Over the weekend I watched a Chinese science fiction movie, The Wandering Earth, streaming on Netflix. I’m told it’s the second-highest grossing movie in Chinese cinema history. It earned $700 million, most of it in China, interesting in its own right. Its plot resembles that of the movie Armageddon from a few years ago but the scale is enormously greater. The Sun is in the process of becoming a red giant and the people of earth have decided on the nutty strategy of moving the entire earth out of its orbit, ultimately to settle in another solar system. Like most sci-fi movies The Wandering Earth requires a willing suspension of disbelief. It requires a lot more of it than most. I don’t believe any aspect of the plan would work.
I found the picture mildly entertaining. It has plenty of action and roughly zero sex or violence (other than lots of things crashing). I would characterize it as “family friendly”. I’m a bit more tolerant of dubbing and corny movies than I think most Americans are so I’m not sure how other Americans will react to it.
Stereotypes abound. It included a number of what I think of as characteristically Chinese tropes. Attitudes between parents and children. The climax and ending of the picture (which I won’t reveal).
If you’re looking for something to stream with the kids, there are worse picks. Mostly, in fact.
We had a wandering Moon in the British TV Series Space 1999. Larry Niven had a fix-up novel (pieced together from several shorts) called A World out of Time where the Earth had been moved into Jupiter’s orbit to avoid being cooked to death by the expanding sun.
Don’t think I’ve ever read that one. Looks like part of it was published in Galaxy just after I let my subscription lapse. I’ll have to look it up.
Cixin is a good writer, so will look for this. Was hoping to see a film version of The Three Body Problem by now.
Steve
For older kids (teenage) would recommend the Chinese made Hero, in short a tale about vengeance and its cost. Also, a sorta primer on the Chinese State.
Then there’s the Niven’s Puppeteers moving the home world and ag planets to flee the collapse of the black hole in the center of the galaxy. Believe its Fleet of Worlds.