the biggest winner at the Golden Eagle Festival.
These dramas have a common feature, that is, they are all CCTV opening dramas.
In fact, CCTV's opening drama has always been a popular excavator in national dramas. The divine dramas such as "Yongzheng Dynasty" and "Crossing the Guandong" of that year were also CCTV's opening dramas.
Facts have proved that with the CCTV platform broadcasting, famous directors, powerful help, plus a good story, the time and place are favorable and the people are below, the annual drama king is indeed very likely to be born from it.
So, this year's opening drama king, will it be a CCTV drama?
Not only is it possible, but it may also set a new record: the double cannon.
Just tonight, the highly anticipated "Crazy" will be broadcast on CCTV 8 and broadcast on iQiyi Network.
Tomorrow night, another annual Chinese drama "Three-Body Problem" will also be broadcast on CCTV Eight Sets, and the online broadcast platform is Tencent Video.
CCTV's eight sets once again adopted the mode of superimposed broadcast of two dramas, one "Crazy" and one "Three-Body Problem", the premiere was only one day apart, and the sentence was truly realized, and the big drama watched CCTV.
"Crazy", which gathers Zhang Yi, Zhang Songwen, Zhang Zhijian and other powerful people, is indeed worth looking forward to, but what I am more looking forward to is "The Three-Body Problem".
Without it, because the former has a track record of success as a black drama, while the latter is obviously more difficult to succeed.
But from another perspective, once successful, the meaning is even more extraordinary.
Over the years, CCTV's opening drama has achieved many types of Chinese dramas, "Crossing the Guandong" has achieved a legendary drama of the era, "Yongzheng Dynasty" has pushed the depth of historical dramas to a new height, and "The World" has made period dramas shine again.
I hope that after the broadcast of "The Three-Body Problem", the audience will be pleasantly surprised to find - domestic sci-fi dramas, this time finally hard.
First, CCTV's "New Year Drama King"? This time it was a difficult one
CCTV + "Three-Body Problem", it is not difficult for the audience to feel the weight of it.
There has always been a saying in the Chinese science fiction circle: "He single-handedly raised Chinese science fiction to the height of the world." ”
And Liu Cixin's masterpiece is undoubtedly "The Three-Body Problem".
From 2006 to 2010, Liu Cixin used three novels "The Three-Body Problem", "The Three-Body Problem 2: Dark Forest" and "The Three-Body Problem 3: Death Eternal Life" to write the story of two civilizations in the universe from dialogue, war, and finally rise and fall, presenting a science fiction world with deep imagination and no lack of humanistic thinking.
In 2015, "The Three-Body Problem" won the Hugo Award, known as the "Nobel of science fiction".
The grand structure, novel imagination, and deep connotation make it have a huge readership around the world.
The book has been translated into more than 10 languages and published worldwide (according to incomplete statistics, at least 8 million copies have been sold).
But the story of "The Three-Body Problem" is not easy to shoot.
The three films totaling 900,000 words are much more complex and grandiose than "The Wandering Earth", which has a total of 23,000 words.
In addition to the scene, it also contains many sci-fi brain holes. For example, the three-body galaxy, the solar amplifier, the chiko, the dimensionality reduction strike, the four-dimensional Lord of the Rings civilization, and so on.
Guo Fan, the director of "The Wandering Earth", said in an interview that he felt that China had not yet come to the time to make "The Three-Body Problem", especially the second film was difficult to film and television.
But the harder it is to shoot, the more it is expected.
James Cameron came to China to talk to Da Liu and boasted in person, "The Chinese science fiction I want to see the most is "The Three-Body Problem". ”
In recent years, various "Three-Body Problem" projects have also become the "cash cow" of major film and television companies.
The best performance is the "My Three-Body Problem" series of animations, with an average score of 9.5 for all three.
The "Three-Body Problem" animation has encountered a word-of-mouth storm, and the current Douban score is 4.8 points.
The final contest appeared on the live-action series produced by Goose Factory and Netflix.
