Huayu 05, our science fiction movie universe

Chapter 593 Preparations for the New Film
During the National Day holiday, "The Sword of Shushan" suddenly received a surge in unexpected traffic, and its box office remained extremely stable for seven days, basically more than 200 million yuan per day.

Meanwhile, its competitor "Chasing the Dragon," which also chose to be released during the National Day holiday, did not perform badly at the box office on its first day, as it also had some investment from Xinghe Pictures and Taopiaopiao.

After all, like Tsui Hark, the director of "The Sword and the Mountain", Wong Jing, the director of "Chasing the Dragon", was also one of the earliest Hong Kong directors to join the Galaxy Group.

Therefore, Taopiaopiao.com performed fairly in this competition between the two Hong Kong directors.

As for the quality of the two films, although "Swords of Shushan" has outstanding special effects, its storyline is relatively weak and mediocre, and the actors are mostly relatively unknown young newcomers because it is a series film.

The movie "Chasing the Dragon" is actually a remake of the old movie "Lee Rock". However, this time it adopts a dual-hero mode, with Andy Lau playing Lee Rock and Donnie Yen playing Crippled Ho.

With two Hong Kong stars in the cast, a good story, and the nostalgic style of old-school Hong Kong films, Chasing the Dragon, despite lacking special effects and large-scale scenes, is just as well-received as Sword of Shushan.

However, on October 8th, the competition between the two big-budget films directed by Hong Kong directors was overshadowed by a young person in the industry.

Lu Han, one of the "Four Returned Idols" and a well-known male celebrity in China, suddenly wrote on Weibo:

Let me introduce you, this is my girlfriend.

Guan Xiaotong, who was tagged by him, also reposted the Weibo post and responded, officially announcing their relationship.

As the first popular young male celebrity to announce his relationship, this move immediately caused a huge uproar. The fans' crazy reaction even caused Weibo to crash, and Guan Xiaotong was caught in a state of both pain and joy.

Because of this incident, Guan Xiaotong gained a huge amount of attention, and countless people began to pay attention to this "princess" of the Beijing circle. If it weren't for Song Zuer supporting her with several film works, she would almost have become the number one post-95 traffic star.

However, while gaining the benefits of increased online traffic, she also inevitably faced attacks and insults from Lu Han's female fans.

This attack is undoubtedly terrifying to many in the entertainment industry today; it's overwhelming and fully demonstrates the powerful influence of idol stars.

Even during this process, Lu Han tried his best to protect his girlfriend and advised his female fans to stay calm.

But since they're all fans, how can they possibly stay calm? You can't expect female fans to be enthusiastic when they support you and then calm them down when it's time to make an official announcement. You can't have it both ways.

However, despite the headache caused by the outrageous female fans online, Lu Han had no intention of changing his mind.

His choice undoubtedly further enraged a large number of female fans, who continued to criticize Guan Xiaotong and even unfollowed her.

In any case, there are quite a few idol artists in China. Under Wang Hao's intervention, the cultural opening-up strategy launched by China has also given many young idols from Japan, South Korea and even Southeast Asia the opportunity to enter the Chinese market.

Although the four top celebrities still firmly occupy the top ecological niche of number 9, they also have many competitors. Female fans who have abandoned Lu Han still have many choices.

Therefore, shortly after Lu Han made his official announcement, his number of fans on all platforms across the internet experienced a significant drop, and his commercial value undoubtedly suffered a severe blow as a result.

It's just that time is still short and things are still developing; otherwise, Lu Han might have fallen out of the top male idol category.

Even if it doesn't collapse immediately, Lu Han's personal idol career will definitely face a huge crisis in the future, all of which will involve real financial interests.

From this perspective, Lu Han's proactive announcement of his relationship shows that he is undoubtedly very serious about it.

Although he has a fair and clean-cut appearance and is somewhat effeminate, he acts like a real man. Compared to male idols who hide their feelings or sleep with female fans, he is undoubtedly much better.

