In the year 2058, an anomalously expanding red giantSun threatens to engulf the Earth within 100 years. The world's nations are forced to consolidate into a world government and construct 12,000 enormous fusion-powered "Earth Engines" to thrust Earth out of the Solar System. Before going on his mission aboard the Navigation Platform International Space Station, Chinese astronaut Liu Peiqiang leaves his son Qi in the care of his father-in-law Han Zi'ang. Half of humanity, mostly chosen by non-transferable lottery, are moved into underground cities; the remaining billions dying in the cataclysms resulting from stopping the Earth's rotation and thrusting the planet from its orbit, and later with the Earth's surface temperature dropping to colder than −70 °C (−94 °F) as the Earth moves further from the sun.
Seventeen years later, in 2075, Liu Peiqiang is set to return to Earth after the Chinese New Year. His son Liu Qi, now an adult, obtains fake IDs and stolen thermal suits from criminal gangs and "borrows" his grandfather's clearance pass to take his foster sister, Han Duoduo, to requisition a heavy transport vehicle to see the surface. Both are arrested at a nearby checkpoint and get jailed, meeting another prisoner, Tim. Han Zi'ang attempts to bribe an official for the release of his grandchildren, but is himself arrested. As Earth approaches its gravity assist around Jupiter, a spike in tidal force causes devastating earthquakes that disable many Earth Engines and sets the planet on a collision course with Jupiter.
The four escape the prison amidst the structural collapse of the city and attempt to make their way to another underground city inside Han Zi'ang's truck, but are requisitioned for an emergency mission led by Captain Wang Lei to transport a Lighter Core to restart an Earth Engine in Hangzhou. In the frozen ruins of Shanghai, they lose their vehicle while transporting the component up the ruins of the Shanghai Tower, where Han Zi'ang freezes to death. After a confrontation with the other rescue team members, Liu, Tim and Han Duoduo abandon the mission. The trio come upon a crashed cargo plane with an intact vehicle, where the surviving engineer aboard, Li Yiyi, eventually convinces them to transport another Lighter Core to repair the Earth Engine in Sulawesi, reconciling with the other members on the way.
Aboard the space station, Liu Peiqiang discovers that MOSS, the computer commanding the station, has decided to abandon Earth to destruction and repurpose the station as an interstellar ark to seed a new planet with Earth's biosphere. Liu breaks out of forced hibernation and attempts to reach the control room. He is joined by his good friend and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Makarov who was awakened by MOSS to stop Liu. While spacewalking, Makarov is killed by the spacecraft's automated security measures. Liu enters the control room, but his attempts of overriding the evacuation procedures are revoked due to insubordination. Liu Qi's group arrives at the Sulawesi Supply Depot to find that the engine was already fully restored along with most others around the planet. However, the combined thrust of the engines is no longer able to divert the trajectory, with Earth approaching Jupiter's Roche limit. Believing the end is inevitable, MOSS broadcasts a final message to the world, but Liu Peiqiang is reluctant to follow the computer's instructions.
Liu Qi proposes to ignite the mixture of Jupiter's hydrogen with Earth's oxygenated atmosphere, which would cause a shockwave that would knock Earth back into its regular path and away from Jupiter. Li Yiyi configures the Sulawesi engine to fire a plasma beam tall enough to ignite Jupiter, but the group is unable to push the firing pin and ignite the engine. Contacted by Duoduo, Liu Peiqiang is able to persuade the UEG to use its communication channels to call assistance for the party at Sulawesi, but MOSS reveals that the attempted solution was already proposed by Israeli scientists and has zero chance of success. Other rescue parties arrive and together manage to ignite multiple engines, but it falls short of being able to ignite the Jovian hydrogen. After disabling MOSS using a fire started with a bottle of vodka that Makarov smuggled on board, Liu Peiqiang flies the space station into the plasma jet, tearfully apologizing to his son for breaking his promise before sacrificing himself to ignite the mix of atmospheres. The subsequent explosion narrowly saves Earth from destruction.
Three years later, Qi, Duoduo, and Li YiYi work as truck operators, as Earth continues towards the Alpha Centauri star system.