There are not many Chinese faces in the Netflix version of "The Three-Body Problem" actors, such as Benedict Wang, Zhou Caiqin, Zhao Jialing, and the other starring actors are foreign faces, although the drama invited Liu Cixin and English translator Liu Yukun to jointly serve as production consultants for the series, production and funding are effectively guaranteed, but there is a high probability of magic changes in the story and characters, and it is difficult to conquer domestic audiences.
So the hope of real-life is actually in this national drama "The Three-Body Problem".
Liu Cixin said in an interview that in the four years since "The Three-Body Problem" won the award, at least 40 domestic and foreign directors have approached him for cooperation.
Big productions and big special effects are not difficult to do. The hardest part is meeting a creative team that understands and respects the work.
Can the Chinese drama "Three-Body Problem" do it? In fact, CCTV broadcast the show, which has said it all.
However, "The Three-Body Problem" is a sci-fi genre of film and television works. The creator of Chinese drama, in a genre that is not good at, challenged the work at the top of the pyramid from the beginning.
This is destined to be a hard bone within a hard bone.
After watching the "Three-Body Problem" animation, the audience expressed their lower expectations for the film and television of "Three-Body Problem", which is also because they know the real industrial level of the industry.
What is more difficult is that the sci-fi audience is still a niche in China, and understanding "The Three-Body Problem" needs to involve a lot of sci-fi concepts, plus many of the public have not read the original work, how to do "in-depth and simple", so that the audience understands the story and is moved by the story, which is difficult.
But it is difficult to return, it is not without a solution, it depends on whether the main creator of "The Three-Body Problem" can find a solution idea.
Second, the drama version of "The Three-Body Problem", which adapted the first novel, cannot be bypassed three difficult problems
The drama version of "The Three-Body Problem" mainly revolves around the first part of the novel, mainly about the beginning and end of the "three-body crisis".
The first sci-fi content of the novel is the smallest, and the difficulty of film and television adaptation is relatively minimal, but it is not easy to tell this story well.
A simple brush of the plot.
In the last century, young Ye Wenjie was devastated by reality, and in despair, she came to the Red Bank base to participate in a top-secret mission.
Here, Ye Wenjie's mind has changed, and at the same time, through a certain facility, the mysterious alien signal is connected, and the trisolaran who is far away in the α galaxy of Centaurus responds, and there is the classic saying "don't answer, don't answer, don't answer".
This kind trisolaran warned Ye Wenjie not to respond, otherwise the earth will be invaded by the trisolarans, which will be a disaster.
But Ye Wenjie did not heed the warning of the Trisolarans, and insisted on contacting the Trisolarans again, and this time, the Trisolarans discovered the location of the earth.
The "three-body crisis" is officially formed, and the three-body fleet will arrive on Earth in 400 years, and easily destroy the Earth's space fleet with a drop of water to launch an invasion of Earth.
And Ye Wenjie and Evans, who are full of narrow fantasies about the future, led by a group of people, founded the ETO organization and absorbed a large number of scientific elites in order to welcome the arrival of the trisolarans, Ye Wenjie at that time, did not know that this would be the sunset of mankind.
With the abnormal disturbance of basic earth science in 2005, scientists committed bizarre suicides, and the mysterious "Three-Body Problem" game appeared, police officer Shi Qiang found physicist Wang Miao and asked him to break into the ETO organization to find out the truth.
Next, how humans will discover and fight the ETO organization, and how will they face the "three-body crisis", this is the main plot of the drama version of "Three-Body Problem".
To tell this story well, the biggest difficulty is how to lead the audience into the three-body world and understand the whole story, and the first problem the crew has to face is special effects.
The magnificent sci-fi momentum and epic multi-dimensional scenes doom the most difficult thing in "The Three-Body Problem" is not real people, but "real scenes".
Look at the trailer, famous scenes, there is.
For example, the three-body game, the Red Bank Base, ETO Rally, Operation Guzheng, etc., which account for a small part of the first part, you can truly feel the threat of the coldness of the three-body crisis to mankind.
