To successfully imitate the kind of mega-budget worldwide blockbuster most closely associated with Hollywood productions, filmmaker Frant Gwo literally went global. 2019\u2019s The Wandering Earth<\/em>, a sci-fi disaster adventure that became one of China\u2019s biggest-ever box-office hits, takes place in a future world where Earth has been implanted with thrust rockets and piloted out of orbit to avoid a solar disaster. Astronauts must steer the spaceship-planet to a new home, while the surface freezes and its diminished inhabitants huddle underground.<\/p>\n The film\u2019s enormous scope helped the movie become a Chinese smash, though it fell short of a worldwide phenomenon. (In the U.S., it had a limited theatrical run, then premiered on Netflix a few months later.) Wandering Earth<\/em>\u2019s extensive, sometimes convoluted world-building, drawn from a short story by The Three-Body Problem<\/em> author Cixin Liu, left plenty of room for a follow-up. But Gwo must have grown attached to the less icy version of his home planet, because The Wandering Earth II<\/em>, receiving a somewhat wider U.S. release alongside its Chinese debut, is something even less likely than a disaster-movie sequel: a disaster-movie prequel.<\/p>\n Set across multiple decades leading up to Earth\u2019s launch out of orbit (enabled by thousands of fusion-powered engines around the globe), the prequel starts off with plenty of its predecessor\u2019s grab-bag maximalism. There\u2019s a seemingly mad scientist extolling the virtues of a \u201cdigital you that can live forever\u201d \u2014 an AI-based plan pitched as an alternate way to survive the coming apocalypse. (It\u2019s unclear, but it sounds like the idea was to upload everyone to a Matrix-esque digital world, and leave the actual one to fry.) Pro-digital terrorist groups attack a massive space elevator, explosions and low-gravity fisticuffs erupt, and we learn that 91% of Americans oppose moving Earth out of orbit because they don\u2019t think a problem 100 years away is worth solving. (\u201cThe world isn\u2019t on the side of the reality,\u201d one official laments.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/source><\/picture>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Image: Well Go USA<\/cite><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n The sprawling results initially feel like a mashup of Don\u2019t Look Up <\/em>and Independence Day: Resurgence<\/em>, but as the film enters its second hour, then its third, it brings in even more familiar bits and pieces of other movies. (It runs 173 minutes, including credits and multiple postscripts.) There is so much<\/em> movie in The Wandering Earth II<\/em>, and so many disasters, countdowns, and chyrons to go around. The movie may set a record for the sheer number of subtitled locations, timelines, characters, and occasionally even hardware. The first movie\u2019s astronaut, Liu Peiqiang (Wu Jing) gets a backstory. So does one of the computer systems. The writing team steals bits of Interstellar<\/em> one moment, and engages in parallel thinking with Moonfall <\/em>the next. (\u201cThe moon disintegrates in 179 hours.\u201d)<\/p>\n But perhaps the goofiest thing about Wandering Earth II<\/em> is how resolutely un-goofy much of it is. There are moments of absurdity, but the film is often surprisingly grim, in a way that feels admirably ambitious but questionably useful. Much of the movie has a downbeat moon-gray palette, even in scenes that don\u2019t take place on the moon. The saddest storyline it weaves across the decades is about Tu Hengyu (Andy Lau), a scientist grieving the loss of his wife and daughter, convinced he can fine-tune the digital echo of his young child into a fuller AI consciousness. (Here, there are thematic parallels with Yeon Sang-ho\u2019s JUNG_E<\/em>, a fleeter and more manageable science fiction movie premiering on Netflix right as Wandering Earth II <\/em>lumbers into theaters.)<\/p>\n The dead-family storyline isn\u2019t the only obligatory pause for pathos, either. Another character must deal with his wife\u2019s imminent death, since cancer cases have spiked during the rise of dangerous solar activity. At the same time, he\u2019s trying to secure one of the limited tickets to an underground city.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/source><\/picture>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n ![\"A](\"https:\/\/cdn.vox-cdn.com\/thumbor\/gI8x7eVKpBx3dA7eXUnSHJ2qawo=\/0x0:1340x754\/320x0\/filters:focal(0x0:1340x754):format(webp):no_upscale()\/cdn.vox-cdn.com\/uploads\/chorus_asset\/file\/24374701\/Math.jpg)
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