Domestic films, a cosmic joke for the audience

Recently, a fantastic sci-fi movie was released in theaters, without big special effects, big stars, and big investment, but it claimed to "explore another possibility of Chinese science fiction films", which made people look at it.

The release date of the film also went off the beaten track, not on the regular Friday slot, but on Saturday's April Fool's Day, which seems to be a high-profile announcement to "make a cosmic joke" with everyone.

Fortunately, it is not an empty gimmick, but because of its surprise, it has received a lot of praise - "Space Exploration Editorial Office".

"Space Exploration" in the title is a science fiction magazine born in the 80s of the last century, aiming to popularize the vast universe and broaden the reader's horizons.

The male protagonist Lao Tang is the editor-in-chief of the magazine's editorial department.

When he was young, he was full of enthusiasm and firmly believed in the existence of aliens, saying that as long as aliens were found, humanity would definitely be able to take a big step forward.

Over the next three decades, Don turned this ambition into action.

He refuses to socialize, resists the trap of consumerism, and although his life is difficult, he has always been keen to watch the snowflake spot in front of the TV and analyze the signals that aliens may send.

In his words, "this is not an ordinary snowflake point, but the afterglow of the Big Bang".

However, this practice has not yet yielded any results, readers have lost their initial enthusiasm to explore the universe, and half of the magazine's advertisements cannot be pulled, to the point that they cannot pay the heating bill.

Old Tang also changed from the spirit guy of the year to a middle-aged man with four walls of the family. In the eyes of his colleagues in the magazine, his cheerful words are crazy dreams.

However, one day, Don received a signal suspected to come from the depths of the universe, so he copied the "guy thing" that received the alien signal and left Beijing to run west.

This trip to the west, Old Tang also has a few helpers with clear bones.

One is Qin Cairong, the eldest sister who helps Old Tang run the magazine.

She listened to Don's advice a few years ago and invested in a batch of astronomical telescopes, but the result was nothing, so she ridiculed Don Lao Tang for not being a big scientist at all, at most a "civil science".

But Qin Cairong was kind and righteous in her heart, and seeing that the old Tang, who could not see his wife scattered, was deceived, he cried bitterly while following and setting off.

Another helper is the little young man Nari Su who stutters a little.

He works at a weather station, and by chance he met Don and admired him very much, so he joined this journey to find aliens.

It's just that Su can help very little that day, in addition to helping with luggage, he will only drink a lot of alcohol every day, fall asleep when drunk, and sleep in a strange posture.

The group arrived in Sichuan and joined the girl Xiaoxiao, a big fan of "Space Exploration" who claimed to have seen flying saucers as a child.

Later, it was discovered that she was actually highly myopic and mistook neon for a flying saucer.

But since then, Xiaoxiao has developed a strong interest in alien civilizations.

The last to join them was a village guy named Sun Yitong.

He usually has a pot on his head to prevent him from knocking his head when he faints due to illness, and is regarded as a pitiful weirdo by the villagers.

But Old Tang found that he "had something", so he stayed by Sun Yitong's side, waiting for the sign that "the sparrow was full of stone lions" and receiving the alien's next "guidance".

In short, this group of strange "Crouching Dragon and Phoenix Chicks" came together because of aliens.

The English title Journey to the West implies that this story of finding aliens is a "folk science version of Journey to the West".

Like the masters and apprentices of "Journey to the West", they experienced various difficulties along the way, got lost, were injured, were deceived, and most of the time they were in a state of despair.

Old Tang is a Tang monk-like figure in the team, his mind is always a tendon, and his mouth is a big reason.

But the problem is that finding aliens on Earth is simply more difficult than going to the West to learn from the scriptures, and this journey with an unknown future is not so much about exploring the universe as about the "Approaching Science" movie.

In front of the screen, we are the first perspective followers, using the shaky handheld camera lens to immerse ourselves in this journey on the edge of science and fantasy.

In the first half of the movie, it's hard not to feel embarrassed by the downfall that Old Tang exchanged for persistence, and even question how a person with a little scientific knowledge could end up in such a situation -

In order to please customers who wanted to advertise, he tried on the most precious spacesuit, but he suffocated because the helmet was stuck for a long time, and he was carried to the ambulance in a spacesuit in full view.

He found netizens who posted bizarre celestial videos on the Internet, hoping to find clues about aliens, but the other party opened his mouth and asked for 520 yuan, selling him an "alien leg bone" that would gradually grow.

Even if Qin Cairong tried his best to block it, he could see that something was wrong, but Old Tang still paid for this "possibility" with a very small probability.

While witnessing Don's downfall, people quickly forget that this is a science fiction film, aliens and flying saucers only exist in the dialogue of the characters.

The director of the film, Kong Dashan, joked that "Space Exploration Editorial Department" is "the floor tile of science fiction movies", there is no money-burning special effects to create a vast universe, and there is no grand future world view to shape a high concept.

The whole film is about a group of losers embarking on a seemingly endless journey.

I have to say that the main creator is indeed "exploring another possibility of Chinese science fiction films", making a very "new" science fiction film, which is out of the routine of mainstream commercial science fiction movies.

But it's worth mentioning that their "new" is not original - good science fiction stories always focus on people, and "Space Exploration Editorial Office" talks about people throughout.

In the second half of the film, everyone begins to feel tired, leaving only Old Tang like an evil spirit, following Sun Yitong, who is holding the pot, to find the next "guide" of the alien.

In a cave with bizarre frescoes, they waited for the so-called alien signal.

But whether that is a real alien force or the illusion of Don accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms, the film does not give a clear conclusion.

This scene is very reminiscent of Plato's cave metaphor.

He described a group of prisoners in a cave, bound from an early age, unable to move or turn their heads, but looking forward at the shadows moving on the cave. But in fact, there is a torch behind the prisoner, and the shadow they see is a projection of the fire of the puppet behind them, and they mistake the shadow for the real thing.

One day, a prisoner broke free from this bondage, walked out of the cave and discovered the real world outside, so he returned to the cave to tell his companions about the discovery, but the prisoners who had regarded the shadow as real since childhood did not believe his words.

Don in the film may be the prisoner who broke free and discovered the world outside the cave, and he returned to the "cave" like the prisoner described by Plato.

At the end of the film, Old Don attended his nephew's wedding for the first time and gave a small speech, revealing for the first time that he was obsessed with finding aliens because his depressed daughter asked him before she died: What is the meaning of human existence?

Old Tang couldn't answer at that time, so after his daughter's death, he used his remaining persistence to find answers and alleviate the pain of losing his daughter, and he believed that the answers that his daughter could not find deep in his heart would definitely be found in outward exploration.

He said he seemed to see the answer when Sun Yitong disappeared, a double helix structure, and put it on the cover of the discontinued issue of Space Exploration.

It can be said that this journey of the old Tang is to use his own persistence as a "travel fee", just like the Tang monk took his apprentice to the West Heaven to obtain the scriptures, and retrieved the wordless scripture that only he can crack, and the key to cracking it is his deep love for his daughter.

"Space Exploration Editorial Department" is a less sci-fi sci-fi film, and it is also a self-healing for folk science like Old Tang.

The most touching thing in the film is not the depiction of the unknown universe and alien civilizations, but the persistent yearning and pursuit of Old Tang.

While the vast majority of people choose to ignore the question of "the meaning of human existence", Don chose to look for the answer without hesitation, looking for 30 years, although he could not explain the results himself.

Perhaps the meaning of human existence is that simple attachment and love.