Chapter 581 Shocking Visual Effects

In the screening room.

As the movie scenes appeared, the scene suddenly became quiet.

In fact, it has been almost two years since the Xingchen Film and Television version of "The Wandering Earth" was launched. Compared with Gu Wei's previous domestic film shooting speed, it is not too fast.

The main thing is that science fiction movies, while describing them in words takes only one page, turning them into a picture is extremely difficult from scratch.

For example, before the filming of the movie started, the main creative team drew more than 3000 concept design drawings, including detailed ideas for all scenes such as planetary engines, dungeons, and carriers.

The planetary engine, an important element, is described in the original book as having a diameter of more than ten kilometers, and the entire appearance is so huge that it is hard to imagine. In order to present this spectacle, the art team designed more than a dozen different plans for selection. These alone require a lot of time and manpower.

Fortunately, before the filming of the Xingchen Film and Television version of "The Wandering Earth" began, Gu Wei drew most of the concept design drawings and handed them directly to the design team, saving the crew a lot of manpower and time.

However, what Gu Wei provided was just a sketch. Although the operation direction was correct, many details such as warm and cold tones, ice cover area, and engine flame jet direction required adjustments by the entire team.

Precisely because of these repeated revisions and adjustments, the production speed of "The Wandering Earth" appears to be much slower than Gu Wei's other domestic films.

In another time and space, the original version of "The Wandering Earth" was 168 minutes long. It was said that it was cut to 125 minutes in order to get a screening schedule during the Spring Festival.

The script for Xingchen Film and Television was written for a 168-minute version, but was slightly cut during post-production editing, with the final running time set at 135 minutes, about half an hour shorter than the original version.

In fact, there is a reason why most blockbusters are about two hours long. On the one hand, they are trying to get a place in theaters to schedule screenings, but the main reason is that a long movie will make some viewers feel scared before watching it, feel uncomfortable because they have to hold their urine during the movie, or feel tired.

Most Indian movies are three hours long, but there are breaks between screenings, so the audience has ten to fifteen minutes to go to the bathroom or buy food.

In China, unless it is a super IP work like "Avengers 4", if a movie is too long, it will most likely be a failure.

On the big screen, the feature film begins.

In the first scene, the protagonist played by Hu Jun takes his child to observe Jupiter at the seaside, mentioning that Jupiter is a gas planet composed of hydrogen, paving the way for the "Ignite Jupiter" plan later. The mother of the little boy Liu Qi is abandoned, and the grandfather played by Chen Daoming takes the child into the underground city. The origin of the "Wandering Earth" plan is just a simple background introduction, without any new or special features.

But when hundreds or thousands of rockets are launched at the same time;

After drawing lots, countless people rushed into the underground city in the snow and wind;
The Earth side glows with a pale blue light;

Goodbye Solar System is said in various languages, and the epic feeling of the whole movie is overwhelming.

In the audience, after seeing this scene, Spielberg frowned slightly, a little bit unbelievable, while Nolan whispered to Gu Wei.

"It's a very shocking scene. I have to say, in terms of special effects design, you and Cameron are undoubtedly ahead of everyone else." Even Nolan, who made "Inception", had to express his admiration at this moment.

"Haha, special effects production is not particularly difficult. The most important thing is the imagination of the story background and content. There is no doubt that the author of this novel is the most amazing person." Gu Wei did not take credit for it. Just as he said, picture production is not difficult. What is difficult is imagination and creativity.

"Oh, he is here too?" Nolan asked curiously.

"Yeah, right behind us." Gu Wei turned his head to look at Liu Da who was immersed in it not far away. Nolan also looked back curiously, but unfortunately he thought most Chinese people were the same, and the environment was dim, so he couldn't recognize them.

"I hope you can introduce us to each other if there is a chance. I think we will have a lot to talk about." Nolan said at the right time.

"No problem." Gu Wei agreed casually, but he didn't think Nolan could surpass Liu when talking about science fiction creation. After all, Nolan is a professional and his imagination is sky-high.

At this moment, Liu Da, who was not far away, didn't realize that someone was discussing him at all, because he was already shocked.

Some people may ask, if Liu Cixin is the author, he would also be shocked, right? This is a bit of a joke!
But everyone should not forget that writing and seeing the real scene are two different things. Just like many netizens reading novels, they will be shocked and moved by the words, they will applaud when they see passion, and they will cry when they see sad parts. But in the final analysis, many pictures are imagined by oneself, and each person imagines different pictures.

"Director Gu is worthy of his name. The Wandering Earth was filmed like this. I wonder what kind of scenes would be presented if it was The Three-Body Problem." Liu Liu sighed silently, then turned his head and glanced around. Everyone's reaction was similar to his.

The big screen turned...

Seventeen years later, Liu Qi, played by Han Dongjun, and Han Duoduo, played by Yang Zi, secretly left the underground city and returned to the capital.

Everyone at the scene looked at the familiar buildings covered with ice and snow on the IMAX giant screen and couldn't help but exclaim in amazement!

And when the safety prompt "Beijing's Third District Transportation Commission reminds you that there are thousands of roads, safety is the first priority. If driving is not standardized, relatives will burst into tears" was sounded, which immediately triggered heated discussions and chuckles from the audience.

"Hey, this safety tip is quite interesting!"

"There are thousands of roads, safety comes first! Haha, I was laughing so hard!"

"This car looks so powerful. It would be great to drive one!"

"Just pull it over, even if you buy it you can't drive on the road!!"

On the big screen, Liu Qi hit the car next to him. Someone laughed and said, "Haha, this is the beginning of two lines of tears!"

