Chinanews.com, Shanghai, February 3rd: How "hot" is science fiction in China?

  Author Wang Ji

  During the Spring Festival, "post-90s" Mr. Xia watched the popular sci-fi movie "The Wandering Earth 2".

Out of his love for the film, he immediately took out his mobile phone when he walked out of the 4DX theater, and placed an order on the crowdfunding page for the finished model of the mechanical dog Benben and the USB flash drive of the digital life card.

As of press time, the total amount of crowdfunding projects around the officially authorized model of "The Wandering Earth 2" launched by Saifan Science Fiction Space has exceeded 120 million yuan.

  "Many friends in the model circle have participated in crowdfunding. Everyone is very excited after watching "The Wandering Earth 2." Sun Hefeng, secretary-general of the Shanghai Nautical Model Association, told reporters from Chinanews. There should be two reasons for the popularity of crowdfunding this time.

"First, the film itself is well-produced, and the main creative team has made very detailed settings for the content of the film. The audience has a more immersive sense of substitution when watching the film, and peripheral products based on film and television works have also sold well; second, the previous "The Wandering Earth" When the first film was released, Saifan and Xinghuan Heavy Industries had already made a batch of peripherals, and the production was very sophisticated, accumulating a very good reputation."

  In Sun Hefeng's view, the derivatives market of Chinese sci-fi movies has huge potential, but the premise is that there must be more "wandering earths" to drive Chinese people's enthusiasm for the surrounding models.

"Compared with traditional military-themed models, sci-fi-themed models are less complicated in assembly and production, and are more suitable as an entry-level model choice for light players, and are also very suitable for popularizing model culture through film and television works. This year's movie "The Wandering Earth 2" and The TV series "Three-Body Problem" should be able to promote the development of domestic IP sci-fi models for a period of time, but whether it can last for a long time in the future still needs to rely on the support of high-quality film and television works."

Among the "Top Ten Keywords of Internet Literature in 2022", "science fiction" is on the list.

Photo courtesy of China Literature Group

  How "hot" is science fiction in China?

In addition to the hit sci-fi movie "The Wandering Earth 2" and the popular surrounding crowdfunding, this year there is also a TV series "Three-Body Problem" adapted from Liu Cixin's novel of the same name.

In the "Top Ten Keywords of Internet Literature in 2022" released in January, "science fiction" is also on the list.

  Li Wei, executive deputy director of the Yangtze River Internet Literature Review Center, explained this wave of "science fiction craze" to reporters from the perspective of Internet literature.

"First of all, it is due to the progress and development of current science and technology. The penetration of high technology such as artificial intelligence into daily life has changed people's imagination of time and space. It is no longer a niche and fringe imagination, but it connects people’s changing daily life. The discussion of the development direction of human civilization in science fiction works also caters to people’s attention and enthusiasm for the future world.”

  Chinese Internet literature has been developed for more than 20 years.

In the initial typification process, science fiction was not one of the "protagonists", but an element that appeared in fantasy creation.

After 2018, "The First Sequence" and "Death on Mars" and other excellent online literature works with science fiction as the main line have emerged one after another; by 2022, science fiction has become one of the five major types of online literature.

Taking the starting monthly ticket annual list as an example, there are no science fiction works in the top ten of the monthly ticket list in 2020, but among the works on the list in 2022, five of the top ten have obvious sci-fi elements, such as "The Naming of the Night". Cyberpunk virtual worldview settings, battleships and genetically modified humans in "The Other Side of Deep Space", etc.

  "Science fiction has replaced fantasy and become the most important type and element of online literature. This is an important phenomenon in the development of online literature in the past two years, and the appearance of this kind of science fiction has shown diversified and diverse characteristics." Li Wei believes that science fiction The "future" of the theme works should not only have a deep concern for scientific and technological civilization, but also be a good story that is thought-provoking and soul-stirring.

"The setting of science fiction will be more and more combined with daily life. In the field of online literature, the combination of science fiction and fantasy will still be a popular theme." (End)