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xparrotSo Guardian is still my fandom du jour -- just posted a new fic, and now here's some meta speculation, to join in on the fandom renaissance on Dreamwidth! (at least for Guardian and the very active ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sid_guardian! Only makes sense, given that Guardian feels so much like a '90s genre/cop show, just with 10x the subtext and fanbait. So many old-school fans here, it's like coming home...)
Love it or hate it, the ending of the Guardian drama is certainly memorable. It's also not the only ending that was written for the show.
(Note: I'm only familiar with the English-speaking side of Guardian fandom. The Chinese-speaking side may know way more about this -- anyone have more details?)
As far as I'm aware, the full script of the alternate ending has never been released. However, one clip from it does exist, so it got far enough along in production to be filmed. You can watch the clip here. (It's at 1:20 mark, preceded by another cut scene of Zhu Yilong playing Ye Zun playing Shen Wei, indulging in a little light homicide and a lot of criminal hotness.)
The alternate ending clip shows Zhao Yunlan (alive??) in Dixing, where (according to dialog translation) he's acting as principal of a Dixing school, when he meets two twin boys who are the reincarnations of Shen Wei and Ye Zun. As this doesn't really fit with the aired ending,gnine and I developed a theory about how it was supposed to play out. This is all pure speculation on our part, based on the clip and what scenes we got in the aired show.
Given Shen Wei and Ye Zun's reincarnation in the alt end, it seems likely that they were always intended to die the way they did. It's Zhao Yunlan's fate that was probably changed. In the aired ending, Zhao Yunlan sacrifices his soul to become the wick of the Guardian Lantern, and his body is possessed by Zhang Shi, the Dixingren spirit formerly in his father.
This ignores a bunch of foreshadowing that Guo Changcheng is meant to be the wick (and was placed in the SID by Zhao Xinci for that purpose). It's possible that in the alternate ending, Xiao Guo does light the Lantern, but it's not fatal for him. In the last ep when Lao Chu is chewing Xiao Guo out for not being confident, he reiterates that Xiao Guo was said to be the best nutrition for the Lantern (which seems less than encouraging, if it's supposed to kill you?) Also worth noting, when Zhao Yunlan flashes back to his father telling him about the Lantern and the wick, for a good chunk of that conversation you can't see Zhao Xinci's mouth, so they could've easily overdubbed any dialog they wanted, changing the requirements of the lantern as the revised plot demanded.
So if Zhao Yunlan doesn't sacrifice himself to the lantern, what does happen to him? It seems his life was always meant to be in jeopardy -- even before he uses the lantern in the aired ending, he's already injured/dying from using the Dixing serum. When the SID carry Zhao Yunlan back through the portal, there's no mention in the dialog of what he actually did -- Lao Chu just says vaguely that it's "the price of redemption."
In the aired ending, there's the timeskip after this, and then we see Zhang Shi in Zhao Yunlan's body, accepting praise and flowers for his role in saving the city. However, there's no visual proof of Zhang Shi's possession in the scene; you never see his eyes go yellow. The only clear sign that it's Zhang Shi is the voiceover.
It's true that Zhao Yunlan's whole appearance in the scene is very out of character: he's stiff and quiet, and looks incredibly sad. It works for Zhang Shi mournfully having taken over Zhao Yunlan's body -- but it also would work for a Zhao Yunlan who survived the Dixing serum (perhaps thanks to Zhang Shi?) but lost Shen Wei. It's a year later so it's unclear what he's getting the flowers for -- maybe just the anniversary of the world not ending? But it could be marking some other event -- such as retirement, Zhao Yunlan leaving the SID to go to Dixing. Which would explain why we then see Xiao Guo at an SID without any Chief Zhao in sight.
Last but not least, there's the final scene in the aired drama, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's conversation in the space-time void. If you can get through the tears to rewatch it, there are two confusing things about this scene. One, how is Zhao Yunlan there at all and looking fine, when his soul was supposed to be burning endlessly in the Lantern? Two, Zhao Yunlan asks Shen Wei "Are you leaving?" -- but it's not clear why Shen Wei would be leaving -- where he'd be going, and why not both of them, if they're both dead? And if Shen Wei had already been waiting (a year?) for Zhao Yunlan (to get out of the Lantern?), why can't they take five minutes (to passionately make out)? The scene makes more sense if Shen Wei is dead but Zhao Yunlan isn't, and that's why they must part ways.
