The vastness of the universe and the silent and fleeting time have always aroused human interest and inspiration. Many people have been enthusiasts of astronomy or the unknown world since childhood. When I was young, I liked to read those popular science books to learn about relevant knowledge, and when I grew up, my horizons were broadened and my imagination was infinitely expanded, so after reading a lot of science fiction novels and related theory books, I would naturally be interested in movies with this theme.

The audience has this complex, and naturally the directors will have the same interests and hobbies, and they have more skillfully integrated this theme into the big art of cinema with the help of love, family affection, as well as various events on the earth, wars, and the passion for exploring the unknown world.

But science fiction must follow certain scientific principles, and fantasy movies are completely unnecessary. In 1895, science fiction writer Wells published the famous science fiction novel "Time Machine", which is known as the originator of science fiction using science to travel through time. At the time and before that, it was seen as an "unrealistic fantasy" by others. But 10 years later, Einstein's special theory of relativity was published, which scientifically turned these fantasies into possible realities.

Albert Einstein proposed in his theory of relativity that time is relative. And deduce: if man travels at close to the speed of light, then time stands still for him. Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity provides a scientific basis for traveling into the future. However, in the era of special relativity, the journey to the future is irreversible, which means that people can go to the future, but they can never return to the present.

Another 10 years later, Albert Einstein proposed the general theory of relativity, merging time and space for the first time. The possibility of traveling to the past and the future provides the possibility, and then he proposes the concept of "wormhole" to provide a way to shuttle. It can be said that it was Einstein who built the entire fantasy platform for science fiction films.

Once time travel proves to be viable, problems ensue. For example, if we go back in time and kill our own mother or grandmother, where do I come from? This chaotic logic is known in scientific circles as the "grandmother paradox", and in order to solve this problem, the so-called "grandfather contradiction" theory was subsequently proposed. The theory is that if you were to go back in time and murder your grandfather, one of the problems that would arise was that if you succeeded, a new world would emerge, and because you didn't exist at all, it would be impossible for you to go back in time and murder your grandfather in real life. That is, with an external law of physics, which allows people to return to the past time and space, but prohibits all actions that may lead to paradoxes in the future.

Any science fiction movie about time and space travel is basically based on the principle theory of "grandfather contradiction theory", and the creative ideas of this type of film are also divided into two different genres: one is the time and space travel theory represented by the "Back to the Future" series, which strictly follows the "grandfather contradiction theory".

In the first episode of the series, the main character, Martin, travels back 30 years to meet and be courted by his mother, who was a girlhood, as he was hit by his grandfather's car in place of his father. In order to prevent himself from disappearing, Martin also has to let his father and mother meet and fall in love. This plot design is not just to increase the dramatic surname of the film, but is constrained by the "grandfather contradiction theory", which Martin must do in order to comply with the "rules".

The other genre does the opposite, all the plots are built on the basis of subverting the "grandfather contradiction theory", and the future can be changed at will, and even you can kill yourself, and the film "Butterfly Effect" is one of the classics.

Of course, there are also movies where the protagonist does not directly travel through time and space, but connects with the past or future through a certain medium. The script in Lin Mingyang's hand, called "Connecting the Future", tells such a story, but this idea is not the original of the author of the script. As early as 2000, in the science fiction movie "Black Hole Frequency", a similar plot has appeared.

The film tells the story of the stormy night before his father's death, when the main character, John, finds an old-fashioned radio in the room where his father stays, and he starts fiddling with it, only to receive a voice from a firefighter who claims to be Frank in 1969.

John talked to the man all night, and when he was finally convinced that this man was his young father, he realized that he could change everything now. John took the time to remind Frank how to get out of the terrible fire in December when he wanted to save his father from the clutches of death. When John wakes up the next day, he finds a picture of his silver-haired father on the wall, and John is ecstatic to know that he has changed the past and is in front of a new present. But then something terrible happened, and a series of brutal murders changed his life, and his mother became a victim of it. Father Frank must travel back in time through the radio frequency to stop a murder that would later change the fate of their family. And every time Frank changes something in his plane, John wakes up in a different present... The protagonist of this film, John, does not really go back to the past, he just communicates with another dimension of time through a strange radio, but the past time and space and the present time and space are entangled, so when John changes one of the links, there will be interlocking effects, and instantly change his current situation.