Epic, there is.
In the scene in "Operation Guzheng", Ye Wenjie watched the famous scenes such as the sunset of mankind, and the sense of heaviness was already coming out.
Sci-fi sense, there is.
Wang Miao participated in the "three-body game", a desolate three-body world leaving the tip of the iceberg.
A long set of shots ended in a suffocating shock, and the shock I held in my mouth could not be spoken.
A big and small race for survival unfolds between the Trisolarans and the Earthlings.
Undoubtedly, the level of domestic sci-fi production is far from being world-class, but this shot, tough enough.
In addition to being attributed to the presentation of special effects, it is also born out of the crazy setting of the series - a domestic sci-fi epic.
The second puzzle, type.
Liu Cixin's novel is standard hard science fiction, but for the audience to understand the story, it must use a more typological approach.
Judging from the trailer, the crew's solution idea is: science fiction + era + criminal investigation, multi-element mix-and-match. The Red Bank part is closer to period dramas, and the modern part is closer to criminal investigation dramas, and the whole is classified as science fiction.
It's a bold and innovative point, but it's also something to worry about.
Fortunately, the drama of the story is guaranteed, and the audience gradually enters the story like following Detective Shi Qiang.
The worry lies in whether the audience will accept the ancient atmosphere of this criminal investigation drama.
The third problem is restoration.
Although the main creator said that the creative idea is to return to the original work, it is still a huge test to truly restore the essence of the story, and the key to success or failure is still people.
Third, Yu Hewei plays Shi Qiang, Zhang Luyi plays Wang Miao, 11 powerful people sit down, is it stable?
In April 2019, when the 3D sci-fi stage play "The Three-Body Problem II: Dark Forest" premiered in Shanghai, Liu Cixin said at the scene, "I don't value 'faithful to the original', 'very faithful' may fail, novels, film and television dramas, and stage plays are three different forms, as long as they are adapted well, the audience will accept them." He also believes that the good results of film and television dramas are important for producers, directors, and screenwriters, and "the original work is not important."
According to Da Liu, the first key to the success of the drama version of "The Three-Body Problem" is who to find as the director and who to be the screenwriter.
The choreographer-director combination of "The Three-Body Problem" may not be the biggest card, but I think it is reliable.
First of all, the director is Yang Lei, who is not stable but has very characteristics.
Yang Lei's representative work is the spy war drama "Red", but he has also filmed low-reputation works such as "The Legend of Sabre Pearl" and "The Bright Path of the Star of Counterattack".
Although he was not successful in the fantasy genre, after successively producing the TV series "Kyushu Sky City" and the movie "The Legend of Saizhu", he should have enough experience in special effects production and visual design. And the experience in spy war suspense dramas also guarantees the level of the drama version of "The Three-Body Problem".
Director Yang Lei said in an interview that he turned over the original book and interviewed dozens of scientists, and finally decided to shoot the first "Three-Body Problem" in a realistic style.
Besides, screenwriter Tian Liangliang, the work with the best reputation is "Final Note" with 8.2 points, and the biggest reason why "Ultimate Note" has a good reputation is that it is the only film and television drama that has not changed "Tomb Robbery Notes".
If Tian Liangliang can continue his faithful adaptation style of the original this time, it will undoubtedly be a blessing for "The Three-Body Problem", and the audience is fed up with the adaptation.
Look at another key part that underpins the series, the actors.
The audience watches "The Three-Body Problem" not only to see the story, but also to see the characters.
The fan-made work "My Three-Body Problem: The Legend of Beihai", which has a rating of 9.6 points, has become an adaptation masterpiece in the minds of netizens, and many people feel that it has captured the epic and tragic color of the original work, and one of the keys is the character shaping of Zhang Beihai, which entered the hearts of the audience.
Can the character creation of the drama version of "The Three-Body Problem" be achieved? Say it one by one.
The first one, Wang Miao, a physics professor played by Zhang Luyi.
