《Post Journey to the West》Satellite TV's fifth consecutive championship: AI long drama passed the production test, but the narrative still needs to be polished

The first full-length AI-generated TV drama in China - Journey to the West - the first season of Huaguo Mountain has recently been launched on Hunan Satellite TV's prime time slot.The peak real-time ratings on the night of the premiere reached 0.3384“, with a market share of 1.7862”, ranking first among provincial satellite TV in the same time period.The five episodes released in the first round have continuously won the provincial satellite TV ratings for the same time period, and related content has entered dozens of hot searches across the Internet, with a total circulation volume of more than 3 billion times.

This set of results quickly made "Post Journey to the West" beyond the scope of discussion for a new drama.Previously, AI-generated videos mostly appeared in the form of short films, advertisements or mini-series, with short duration and relatively limited continuity requirements for characters and scenes.《Post-Journey to the West》 Entering the prime time period of satellite TV, you need to accept the joint test of the rhythm of the series broadcast, the aesthetics of the TV audience, and the quality of the large-screen picture. The production method has also changed from a technical display to a complete product for public broadcast.

The series is adapted from the novel of gods and demons of the same name in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and the story follows Journey to the West - a world thousands of years later.Sun Wukong has been a Buddha for a long time, and the world has a one-sided understanding of the true scriptures. The ten elders of the monkey tribe in Huaguo Mountain mysteriously turned into stone and disappeared.The fairy stone in Lingshan gave birth to a new stone monkey, Sun Xiaosheng, and a new generation of travelers embarked on a journey, hoping to reorganize the world and rectify the original source.

The classic world view provides a large number of playable scenarios for AI graphics.Huaguo Mountain, Lingshan Mountain, Sea of ​​Clouds, Heavenly Soldiers and Demons have a clear recognition of Eastern mythology, and also allow the visual style to move between realism and fantasy.The audience can quickly understand the themes such as the birth of the stone monkey and the journey to the west, while the creators can focus on new characters, new conflicts and changes in order after a thousand years.

“仙石pregnant monkey” is one of the most talked about opening paragraphs.The psychic fairy stone stood on the top of the mountain. After 49 days and nights of changes in the glow and the sea of ​​clouds, the texture of the rock cracked layer by layer, and the golden spiritual light poured out. Sun Xiaosheng broke through the stone and came out.The fluff, expressions and light and shadow details show the expressive power of the AI-generated images on mythical wonders, and also left a clear first impression on the TV audience.

“Great Sage Memory Recall” re-mobilizes the collective memory of Journey to the West.Scenes such as the array of heavenly soldiers, the havoc in the heavenly palace, the sea of ​​clouds in the sky, and the frozen Five Elements Mountain are all concentrated in the scene, and the scale of the scene is close to that of a movie trailer.The production of traditional live-action costume dramas requires the collaboration of scenery, group performances, costumes, actions and long-term visual effects; the AI ​​process can generate large-scale scene plans faster and reduce the cost of repeated attempts.

The series uses self-developed AIGC film and television algorithms and digital asset libraries, and the production cycle is compressed by more than 70“ compared with traditional costume mythological dramas of the same size.Traditional projects often take 12 to 24 months from preparation to delivery. After Journey to the West, we also tried a production and broadcasting model of ” production, review, and broadcast.The team can continue to adjust subsequent content based on broadcast feedback, and the production rhythm is closer to rapid iteration.

The increase in speed also exposes weaknesses in the narrative.Grandma Qingluo's sacrifice to protect the village should have promoted Sun Xiaosheng's growth and established ethnic emotions. However, the finished film was interspersed with more empty shots of mountains and forests and distant views, and the emotional accumulation was loosened.When the Tong-Arm Immortal confronts the Bull Demon King, the dialogue appears repetitive, the fighting actions also show signs of recycling, and the beautiful pictures are not continuously transformed into dramatic advancement.

Some viewers prefer to watch re-edited versions by short video creators.After slicing and deleting pauses and repeated passages, the characters' goals and conflicts become clear, which in turn shows that the original drama material does not lack information, but the problem lies in rhythm and organization.A long drama needs to change the character's situation in each scene. Simply adding empty shots or extending the action can easily lead to a gap between looking exquisite and laborious to watch.

AI can generate mountains, rivers, palaces, characters and combat actions, but it is difficult to independently judge how long a sacrifice scene requires, and it cannot naturally understand the emotional weight behind the characters' silence.The screenwriter must ensure that the causal relationship is established, the director must decide whether to keep or delete the scene, and the editor must control the ups and downs of each episode.Tools shorten the production time of pictures, and the responsibility of human creators for narrative becomes more concentrated.

The room for trial and error brought about by %manufacturing and broadcasting also comes with risks.Feedback can quickly enter subsequent production to help the team correct the rhythm and character performance; the broadcast time will also compress the room for modification. Once there is a problem with the script structure, it will be difficult to remedy it no matter how fast the subsequent scenes are generated.The early planning, character biographies and episode outlines of long-form dramas still need to be stable to withstand high-frequency production.

The significance of "Post-Journey to the West" is first of all that it has completed a visible industry experiment: a fully AI-generated growth drama can enter the prime time slot of satellite TV, and can also attract audiences in terms of ratings and communication.Five consecutive championships prove that curiosity and mythical spectacle have market appeal, and criticism around the narrative charts the next direction.Technology has lowered the production threshold. How far a work can go still depends on whether the characters are believable, whether the conflicts are powerful, and whether the story can keep the audience following.