The son is rising!

TAIPEI — I have heard stories about Earth. A paradise. Until we destroyed it.

That’s what Jaden Smith’s character Kitai Raige says in the opening scene of Columbia Pictures’ After Earth (opening nationwide on Wednesday, June 5), a post-apocalypse thriller which teams him up (for the second time, the first was in the 2006 real-life drama Pursuit of Happyness) with his father Will Smith who wrote the story and co-produced it with his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith and, among other partners, M. Night Shyamalan who directed it.

It’s not the kind of story you’ve seen in movies of the same genre such as the late ‘60s Planet of the Apes and the recent Denzel Washington starrer Book of Eli. Set 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape to somewhere else, After Earth (as in A.E, very much like Before Christ [B.C.] and After Death [A.D.], you know) follows the uncharted journey of Kitai and his father Cyper (Will) who find themselves in a ruined Earth (there’s a perfect-cone that looks like Mayon Volcano in one panoramic barren scene) now ruled by alien creatures after their spaceship crash lands, with the father trapped in the wreckage leaving the son to work out ways (following the father’s instructions) to get them back home.

It’s Jaden’s movie (even the billing puts his name ahead that of his father). He does most of the action with Dad Will contented, like the audience, in watching him from the sidelines. The boy hogs the spotlight far more than he did in The Karate Kid in which he co-starred with Jackie Chan.

It’s clear in the movie that father and son have fun working together just as they have during the following exclusive Conversation at a function room of The Meridien Hotel.

(To Will) How did you come up with the AE story?

Will: I got the idea from a story I saw on CNN about a veteran who came home from war and took his son on a journey. I wanted to do a story about the father getting hurt in an accident, prompting the son to save him. Initially, I thought of Alaska as the setting until the story evolved and I ended up setting it one thousand years into the future.

Considering the problems Planet Earth is confronted with — global warming, earthquakes, tsunamis and the possibility of nuclear war — how soon do you think it will cease as a habitable place?

Will: That question is an interesting thing to discuss. In the 1950s, it was science fiction and now people are starting to be concerned about it — you know, that if we don’t make adjustments in our behavior and our treatment of the Earth there could be really dire consequences.

Jaden: What we are doing to Earth is really bad. If we were to continue what we are doing to the eco system…you know, pollution created by fumes from the cars and from trash that people are burning, and the proliferation of plastic, it’s very possible that what happens in After Earth could happen to us.

Will: You know, the idea of human beings being evicted by Mother Earth is no longer science fiction. Scientists have considered it in terms of pure science and what happens if human beings are forced to be space-bearing creatures. The sci-fi has shed its “fi.”

(To Will) I notice that Jaden kind of dominate the whole movie. Is this your way of paving the way for him to take over your “throne”?

Will: You know, it’s an opportunity for me to teach my son the business. I grew up in the family business. My father owned an ice house and the whole family was involved in it. For me, more than anything, it’s the only way I know how to help. Entertainment and filmmaking is our family business, so it’s the perfect time for me to teach Jaden and my other children the things that I know how to survive and thrive in this world. I pass on to them lessons that I’ve learned along the way.

(To Jaden) Are you up to the challenge of being your father’s heir apparent?

Jaden: Uhm, I’m only 14 now and it’s a long way to go. Yes, I love making movies and I love challenging the world,  meeting new people and seeing many different things. I think this will be my life from now on.

Obviously, you have fun working together.

Will: Working in a film together is the best way to prepare my son for the challenges that he’s going to face.

Jaden: It doesn’t feel like work at all, it’s a lot of fun. When he’s around, he can teach me things about the movie and the music. If I have a question or anything, he’s always there to give me the answers. If I break my leg, he teaches me how to avoid doing that again.

Will: I think the idea of a son having to live in the shadow of his father’s accomplishments is a very complex emotional issue. Jaden and I got to talk about it in terms of the characters we are playing and in doing so we were actually talking about issues that could crop up between him and me as father and son in real life — you know, issues a 14-year-old is facing. And by the way, Jaden doesn’t know it but his mom and I brought him up on the Stanislavsky method of acting.

In the movie, your bonding is so beautiful. How are you as father and son in real life?

Will: You know, Jaden is very, very level-headed. Not so many ups and downs…you know, he’s very even. He’s very respectful and responsible. He’s a very, very good kid.

Jaden: My dad keeps the justice in the house, or wherever we are. When things go wrong, he makes sure that justice is rendered. He keeps everything balanced, the way it’s supposed to be.

(To Jaden) Now that you’re earning your keep, do you still get an allowance from your parents?

Jaden: Before, my parents used to pay for things that I needed. Now, I pay for them myself.

What is the best advice that you got from your father?

Will: Oh, my goodness! My father was an advice machine. Let me see…My father owned his own business. One time, he tore the wall down in front of a building and he told my brother and me that we had to build it back. So we would lay one brick at a time but we thought we would never ever be finished. We finished it in one year and my father told us, “Don’t ever tell me that there’s something you can’t do.” The lesson that I got from that is something that I apply every day. You don’t have to have a law today; just lay a perfect brick every day and one day you’re gonna have a wall.

Jaden: It’s probably the same best advice that I got from my father because that’s the same thing that he says to me. It’s a really good advice. When I’m making a movie that feels like it’s not gonna be over, that it’s gonna last forever, I bear that advice in mind.

Will: I always remind them about the idea that your life has to have value to other people, that you can’t measure the quality of life in terms of yourself but in terms of how many people you make smile, how many people you make laugh, how many people you help feed their children…you know, your life is measured in relationship to others. I instill in them the value that they live in giving and not get caught in receiving. 

 (To Will) You’ve gone on an almost two-year sabbatical. What did you do?

Will: I spent a very developmental time. I’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes. I’ve developed a ton of music and screenplays that will keep my family and me busy in the next three to five years. Our house is set up as an artist’s haven so I was very specific and very serious about being able to capture ideas quickly. For example, the piano is set with a microphone and tape recorder on it so if somebody has an idea he can record it right away. You see, creating is more important than anything and being able to get that thing out of yourself and you create something beautiful, yes, that’s my only expectation that my children are the greatest versions of themselves.

 (To Will) In our 2008 interview (for Hancock) in Hollywood, you predicted correctly that Barack Obama would be US President. Come to think of it, would you like to be the second Black US president?

Will: Being president is a really, really hard job. Maybe I’ll play a president in a movie but I don’t think I want to be a president in real life. In art, people can take it or leave it, love it or hate it. In politics, everything you do affects people’s lives.

Can you describe each other in just one word?

Jaden: Just one word? He’s multi-cultural. Why? Because I feel that he’s very worldly and he knows a lot about the world and different cultures, and he’s very smart and he’s very steeped in different religions and different ways of studying and meditation in arts.

Will: I like that, I like that! I would describe Jaden as very sensitive, his senses are very acute. He’s driven. He’s an interesting combination of sensitivity and drive. And he’s very caring.

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