Previous times that Zhao Yunlan traveled to Dixing, he ended up seeing visions of his mother and such, in the same CGI void. So it would make sense that in transit back to Dixing, after quitting the SID, Zhao Yunlan could see Shen Wei to have their goodbye and make their bet.
Then Zhao Yunlan goes and founds a school in Dixing (fulfilling the plot thread of Dixing's need for schools and hospitals) and eventually gets a couple students who are going to make things really awkward...
--Of course, it's also possible that the entire ending played out exactly as we saw, and then the scene with Principal Zhao Yunlan was tacked on without any explanation (as in my limited experience cdramas do sometimes go for inexplicable surprise endings?)
If this was the originally intended ending, why it was cut/rejected is anyone's guess -- maybe it was too happy (???) an end for the mlm romance; maybe it was the confirmation of reincarnation, as supernatural themes are also prohibited? At any rate, while personally I'm very glad it's not the ending we got, there are some parts of the story it would've better explained.
So what do you think? Is this a likely scenario or implausible speculation? Any other thoughts of how it might've gone down? And how do we arrange to get a season 2 so we can move on from all of these endings!?
ETA: Supplementary material:zeest linked this vid by AvenueX that goes into detail about where the original deleted clips came from (it was an effort to smear Zhu Yilong that backfired and just made him and Guardian more popular!) and also the prevailing theory on Weibo for what the alternate story was -- which is even more complicated! The gist is that Zhao Yunlan's physical body went back to Haixing (and was possessed by Zhang Shi I assume?) while his spiritual body ended up on Dixing, where he started a school, and then after 10K years (??!?) Shen Wei and Ye Zun are reincarnated...
(And supposedly this ending was cut because fans hated it, which, well, can't blame them...though I want to know if they were given a choice between this and the ending they got!)
sid_guardian! Only makes sense, given that Guardian feels so much like a '90s genre/cop show, just with 10x the subtext and fanbait. So many old-school fans here, it's like coming home...)Love it or hate it, the ending of the Guardian drama is certainly memorable. It's also not the only ending that was written for the show.
(Note: I'm only familiar with the English-speaking side of Guardian fandom. The Chinese-speaking side may know way more about this -- anyone have more details?)
As far as I'm aware, the full script of the alternate ending has never been released. However, one clip from it does exist, so it got far enough along in production to be filmed. You can watch the clip here. (It's at 1:20 mark, preceded by another cut scene of Zhu Yilong playing Ye Zun playing Shen Wei, indulging in a little light homicide and a lot of criminal hotness.)
The alternate ending clip shows Zhao Yunlan (alive??) in Dixing, where (according to dialog translation) he's acting as principal of a Dixing school, when he meets two twin boys who are the reincarnations of Shen Wei and Ye Zun. As this doesn't really fit with the aired ending,
gnine and I developed a theory about how it was supposed to play out. This is all pure speculation on our part, based on the clip and what scenes we got in the aired show.Given Shen Wei and Ye Zun's reincarnation in the alt end, it seems likely that they were always intended to die the way they did. It's Zhao Yunlan's fate that was probably changed. In the aired ending, Zhao Yunlan sacrifices his soul to become the wick of the Guardian Lantern, and his body is possessed by Zhang Shi, the Dixingren spirit formerly in his father.
This ignores a bunch of foreshadowing that Guo Changcheng is meant to be the wick (and was placed in the SID by Zhao Xinci for that purpose). It's possible that in the alternate ending, Xiao Guo does light the Lantern, but it's not fatal for him. In the last ep when Lao Chu is chewing Xiao Guo out for not being confident, he reiterates that Xiao Guo was said to be the best nutrition for the Lantern (which seems less than encouraging, if it's supposed to kill you?) Also worth noting, when Zhao Yunlan flashes back to his father telling him about the Lantern and the wick, for a good chunk of that conversation you can't see Zhao Xinci's mouth, so they could've easily overdubbed any dialog they wanted, changing the requirements of the lantern as the revised plot demanded.
So if Zhao Yunlan doesn't sacrifice himself to the lantern, what does happen to him? It seems his life was always meant to be in jeopardy -- even before he uses the lantern in the aired ending, he's already injured/dying from using the Dixing serum. When the SID carry Zhao Yunlan back through the portal, there's no mention in the dialog of what he actually did -- Lao Chu just says vaguely that it's "the price of redemption."