"China's film market cannot always be filled with European and American science fiction films. Filling the gap is a gamble, but China cannot remain absent."
——Producer of the film The Wandering Earth and then Chairman of China Film Co., Ltd. [La Peikang]，China Film Journal，15 February 2019[8]
In 2012, China Film Group bought the rights to three of Liu Cixin's best-known science fiction novels, The Wandering Earth, Supernova Era and The Micro-Age.[9] The plan to turn The Wandering Earth into a film was first announced at China Film Group's 2014 film project promotion conference, which estimated the production cost would be $50 million.[10] In the middle of 2015, China Film Production Branch found Frant Gwo, to discuss the cooperation intention. Gwo replied that he was particularly interested in making science fiction films, but Supernova Era and The Micro-Age were technically more demanding and set in a more distant time, Frant Gwo chose The Wandering Earth. He thinks the technical extension of "The Wandering Earth" makes it easy to empathize with viewers.[11] Frant Gwo was a big fan of the science fiction genre and was first influenced by James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day which inspired him to become a director in the genre. He spent the following years studying the genre to direct a science fiction film.[12] In the middle of July 2016, The Wandering Earth was officially approved in the script filing of National Radio and Television Administration,[13][14] and confirmed by Frant Gwo to direct.[15]
Pre-production
In the pre-production stage, Frant Gwo first considered the center of gravity of the movie and the relationship with the original. Considering that "[from] the novel we can choose different perspectives, such as Liu Cixin often chooses God's perspective, the perspective of the universe, the timeline is very grand, crossing thousands of years. But the movie is hard to express this, If the movie spends two hours to express the detailed world view, it will become a scientific film." He believed that the film could only take the novel story as the background, and must focus on the characters and emotions of the story. Based on this, the crew began to consider which part of the original book would be more suitable for the film background. For this Frant Gwo emphasizes that for "the presentation of the movie needs, you must find a comparison that makes the audience feel very interesting, or can have a visual impact." In the end he decided to use Jupiter's accelerating gravity to precipitate the Earth into crisis, and for humans to use solidarity and wisdom to protect it as the setting, and to completely adapt the story, which is only about five paragraphs in the original book. Jupiter was chosen precisely for its visual impact: Earth is huge for humans, but becomes very small and fragile when compared with Jupiter, which is more than 1,300 times larger.[11]
After confirming Jupiter's background the crew began to consider a world view, which was the most difficult part of Kuo Fan's preparatory work. The whole world outlook of the set took about eight months, from the social aspect of politics, economics, culture, education, entertainment, and food production, to natural levels of physical environment change in the Earth, how to escape the sun, the cast, and the relationship between all of these relevant aspects. In order to establish a rigorous setting, Gwo invited 4 scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to act as consultants.[16]
The crew also chronicled one hundred years of history, including the big events since 2017, to connect the real world and the movie world.[11]
The film's 3,000 concept maps and more than 8,000 sub-mirrors were created by a conceptual art team of 300 people over a period of 15 months.[17][16]
In 2017 Beijing Culture partnered with the project to complete the film, together with China Film Group as the main producer of the film.[18] The Wandering Earth is the first film that is based on a novel written by Liu Cixin.[19]
Filming
Spacesuit used in the film
Principal photography started on 26 May 2017, in Qingdao, a seaside city on north China's Shandong province,[20] and wrapped on 27 September 2017.[21]The crew of The Wandering Earth arrived at CMM in 2017, before the park was complete, and stayed for nearly a year, using eight sound stages. Weta Workshop made the film's spacesuits, exoskeletons and weaponry.[22][23]
Wu Jing was asked by Frant Gwo to play a cameo role in the film, but was later cast in a leading role. When he was told that the production had run into financial trouble, he gave up his remuneration and invested in the film to help it continue, for which he was given special thanks in the credits of the film.[24][25] Due to the financial difficulties, there was a limited remuneration budget, and the salary for the lead actor Qu Chuxiao was around 100,000 yuan (US$15,000).[26]
Liu Cixin, the author of the original novella, said to China Central Television, "Chinese studios have no interest to invest in sci-fi films. US sci-fi film audiences have trust but this trust between audiences and China's sci-fi movies doesn't exist yet and this is the main difference between Chinese and US sci-fi films...It is a challenge because this trust must build between producers, investors, and the audience until people have faith in a Chinese sci-fi movie."[27]
Music
The film's music was composed by Roc Chen (阿鯤),[28] and Liu Tao (刘韬) as an additional composer.[29] The film's music was performed by the British Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Roc Chen at the Abbey Road Studios.
