The King of Huayu Science Fiction

Chapter 559 Space Science Fiction Drama

"What is the reason for the disappearance of the earth? It even includes the moon. I will not explain this."

Wang Yuefeng, the head of the screenwriting team of "Death on Mars", asked a little puzzled. In Chen Jingxing's previous works, including DreamWorks, there are reasons and effects for some sci-fi backgrounds and sci-fi settings.

Even the somewhat cryptic "Interstellar" has clear or vague hints about the expansion of the sun and the settings of wormholes and black holes, even if it is a mechanical descendant.

The first draft of the script "Death on Mars" handed over to him has no cause and effect, especially the reasons for the disappearance of the earth and the moon.

Wang Yuefeng can be considered an old man of DreamWorks, and he has handled many scripts. He is responsible for adapting the script of "Skyhawk Warrior" which will be released soon, and he is also appointed to be in charge of the script of "Death on Mars".

Even if other people have no opinion, he still wants to ask clearly.

After all, what Chen Jingxing handed over to him was only a simple first draft, and the complete script needed to be perfected by him along with other screenwriters in the group.

Wang Yuefeng's question also caused other participants in the "Project Approval Review Committee" who looked down at a few thin pages of paper in the conference room to raise their heads. Obviously, this is an issue that everyone is concerned about.

"If you have to find out the origin, there are many reasons. It can be an alpha particle stream with a diameter of hundreds of thousands of kilometers that reaches the speed of light, or it can be some kind of light particle weapon..."

Chen Jingxing looked at everyone's bewildered expressions and explained: "The mass of an object will increase with the increase of speed. When the speed of an object approaches the speed of light, its mass will tend to infinity, which can be regarded as a kind of kinetic energy weapon.

According to the special theory of relativity, when the speed of matter with mass is extremely close to the speed of light, it will not only shrink in length and dilate in time, but also..."

"Okay, boss, everyone understands the theory of relativity, everyone understands it." Xu Wenshen stopped Chen Jingxing's eloquence with some headaches: "Then I will continue to ask on behalf of the liberal arts students here. These possible guesses are in the script. Is it just as a guess? Without setting a certain background?"

The head of the screenwriting team, Wang Yuefeng, and the other directors present looked at Chen Jingxing after laughing, waiting for an answer.

Of course, there are good screenwriters and gold medal screenwriters in the domestic screenwriting circle, but the overall level is really worrying.

Think about it, the biggest source of the screenwriting circle is the "Drama, Film, Television and Literature" major, which is an art test major, and the professional assessment is film analysis and general knowledge of literature and art.

Leaving aside scientific thinking, literary literacy may not be as good as Chinese students in good liberal arts colleges.

There are very few domestic screenwriters who graduated from the Chinese Department.

Coupled with the unreasonable income distribution in the domestic screenwriting industry, the low degree of attention, inbreeding, and handicraft inheritance, it can be said that the biggest obstacle to the development of science fiction themes in China is not special effects, not audits, but screenwriting.

Many of the truly top-level screenwriters in the industry are non-graduates, novel writers, designers, and even cross-industry practitioners who can't do anything.

However, after so many years of training and experience, the screenwriters and directors of DreamWorks can still be regarded as half-civilians even if their scientific literacy was not high before.

So except for a few people like Xu Wenshen who have some headaches, others have no obstacles in understanding Chen Jingxing's sci-fi fantasy.

Chen Jingxing had already prepared: "The earth is gone, and there are only two human beings left in the universe. How can they research the reason for the disappearance of the earth? They can only guess.

And why give the exact reason?
Everyone in this story can see that the bottom layer is tragic. What I want to express is that the earth is nothing more than a speck of dust to the universe, and human beings are even more insignificant to the universe, not even dust.

Just like a person holding a drink shakes a few drops of water and floods an ant nest on the ground, the two surviving ants who have left the nest help each other and stick to the meaning of the ant nest by confirming each other's meaning.

No one is obliged to tell them how the ant nest is destroyed. "

Wen Zhian pondered: "Nihilism and existentialism?"

"Bingo!" Chen Jingxing snapped his fingers.

Now that the space trilogy has come to an end, another space work can’t just repeat the space trilogy. “Death on Mars” is not the fourth part of the space series, but a step forward in thinking , Of course, it cannot be said that this is moving forward, but it must be different from the space trilogy.

In Chen Jingxing's view, the exploration of nihilism and existentialism is the most precious value in the connotation of "Death on Mars".

Similar to it are "Rick and Morty" in the previous life plane, "The Universal Universe" and so on.

That is to tell you that your existence is meaningless, the earth is meaningless, human beings are meaningless, morality is meaningless, and everything you think is important is meaningless to the universe, which is absurd.