In the aired ending, there's the timeskip after this, and then we see Zhang Shi in Zhao Yunlan's body, accepting praise and flowers for his role in saving the city. However, there's no visual proof of Zhang Shi's possession in the scene; you never see his eyes go yellow. The only clear sign that it's Zhang Shi is the voiceover.
It's true that Zhao Yunlan's whole appearance in the scene is very out of character: he's stiff and quiet, and looks incredibly sad. It works for Zhang Shi mournfully having taken over Zhao Yunlan's body -- but it also would work for a Zhao Yunlan who survived the Dixing serum (perhaps thanks to Zhang Shi?) but lost Shen Wei. It's a year later so it's unclear what he's getting the flowers for -- maybe just the anniversary of the world not ending? But it could be marking some other event -- such as retirement, Zhao Yunlan leaving the SID to go to Dixing. Which would explain why we then see Xiao Guo at an SID without any Chief Zhao in sight.
Last but not least, there's the final scene in the aired drama, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's conversation in the space-time void. If you can get through the tears to rewatch it, there are two confusing things about this scene. One, how is Zhao Yunlan there at all and looking fine, when his soul was supposed to be burning endlessly in the Lantern? Two, Zhao Yunlan asks Shen Wei "Are you leaving?" -- but it's not clear why Shen Wei would be leaving -- where he'd be going, and why not both of them, if they're both dead? And if Shen Wei had already been waiting (a year?) for Zhao Yunlan (to get out of the Lantern?), why can't they take five minutes (to passionately make out)? The scene makes more sense if Shen Wei is dead but Zhao Yunlan isn't, and that's why they must part ways.
Previous times that Zhao Yunlan traveled to Dixing, he ended up seeing visions of his mother and such, in the same CGI void. So it would make sense that in transit back to Dixing, after quitting the SID, Zhao Yunlan could see Shen Wei to have their goodbye and make their bet.
Then Zhao Yunlan goes and founds a school in Dixing (fulfilling the plot thread of Dixing's need for schools and hospitals) and eventually gets a couple students who are going to make things really awkward...
--Of course, it's also possible that the entire ending played out exactly as we saw, and then the scene with Principal Zhao Yunlan was tacked on without any explanation (as in my limited experience cdramas do sometimes go for inexplicable surprise endings?)
If this was the originally intended ending, why it was cut/rejected is anyone's guess -- maybe it was too happy (???) an end for the mlm romance; maybe it was the confirmation of reincarnation, as supernatural themes are also prohibited? At any rate, while personally I'm very glad it's not the ending we got, there are some parts of the story it would've better explained.
So what do you think? Is this a likely scenario or implausible speculation? Any other thoughts of how it might've gone down? And how do we arrange to get a season 2 so we can move on from all of these endings!?
ETA: Supplementary material:
zeest linked this vid by AvenueX that goes into detail about where the original deleted clips came from (it was an effort to smear Zhu Yilong that backfired and just made him and Guardian more popular!) and also the prevailing theory on Weibo for what the alternate story was -- which is even more complicated! The gist is that Zhao Yunlan's physical body went back to Haixing (and was possessed by Zhang Shi I assume?) while his spiritual body ended up on Dixing, where he started a school, and then after 10K years (??!?) Shen Wei and Ye Zun are reincarnated...(And supposedly this ending was cut because fans hated it, which, well, can't blame them...though I want to know if they were given a choice between this and the ending they got!)
no subject
Date: 2019-04-07 01:11 am (UTC)As an aside: One of the funniest things about Zhu Yilong's antis in c-fandom is how they are completely unable to dig up dirt on him because he's super boring, so their attacks are always ineffectively funny. Like that time they accused him of littering. :P
ALSO why aren't more people talking about this very excellent point you raised?
Why can't they take five minutes (to passionately make out)?
Making out in the wormhole! Taking advantage of the rift in the space-time continuum to have wild sex! This should be a more common trope in Guardian fandom!
no subject
Date: 2019-04-07 10:47 am (UTC)AHAHAHAHAH oh bunny...his boringness is part of his charm, for me. His befuddled reaction to any personal question ever he has to field, in which you can just see flashing through his eyes 'but I'm an ACTOR, it's my characters who do things, I just eat hot pot and play video games and ACT ;_;'
And YES we were denied space-time sex and I am Very Disappoint! Fandom, get on this! Heck, Yunlan's gun is floating at one point, it can be zero-g or whatever! Siiiigh...!