In "Connecting to the Future", the screenwriter simply upgraded the tool to connect to the present and the future from a tape recorder to a mobile phone, and in fact such a change can hardly be called an innovation. What really interests Lin Mingyang is that the future self in the story calls the current self to guide the current self to make changes, and then affect the future plot setting.

When the future Peter realized that every time he talked to his current self on the phone, he changed to another way of talking to "himself", and he began to recall the past with his current "self", and Peter in the present found that there was no secret in front of the other party, everything he had done, every thought in his heart, the other party knew it clearly.

At this time, Peter finally began to believe that what he was holding in his hand was indeed a mobile phone that could connect to the future. In order to make Peter fully believe in this fact, the future he asked the current Peter to write down a string of numbers on the diary at will, and in the case that Peter did not reveal any information, the future he accurately reported the set of numbers, which made Peter completely believe in the future "self".

Under the guidance of his future "self", Peter's life changed dramatically: he summoned up the courage to confess to the prettiest girl in school, and finally formed a happy family with her; He seized every possible opportunity and developed smoothly in his career. Peter found that he didn't need to think about it at all, and that his future "self" would always have more than 50 years of experience, and he could do everything with a phone call a day.

This wonderful state of affairs is finally terminated by the sudden and unexpected death of his future "self", and without the help of his future "self", Peter's life begins to become a mess, and his habitual dependence on his surname makes him lose his ability to read and deal with problems, and eventually his company goes bankrupt and his wife chooses to leave him because of an extramarital affair.

Destitute and destitute, Peter ends up on the streets, leaving only the mobile phone that can no longer be connected to the future. Just when he felt hopeless in his life and was about to commit suicide, human scientists made a major breakthrough in the study of time-traveling technology. In despair, Peter saw hope, and a life-changing plan began to be born in his mind.

Ten years later, Peter succeeded in replicating another space-time phone, and in the same year, the Human Space-Time Administration was established. Peter uses time smuggling technology to send his mobile phone to himself 50 years ago, and he wants to use this mobile phone to change his current life.

Everything went back to the same place, and then the story started again, which, in Lin Mingyang's view, was the most subtle idea in the script of "Connecting the Future". And the most brilliant idea of this idea is to provide people with the opportunity to regret it again and again.

No one is completely satisfied with their life. Therefore, the most basic setting in the plot, the hypothesis about starting over once or even many times, will bring people many false fantasies and endless desires.

"If I don't make that mistake if I can, maybe, my life will be better?" Under this assumption, people can face a life with choices like the male protagonist Peter, and if this is really the case, what will everything become? This kind of fictional delusion can only stay in fantasy, but the editors want the film to tell people that even if there is such an opportunity, things may not be as good as people think.

Peter learned his lesson by using the same method to gain the trust of his "self" 50 years ago, and this time Peter is not encouraging his past self to pursue the school flower, because he knows that the woman will eventually betray him. He guided the past "self" to correctly understand love, know himself, and tell him who is the woman worthy of his own cherishment.

At the end of each call, Peter's status quo changes. After experiencing the ups and downs of life, this time Peter did not interfere too much in his past "own" life, so in the end he was just an ordinary ordinary person, with an ordinary-looking wife who loved him deeply, and lived a peaceful life.

Peter was so satisfied with this life that he finally destroyed the phone in his hand, completely cutting off all contact with his "past" self.

In the face of a life with infinite possibilities, how to choose? The life that follows and the life that has become history before it. With an infinitely beautiful desire to correct your life and all the people around you, it will also become a better life. All our faults will be corrected, but is it better or not so good?

The screenwriter of "Connecting to the Future" gives his own answer at the end of the script, the future Peter died because of greedily rewriting his life, and now Peter is enjoying his old age because of contentment.

When he closed the script, Lin Mingyang suddenly had the idea of wanting to meet the screenwriter.

――――What Lin Mingyang didn't expect was that the screenwriter of "Connecting the Future" was actually a young Chinese-American. When they first met, he wrote this surprised expression directly on his face.

If Lin Mingyang's reaction was an American frankness, then in the screenwriter named Chen Zixuan, Chinese humility and restraint became a distinct characteristic.

Because of this, Lin Mingyang's first impression of Chen Zixuan was excellent, and the other party's Chinese identity gave the two an extra layer of intimate connection, and even when he first ordered coffee, Lin Mingyang specially asked: "Does Mr. Chen drink coffee or tea?" ”

Chen Zixuan smiled: "I'd better follow the customs!" ”

Lin Mingyang nodded, and then ordered two cups of coffee, but before the coffee was served, the two chatted first.