To be honest, among the protagonists of the "Three-Body Problem" series, Wang Miao is one with a relatively weak sense of existence, he does not have Luo Ji's character arc, nor does he have the depth and thickness of Zhang Beihai.
But Zhang Luyi's casting can be called accurate.
In the past, Zhang Luyi was best at playing roles in spy war dramas, and his performances in "Red" and "New World" were remarkable.
As long as you choose a role that suits your temperament image, Zhang Luyi's performance will be very stable, and Zhang Luyi plays Wang Miao's sensitivity and anxiety in the trailer, and I think he will also maintain his level in the play.
The second place, Shi Qiang, played by Yu Hewei.
This is the most controversial casting right now.
Yu Hewei's acting skills needless to say, from Liu Bei in the new "Three Kingdoms" to Cao Cao in "Military and Master Alliance", the audience is waiting for him to play Sun Quan, and Chen Duxiu's performance in "Age of Awakening" has made him even more popular.
But the biggest problem with Yu Hewei playing Shi Qiang is that he doesn't fit his face.
Judging from the performance in the trailer, Yu Hewei's acting skills are still very eye-catching, if Shi Qiang is an original character, I think many audiences will accept this character, but Shi Qiang is a classic character in the original work.
This is a rough-looking, very responsible policeman. Seasoned, alert, perceptive, optimistic and realistic.
The portrayal of him in the animation is compared to Ma Dong-seok, and the audience does not buy it.
The characters with the highest demand in the audience are Hu Jun, Jiang Wu and Chen Minghao, which means that Yu Hewei will inevitably face a huge challenge, Yu Hewei was an actor who was good at challenging the impossible in the past, and I hope that this time he can also reverse his reputation.
The third place, the young Ye Wenjie of the prince's literary version.
It should be said that Wang Ziwen's appearance dispelled the concerns of some audiences, in the trailer, Wang Ziwen performed Ye Wenjie's sense of disillusionment and brokenness after his parents suddenly suffered misfortune and his family was separated, the disadvantage is that there is less bookishness, but the real test is still in the main film.
The fourth place, Chen Jin's version of the elderly Ye Wenjie.
This is undoubtedly the most successful casting in the whole show, even if it is only a trailer, Chen Jin's performance has been recognized by almost all audiences.
Chen Jin's face is more serious, and his well-known roles in recent years include the mother of the little father-in-law Qi Heng in "Do You Know", the lord of Pingning County.
Su Mingyu's mother, who prefers sons to daughters in "It's All Good".
and Zhang Jiying, secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission of Zhongfu Group in "Breakout".
This is almost an actor tailored to Ye Wenjie's personality, as soon as Chen Jin appeared, the old Ye Wenjie's restrained and calm, painful despair and regret after understanding the dark forest came out.
No matter from any angle, this is the casting of a hundred shots, and the role of the elderly Ye Wenjie has been stabilized.
The fifth place, Chang Weisi played by Lin Yongjian.
This is a casting that the audience thinks is inappropriate, but it is actually very suitable.
Many audiences watching the Spring Festival Gala will think that Lin Yongjian's performance is a play, in fact, the most classic role Lin Yongjian has played is precisely Tan Zhongshu in the spy war drama "Before Dawn", and Nie Rongzhen Nie Shuai played by him in "Armageddon" is also into the wood, and it is the right choice for him to play the long-sighted and commanding General Chang Weisi, and now these doubts will disappear as soon as the series starts broadcasting.
The sixth, Ding Yi played by Wang Chuanjun.
Ding Yi did not have many scenes in the first part, and the main play was in the second part, Wang Chuanjun presented the temperament of Ding Yi's scientist very well, but it remains to be seen whether he can play the strong and powerful side of Ding Yi's character, but the scene Wang Chuanjun in the first part should be able to pass easily.