However, these things in the entertainment idol circle don't have much impact on Xinghe Group. After all, when their company selects actors for projects, they won't consider traffic stars like Lu Han who have little acting skills and are expensive.

That is, the industry public opinion supervision department of Xinghe Group may pay more attention to this matter.

As for a renowned director like Wang Hao, after finishing his company business, he usually goes to Office Building C of [Galaxy Cinema] to participate in the pre-production preparation of new film projects.

As a film project that collaborates with China's aerospace sector, Wang Hao attaches great importance to his new film "The Martian," as it is the first major production in the third phase of the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe."

Moreover, to be honest, the technical content of his new movie is not low. Like his previous movie "Gravity", it belongs to the category of hardcore space science fiction movies.

It includes not only scenes involving space stations, but also a lot of content about spacecraft landing on Mars and life at the Mars base.

Regarding these matters, Galaxy Group had accumulated a lot of material during the filming and production of "Gravity".

But just as technology advances in the real world, human technology in the [Galaxy Cinematic Universe] will certainly advance as well, which requires the filmmakers to update and upgrade the original design.

At this point, relying solely on the screenwriters and special effects team from Galaxy Group would certainly not be enough. Therefore, after confirming the cooperation, the aerospace department had already coordinated and arranged relevant scientific researchers and experts to provide assistance for the filming and production of this movie.

Among them are technicians from the Institute of Computer Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, PhDs from the National Astronomical Observatories, spacecraft designers from China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, and astronauts who have personally traveled to space.

With the help of these experts, the first thing the pre-production team of the new film had to do was to sort out the script, to ensure that the plot of the film was reasonable enough, in line with scientific principles, and could withstand the scrutiny of professionals, and at the very least, there should be no common sense errors.

This is reflected in the original "The Martian," for example, the sun as seen from Mars shouldn't be that big, and the sunset should be blue.

The dust on Mars is similar to that on the Moon. Because there is no water erosion, the dust is very fine and sharp due to natural weathering.

On the Mars base, spacesuits cannot be washed at all. Wearing a spacesuit to enter and exit the Mars base and bringing Martian dust into the building is a very dangerous thing.

Therefore, if there were a Mars base in reality, and astronauts were to land on Mars, the spacesuits would be placed outside the living quarters, with a separate room specifically for wearing the spacesuits.

There are actually some other similar minor issues, but this time, with Xinghe Pictures and Wang Hao directing, the number of minor issues and bugs will definitely be reduced.

Even the Martian storm, which was the most criticized scene in the original film, has been altered in Wang Hao's new movie. It's worth noting that while storms on Mars can reach speeds of 180 meters per second, more than three times the wind speed of a super typhoon on Earth, the Martian atmosphere is only 1% as dense as Earth's.

Therefore, the power of a Martian storm with a speed of 180 meters per second is actually only equivalent to a Force 2 wind on Earth.

Could a Force 2 wind really knock over a reentry capsule? Or even blow an astronaut away? That's clearly impossible.

Therefore, in Wang Hao's version of "The Martian," the reason why the scientific research team on Mars temporarily chose to return was entirely due to the sabotage of the ETO organization.

After clarifying the plot logic and scientific common sense of the script, the next thing the film's pre-production team needs to do is design the various equipment and determine the scenes in the film.

When Wang Hao arrived at the film crew's office in Building C today, he saw members of the special effects department in the pre-production team busy designing the Mars rover.

Prior to this, there was certainly no such vehicle in China or even in the world. After all, China has not yet even landed on the moon, so naturally no one would design a vehicle for astronauts to move around on Mars.

Therefore, the pre-production team of "The Martian" had to design a Martian transportation vehicle from scratch.

For this purpose, they also referenced the American lunar rover, as well as the lunar and Mars exploration rovers designed by the China Academy of Space Technology.

Of course, there are many differences in function and structure between unmanned exploration vehicles and manned landing vehicles. Therefore, in addition to referring to previous plans and making their own designs, the production team also contacted several domestic engineering vehicle manufacturers, including Xuzhou Heavy Industry.

