YMMV / The Wandering Earth

• Alternative Character Interpretation: It's easy to see MOSS as simply a computer programmed to follow the orders of the Earth Government... until you hear its final words, cursing humanity for being unreasonable. It's basically impossible that this was a programmed response, so could it be that MOSS has developed sentience or self-awareness to an extent? What if its determination to continue with the Helios project is the result of a desire to save the space station, and therefore itself?
• All for Nothing:
  • Some viewers feel that much of the third act was pointless; repairing the Earth Engines, hacking one Earth Engine to have amplified output, calling hundreds of workers to help fire the engine, all unnecessary. The only thing that was necessary was Liu Peiqiang crashing the Navigation Platform International Space Station to ignite Jupiter; the amplified plasma beam didn't need to be there.
  • Played for straight in the middle of the film when Wang's team discover that the Hangzhou engine had been destroyed before they could repair it, meaning all their effort and sacrifice, including Han Zi'ang's, was for naught.
  • Except if the plasma beam hadn't been amplified, it wouldn't have been able to reach the space station to set off the ignition in the first place. The plan required enough atmosphere connecting between Earth and Jupiter and something to set it off; neither the amount of atmosphere being sucked up by Jupiter alone nor contained in the ISS would have been enough. Also, redundant failsafes being common sense engineering measures that render the struggles of individuals irrelevant is kind of a running theme across this movie.
  • It is also one of the major themes of the movie that nothing is accomplished by one man or a select group of protagonists alone. Only through the cooperative effort of everyone everywhere do we accomplish great things.
• Awesome Music:
  • The main theme.
  • "Goodbye Jupiter, Earth Reborn" the stunning piece that plays when the Earth survives Jupiter and is finally free to continue on with its journey.
  • New Journey, the upbeat techno ending theme.
• Flat Character: One of the primary criticisms of the movie, where most of the main characters are standard science fiction archetypes with rather simple motives and relationships.
• Fridge Horror: A lot of the Earth Engine's components appear to be exposed to the elements. What would happen to these components and even better, the cities under the engines when the Earth gets farther and farther from the sun? Eventually, Earth's surface temperature will plummet to the very low temperatures of deep space. What would that mean to her inhabitants?
• Narm: Has quite a bit of this, partially from the plot which leaves a lot to the viewer's ability to suspend their disbelief, and the sometimes ridiculous dialogue.
  • There's a scene where Zi'ang is telling a story as to how he drove a younger Duoduo and Qi around Shanghai, while they witness the city frozen in a massive glacier with many frozen vehicles and bodies to be found.
  • At one point one of the soldiers that is part of the group unloads his minigun in the general direction of Jupiter while cursing the planet. While it makes sense in the fact that he's literally unloading his despair after MOSS transmits the fact the Earth is inevitably doomed, the fact is that it's the Chinese up to eleven version of Steve Buscemi's character in Armageddon (1998) going trigger-happy with a minigun (that had even less reason to be around) while yelling "MEET YOUR MAKER, ASTEROID!!"
• Special Effects Failure: As beautiful as the visuals are, some things, such as the transport vehicles, occasionally look like they came from a video game.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The visuals are on par with big Hollywood movies and is cited as one of the movie's high points. The Earth Engines, Earth cruising through space, and Jupiter all look incredible.

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