The vastness of the universe seems to be beyond our reach. We, the small ones, have always longed to open the door of the universe. When we gaze at the starry sky, we always fantasize about becoming a star, adjacent to the Earth, with Mars, with Jupiter, and traveling in the interstellar world. Infinite reverie travels through space with thoughts.....
On the first day of the Year of the Pig in 2019, a film based on the novel of the same name, The Wandering Earth, shattered our illusions about the charm of space, and the Earth left the warm embrace of the solar system and wandered into space.
What a movie this is, 20 days after its release, the box office rushed over 4.2 billion! It's not a Chinese New Year film, although it's a Spring Festival stall, because there are a lot of disaster scenes; it's a commercial blockbuster? Not really, there are almost no stars, except Wu Jing; this is a movie about Earth, about space, about human life and death.
In this movie, we see the strength of Jupiter, the smallness of the earth; we see the wisdom of mankind, the helplessness of mankind; the space station that seems to control the future destiny, the dungeon where mankind barely survives, the super powerful power station, the powerful transport vehicle, the chariot, the astronaut who conquers the world and saves the earth, the fragile human being...
Have you ever been to space?
Is this the space world you imagine?
Ever wondered who created this movie？
The beauty of space and the horrors of Earth?
The beauty of the space world, in addition to the release from various national scientific institutions, is the visual cognition brought to us by the illustrations in science fiction magazines, and more is the endless fantasy brought to us by the science fiction text itself. And many science fiction novels do not know whether it is because such novels contain a lot of scientific terms and rigorous scientific attitudes, or because many science fiction authors are mostly born in science and engineering men, and the stylistic style of novels is difficult to bring people more and more beautiful reverie.
Science fiction movies turn boring words into beautiful pictures and present them on the big screen, shocking our eyes with strong visual impact.
With the development of science, science fiction films have more creative means in visual presentation, using computers combined with professional software, allowing us to see a lot of worlds beyond our imagination. Such as "ET Alien", "Terminator", "Star Wars", "Avatar", "Interstellar", "Gravity", etc., there are also better ways to show it in the screening, such as IMAX, so that the audience is more immersive.
Not only science fiction movies, the perfect combination of science and art not only allows us to travel through space, but also allows us to travel back to the ancient barbarian era ("Jurassic Park"), into the pyramids of the Egyptian pharaohs, "Adella's Extraordinary Adventure", "The Mummy"), and more fantasy movies such as "The Lord of the Rings", "Harry Potter", "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", with the help of CG creators, the associations hidden in the legendary literary text are visualized in front of the audience's eyes. In recent years, the growth rate of Chinese CG creative talents is much faster than that of screenwriters, although the overall quality of the film (script + performance + visual + music) is not too high, but the visual presentation of the film has a high level of play. For example, in 2017, the films based on Sun Wukong ("The Legend of Wukong", "Journey to the West - Sun Wukong Three Dozen White Bone Essences", "Journey to the West - Daughter Country", etc.), as well as "Traces of the Lord", and even the short-lived "Asura", the visual effect comprehensive expression is relatively good is "The Legend of the Demon Cat". CG creation has long become an indispensable means of creation for current films, forming a unique aesthetic style.
The charm of CG art is not only reflected in movies, but also in the architecture, animation, game industry, and new media industry based on interactive technology, and it is more concerned and loved by young people.
In any case, CG art shines in all walks of life with its unique artistic charm. CG artists showed the beauty of space to hundreds of millions of Chinese audiences during the Spring Festival of the Year of the Pig. Let us feel the power of the universe, the smallness of human beings.
Popular science fiction movies will always spawn a large number of science fiction fans in a short period of time, and the brain-burning scientific term "Roche Limit" flashed in "The Wandering Earth", and its Baidu index increased by 400 times compared with before the release of the movie. "The Wandering Earth" gathered thousands of Chinese CG people, including BaseFX, MoreVFX, PIXOMOD, Orange and other major domestic post-production companies to work together to complete this extremely influential film, which is of great significance to the development of Chinese science fiction films. Arguably, without these CG people, it's hard to imagine the watchability of this movie.
After the screening of "The Wandering Earth", it is estimated that there is no one in the whole country who does not know Liu Cixin, and no one does not know that he is a science fiction writer. In addition to his novel of the same name, many people know about "The Three-Body Problem" (which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel awarded by the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention) and "Supernova Era". In addition to science fiction fans,
Do you know science fiction world magazine?
What is the "Nebula Award" and the "Galaxy Award"?
In fact, Liu Cixin's first science fiction novel was published in science fiction world magazine. Science Fiction World was founded in 1979 as it grew up with millions of science fiction fans in China. The Galaxy Awards founded by Science Fiction World are the highest and only awards for Chinese science fiction, and it has launched many science fiction writers, including Liu Cixin. It is also "Science Fiction World" that introduces foreign science fiction and future scientific knowledge to China, bringing scientists, writers and science fiction fans together to draw the science fiction dream of Chinese.
Some people say that there is no science fiction in China.
But you know the last forty years,
How many science fiction novels have been published in China?
How many sci-fi fans are there in China?
Millions of science fiction fans, including "The Wandering Earth" director Guo Tao and the original novel author Liu Cixin, are loyal readers of "Science Fiction World". The magazine's forty years of persistence finally led to a new round of fans on the first day of the Year of the Pig in the Chinese New Year, fueling the morale and national pride of the Chinese.
On the afternoon of March 3, 2019, I came to Beijing to listen to Mr. Yang Guoliang, deputy editor-in-chief of Science Fiction World magazine, talk to you about Chinese science fiction literature, and talk about how the Chinese Science Fiction Literature Award - Galaxy Award created local science fiction writers. There are also several CG artists involved in the concept design and visual effects production of The Wandering Earth, and hear how they created the CG world of The Wandering Earth.