In addition, I pay special attention to the roles of Kou Zhenhai and Tu Songyan, who play Ye Wenjie's father Ye Zhetai, and her husband Yang Weining, who was eventually killed by Ye Wenjie as a contact trisolaran, which is undoubtedly a very suitable casting, and the suspense is just how the two actors will interpret their respective stories in the main film.
Coupled with Li Xiaoran who plays Shen Yufei, He Dujuan who plays Yang Dong, Bai Ke, whose role is still unclear, at least 11 powerful people participated, perhaps a new batch of classic characters in Chinese dramas are among them.
Fourth, how to break through domestic science fiction dramas? This drama may be able to make a sample
From any point of view, "The Three-Body Problem" faces a dangerous road.
First, the difficulty of adaptation.
There is a popular opinion about adaptations: first-rate literary works are rarely adapted into first-class film and television works. For example, Shakespeare's dramatic style, no matter how good a film and television director is, he can only restore three points.
For Chinese science fiction, "The Three-Body Problem" is undoubtedly the top science fiction work.
Second, the foundation of domestic science fiction is weak.
After "The Wandering Earth", the continuous folding of science fiction themes such as "Shanghai Fortress" has falsified the argument of "the first year of domestic science fiction". In recent years, the exploration of "science fiction +" in domestic sci-fi dramas "Hello, Anyi", "Tianmu Crisis" and "Fatal Wish" has not been smooth.
From creators to readers, the soil for the existence of domestic science fiction is still very poor.
The third is the failure of the adaptation of the world's top sci-fi IP.
In recent years, from the American drama "Base" adapted from classic science fiction literature to the American drama of the same name adapted from the famous game "Halo", they have suffered fiasco, proving that even in Hollywood, where the film and television industry is mature enough, adapting classic science fiction IP is a hard bone.
But the harder it is to shoot, the more you have to shoot.
The more difficult it is to break through, the more you need "The Three-Body Problem" to make a sample of domestic sci-fi dramas.
The series started in June 2020 and took half a year to finish, which can be described as slow work.
Judging by the trailer, burning is the keyword.
Although the original book presents the grandeur of the universe and the smallness of human beings, the hope of small human beings in despair. Reason is cold and hard.
But as a TV series, it needs to turn freezing into ignition.
Sounds like a melody? In fact...... It's really a melody.
It has to be said that the episode has made some loyal book fans question: this is contrary to the desperate gray texture of Da Liu's works.
But don't be discouraged.
In the original work, Da Liu wrote about human fear.
And what the series wants to shoot is the fearlessness of human beings.
Seems diametrically opposite? It's actually two sides of the same coin.
Fear stems from the psychology of facing the end of science fiction.
Fearlessness is the resonance beyond the individual when gazing at the end of destiny.
Let's give an example.
In the original work, there is a speculation that humans are bugs in the eyes of trisolarans.
And the play used a scene to film this speculation, and finally Shi Qiang roared out almost hoarsely on the rice field where the bugs were flying: the only thing that the trisolarans did not expect was that the bugs had never been really defeated.
From the perspective of the thinking of the three-body problem, such "conviction" is a kind of clumsiness.
But that's not the most remarkable thing about Earthlings.
Eternal hope of survival is an instinct of earthlings.
Such an instinct makes the romantic side of the original book take root in the story.
Cold reason faded a layer of color, hoping to ignite a fire.
And the choice of "Three-Body Problem" to face difficulties is also in the impossible, sowing a future-oriented seed for domestic science fiction.
That seed is the hope that people will not succumb to reality.
In and out of the play of "The Three-Body Problem", it is all a backwater battle.
But who dares to say that this battle is not worth fighting?
Will it lose? Maybe it will, but the low win rate also has to shoot, even if it is not perfect, it is a tempering of the industry, but never standing still is never hopeful.
I believe that Chinese can write "The Three-Body Problem" that shocks the world, and I can also make "The Three-Body Problem" that satisfies the audience.
In the end, I decided, choosing to believe in hope.
The fate of the drama version of "The Three-Body Problem" and domestic science fiction will be known tomorrow night.
Don't give up, don't give up, don't give up.