On Netflix has arrived Korean series – available in the original language, with Italian subtitles – which tells of the arrival of a meteorite that will have a devastating impact on the planet.
The fact that they didn’t bother to have the series dubbed is already an indication of a certain relevance.
A clue that gives us hope that we are faced with an exception thanks to the excellent – albeit very long, around 70 minutes – pilot episode.
But no, no exceptions: Goodbye to Earth it is a series that betrays every premise and disappoints in many ways.
The plot of Farewell to Earth
South Korean adaptation of the Japanese novel The Fool At the End of the World by Kotaro IsakaGoodbye to the Earth chronicles the last days before the devastating impact of an unstoppable meteorite that will destroy Korea and the surrounding areas, changing the climate on the planet for decades.
From the announcement of the impact to the outbreak of a civil war, from looters to criminals to prison escapees, Goodbye to Earth presents us with the chaos that follows the start of the countdown. Time is marked by how many days remain until the end, while we are introduced to a series of characters with their personal stories. The middle school teacher Jin Se-kyung he decides to leave his job to volunteer in the hospital, and wherever there is a need, above all in an attempt to help children in difficulty. Betrothed, the girl was separated from her boyfriend, Yoon Sang-eun, researcher in a biotechnology laboratory in the United States. A young priest finds himself leading the community that takes refuge in the church after the parish priest leaves. The soldier Kang In-ahcaptain of the army, commands the battalion which has the task of supporting the fighting troops called to keep the city safe with the institution of martial law.
When even the end of the world becomes boring
L’start really spectacular. The catastrophic scenes show everything that happens at the moment when the population is warned that they are missing 300 days to the destruction of Korea, part of China, Indochina and all nearby areas due to the impact of a meteorite that cannot be deflected.
High level special effects immerse us in general panicthey introduce us to the army – the martial law – and the criminals who take advantage of the chaos, the escaped convicts who commit unspeakable horrors and everyone’s emotional reactions, deniers (which never fails) included.
We are taken back and forth in time, punctuated by the number of days which are missing from the meteorite impact.
While deniers preach eternal life not linked to religion, many take refuge in church. We witness brutal scenes, but also a series of personal stories of characters that we will learn to know.
Unfortunately, the entire phase of getting to know the various protagonists of this choral seriesis one exasperating slowness. In 12 episodes of over an hour each, the relevant events can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Betrothed spouses who find themselves far away, teachers and students separated with children in a terrible situation, people who do everything to leave – with the so-called planned evacuation – or to find a bunker to take refuge in. While there are rumors of bunkers that will only be entrusted to the rich while the others will be left out.
There is no shortage of fraud on a sort of floating bunker that would also resist the tsunami and many other small thieves, scammers and criminals who try to To take advantage from the situation.
Even in thearmy there are problems: there is a lack of ammunition, not everyone is motivated and from a certain number of days onwards you can take your leave, to spend the last days with your family.
There is shooting, there are accidents and there is even talk of missile and bomb launches. The worldor at least that part of the world that is shown to us, is gone mad.
In this context, in the first episode we witness one animated sequence very beautiful that tells the impact of the meteorite at the time of the dinosaurs. The impact that caused its extinction becomes a warning on the one hand and a reason for panic on the other.
So many sequences of nothing
The problem comes, as I anticipated, later the excellent pilot episode. Because telling the personal stories of a group of men, women and children offered the opportunity to investigate the emotional reactions facing the imminent end of the world. Or your world, at least. Instead the authors choose to linger on personal stories which add nothing to the narrative. They don’t create new perspectives, they don’t diversify the narrative, they don’t do anything except create some really cheap sub-stories. As the YouTube star who turns out to be a cheap criminal, ready to sell anything – including his family – for his gambling habit. Or like the soldier who tries to manage the situation without ever making an incisive decision. And again: theteacher who saw his beloved students come to a bad end who suffers from separation from his beloved but ends up dedicating his last moments to revenge against the bad guys, for unknown reasons since they will die anyway.
There are the elderly parish priest and the young priest with their different points of view, the funerals without bodies, the desperation of those who have lost a son, a husband, a brother and are suffering the pains of hell, perhaps just a month later from the end.
All occasions that they could have be incisive, make you think, show common behaviors. And yet nothing. Pregnant women who will never be able to carry their pregnancies to term and children who try to earn food rations by putting together a black market become so secondary in the overall picture as to be almost irrelevant in that truly excessive amount of hours.
The topic of elderly people suffering from dementia is also barely mentioned, as is that of sick and elderly people abandoned in nursing homes and hospices.
The outbreak of civil war it isn’t even told, just hinted at. Lots and lots of irons in the fire thrown there, hinted at, to then focus on endless sequences on the three or four least interesting characters of the entire series.
Towards the end – it’s Christmas – in the middle of winter it is cold, no heating works, there is nothing left although centers are being set up where people can bring their memories and photos to be digitized and sent to as many addresses as possible so that they remain testimonies of their lives. But here too, no subtext, no explanation, no reflection.
Shortly before the end, a sort of single large community forms under the snow, in which confrontations between couples, families and relatives take place in the middle of the street, before everyone’s eyes. As if in the end the gossip was the only interesting thing left to watch.
The message is made explicit precisely with an ending in which we are concerned about continuing destroy each other instead of trying to form a common front.
Nothing new. In such a near future – the impact is expected in the spring of 2026 – that leaves us with only one sense of incompleteness – and in fact there is no ending, I’m afraid for the desire to create one second season – and a big disappointment.
