Miscellaneous News

Eventine said:

The US wasn’t liberal 60 years ago. Liberalism is a more recent development due to the US losing the initial ideological Cold War to the USSR. Liberalism was basically born during the Civil Rights movement, before then it was a rather blatant form of white supremacism and that was not attractive to anyone outside the West, hence the popularity of Communism through most of the fifties and sixties.

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I have my doubts that liberalism will ever be as effective of a motivator as socialism, fascism or religion. Nobody will kill and die for LGBT BBQ rights. On the other hand how many people were willing to kill and be killed for say... Islam?

The most primal human driving forces are community, nationalism and religion because they shape our everyday. Liberalism explicitly rejects community and nationalism while trying to replace traditional religions which inspire awe, art and literature with something that people naturally will think is ugly, but aren't allowed to say is ugly.

luminary said:

Actually, a bit deeper inspection of some of the "nonsensical" decisions such as the soldier shooting the lighter core in frustration, the drama about leaving the protagonist's uncle, and disabling MOSS computer shows they were deliberate inclusions to make powerful statements on how modern decision making relies on technology, AI and hard science / cold logic but those things should not and cannot take precedence over human feeling, family bonds, and the fundamental parts of Chinese society. On the same vein, even though it sounds stupid and futile, Chinese people would rather work to save the entire Mother Earth (Moving the Mountain) than escape their homeland on spaceship Noah's Arks to colonize foreign lands (a more Western, Christian theme). Movie feels like a commentary on current evolution and conflicts facing Chinese society today, and where we need to guide technology in the future. It as a whole feels like a microcosm of Chinese sci-fi.

I agree with you, I feel the themes displayed are mature and complex, but suffer from lack of skill in execution. They have too many good ideas and have to shove it into a single 3 hour movie. As a result, events and decisions are a little jarring and out-of-the-blue due to lack of character or narrative build up. Movie includes too many "need to go here to do this to save the world" to keep the tension high.

But overall I think right now it's exactly what Chinese audience wants and needs from the nation's biggest sci-fi movie. We can always refine the execution later on, what is important is we represent the ideas right.

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Well I'm just not a fan of Liu Cixin's works. I just feel that the Chinese sci-fi genre is still in its relative infancy, and there are better Chinese style sci-fi stories that are yet to be told. Just please, no more CJ7, cartoon kangaroos, and flying planets. Hopefully future writers can start telling some more mature stories. Having said that, at least the Chinese cinema is trying out new concepts. The sci-fi movies in South Korea and Russia are shameless derivatives of Hollywood films. The sci-fi movies in Bollywood are just comical.

xypher said:

I don't know about the movie but the book was good. There are many Western sci-fi movies that are set in "real" universe, I don't see the issue there. Plus a lot of things do make sense from a physical point of view in the book, the main contention I have is that building such drives would most likely require almost fully exhausting Earth's reserves and is incredibly complex from the engineering standpoint if we use the current engines as a reference point but it is a science FICTION work after all. The main conflict between Takers and Leavers is written very well in the book imo, plus it is explored from both the ideological (both sides make sense and tbh IRL I would also probably side with the "antagonist" Leavers) AND individual levels (protagonist and his Japanese wife who end up on the opposing sides).

Most issues I have with some Chinese movies is the tendency of actors to overact in some emotion-heavy moments which makes it look cringe. Other than that, special effects in recent Chinese movies are a notable step up from the previous gen and many praise TWE for being visually pleasing.

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Being overly emotional is a trend in TV. I remember a US critic lamenting how quiet shows of strength or disappointment on Star Trek TNG were replaced by belligerence and rage on later Star Treks like First Contact.

Sardaukar20 said:

Well I'm just not a fan of Liu Cixin's works. I just feel that the Chinese sci-fi genre is still in its relative infancy, and there are better Chinese style sci-fi stories that are yet to be told. Just please, no more CJ7, cartoon kangaroos, and flying planets. Hopefully future writers can start telling some more mature stories. Having said that, at least the Chinese cinema is trying out new concepts. The sci-fi movies in South Korea and Russia are shameless derivatives of Hollywood films. The sci-fi movies in Bollywood are just comical.

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Wandering Earth is suitable for an international movie because it's inoffensive. Liu Cixin wrote way more books that westerners would cry at.

Example: Full Spectrum Jamming which is about WW3 between NATO and Russia (fought with real tech like tanks, planes and nukes), and when Russia is about to lose, they use their last superweapon to destabilize the corona to produce a super EMP to brick everyone's computers and say fuck you to the world. NATO is portrayed as an evil aggressor while Russian cosmonauts are portrayed as tragic heroes.


Now you understand why his more realistic books are for domestic reading only. They depict the entire west either losing or being fucked just like everyone else.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Wandering Earth is suitable for an international movie because it's inoffensive. Liu Cixin wrote way more books that westerners would cry at.

Example: Full Spectrum Jamming which is about WW3 between NATO and Russia (fought with real tech like tanks, planes and nukes), and when Russia is about to lose, they use their last superweapon to destabilize the corona to produce a super EMP to brick everyone's computers and say fuck you to the world. NATO is portrayed as an evil aggressor while Russian cosmonauts are portrayed as tragic heroes.