After much effort, they have finally come up with a basic framework design for the Mars rover.

In the renderings that Wang Hao saw, the Mars lander's overall appearance resembled a pickup truck, consisting of an independent driver's cabin and a six-seat cargo bed.

The vehicle is 4.75 meters high and 8.3 meters long. The rotating and lifting design in the middle of the vehicle allows the vehicle to rotate under special circumstances. In addition, the mechanical arm inside the truck bed can help astronauts complete construction and scientific research tasks on Mars more quickly and effectively.

"Okay, let's go with this for the first draft. The overall idea is acceptable."

Wang Hao looked at the model on the computer and nodded, but then said:

"It's important to note that this Mars rover has a lot of important scenes in the movie, so in addition to solving practical problems such as how to arrange the wheels, how to design the shock absorbers, and how to connect the wheels to the chassis and the cabin, the details of the Mars rover's exterior, interior, and rear seats should be as rich as possible."

The young people in the design team nodded quickly.

"These things will definitely be shown on camera in the movie. Even if the camera doesn't capture them at the very end, the more detailed the shots, the more realistic they will be. That way, the cars won't look like toys when they're filmed."

"Director, rest assured, we will add a lot of details such as frames and columns to the exterior of the vehicle to meet the astronauts' gripping needs in the space environment."

As for the interior of the vehicle, in addition to the standard seat covers, seat belts, upholstery, and buckles found in most vehicles, we plan to add life-saving equipment, repair toolboxes, small research devices, and personal belongings for the astronauts.

"Okay, let's go with this approach."

Wang Hao encouraged the vehicle design team, and then went to stand behind another three-person team.

This team designed a multi-functional all-terrain intelligent transportation platform, abbreviated as DOG System in English and "Big Dog" in Chinese. Of course, in the movie, it also has a nickname: "Dumb."

In fact, in many Hollywood movies, the male and female protagonists are always accompanied by some cute pets.

Examples include R2-D2, the three-legged robot from the classic sci-fi film *Star Wars*; Groot, the tree spirit from the Marvel film *Guardians of the Galaxy*; and Hedwig, the owl from the fantasy film *Harry Potter*.

These pets come in various forms, but their functions are actually quite similar. On the one hand, they provide various laughs or cute moments during interactions with the main characters, and on the other hand, they help sell more movie merchandise.

Since Galaxy Group has a mature film industrialization system like Hollywood, it naturally learned this kind of thing quite well, which is why this "robot dog" came about.

"director!"

Upon seeing Wang Hao arrive, the three crew members responsible for designing the mechanical dog "Benben" quickly stood up to greet him, while also revealing the rather unique model behind them.

It's clear that, thanks to the increasingly sophisticated 3D printing equipment available today, these three employees were able to easily turn their design into a concrete model.

Wang Hao didn't stand on ceremony and picked up the model to examine it.

Holding it in your hand, the square robot model is quite heavy. It looks like an automated camping trailer. Although many parts of its body are not polished smooth, this does not affect the movement of its parts.

Because it uses a modular joint design, the robot dog "Benben" can achieve a high degree of freedom in various transformations.

For example, it can extend four wheeled mechanical legs to run and jump, carry boxes on its back to help transport cargo, extend two mechanical arms to assist astronauts in their work, or carry scientific exploration equipment to help explore the external environment.

Of course, to add some cute elements to this mechanical little guy and facilitate the sale of related merchandise later, the design team also specially installed a long strip of LED screen as its face.

This screen can display various texts and expressions, allowing it to communicate with people and express different emotions such as pity, doubt, flattery, and happiness with different eyes, thus giving the cold, mechanical creation a touch of humanity.

Of course, for a director like Wang Hao who has seen countless films, this design is clearly inspired by WALL-E, the protagonist of the Hollywood animated film "WALL-E".

But this kind of reference doesn't involve copyright issues. As long as it works well, why can't it be used?

In any case, Wang Hao was quite satisfied with their results and affirmed the group's design ideas, which made the young people very happy.

(End of this chapter)