ABSTRACT My claim is that Frant Gwo’s film, The Wandering Earth (2019), fetishises technology and, in so doing, forces Western audiences of the film to face an otherwise outdated thematic motif of social togetherness or solidarity. That is, the exquisite onscreen rendering of advanced technological achievement (the construction of 10,000 Earth Engines designed to drive the planet to inhabit another solar system after the sun begins to rapidly deteriorate) acts as an aesthetic Trojan Horse. We in the West are seduced by the slick technological hardware showcased in the film; from there, however, the film forces us to ask if such advanced technology can be achieved outside of the profit-motive. The capable visual rendering of technological progress subtly masks a more subversive political message critiquing Western colonization of the planet. In the end, the film asserts China’s right to lead humanity past impending global disaster not simply (nor solely) by making the necessary hard technological leaps, but by mobilizing the necessary collective energy and will of the world’s colonized and oppressed.

中文翻译：

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流浪地球中的技术拜物教

摘要我的主张是Frant Gwo的电影《流浪的地球》（The Wandering Earth，2019）赋予了技术以幻想，并因此迫使电影的西方观众面对社会团结或团结的过时主题主题。也就是说，精美的屏幕上先进技术成果的渲染（建造了10,000台地球引擎，目的是在太阳开始迅速变质之后驱动行星生活在另一个太阳系中），这就像是美学的特洛伊木马。我们西方国家被电影中展示的精巧技术硬件所吸引；但是，影片从那儿迫使我们问是否可以在获利动机之外实现这种先进技术。强大的技术进步视觉呈现力巧妙地掩盖了颠覆性的政治信息，使西方殖民化了地球。