760,000 people scored 8 points, where is the word-of-mouth password of "The Wandering Earth 2"?

The box office exceeded 2.9 billion, ranking first in the Spring Festival file, and also entered the top ten weekend box office in North America, with nearly 760,000 people on Douban scoring 8.2, far exceeding the 7.9 points of the previous work. Even the crowdfunding amount of movie peripheral products became the first film and television IP product to exceed 100 million yuan in just one week.

"The Wandering Earth 2" can be described as the biggest winner of the 2023 Spring Festival file. Whether or not this work really "kicked open the door of Chinese science fiction", it is still a milestone. Compared with the first part, both narrative, ideogram and visual effects have achieved a qualitative leap, and have also attracted many audiences with sincerity and unique narrative.

Completion of the worldview

"The Wandering Earth 2" is a prequel to the first part, so the goal that needs to be achieved is to complete the setting of the previous game than to tell a new story. For example, there is no life limit and cognitive limitation in the first part, and the "life" and story of the rational intelligent body MOSS, which impressed the audience, are fuller in this part.

In addition to the awakened digital life, there are three obvious narrative threads in "The Wandering Earth 2". The story of Liu Peiqiang, played by Wu Jing, who formed a family, gave birth to Liu Qi, the protagonist of "Ball 1", and became a navigator, is the most flat and straightforward, and it is also the most complete story line of "filling the pit" and the easiest for the audience to appreciate.

The story line of Zhou Zhezhi, played by Li Xuejian, and his apprentice Hao Xiaoxi is the most "numerous", including politics, national feelings, national image, and inheritance, while also carrying most of the controversy about the heroic narrative part of the entire work, which is an important, controversial and not so easy to understand clue.

Andy Lau's "digital life" story line of Tu Hengyu is not only a new "pit" of "Ball 2", but also directly raises the narrative and meaning of this film to a dimension. Because from the "spaceship faction" and "wandering earth faction" at the beginning of the original work to the original "digital life" and human beings in the movie, whether digital life will convince human beings to attach importance to "ontology", its essence is a dispute between ethics and resources.

From "why" to "how" to "where do we go", Ball 2 has begun to answer these seemingly simple but important questions. It can be seen that the overall world view of "The Wandering Earth" has gradually taken shape, and a hardcore, poetic and slightly tragic story has jumped on the paper.

At the same time, the thinking and awakening of the terrifying MOSS in the Easter egg also means that in the third part, this important conflict completely original to the film will have a larger outbreak, which is why some people say that "the main film will start in three hours".

The opening of the space-time bureau

Some people say that Chinese science fiction, or many science fiction works now, have definitely achieved perfection in visual effects, but the core that is really lacking is "philosophy". Indeed, although the god work of "2001: A Space Odyssey" can be encountered but not sought, even if the hard science fiction based on hardcore technologies such as physical and chemical life, astronomy, medicine, psychology and strict logical deduction, its core is mainly "human-oriented", in order to depict and its possible realization of new technological inventions that have an impact on human society.

Therefore, after telling stories such as high-altitude elevators and space stations, the core of "The Wandering Earth 2" is also trying to complete the expansion of the concept of space-time. Whether it is a plan that takes 2,500 years, or a unit of measurement based on light-years, a digital life that can be generated in less than a second, and a timeline far beyond today, it is to emphasize that "human beings are small" with the grandeur of time and space.

But tiny human beings, who may still be a "variable" in their own universe, can still choose the choice that may not be the optimal solution, but must be the most altruistic, among thousands of outcomes.

Therefore, the description of digital life in "The Wandering Earth 2" is precisely to extend the concept of time and space. In fact, the reason why many science fiction "almost meaning" is that it is impossible to break the concept of time and space and narrate above the concept of time and space. However, science fiction films that make articles in the philosophy of time and space generally become "god works", such as "Interstellar" using the narrative method of ascending dimensions, completely breaking people's established view of time and space.

Five-dimensional space in Interstellar

"The Wandering Earth 2" has repeatedly mentioned that the 550 series is a quantum computer, but we know that a pair of entangled quanta can achieve information transmission across spatial dimensions, which is not only the "hard source" of the film's "hard science fiction", but also the third part is likely to make an article on quantum transmission.

After all, the atmosphere of "someone is helping us" in "Ball 2" is self-evident, and under MOSS's pursuit of "optimal solution", the prompt time that appears many times is likely to be the result of 550W calculus, which is very similar to the quantum arrangement. What's more, the faint miracles of human beings in crisis many times may also be the "optimal solution" of countless parallel time and space.

The name MOSS comes from the flip of 550W, and the relationship of mirror images also suggests that 550W and MOSS may be able to achieve dialogue across time and space. This evidence-based new sci-fi narrative method can achieve many original brain holes and stories without breaking the principle of time flow.

Narrative flaws

As 550W quipped during the interview with Liu Peiqiang: "It is forbidden to use figurative devices, rhetorical questions, personification, quotations and other rhetorical devices, which may lead to serious space station accidents." These "yin and yang strangeness" are precisely the "tactful" characteristics of high-context culture. Chinese culture is a typical high-context narrative achievement.

Therefore, in addition to the beautiful sci-fi hall built by "The Wandering Earth 2", many audiences will still feel tired and numb because of the various heroism and home-country isomorphic narratives born under the overly "affectionate" high-context culture.

The two most controversial passages of the film are the two closures of Liu Peiqiang, played by Wu Jing, and the plot in which Zhou Zhezhi, played by Li Xuejian, forcibly ignites the fire despite the obstruction of other UN representatives, both of which are overly emotional and believe in the power of "self" or "our race" and ignore the safety of others' lives, which is a very high-risk behavior if not in the context of the film. Since an extremely idealized "united" context regardless of national skin color has been formed under the end times, it is no longer necessary to emphasize excessive individual heroism and nationalism in this context.

However, many viewers watching movies with microscopes keenly discovered that the place where the MOSS that had been flashing and Zhou Zhezhi's last face and crutches were all where the MOSS was located. Therefore, the plot of "forced ignition" may really be prompted by MOSS's calculus, which may be the entry point to the story of "The Wandering Earth 3", and if it is true, it is more convincing.

Where there is still room for improvement is the narrative rhythm. The story of the first hour of the movie is relatively dragged on, and there is little novelty in the plot, resulting in the overall length of the film to 172 minutes, which is somewhat too long and redundant. At the same time, in order to make the story line of "digital life" stand, the film strengthens the conflict between digital life and wandering in the early stage, but in fact, the core demands of the two are completely different, and the conflict may lack logical support.

But the flaws are not hidden, these small regrets still cannot stop the status of the "Wandering Earth" series of IP in the history of Chinese science fiction. "The Wandering Earth 2" also plays the duties of a series, a cinematic universe "second part". Compared with the previous work, in addition to being more mature in terms of narrative, world view, and visual effects, it is not limited to "filling pits", but also acts as a bridge between the top and the bottom.