Release
On 25 December 2018, the first official trailer for the film was released at the China Aerospace Museum in Beijing along with a teaser poster.[30]
On 30 January 2019, Beijing-based distributor China Media Capital (CMC Pictures) announced that it has secured the international rights and is planning a sizable North American release on 8 February. The company will open the film in 22 cities in the U.S. and 3 in Canada, throughout Australia and New Zealand.[31] The movie released in U.S. theaters with IMAX 3D during the first week.
On 20 February 2019, it was announced that Netflix acquired the distribution rights to stream the film internationally. The film was expected to be available to stream globally on Netflix, outside of China, on 30 April 2019,[32][33] however the film was later promoted on the Netflix Facebook page as being released on 6 May 2019.[6]
Reception
Box office
The Wandering Earth released over the Chinese New Year holiday season, and earned more than CN¥2 billion (£232million) in 6 days, setting a new record for a Chinese film.[27][34] It also set the record for the highest-grossing Chinese film on IMAX.[35] Second weekend box office dropped 53%, on par with all other currently playing films post Chinese holiday season, as expected.[36] The film's total gross in China stands at CN¥4.655 billion.[37]
On release, it topped the worldwide box office with a 3-day opening weekend gross of $172,718,000, and had a 6-day opening gross of $289,090,290.[38] The film has grossed $693,371,204 in China, $5,875,487 in North America, and $1,575,366 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $699,992,512.[2][3]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 71% based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "The Wandering Earth's story won't win many points for originality, but this sci-fi epic earns its thrills with exciting set pieces and dazzling special effects."[39] On Metacritic the film has an average score of 57/100 based on reviews from 8 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[40]
The film received a generally positive reception in China. Several state-run media publications have given the film a positive review.[41][42] Zhong Sheng in the People's Daily writes that the film is "not superheroes saving the world but mankind changing their destiny together."[42]
Tasha Robinson of The Verge describes the film as "rich, gorgeous, and goofy".[43] Travis Johnson, of Flicks.com.au gave the film 4/5 stars and, whilst criticizing the film for its lack of character development, praised the visuals and said it might be the best science fiction film of 2019.[44] Ben Kenigsberg in The New York Times wrote that the film is "as awash in murky computer imagery, stupefying exposition and manipulative sentimentality as the average Hollywood tentpole", but that it proved that the Chinese film industry "can hold its own at the multiplex."[45] Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com gave the film 3.5/4 stars, saying that the experience was "visually dynamic, emotionally engaging".[46]
Zhuoyi Wang, an associate professor at Hamilton College, lauded the film's attempt in presenting a unifying view of humanity that imagines humans from diverse backgrounds coming together to save the earth from a disaster. In contrast, the film's Hollywood counterparts often feature a group of individuals from a single country or a single social class. Despite its attempted departure from the exclusionist individualism prevalent in Hollywood, The Wandering Earth has nevertheless received support from Chinese state media for nationalist reasons, leading many to dismiss it as an instrument of Chinese propaganda or a Hollywood clone.[47]
On Douban, during the initial release, the movie had a 8.5 rating; then suddenly fell to 7.9 as of the early morning of February 23 in China. It was claimed some reviewers were offered money for posting negative reviews on the rating platform. Douban banned nearly 50 users for violating guidelines and thousands of comments were removed.[48] The rating finally stabilized at 7.9. Some commenters, specifically on Douban, who gave the film negative reviews were accused to be in bad faith or trolling,[48][49] but the accusations are disputed.[50]
