text | Linghu Boguang
Today I continue to write about Netflix's "The Three-Body Problem". After watching it, I feel that if I look at the narrative line of the TV series alone, Yuntian Mingxian is actually the best one (at the end of the sixth episode, buy the stars) Moved), although Ye Wenjie's line is hampered by various reasons, it is relatively logically complete.
The other three protagonist lines (Cheng Xin, the female Wang Miao, and Hei Luoji) are very vulgar multi-racial American drama models.
At the same time, the Three-Body Game, Guzheng Operation, and Wallfacer Project, which should show hard science fiction, are basically a mess. Some of the films like Proton Expansion, You Are Bugs, and The Ladder Project are pretty good, but overall they are still far from good.
American science fiction is getting worse and worse. There are too many examples of this. But the movie version of " Dune " is indeed okay. Apart from the reasons for the directing team, I feel that the entire science fiction culture in the United States, and even the entire culture, has declined.
Why was Netflix's " three-body " filmed like this? The development of Western science fiction is also divided into stages.
Let me first introduce the stages of development of American and Western science fiction. It is not a hydrology but a convenience for everyone to understand. The development of culture is inseparable from the social environment. It just so happened that " Dune 2" was also released recently. Chinese netizens mainly criticized the setting and story for being cliche. But it is not clear that the development and era integration of American and Western science fiction are also in stages.
1. The golden age of American science fiction lasted from the 1930s to the 1960s.
In fact, there was an earlier embryonic period, starting with " Frankenstein " and ending with "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. As well as Herbert George Wells of "The Time Machine", "The Island of Dr. Moreau", "The Invisible Man", "Star Wars", etc.
The golden age of American science fiction is recognized as the great magazine editor John Campbell, the science fiction novelist, who established magazines, and vigorously promoted science fiction literature and supported science fiction works. During this period, the three giants of American science fiction appeared during this period: Asimov, Clark and Heinle Because of science fiction writers.
If it is the germination and rise, it is the Renaissance, the germination after the industrial revolution, and the breakthrough of science and technology before the First World War.
Then the Golden Age of American science fiction was the unprecedented technological explosion, ideological collision and national liberation wave of mankind after World War I and World War II. You can probably refer to the story line of Nolan's movie "Oppenheimer".
2. The period of the New Wave of American science fiction was from the 1960s to the mid-1970s.
The science fiction novels that are now evaluated as the "golden age" are full of imagination and amazing imagination. However, the lack of literature and the shallowness of humanization and socialization led to the birth of the "Dune" series, Ursula Le Guin in "The Left Hand of Darkness", and then to "The King of Light" and "Amber". Roger Zelazny and more.
By the way, Philip K. Dick, the original author of the sci-fi cyberpunk "Blade Runner", "Neuromancer", etc. also belong to the new wave of science fiction (in fact, including the wasteland represented by "Fallout", I love it) Influence).
This background is the great changes in the international political, military and technological situation from the post-World War II period to the 1960s: the Cold War, the rise of the left, the Vietnam War, Eastern religions, nuclear deterrence, destruction of the ecological environment, the emergence of rock and pop art, as well as the proliferation of drugs and American women ism, to Martin Luther King’s racial issues, and so on.
3. The new media era of American science fiction lasted from the late 1970s to after 2000 (there is no division in the history of science fiction. I think 2001 was a threshold, and it ended completely in 2008, and then continued to decline)
Background: Political Cold War confrontation to the later period , China’s crazy era is over, Sino-US relations are easing, etc. At the same time, the American film and television entertainment industry has reached its peak after half a century of development, just like director Hitchcock and Kubrick paved the way for the film business peak of Spielberg's generation. The symbol
is the huge success of George Lucas's " Star Wars " in 1977. It not only defined American science fiction movies.It is the American film industry, American pop culture, and the American business model that have pioneered, laid the foundation for, and led the way.
Since then, American science fiction entertainment culture has reached its peak for nearly thirty years. Many of the classic American science fiction movies, TV series, games, animations, etc. that we are now familiar with may have been earlier or were affected. I feel that more than 80% They were all born in this era.
is like the movies "Alien", " Blade Runner ", " Terminator ", "Back to the Future", "Jurassic Park", "The Matrix" and so on.
The biggest problem with Netflix's "The Three-Body Problem" really does not lie in the magical adaptation of the original work
So what is the meaning of sorting out the above developments? In 2001, 10 years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, China joined the WTO, and the United States started the war on terrorism with 911. Politics and other energy were Attracted to the Middle East. If you go back and check, you will find that American science fiction has not been what it used to be after 2000.
Science fiction literature is like Hong Kong and Taiwan’s martial arts literature after the 1970s. Although there are still masters such as Wen Ruian and Huang Yi, it is far from comparable to the golden age. In science fiction entertainment culture, you will find that the output of classic masterpieces has been greatly reduced at this time.
In 2009, Cameron's "Avatar" was just another explosion in technology and could be seen as a transitional period from the peak era, but at the same time, a financial crisis was occurring.
