Chapter 117: Cross-Species Love?

Chapter 117: Chapter 117: Cross-Species Love?

After completing the scenes in the primeval forest on Sirius, the film crew moved to the abandoned missile target range on the asteroid belt of Altair to continue shooting the grand space-ruin battlefield scenes for the end of the film.

Here, amidst a low-gravity environment and dozens of military Mecha hulls riddled with bullet holes floating through one hundred percent authentic stardust, Elijah and Ray delivered combat and life-or-death parting sequences so spellbinding that even the Legion’s logistics soldiers dispatched to oversee set security stood watching until they forgot to blink.

With thorough preparation regarding authentic locations, costumes woven partially from naturally glowing silk, plus the transcendent immersion of Elijah and the cast, the entire process of filming, symphonic sound editing, and post-production for the film [Kiss of the Black Widow] was completed in early September.

However, whereas the debut film [The Love Song on the Rooftop] had sat in the review room of the Arts Committee for only four days before setting a record for approval, this second film was held up at the Inter-Agency Censorship Council for half a month straight!

The reason was not hard to guess.

The theme of war against the Insectoid race had always been a sensitive topic involving both the Arts Committee and the Ministry of National Defense. Up until now, films about the Insectoid race had followed only a single propaganda motif: human soldiers piloting Mechas heroically wiping out bloodthirsty insects to protect the homeland.

Never before had a cinematic work dared to build its main character as an Insectoid King in human form, who even developed a life-and-death romance with a human Major General, where ultimately that Insectoid King sacrificed his own life to protect the one he loved before the treacherous artillery barrels of the corrupt command class within the human military itself!

Throughout those fifteen days, the twelve examiners of the Censorship Council split into two factions arguing until the heavens shook and the earth shattered, very nearly throwing their teacups into each other’s faces across the conference table.

The conservative faction, consisting of several pedantic old scholars, insisted on demanding a permanent ban on screening because they held that the film "whitewashed a sworn hereditary enemy and shook the hostile stance of frontline soldiers toward the Insectoid race".

Meanwhile, the progressive faction, and especially the Central Smart Unit of the censorship system, cried enough to flood the entire server room after watching the completed cut, short-circuiting two heat-sink circuit boards while resolutely awarding it an artistic score of 9.9/10!

The Central Smart Unit produced a twenty-page analysis, evaluating that the film did not promote surrendering to the mindless Insectoid race at all, but rather used the fictional character of Sylas to praise human nature and sincere love transcending species prejudice, while simultaneously exposing the rot of those in power who borrowed the name of justice to seek personal gain and murder their own kind.

Ultimately, with the affirmative vote of the Central Smart Unit plus a written confirmation of no military regulation violations from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the representative of the 1st Legion, on September 20th, the Arts Committee officially issued a notice licensing the film’s release across the entire Galaxy, accompanied by a thirty-second trailer and a plot synopsis!

#NEW FILM RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT#

Work: [Kiss of the Black Widow]

Production unit: New Generation Film Producers Studio

Director: Benjamin Martinez

Screenwriter: Elijah Hall

Lead actors: Elijah Hall (as Insectoid King Sylas), Ray Miller (as Major General Marcus)

Genre: Sci-fi, Interstellar war, Cross-species romance (Human x Insectoid Race), Tragedy.

Classification: C16.

In the attached trailer lasting exactly thirty seconds, the frame opened on a blood-red desert strewn with charred black spaceship hulls, followed by tender footage beneath the glowing canopy of a primeval forest before abruptly shifting tone to a stormy, rain-lashed night.

Amidst the booming thunder, a youth clad in black silk hung upside down upon a snow-white web of silk, eight glossy black, razor-sharp spider legs unfolded wide behind his back plunged deep into the cliff face, his blood-red eyes looking down at the man in a blood-soaked military uniform being hoisted up in front of him as he spoke in a soft voice: "Loving me means walking straight to your death... Do you still dare say you love me, my Major General?"

The announcement accompanied by the short trailer had been posted on the Interstellar Connection network for less than three minutes when all the netizens eagerly awaiting Director Benjamin’s new work immediately froze completely!

A massive string of question marks covered every forum from the Solaris star system to the Polaris star system:

[??? Hold on a second, did my eyes just develop a refractive error or something? What genre? Cross-species romance: Human x INSECTOID RACE?!]

[What the hell! Did Director Benjamin and the screenwriter get mushroom poisoning on planet Sirius?! Last time making a school horror film that scared me into pissing blood was not enough, so this time you are forcing me to go watch an Alpha Major General pin down a spider to kiss it?!]

[Wait a minute, people above! Open the thirty-second trailer and watch it first! That spider you are talking about is played by the true young master of the Hall family, Elijah Hall! Damn, look at that scene where he wears black silk hanging upside down on a spiderweb, eight glossy black spider legs growing out of his back while that face is as beautiful as a soul-stealing siren!!!]

[I just finished rewatching the trailer ten times in a row... Mother, why can a Black Widow Insectoid be both terrifying and so beautiful that it makes my heart pound like this?! Plus that upside-down kiss in the rain too, the visual tension is bursting right through the screen!]

[Beautiful my ass! No matter how beautiful, the setting is still the Insectoid race! My older brother is currently stationed outside the meteor belt fighting to the death against the insectoid hordes every single day, yet now you people are making a film whitewashing the insectoids, talking about love between a human and a bug? This Studio has truly lost its mind!]

[I am someone who cried my eyes dry over The Love Song on the Rooftop, but this time I truly cannot swallow this bizarre theme. Black Widow Spiders eat their mates, everyone; what kind of romance is that, it is disgusting as hell!]

[I heard the screenwriter for both the previous film and this one is Elijah Hall! No wonder back at his old home he was rumored to have an eccentric temper; it turns out there really is something wrong with his head, going off to write a romance story with insects!]