But of course film and television works do not encourage suicide. After letting the audience realize that they have fallen into nihilism, you have to find meaning for them.

This is the problem-solving process of existentialism.

We believe that human beings are accidentally abandoned in this absurd world, that the essence of human beings is the choice made by human free will and bear the consequences, and the meaning of human existence is born in the confrontation with nothingness.

Use positive energy such as love, emotion, and understanding to allow you to reshape the meaning of your existence in the face of huge nothingness.

There is quite a feeling of "seeing the truth of life clearly, and still loving life".

In short, it is chicken soup. Obviously, the problem-solving method of "nihilism and existentialism" is more advanced in chicken soup, at least it seems to be more courageous than "Center of the Earth", "The Martian", and "Interstellar". The themes of life, wisdom, and humanity are more otherworldly.

The advantage of "Death on Mars" is that through the disappearance of the earth, it can directly push the nihilistic atmosphere that is difficult to shape to the audience.

The earth is gone, human beings are gone, and there are only two people left in the empty and silent universe. It is useless to learn from Nuwa, Fuxi, Adam and Eve. That is a myth. The reality is that two individuals cannot maintain a population unless there are a large number of them. Genetic reserves of diversity, so human beings are doomed.

Under the background of the disappearance of the earth and the doomed extinction of human beings, the nihilism that was difficult to be perceived by ordinary people immediately emerged.

What is the meaning of your existence?
What else makes sense?

The story of "Death on Mars" is a meaningless existential problem-solving process against nothingness. This bowl of chicken soup is undoubtedly the highest level of positive energy.

If the audience feels immensely inspired and motivated by the protagonists' senseless struggle against the void and the absurdity of the status quo, then the film is a success.

Wen Zhian still has doubts: "If this is the case, this story seems too hasty. The heroine will not be starved to death in a short time after transporting the supplies to the space station. It seems too incomplete, more like a half-finished product."

Chen Jingxing hesitated for a moment: "This is indeed only half of the story, but we need to consider the balance between business and art. The ending here will have the least impact on the film's commercial box office."

The first draft of the script he gave is actually only a small part of the complete story of "Death on Mars". After the hero discovers that there is another human being in the space station orbiting Mars, he decides to divide half of the Kunlun station's supplies into spaceships after ideological struggle. The process of transporting to the space station.

Structurally speaking, it can only be regarded as one-fifth of the whole story. The complete story is the delivery of materials to the space station, survival on Mars, the event of a comet hitting Mars, the crash of the space station, and the final trip to Mars.

But because of the tragic background of "Death on Mars", the deeper the discussion on nihilism and existentialism, the more it deviates from the commercial value of a movie.

And the most important thing is that the plot of just transporting materials to the space station is already quite full, enough to support a movie.

The whole process must first complete all material transfer and spacecraft overhaul work within a limited few days.

Then it encountered a Martian storm on the eve of launch.

Finally waited until the spacecraft was shrouded in the low-pressure area of ​​the storm, and missed the appropriate launch window after launching.

The spacecraft cannot quickly dock with the space station. It must first enter the orbit of Mars. While flying around Mars, it adjusts its attitude and slowly performs orbital changes.

However, maneuvering to change orbit requires the consumption of propellers, and the propellant of the spacecraft is limited.

And because of the Martian storm, the sensor failed, and the first-stage rocket left early. The orbital height expected to reach by the spacecraft was 65 kilometers away from the orbit of the space station. Instead of entering the parking orbit, it flew out of an elliptical orbit.

Moreover, the contact friction between the spacecraft in low-Earth orbit and the atmosphere causes the constant stall altitude to decrease.

Had to consume more propellant to achieve orbit change, the original three docking opportunities can only be realized once, and the success probability is only 2.477%.

Because the sandstorm cut off the connection between the sky and the earth, the male protagonist tied the communication antenna to his body, and remotely controlled the spaceship to dock in the storm.

However, in the only docking opportunity, the sensor failed, the spacecraft hit the space station head-on, the docking failed, the space station lost a module, and the spacecraft fell rapidly towards Mars.

Then, in desperation, the male protagonist had a flash of inspiration. The spacecraft had no propellant to complete the second orbit change, but the space station still had enough fuel.

The propellant returned to the spacecraft by the space station propels the space station to quickly lower the orbit to catch the falling spacecraft.

Under the propulsion of ultra-high speed, the space station arrived at the designated position, ready to catch the spacecraft that was about to pass by from a height of 63 meters below.

This kind of Arabian Nights docking plan cannot be completed normally, and the hostess of the space station can only be allowed to walk out of the cabin and capture the spacecraft manually.