"Yang Zi looks so cute!"

On the screen, the long shot starts with Han Duoduo looking at the "propulsion engine" in the rearview mirror.

First, there is a scene of Liu Qi driving on the ground, and then the camera continues to pull up, revealing the full picture of a single "propulsion engine".

Many filmmakers at the scene were shocked when they saw this.

The camera moves up to show the light blue flames coming out of the engine. Then the camera pulls back to show several, dozens, hundreds, and thousands of light blue flames coming out of the "thrust engine" to push the Earth out of the solar system.

This long shot really shocked many people at the scene. "Wow, this special effect is good, so shocking!"

"The nemesis of trypophobia!"

"A Chinese-language special effects sci-fi blockbuster, done!"

When many bigwigs in the guest seats saw this long shot on the screen, their expressions were complicated.

People were shocked by the achievement of director Gu Wei's work, but at the same time, they felt relieved that it was produced by Xingchen Films and Television and should be like this. However, no one commented for a long time.

In space, the space station detected that the Earth's flight orbit was affected by Jupiter's gravity, increasing the probability of a collision between the Earth and Jupiter. Countless "steering engines" were shut down, and the steering thrust was lost. The Earth would collide with Jupiter in thirty-seven hours.

On the ground, Liu Qi and Han Duoduo were detained for a car inspection, and the grandfather played by Chen Daoming appeared and saved a foreign boy in the earthquake. The four of them drove to Beijing in distress.

Along the way, Chen Daoming drove the car with difficulty amidst the falling of various huge rocks and ice blocks. It was as scary as possible, in line with Hollywood special effects blockbusters.

After finally reaching an open area, the team received a notice from the United Nations government that more than 4,000 engines worldwide had shut down or malfunctioned. In short, the audience was left on edge.

The car of Liu Qi and others was requisitioned, and the rescue team played by Huang Xiaoming and others appeared on the scene, aiming to restart Lin'an's engine.

The rescue convoy encountered various dangers. To sum up, the plot was relatively simple and the scenes were shocking. Everyone was so overwhelmed that they had no time to complain.

The vehicle was buried in ice, and the rescue team could only climb up from the inside of a frozen building. The grandfather played by Chen Daoming died in the process, because Modu is his hometown, so it can be regarded as a return to his roots.

When Wang Lei's rescue team fell apart, Liu Qi drove over and asked them to help rescue Sulawesi.

Inside the space station, Liu Peiqiang discovered that the real reason for leaving the space station was not defection, but obtaining authorization from the coalition government. Earth had no chance of escaping Jupiter's capture. But the people on the ground didn't know, and were excited about the engine restarts one by one.

The last batch, the one in Sulawesi, has also been restarted, with a larger rescue team ahead of us.

But before the people on Earth could be happy for long, the Navigator Space Station began to broadcast globally: Jupiter's gravity exceeded the total output power of all engines, and the Earth could not escape capture. The "Wandering Earth" plan failed. In order to continue human civilization, Moss will start the "Spark Plan"...

In the last seven days before the Earth falls into Jupiter, everyone go home, hug your parents, kiss your loved ones and children...

"There's not even seven days left! The atmosphere will be drained in less than a day, and then everyone will suffocate to death. There's not even seven days left!" a rescue team member cried.

Coupled with the previous scenes of people facing doomsday and despair, many people felt sad when watching it.

"Is there no other solution?"

“Of course there will be!”

On the ground, Liu Qi looked up at Jupiter, missing his father Liu Peiqiang in the sky, thinking about what his father had said when he was a child, looking at the flames spewing from the "planetary engine" in the distance, and suddenly said: "Li Yiyi, is there any possibility that the surface of Jupiter will ignite after mixing with the Earth's atmosphere?"

...

The story rhythm of "The Wandering Earth" is a bit similar to that of a cool novel. It first exaggerates the protagonist's predicament, talks about the "Wandering Earth" plan, the shutdown of a large number of planetary engines, and the "saturation" rescue.

When the audience thinks the rescue is successful, the real crisis is thrown out. The total power of all "propulsion engines" is less than the gravity of Jupiter, the earth will be captured and disintegrated, and everyone on the earth will die.

When the protagonist is caught in an "unsolvable" crisis and the audience is in a depressed mood, the protagonist throws out a seemingly feasible solution, achieving a shocking reversal. Accompanied by exciting music, at this moment, most people in the screening room feel tears welling up in their eyes!
In another time and space, "The Wandering Earth" broke through the fiercely competitive Spring Festival period and eventually won a box office of 46 billion yuan, which had a lot to do with such a plot setting.

In the theater, most of the guests were excited when they saw the protagonist and technical guy Li Yiyi discussing how to ignite Jupiter.

"I suddenly feel so cheated!"

"Why does it feel like a joke?"

"Is it possible that the computers on the space station can't figure this out?"

"This tech guy is even better than a smart computer!"

“It feels so hot!”

Many industry leaders in the theater had complicated feelings as they watched the plot on the big screen and listened to the many exclamations and discussions in the theater.

Before the "Ignite Jupiter" plan, the whole movie was just okay. But once this plan came out, the quality and scale of the movie immediately reached a new level!

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PS: These one or two chapters will be a bit long-winded!

However, after the detailed introduction of the movie, the subsequent plot will not be written again.

The original version of "The Wandering Earth" was able to present explosive visual effects despite insufficient funds, equipment and technical problems. There is no need to say more about this enhanced version of "The Wandering Earth"!!!

Dear readers!!!

(End of this chapter)