"May I ask which three novels?" someone asked impatiently.
"Well, the first one, as I mentioned before, is The Wandering Earth!" Huang He said with a smile. "Teacher Liu, I am very much looking forward to the day when The Wandering Earth is adapted into a TV series and a movie!"
His words made the great Liu, who was sitting nearby, a little uneasy. He wondered if this guy would lock him in a hotel to write.
"The Wandering Earth!" Most of those present had read this work, which won the Galaxy Award in 2000. Regardless of anything else, the idea of installing planetary engines on Earth and then taking the entire planet on a journey was indeed very crazy and spectacular. If such a theme were made into a movie, it would definitely be an epic science fiction film!
The premise is that Boss Huang would have to spend a lot of money on special effects. However, judging by the treatment of "Misty Journey," he should not be short of money. Then, the most magnificent film work in Chinese science fiction history might be born this way.
Everyone present had no objections to this work being selected. Liu's current status in the science fiction community made it only natural for him to get an opportunity.
"Then the remaining two must be ours!" everyone thought with excitement, and then they heard Boss Huang continue, "The second work I've decided to adapt is Rural Teacher."
"Rural Teacher!" Upon hearing the title, everyone's expression became slightly odd. It wasn't that they were dissatisfied with "Rural Teacher" or felt it didn't deserve a chance to be among the first batch of science fiction adaptations.
On the contrary, "Rural Teacher" also won the Galaxy Award and received extremely high praise from all readers, making it an outstanding work.
"Rural Teacher" tells the story of a volunteer teacher in a backward and impoverished mountain village in western China who dedicates his life to imparting scientific knowledge to children, ultimately enabling them to master the most basic scientific principles like Newton's three laws.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the universe, a grand war is taking place between the silicon-based civilization and the carbon-based civilization, which can also be understood as a war between Transformers and humans.
Ultimately, the carbon-based civilization wins. To prevent the silicon-based civilization from making a comeback, they decide to create a civilization-free zone spanning millions of light-years in the universe, completely eliminating any possibility of their resurgence.
To create such a zone, the carbon-based civilization must destroy all civilizations in this region. Non-carbon-based civilizations are naturally all eliminated. As for other carbon-based civilizations, they must identify whether a civilization has the potential to develop into an advanced cosmic civilization. Those without potential must be completely annihilated. The method of identification is to check if the civilization has mastered the three basic laws of mechanics.
Thus, the children in the small mountain village on Earth are chosen. Coincidentally, their teacher had taught them Newton's three laws, and humanity was saved. However, not a single human knew that they were saved by a little-known rural teacher who had already passed away.
From this simple story, it can be seen that "Rural Teacher" is a work with not much scientific content, but with extremely strong humanistic elements. The relationship of the continuous inheritance of civilization development between teachers and students contained within it is a classic, and it touches people's hearts.
Therefore, there is no problem with choosing this work for adaptation. Moreover, this work does not require much special effects, as the main content focuses on the scenes of the rural teacher teaching and the students learning.
Well, in fact, "Rural Teacher" was also adapted in another world, but it was turned into a completely nonsensical movie called "Crazy Alien."
Although the authors and audience present had no objections to "Rural Teacher" being selected, their expressions were still very strange because "Rural Teacher" is still Liu's work.
Liu himself was a bit uneasy. He said to Huang He with a wry smile, "Mr. Huang, the adaptation of 'Rural Teacher' is actually very difficult. The content of this work is too little, there's no need for adaptation!"
His words were not wrong, as the main content of "Rural Teacher" is the plot of rural volunteer teaching, which does not require any support from special effects. If they don't select expensive actors, the main content can be filmed with a budget of less than one million.
As for the final selection of extraterrestrial civilizations, it would only require a backdrop of an alien spaceship and some cool technological special effects at the end. According to the original content, the scenes requiring special effects add up to less than 10 minutes. Such a science fiction film would be a case of selling dog meat with a sheep's head.
More importantly, the entire content of "Rural Teacher" is very short. Even if it were adapted word for word, it would probably only be about 40 minutes of movie plot.
The reason why "Rural Teacher" in another world turned into "Crazy Alien" is precisely this.
