THE WANDERING EARTH II

Name: THE WANDERING EARTH II
Item: THE WANDERING EARTH II
Author: Cooper Dowd

"Stunning and Heart-wrenching"

Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

THE WANDERING EARTH II is a stunning, heart-wrenching science fiction prequel from China. It depicts everything that led up to the first movie’s events where humanity needs to move the Earth to escape the flares of a dying sun. The movie covers the history and build-up to that event. It follows three separate storylines that focus on some of the main political, technological and familial successes and setbacks of the project. People also must work to avoid the dangers caused by human fallibility and venturing into space.

THE WANDERING EARTH II is incredibly beautiful with stunning visuals, immersive sound design, and impressive special effects. The three separate storylines weave together beautifully and intelligently. They create an in-depth picture of the years leading up to the Earth’s wandering through the galaxy. THE WANDERING EARTH II has a scary, often violent tone. However, it stresses unity, duty and hope in the face of danger and crisis. This content make the movie a heartfelt, captivating experience. THE WANDERING EARTH II has some strong foul language, including about eight “f” words. So, extreme caution is advised.

Content:

(BB, C, LL, VVV, S, D, M)

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral themes and message while not an explicitly biblical worldview; themes of duty, responsibility, unity, courage, hope, and working together for a common goal in the face of danger and crisis in order to save humanity is clear and pervasive throughout, there is also debate about whether humanity could exist in a digital world or if emphasis should be placed on saving the living, existing humanity on Earth, with the latter proposal being presented as the more humane and dutiful option, someone does a Catholic prayer cross before dying, and one of the missions to save earth requires 300 individuals to be willing to go on a suicide mission)

Foul Language:

Eight “f” words, two “h” words, someone takes God’s name in vain, two scenes of vomiting, one scene in a hospital with vomiting heard in the background, and man depicted on the toilet, but nothing explicit shown

Violence:

Very strong and strong violence includes discussion of the earth being swallowed up and the solar system being destroyed, the entire movie is littered with very intense action sequences, depictions of war and riots, scary depiction of a very fast anti-gravity elevator that causes characters to pass out, violent guns, explosions, air raid with hacked drones, air combat; lots of fighting includes choking and punching and kicking with some blood, very intense action sequence of an entire space station falling to earth with a lot of death and destruction caused by a terrorist attack, listing a death toll of 3,521 and 5,137 injured, news clippings show a suicide bomb vest going off, multiple attacks and riots and explosions; violent and sudden car crash depicted but little gore; bloody and very injured as well as deadly result of car crash depicted in hospital, frightening sequence of a solar storm, brief depiction of someone suffocating; frightening sequence of a wave of an explosion, fearful discussion of lottery system for only half the population to survive, fearful discussion of rapidly rising cancer cases caused by solar flares, cyber attacks, frightening jump-scare of car crash, hospital depictions of sickness; a few depictions of a taser; a ship explodes, man flies out of ship and slams into another ship and then an asteroid, angry threats of violence; someone injures their leg and there is a lot of blood, explosions, destruction of earth cities with many people dying, two separate depictions of drowning, sequence of nuclear explosions killing astronauts, very intense suspenseful ending

Sex:

No sex scenes, but someone jokes about having a mistress on the moon

Nudity:

No nudity

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Someone offers

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Brief depiction of what appears to be some soldiers smuggling something into or out of the training camp, characters occasionally force other characters into doing what they want by withholding something important to them, whether it be information or a sentimental object, character calls another character an idiot, insanity, mentions of being depressed, discussions of dying versus living forever, and extinction.

More Detail:

THE WANDERING EARTH II is a science-fiction prequel to the widely-acclaimed Chinese movie The Wandering Earth. The first movie tells the story of the earth sometime in the future, wandering through the galaxy to escape a dying sun, propelled by massive engines that have been built around the earth to propel it forward. THE WANDERING EARTH II weaves together three different storylines that focus on some of the main political, technological, and familial successes and setbacks of earth needing to take those initial steps out of its position in the solar system and escape the dangers that are caused by human fallibility and venturing into space.

The first of these storylines is about one of the astronauts involved in the beginning steps to move the moon out of the way of earth’s eventual movement out of the solar system. He falls in love with one of his coworkers and the consequences of the rest of the movie are exemplified in their familial story and struggles on an earth plagued by a dying sun.

The second storyline is about one of the engineers involved in making the engines that will propel the earth. He is revealed to have been involved in a program that would’ve allowed people to live digitally, expelling the need to move the earth away from the sun. His main motivation for continuing this program against the better judgment of the government at the time, is to keep his daughter alive digitally as she had already died in a car crash. His relationship with his daughter, his work, his obsession, and his coworkers is explored throughout the movie and becomes crucial to the plot.

The final storyline is about two important political representatives of China for the “Wandering Earth Project.” This plot explores the political and logistical aspects of moving the earth out of the solar system. The audience sees from beginning to end the difficulties of gaining support for a controversial solution to a future crisis as well as keeping unity, courage, and hope alive for the project and for the future of the earth.

THE WANDERING EARTH II is a fascinating exploration into the topics of uniting in the face of a crisis. It stresses the importance of duty and responsibility to your family, your colleagues, your country, and your world. The movie is not overtly from a biblical worldview, it depicts strong moral, inspirational characters. Although Chinese made, from a Chinese perspective, it has a lot of different languages spoken, including a lot of English, that the characters all understand due to translator earpieces. It’s just one more aspect of the theme of unity that the movie depicts.

THE WANDERING EARTH II is masterfully made. The cinematography and lighting is beautiful, unique, and purposeful; the sound design is immersive; and the special effects are impressive, especially for how much of the movie must have required special effects to immerse the audience in this technologically-advanced, futuristic version of Earth. Occasional scenes did appear like sophisticated video game graphics and some of the dubs were clearly added after being filmed, but some of that is to be expected in a movie like this, and it works for the science fiction genre.

Due to the nature of the subject matter being very dark, dangerous, divisive, and potentially catastrophic, the movie has a lot of very violent scenes, heart-breaking moments, and foul-mouthed characters. This is greatly offset by the move’s uplifting, inspirational, morally uplifting content, but MOVIEGUDIE® suggests extreme caution.