The Wandering Earth · 7:06pm May 30th, 2019
So the biggest, most successful film ever in China hit Netflix earlier this month. To … little fanfare. Which some people online immediately took issue with, as The Wandering Earth is based (very, very loosely) on Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem which, even if I wasn’t a huge fan of, did win a bunch of awards and was a huge deal in the Sci-Fi world.
So for The Wandering Earth to release without much fanfare on Netflix, there were a number of cries I recall reading in the news that it was an attempt to “downplay” China’s triumphant entry into the Sci-Fi film world. Or recurrent contributions to, depending on where you were reading. Opinions varied. China being a political hot-topic however, as you can imagine there was a lot of internet flame being built up around this film.
To be fair, some of it is justified. China is … not a great place. Their surveillance and their “social programs” aren’t exactly out of 1984 only because they’re honestly better at it, something that many have attributed to the success of The Wandering Earth in China (so I hear, if you went to see the movie, you got a few extra points put on your social score, which was one of the reasons the film was so big Thankfully, a reader from China has assured me that this is rumor, but untrue). China is headed by a now life-long dictator. People disappear. So when that government backs a big film, well … some people get cagey.
Anyway, I don’t want to dive any further into that side of things because it just flat-out gets messy, and re-education camps don’t have much to do with The Wandering Earth, which yes, I sat down and watched. Because it was the biggest film in China’s history, I’ve enjoy a number of other Chinese films, I do love Sci-Fi, and well, it was right there on Netflix. So … how was this film adaptation of The Three-Body Problem?
Well, it has nothing to do with Three-Body. And I do mean nothing. I’m fairly certain that the only reason the book is mentioned at all in conjunction with this movie was marketing. I’d even venture to say that the script for Wandering Earth was probably already written, and the writers/producers saw it as a way to get their project green-lit. So they snapped up the rights to Three-Body, started work on their film, and put “Based on” in the credits.
But it’s not. To put it another way, Wandering Earth is as similar to Three-Body as Terminator is to Star Wars. They’re the same overall genre yes … but they’re pretty much unlike one another in every other respect.
Which was fine by me. I found the characters and plotting of Three-Body bland and predictable through most of its length, the only redeeming bit being the alien sequence at the very end. It was a novel written to explore ideas, rather than have character or plot. So I was alright discovering that Wandering Earth didn’t have any of it.
Again, none. I cannot stress this enough: If you are planning on watching The Wandering Earth because you loved The Three-Body Problem, you will be extremely disappointed with it. Because if it is similar to any Sci-Fi at all, Wandering Earth is much closer to Independence Day than anything else.
But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Not at all. You just have to have the right expectations.
I had no idea this was supposed to be true. Knowing this lowers my already low opinion of the film.
The Three Body Problem movie is ON NETFLIX!?
Oh... not the three body problem :(
Well darn, is it too much to ask for a "Dark Forest" and "Death's End" movie. That's what I actually want. The Three Body Problem book itself wasn't great, but those sequels were sublime.
As a Chinese, I can assure you that watching the movie has nothing to do with your personal record and so many people watched it in cinema just because they think it’s a good movie done by our country, not Hollywood. I never watched it though and my only loss is that when people talk about it, I can’t really understand them, but that’s a minor thing.
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It definitely means that if you're looking for a film adaptation of that, this is not it. Still a fun movie though. But if you were hoping for a film adaptation of that story ... you'll have to wait for another studio to get the license or a reboot.
That said, I honestly wouldn't mind a sequel to this one. Bad science aside, I'd be curious to see what they'd come up with for mankind's 2500 year journey in the black between the stars.
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Thanks for letting me know. I've updated the post accordingly.
I mean, it's a good popcorn flick. Personally if I were to pick a favorite film out of China, it would not be Wandering Earth ... but at the same time it's kind of awesome that China's film industry has an Independence Day-level blockbuster under its feet now (though hopefully if they make a sequel its better than the ID4 sequel).
Honestly, if you don't mind the science, I'd say give it a watch when you're looking for something fun. The visuals are spectacular (There's a couple of scenes I'm likely going to get 4K stills of to add to my background rotation) and even if the science is hilariously nonsensical (Yeah, gravity spike is right up there with 2012's "The Neutrinos have mutated") the visuals are fun and I legitimately had fun picking out Chekov's guns and laughing at the jokes.