[Lee Jong-gil's Movie Reading] Tangled Scrap Metal, Wandering Life, Is This Our Future?

The Future Shown in the Movie 'Seungriho'
In 2092, Earth's 95% of Humanity Threatened by Compressed Growth and Overconsumption
Pale Yellow Dust, Gas Masks, Ruins... Portrayed in a Rough and Bleak Manner
Rich Tones Highlight Family Love... K-Movie Achieves Stunning Visuals

The background of the Netflix movie Space Sweepers is the year 2092. Earth has become sick due to compressed growth and overconsumption. Severe climate change makes it hard to even breathe properly. It is a plausible fiction. Civilization distorts the natural cycle. Materials are extracted and utilized in daily life and production processes. Waste that goes against the cycle is sent back, usually to the outskirts of cities, the border areas where the poor gather.

Waste also follows the topography of class. Those who protest loudly receive financial compensation. Welsh, Virginia, USA, which had serious unemployment issues, secured $8 million, 367 jobs, and a wastewater treatment plant by agreeing to accept 300,000 tons of waste monthly. Similarly, Tullytown, Pennsylvania, USA, received $48 million annually for 15 years in exchange for accepting 15 million tons of waste from New York and New Jersey.

The situation on Earth in Space Sweepers is no different. 95% of humanity faces threats to survival. Only the remaining 5% enjoy comfortable lives in citizen residential complexes established by the space company UTS. The space debris generated during construction is cleaned up by Earthlings. Captain Jang (Kim Tae-ri), Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki), Tiger Park (Jin Seon-kyu), Up-dong-i (Yoo Hae-jin)... They are a reenactment of ragpickers who disappeared after the 1990s.

Concept artist Ahn Hong-il’s reason for depicting the Victory as a rough, patchwork heap of scrap metal lies here. He wanted the weary life of workers to be conveyed through the tangled scrap heap. The cluttered interior filled with household items is the same. He said, "I referred a lot to photos of unorganized rooms." "I designed the interior inspired by items used on the International Space Station (ISS) to give a messy feeling. The initial draft was a cool spaceship. As I worked, it came to resemble a garbage truck. I focused on the rough nature of carrying and transporting scrap."

Jung Sung-jin, VFX (visual effects) supervisor, said, "I tried to capture the atmosphere of a tow truck racing madly on the road, old signboards, and a miscellaneous (tool) market." "Although not clearly shown in the film, each element has originality. I think this is comparable to Hollywood."

Space Sweepers does not maintain a pessimistic tone throughout. It highlights family love with rich hues and humorous props. Like director Jo Sung-hee’s previous works A Werewolf Boy (2012) and Detective Hong Gil-dong: The Missing Village (2016), it hints at hope within a gray world. Concept artist Ahn said, "While imagining a space that smells of people, various images like leftover food and laundry scattered anywhere came to mind," but he also admitted, "It was difficult to create designs as none passed approval immediately."

Designs related to the Earth, which has fallen into ruin, were equally challenging. The cutting-edge space terminal located among skyscrapers and the yellowish-white dust filling the surroundings. Everyone wears gas masks. Ahn said, "I collected a lot of materials with keywords like Earth covered in trash, people scavenging through it, fine dust, wasteland, ruins, and huge buildings," adding, "Originally, the background was not Korea."

"The statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin at the beginning was not part of the initial design. Director Jo told many stories about Korean design. I sympathized but found it hard to define. Perhaps it naturally reflected such colors because it was made by someone living in Korea."

The UTS citizen residential complex, contrasting with Earth, was expressed as a hemispherical shape from a long aquarium-like structure. "It was designed to be half the size of Seoul. The setting is that there are dozens of such residential complexes. They rotate around Earth in a circular structure," explained Supervisor Jung.

Inside, futuristic buildings and lush forests coexist. It looks like a utopia but everything is artificial. In the scene where Sullivan, UTS chairman (Richard Armitage), first appears, even the sky and clouds are intentionally unnatural. Originally, the scene was to look down on the residential complex from a tall building, but it was changed to give an artificial feeling.

That could be our future. The places we live now and the advanced technology-made objects are the future visions drawn by past seers. In Hollywood, visual futurist Syd Mead (1933?2019) pointed to such worlds. He gave a sense of reality through precise argumentation and design elements. Mead depicted worlds where humans and machines coexist in Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), and Elysium (2013). Films based on this presented infinite possibilities for technologically matured industries.

Korean cinema succeeded in amazing visual realization with Space Sweepers. Now, can it show the power to evoke majestic and idealistic emotions? We place our hopes on Supervisor Jung’s reflection: "While working on Space Sweepers, space really felt like a creative place. I try not to confine imagination within fear. I gained confidence that it can be expanded a bit more."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.