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Now you understand why his more realistic books are for domestic reading only. They depict the entire west either losing or being fucked just like everyone else.

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China should actually promote more of those works. We already have plenty of American jingoistic crap like World War Z, and Tom Clancy's. What's the point of being inoffensive with today's political climate? Especially when the fictional enemy is the West? Don't want to offend the West? Come on, seriously?

Thailand seems desperately eager to be on the wrong side of history. Very well. They shall have it, and all the natural consequences that it would entail.

Sardaukar20 said:

China should actually promote more of those works. We already have plenty of American jingoistic crap like World War Z, and Tom Clancy's. What's the point of being inoffensive with today's political climate? Especially when the fictional enemy is the West? Don't want to offend the West? Come on, seriously?

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Unfortunately the movie industry doesn't want to because many of the directors and workers have an inferiority complex to Hollywood, and these things take time. And even Hollywood had to change Red Dawn from China to North Korea.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Wandering Earth is suitable for an international movie because it's inoffensive. Liu Cixin wrote way more books that westerners would cry at.

Example: Full Spectrum Jamming which is about WW3 between NATO and Russia (fought with real tech like tanks, planes and nukes), and when Russia is about to lose, they use their last superweapon to destabilize the corona to produce a super EMP to brick everyone's computers and say fuck you to the world. NATO is portrayed as an evil aggressor while Russian cosmonauts are portrayed as tragic heroes.

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Now you understand why his more realistic books are for domestic reading only. They depict the entire west either losing or being fucked just like everyone else.

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I wish that book will be translated in English so that I can hand out some copies of the book for people to read, comprehend, and contemplate. Too many books written are ALL TOO WESTERN CENTRIC and whenever there's a translation of books that are not of the western indoctrination they dilute the translation which loses the books meaning and purpose along with the authors intent.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Funny how I still recall some months ago - That a few here in this forum claimed that "soft power is of absolutely no use in the geopolitical fight between superpowers".

The thing is - Not a lot of people outside of the military circle talk about military stuff everyday. But there are fvck tons of people everywhere who talking movies, dramas, songs and games. Every. Single. Day.


I believe I need to knock this sentence onto this forum wall for everyone here to actually make sense and understand.

While China is now equipped with the capability to militarily go toe-to-toe with the US in her own front yard (i.e. WestPac), yet China is nowhere near the US when it comes to soft power influence and control projection.

Besides, soft power isn't just about building bridges, schools, airports and hospitals. It is about connecting, managing, and even controlling the minds & hearts of the targeted audience & population.

Just this one simple question is enough: "How often do Chinese people talk about American movies? Meanwhile, how often do American people talk about Chinese movies?"

TL;DR - China needs to do A WHOLE LOT MORE if she intends to stand toe-to-toe with the US (and her allies with far-reaching soft power prowess, i.e. South Korea and Japan) in the soft power battlefield.

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I feel very strongly about this and we can debate better in the Soft Power Thread that this is no soft power. I have written extensively on this in that thread to absolutely no coherent counter-argument. Those who covet "soft power" are generally confused about what was intended to constitute "soft power" and what is actually an extension of hard power. For China's "soft power" to rise, it really only needs to futher develop its hard power until it is ahead of America's. Trying purposefully to build "soft power" from a position of inferior hard power is simply a fool's errand, begging others to like you when their hands are tied to your stronger rival.

Furthermore, the competition for influence is highly skewed towards the US as it is for a multitude of factors, none of which can be addressed by any charm offensive or push by China. Firstly, the USD is American power in a maritime world; American sanctions are what will bite if you support China's rise instead of American tyranny. To dismantle this, the yuan needs to be a viable alternative to the dollar and it is in clear progress. Secondly, hard power gives you the stage to spread your views, which people tend to think is soft power. But few understand that the stage is more important than your message. The message is not clever; it is simply to support us instead of them, but the stage that amplifies your message is built through hard power and that alone. If your stage is lesser than America's stage, your voice will be drowned out. As long as American hard power reigns supreme, they can threaten sanctions to force your target to simply shut you up and close your stage down. China addresses this by growing its hard power. Lastly, America has, through the last few decades since WWII, used its power to build deep channels of corruption and connections in every important (and many unimportant) country's political systems, channels that it can simply call upon to spread its influence when needed. China doesn't have that and it while it is making huge inroads in some places, others are more uncertain. Oftentimes, obvious progress cannot be made until Chinese hard power has displaced American hard power.

jwnz said:

Was it not Obama who proposed the G2 to restrain China as part of his pivot to Asia, not Trump?

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I don't know if he threw that out there but some pundits were talking about it. It never happened because remember Japan wanted to be the only non-white member of the G-7 so they could think they were white. That's how the G-20 was born so it kept the G-7 looking more important.

The irony...


Because the G-7 looks too white, they invited non-whites to the party so it didn't look like the white elites were speaking for everyone in the world.