"I've already read Mr. Chen's script, and with all due respect, the story you wrote can basically be seen as a synthesis of "Black Hole Frequency" and "The Butterfly Effect", if it weren't for the deep self-reflection of the film's theme, maybe we wouldn't be meeting today... I wonder why Mr. Chan came up with the idea to write such a story. ”

"I've always insisted that life moves forward under a rule that can't be changed."

Chen Zixuan's answer has a bit of fatalism, while Lin Mingyang prefers to interpret this question from a scientific point of view: "Has Mr. Chen heard of the 'grandmother's paradox'?" Hawking's explanation of this paradox is that there is a physical principle in the world, and even if humans can go back in time, they cannot intervene in history. I think your views are very similar to his. ”

"I know that Mr. Felix is very familiar with Chinese culture, but I wonder if you also know about Buddhism? In fact, what you see in the script is just like the cause and effect that the Buddhists say, but the cause and effect that the Buddhists must go through reincarnation for several lifetimes all happened in the life of the protagonist Peter. ”

In order to explain the concept of causal reincarnation, Chen Zixuan continued: "If the process of human life development is a coherent straight line, then this cause is the other effect, and the conclusion is the present life. But if we change what has happened at a certain point before, then the life that has been changed because of this point will change many points later because of the chain reaction, and more points that have been changed, and the dots that will be interlocked will be rewritten for a whole period of life. As a result, the whole life will be completely different. ”

"Perhaps we should be thankful for what we have now. Every important decision we make in life affects our whole life. And everything that has been decided before has forged our current life. Contentment is not about thinking about changing everything that has happened, but about how to change your life in the future. Perhaps, God has given us the best path when it chose for us, and all we have to do is to cherish everything we have now. No one's life is completely beautiful and flawless. So, perhaps, only when we accept the existing shortcomings will the world become a better place instead of constantly hoping for something better and more vain! ”

Lin Mingyang listened attentively, and he didn't even bother to take a sip of the coffee in front of him. He didn't expect that a science fiction movie could be interpreted from such a perspective, although he didn't understand it at first, but after thinking about it, more often people don't have a way to require science fiction movies to fully follow all the existing scientific evidence. Otherwise, science fiction movies may all become vulnerable. If you put aside the special relativity, general relativity and the "grandmother's paradox" to look at this script, even Lin Mingyang has to marvel at Chen Zixuan's extremely exquisite ideas in the script.

Chen Zixuan saw the entire change in Lin Mingyang's expression, in fact, after revealing his thoughts and thoughts, he was also a little apprehensive in his heart. Seeing Lin Mingyang's expression several times, Chen Zixuan was afraid that he would be wrong, so he hurriedly explained: "Actually, the idea of this script is still in science fiction, but in terms of theme expression, I tried to introduce some religious thinking. ”

Lin Mingyang shook his head, "Mr. Chen is actually too worried, many philosophical concepts in religious thought are actually not in conflict with science fiction movies, and the Matrix will not be regarded as a science fiction classic if it is not allowed to be regarded as a science fiction classic." Mr. Chen's words just now have benefited me a lot, but what really puzzles me is why you are so interested in science fiction movies, and you still choose to travel through time and space, which is a very profound theme in science fiction movies? ”

Lin Mingyang asked very implicitly, but Chen Zixuan still understood what he meant, because this question involved the differences between Eastern and Western cultures, and Chen Zixuan gave his own answer after careful consideration.

"Whether it is Chinese film and television works or novels, fantasy works are far more than science fiction works. On the theme of time and space travel, in fact, there are many film and television works related to Chinese themes, but unfortunately most of the stories are based on fantasy. Although this phenomenon is closely related to China's long-standing culture, Chinese people are too addicted to history and often lack sufficient sense of innovation for the future, which is not necessarily a good thing for the cultural creativity of the whole nation in the long run! ”

"Mr. Chen doesn't need to be too pessimistic, I think this situation has a lot to do with the Chinese cultural environment." Lin Mingyang comforted Chen Zixuan at this time, Western society advocates natural science, and the rich atmosphere of popular science has naturally become a hotbed for the development and growth of science fiction films. Moreover, many science fiction movies need advanced film and television production technology as support, and the prosperity of science fiction movies in Hollywood is not accidental.

"So I came to the United States to try to change that, at least I want to prove that Chinese are not inherently creative when it comes to science fiction!"

(To be continued)