English subtitles by Coleen Chua

I barely remember The Wandering Earth. It was a poorly told complete mess of dated comedy and cheap overly dramatic drama. Good thing The Wandering Earth 2 is actually The Wandering Earth 0. I bet there is intertextuality and references to the original film, that i've missed. But this being a prequel means it's a new independent story that starts right here.

Watching this feels like reading Foundation a bunch of disparate anecdotes on the given topic.

It starts as an Emmerich disaster epic with tired comedy and a lot of CGI destruction. It's like Don't Look Up, where commie party of zhonghua has saved the world in a jackpot chain of last second lucky rolls. The digital life project, and its terrorist supporters are stupid. This is not Diaspora, the entirety of humankind is still stuck in the solar system, and the movie says that the sun will soon burn everything to a crisp. This is just digital suicide. They even have the evidence of what will happen, when sun destroys all digital life on the moon.

When they finally decided to continue building the engines, the film jumps through years in a montage. And then the mood switches from Emmerich to overly dramatic drama drama. That is effective with its cinematography. But this is still a movie where literally everything literally always literally goes literally wrong in the last second, only to be fixed in the laster second. Don't worry if the timer shows 00:00, there's always overtime. A nuclear blast fireball behind you will wait for 10 seconds so you can deliver your speech. People who love cheap drama and don't care for the plot can probably enjoy this film immensely.

While this film is more coherent than the original, they still have introduced a ton of unneeded garbage that makes everything dumber. First of all they show how HAL9000 ruins everything for the whole run-time, decades before it was even created. It literally didn't exist when it orchestrated all the bad things. Second, there is some 70 years old prophecy that predicted everything that HAL9000 did decades before it was created. They show that nonsense three times, and i don't remember it being present in the second film, which it predicted in this one. This film tries to build tension with its cinematography, but besides it being a prequel, the countdown subtitles literally reveal plot-points hours before they happen. Like, oh noes who will reboot the router if there's nobody home? Don't worry the text on screen already said that internet will be rebooted in 30 minutes.

So they hired real english- and russian-speaking voice actors (maybe also for other languages) but they didn't explain to one of them the plot, so he read 550w as 550 watt.

Words that keep flashing through my mind. Utilitarianism, the good of most people; individual hero: indifferent Creator, eternal history; the value of liberal arts students once again useless hahaha (archaeological pictures count?) The movie's been showing a problem: if you are a train conductor, two tracks, one above two people, one above ten people, where do you want to press. This is also the teacher repeatedly in that phrase "fair". From Liu Peiqiang shut his teammates out of the door to fight with the people who destroyed the space elevator, to Han Doduo to give his son's father a place in the dungeon, to his escape to give up his position to others, to over 50 years old to detonate the nuclear bomb. I can't help but wonder if someone is evil if he goes against the good of most people.

The red light that keeps flashing on 550W, that is the relentless monitor, like our Creator. It doesn't matter what humans think at this moment, our joys and sorrows, nor our hopes for the future. We are merely a part of history.

The final quote from Moss, "The optimal solution to save mankind is to destroy mankind," is a terrible thing to think about.

If destruction is the optimal solution for history, human beings will definitely try their best to avoid destruction, even if the end is the same.

This reminds me of another short story written by Daliu, Cretaceous Past, the story of the destruction of dinosaurs.

If you are a fan of science fiction films, action blockbuster films, or both, then this movie is for you. This movie takes the usual Hollywood sci-fi movie tropes and puts a unique Chinese spin on them. Without getting into details, it's about a group of scientists and astronauts trying to save the world from imminent destruction while governments disagree on the best course of action. The movie takes us on a wild ride as teams of unlikely heroes face moral dilemmas and make sacrifices to secure the future of mankind. At its core, the film delivers a hopeful message about the power of humanity when we work together to solve problems - a message that is sorely needed in the current times.

Pros: Jaw-dropping action sequences, slick CGI and some thought-provoking technological and philosophical concepts that will make you think about where humanity is headed in the future. Themes such as AI and automation, our increasing dependence on technology, the meaning of human existence and mortality, and the future of civilization, provide plenty of food for thought. There is also a major plot twist in the third act that you will not see coming, so stay tuned till the end, especially during the credits (there's an Easter egg scene that hints at a possible third installment to this franchise).

Cons: The movie is bit lengthy, at nearly 3 hours, so make sure you avoid drinking a lot of fluids before or during the movie. (Apparently the director already cut 80 minutes out of the movie, so it really was the equivalent of two movies packed into one.) Also, because the movie is multilingual, some languages are dubbed weirdly in some scenes, but it's easy to overlook this because you'll be too busy marvelling at the visuals or trying to keep up with all the action sequences.

Conclusion: If you are a fan of sci-fi action blockbusters then this movie is for you. Definitely do not miss it in cinemas - this is a movie that needs to be seen on the big screen.