It is said that the initial version of "Rural Teacher" was indeed adapted according to the original story. However, after the director read the script, he realized that if it were adapted this way, no one would watch the movie, and it wouldn't be advertised as a science fiction film. They would be cursed by readers.
Therefore, the director decided to increase the science fiction content and give more scenes to the aliens.
But in the original work, the aliens only conducted an exam. How could they reasonably increase the scenes?
Naturally, they would have the aliens enter human society to conduct a comprehensive inspection of human society. This would also easily create opportunities for laughter.
However, if the aliens were just to capture a few children for an exam, there would be no need for them to enter human society themselves. The aliens' technology would not allow for such a low-level behavior.
Thus, they had to set up a scenario where the aliens' spaceship was damaged, and the aliens were stranded on Earth, and then add some "Made in USA" fun... With all these ideas added, after dozens of script revisions, they suddenly discovered that the original teacher was gone, and the protagonists had become a monkey trainer and a comedian.
So the director and screenwriter decided to completely abandon the framework of "Rural Teacher," not even keeping the name. The movie was directly renamed "Crazy Alien."
Although the crew purchased the copyright of "Rural Teacher," they did not intend to use "Rural Teacher" for publicity after the movie became what it was. Otherwise, it would be obvious that they would be severely criticized by the original readers. The copyright purchase fee would essentially be given away for free.
This was not wrong; it was a correct decision. However, the investors' ideas were different. At that time, "The Wandering Earth" was released, and it achieved astonishing box office results nationwide. Liu and his works once again became a hot topic throughout China.
So, the investors in the same period suddenly remembered that this movie was adapted from Liu's "Rural Teacher"!
This was the best promotional point! They could immediately capitalize on the huge box office traffic brought by "The Wandering Earth"! Therefore, the investors directly changed the original publicity strategy and began to heavily promote it as a film adapted from "Rural Teacher." The result was disastrous, to say the least, and they were severely criticized.
Although this was a mistake of idiotic capital, it is undeniable that the adaptation of "Rural Teacher" is extremely difficult. Even if it were handed over to professional directors and screenwriters, it would eventually turn into something unrecognizable.
Therefore, Liu's questioning at this time was entirely reasonable.
However, Boss Huang had already figured out how to adapt it. He smiled and said, "Actually, the audience for science fiction films has the biggest requirement for visual and auditory impact, which means spectacular special effects, or more simply, space warfare."
"And the most appropriate way to adapt a work with a shorter length is not to change its content, but to add more content to it."
"Combining these two elements, it is actually clear how 'Rural Teacher' should be adapted. I plan to have 'Rural Teacher' follow a dual-narrative route. One line will follow the original novel, depicting how the rural teacher struggles against ignorant villagers, burning his short life to pass on precious knowledge to the children!"
"The other line will be about the carbon-based civilization and the silicon-based civilization. In the original work, this war is a briefly mentioned content. So, we can definitely add to it and enrich it into a main story of cosmic warfare."
"The protagonist of this main story will be the inspector responsible for reviewing civilizations. This protagonist first participated in this glorious war and made great contributions during the war. After the victory, he became the inspector responsible for reviewing civilizations and then proceeded to review Earth civilization!"
"This main line should have more content, occupying about two-thirds of the film's length and all the special effects for cosmic warfare. So, Teacher Liu, we will need your help to enrich this part and write out this grand war between the silicon-based and carbon-based civilizations so that we can continue filming!"
"Oh, and I've already come up with a name for this carbon-based civilization: the Xiling Republic."
"..." Liu was sweating profusely. What he feared most was being forced by his editor to go into seclusion to write, but if "Rural Teacher" were to be adapted, he feared he would have to stay in a hotel for months without going out. This was too terrifying.
At the same time, after listening to Huang He's adaptation method for "Rural Teacher," the whole audience erupted in warm applause.
Readers hated it when capital arbitrarily fabricated their favorite works. However, if it forced those lazy writers to go into seclusion to write parts that were not in the original work but were extremely attractive, it would be the best outcome.
When "Rural Teacher" was serialized, many people exclaimed that it was a pity Liu did not write about this war, calling it the biggest regret of the novel. Now, this regret could be filled.
Looking at it this way, capital is not entirely a bad thing!