The 70-meter-long mechanical arm on the space station, the heroine needs to stand on the mechanical arm and wait quietly for the spacecraft to pass by, and then hold the safety lock to buckle the safety lock to the door handles of the spaceship escape cabins within five seconds.

But when the hostess reached for it, she found that the distance between her and the handle of the escape hatch of the spaceship was five centimeters away.

There was an error in the calculation, but this insignificant number in the massive calculation deduction represented the distance between life and death.

The hostess could only hold the safety lock tightly, and jumped towards the emergency escape pods with all her strength. In the silent space, she held on to the hatch with one hand and the lock floating in the air with the other, and then Buckled on the spaceship.

This can definitely be called the most twists and turns of space express delivery, plus the scenes of the male protagonist on the ground and the intelligent robot, as well as the previous foreshadowing, there is no problem to last for two hours.

If you want to add the following plot, I am afraid that the upper, middle and lower parts will be enough, if it does not damage the arc of the characters.

"Can it be made into a part or a trilogy?"

Xu Wenshen was a little excited, it would be great if a story could be divided into multiple movies.

But soon Chen Jingxing shook his head: "That's probably meaningless."

The tragic tone of the whole story of "Death on Mars" is more and more intense as it goes on. Although its problem-solving process against nihilism is quite wonderful, and a large number of literary dramas seem lengthy, the arc of the characters is quite brilliant, far better than "Mars" The characters in "Rescue" are much fuller.

But if it is actually shot, the box office will definitely not work. How can the audience follow you to the inevitable despair and death?Even if the film is explaining how we should face the inevitable despair and death.

As the director hand-picked by Chen Jingxing, Wen Zhian seems to have mustered up some courage at this time: "How about making it into a TV series? I think TV series are very suitable for presenting such complicated and low-key stories, and the audience will buy it even more."

Xu Wenshen rolled his eyes: "A space sci-fi TV series? Do you do charity?"

DreamWorks is not without a tragic background, and has a more profound theme of successful non-film works, such as "Black Mirror", such as "Skyhawk Warrior" and "Special Mobile Team", which are known as animation masterpieces.

But the production cost is not high, not to mention the animation. Even "Black Mirror" has only five episodes in a season because of the small number of episodes, and the average cost of a single episode is more than 2000 million.

For a story like "Death on Mars" to be made into a TV series, the cost would be considerable.

Chen Jingxing looked at Wen Zhian in surprise: "Are you willing?"

Ning Weiqiang, the only one of DreamWorks' Four King Kong who has never made a movie, also took over "Special Mobile Team" after completing "Suspect Tracker III".

Wen Zhian saw that he was going to triple jump. After directing "Once Upon a Time on Earth: Prelude", he became a film director. Of course, film directors and TV drama directors are different, especially directing an industrial sci-fi blockbuster. The status and bonus are unmatched by TV dramas.

"For me, there is not that much difference between a movie and a TV series, and if it can be made into a TV series, it will be the first space sci-fi drama in China, which is not comparable to ordinary TV series."

"Once Upon a Time on Earth: Prelude" does not involve many space elements, so it is naturally not a space science fiction drama.

Wen Zhian continued to persuade: "In addition, the investment of "Elysium" and "Dynasty" is also very high, no less than that of industrial films, and the investment of "Suspect Tracker III" also exceeds [-] million, and the average cost of each episode is close to [-] million.

If "Dead on Mars" is made into a drama, it will probably have ten to twelve episodes. If the actors' remuneration is better controlled, and we don't pursue 3D shooting or IMAX pictures, and we are in Shanghai The virtual production base has been completed. With the current mature virtual production technology, I think about [-] million can come down.

Hollywood's "Roma" and "Game of Thrones" are TV dramas with an average episode cost of tens of millions of dollars. Isn't DreamWorks famous for its daring to break through and pioneer?I see no harm in giving it a try. "

"Take a few hundred million to try?" Xu Wenshen wanted to say something crazy, but immediately saw the boss's thoughtful and emotional expression, and suppressed the words that came to his lips, he sighed, and secretly complained in his heart. Sure enough, he did not change his true colors. Once you get the money, you will work hard.

If Dreamworks is short of money, of course he has plenty of excuses to stop it, but the problem is that Dreamworks is not short of money.

A "Interstellar" and an "Inside Out" have a combined global box office of more than 15 billion U.S. dollars. The income from the account and copyright distribution has not been fully obtained, but it has also returned almost 9 million yuan, which has not had time to invest and spend it.

"Okay." Chen Jingxing made a decision: "Then evaluate it, come up with the budget and profit forecast, as long as you don't lose money...as long as you don't lose too much, we can do this. Let's make a space sci-fi drama for domestic audiences."

(End of this chapter)