Marvel, represented by "Iron Man", began to rise a year ago. Not only science fiction culture in the United States has declined, but all similar author-type American cultures seem to have declined suddenly. The problems caused by the financial crisis and the development of the United States have begun to emerge. .
In 2015, "The Three-Body Problem" won the Hugo Award not only for its excellent work, but also for the sensitive content of the first book. I believe everyone who has read about it knows that it is also inseparable from the promotion of the "Puppies" incident, and the "Puppies" incident The political correctness brought about by racial and gender issues has been raging for several years.
After watching Netflix's "The Three-Body Problem", I found that the decline of the United States is not just "culture"
I realized this problem when I saw a film and television blogger said that the tone of this drama was not the China we want. Hard science fiction is not quite like American hard science fiction, but more like an American TV series "Watching the World", dealing with issues of human nature and human hearts in the apocalypse.
I checked that this American TV series was released in 2014. Unfortunately, I have never watched it, but I have watched another TV series called "Sense Hunt" in which two brothers turned into two sisters at the same time. Combined with the 2015 TV series Dogs incident etc. Deindustrialization, decentralization, happy education, etc. have led to the increasing popularity of Western postmodern deconstruction.
This multi-racial, multi-national, multi-gender, multi-cultural postmodern deconstruction culture widely appeared after the 2008 financial crisis.
’s new works are classic and in line with the times, and they are not awkward in every aspect. But when it came to adapting classics, they not only deconstructed "The Three-Body Problem" but also deconstructed their own classics. Take a look at the American TV series "Lord of the Rings", "Foundation", "Halo" and so on.
Why did I say at the beginning that Chinese netizens overestimated the ambitions of American and Western capital? Because they spent 160 million US dollars to make money. They are indeed strictly guarded against Chinese ideology, but they changed the original work to that and presented it in various ways. They probably really think they're doing a great job (catching up to the market).
I am not a person accustomed to political establishment, nor have I lived in a Western country for a long time. Due to historical inertia, domestic social platforms have a lot of arguments about the development of China and the West. However, after watching Netflix’s “The Three-Body Problem” and many other works in recent years, I feel that if we use culture to infer social reality, the problems between the United States and the West should be very serious. .
Because cultural development is basically later than social reality, China’s current mainstream cultural expression time generally does not exceed 2010. If you look at the movies and TV dramas such as "The Long Season ", "Hurry Up", "Three-Body Problem", "Flowers", etc., the ones that exceed them are concentrated in idol dramas watched by a large number of young people ("Thirty Only" is less).
We have seen Netflix's "The Three-Body Problem" and a large number of American entertainment works, which seem to be concentrated around 2010, around the time of Puppy Door.
Let’s not talk about the reality brought about by the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (the time is indeed too recent). Look, the Sino-US trade war in 2018 has been 7 years now, and the epidemic has been 5 years since the end of 3 years. These reflections Have you come to entertainment works?
obviously does not!
In the past few years, deindustrialization, decentralization, and happy education in the United States and the West have obviously become more serious (new energy vehicles have been suspended, Boeing aircraft have frequent accidents); deconstruction caused by sexism and racial issues has become more intense (our various Enjoy watching political events and social events).
Of course, the Chinese are the most reflective people in the world. Some people must say that young Chinese people now only think about themselves and only think about themselves all day long. It is true that there is a trend of this, but unfortunately, from the Chinese pop culture in recent years Judging from the reaction, it is completely opposite to that of the United States and the West.
The 2018 trade war is really an obvious historical watershed. From "Wolf Warrior 2" the previous year, to "The Wandering Earth" the next year, to "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an", "The Long Season" and "The Three-Body Problem", Including the game "Black Myth Wukong" that will be released this year and so on.
Regardless of the subject matter and expression, these works are all establishing autonomous industrialization, promoting specialization with all their strength, eliminating the liberalism and capitalist consumerism (re-centering) of the previous decade, and have some expressions of the desire for redistribution, but there are more On the contrary, it is more centralized.
probably means: We must establish our own film and television industry chain and our own ancient, modern and future cultural aesthetics. Traffic economy and unfairly distributed junk capital are nothing like that. Whether the entertainment works involve being more professional in the industry or whether you can work seriously is your own thing. If you don't fall in love, you will die, right?
Think about it carefully, are these all contrary to what American and Western popular culture advocates?
This is the reason why netizens generally complained about "The Wandering Earth 2", scolded "Man Jiang Hong", and felt that it was unreal that "Hot and Spicy" had been left alone for ten years.
Finally, some people will definitely say that the social culture of the United States and the West is quite good. From the perspective of social development, it is possible, but from the perspective of national and national development, it is okay to keep sucking blood and have peace, but you refer to the major events happening in the world now. ; The people and elites have collectively fallen into addiction, promiscuity and nihilism; they have serious distrust of organizations, and individuals only think about ying ying ying,
I can only say that conflicts around the world are getting more and more intense now, and everyone can only Let’s wait and see!
