#Three Body Problem Review

[afabstract]

Three Body Problem Review - Epic Vision, Sputtered Execution

⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3 out of 5. Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram) Creators: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Woo “In your physics course, did you teach the theory of relativity” “Relativity is one of the fundamental theories of physics. How can a basic survey course not teach it?” “You lie! Einstein went to the American imperialists and helped them build the atomic bomb!” Based on the…

[evilsoup]

netflix three body problem is ok. I ended up staying up late watching it to the end, so i can't say that it's badly made or anything. it's a perfectly fine bit of television, if you like sci fi in general then you'll probably get along with it.

the decision to change the setting from china to britain is of course artistically bankrupt. It's 2024, surely western audiences can handle a tv series set in china, come on. And changing everything from this big co-operative international group of the best people in their fields to five friends who know each other already carrying all the plots was weak.

Spoilers below the cut.

the weakest part as an adaptation is the cultural revolution stuff. in the book there was just more of it, this huge buildup of stress and betrayals that make it plausible for the real heart of the novel: Ye Wenjie's decision to betray humanity to the trisolarans. The tv show just didn't manage to sell that moment, because there wasn't enough time given to allow enough buildup. I think these flashbacks needed to have gone on a lot further into the series, with more time given to the piling-up of events on her shoulders until it becomes convincing that she would actually do what she did (imo the rest of her actions from that point are driven by a desire to avoid thinking about the obvious mistake she's made -- if she were to stop helping the trisolarans then that would mean admitting to herself that she's unjustifably doomed humanity).

i think they also removed the dark forest hints that should have peen in one of her conversations with one of the protagonists, the "cosmic sociology" stuff. Are they feeling the need to dumb it down or something? I dunno.

Anyway. It's good enough that i'll watch the second season. It's just not as good as the adaptation which exists in my head.

[thunderandsage]

3 body problem episode 1 thoughts

[POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD]

okay so quick summary before: i've read the book in the past month so it's still semi-fresh in my memory. i watched the beginning seven minutes or so of the cdrama but then school happened so i never got around to finishing it. my main worries are about the frankly baffling decision to whitewash many characters and the fact that they are advertising this as "from the creators of game of thrones" when we all remember how that turned out... but i am still intrigued so here i am.

starting thoughts:

teenage ye wenjie is 100% pitch perfect cast—the sheer visceral rage in her eyes before the credits roll was *chef’s kiss* and made me believe “yea, i can see how she’ll betray all of humanity”

credits:

uhhh… ok i guess? i would’ve gone for something techno and driving for the music. the zoom-out was pretty i guess? the strings section sounds like it was taken from garageband.

episode:

we’re in england now??? again, why

acting seems solid, dialogue so-so, and you lose a big part of the mystery present in the beginning of the book that i really liked. i don’t mind the genderswap with auggie, i view it pretty neutrally

i want to kick the two guys discussing jin during a funeral down the drain a little which is bad because it looks like they’re supposed to be sympathetic. mike evans foreshadowing was pretty cool though

the group ensemble could be interesting in how information is going to be revealed. whoops i now ship jin and auggie my bad. with all the references to god it looks like they’re building up the group as religious fanatics as well?

the work-camp segment does highlight the environmental destruction but it seems a little rushed? also without the detail that the reporter ratted her out it loses a lot of its dramatic potential. young ye wenjie continues to be a highlight.

ok but the helmet design is just silly. da shi is alright? not as caustic as in the book but there are seven more episodes. rosalind chao embodies the apparent gentleness of adult ye wenjie very well (also coming from ds9 seeing keiko o’brien say “motherfucker” is quite a schock)

the transmission scene with the dead birds is good at setting up the dread

jin tries on the helmet! nice foreshadowing of the dehydration process, though the visuals weren’t quite as impressive just based on basic proportion and color grading (i think? i don’t have the expert vocabulary)

the red coast reveal intercut with the universe blinking was a really cool choice, though i wonder at the choice of making it visible to everyone and not just as background radiation

overall i’m still not entirely sold—the writing and directing could have been stronger, especially with the quality of the original book. the location or race changes haven’t added really anything to the story so far so again—why. will watch more for ye wenjie to see What Crimes Will She Commit Next

[kjudgemental]

The Three-Body Problem - Science-Fiction Novel Review

Author: Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu) Publisher: Head of Zeus (US publisher) Country: China Year: 2014 (orig 2006) The first in a trilogy. When it got translated into English a decade ago, it won the Hugo Award for best novel, making Liu the first Asian writer to claim the prize. In the past few years, author Cixin Liu’s remarks have come under fire. Very much pro Chinese government,…

[theartofmany]

"We base so much of our own perception of what we consider to be a reality on what we can observe. We look upon the universe as it is and extrapolate from that point But what if we will never be able to know the truth about the universe. What if the universal constants are not constant. What if the laws of physics are not laws, what if reality isn’t real..." From Youtube channel Quinn's Ideas: The Most Horrifying Science Fiction Series of All | The Three-Body Problem Series If you enjoy science fiction, this is a Youtube channel I suggest you watch. His storytelling style is just perfect for it Enjoy...

[alzigrida]

Illiterate Book Review

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

I'm like halfway through it and honestly, I fully support women's wrongs, get it Ye, fuck them bitches. Can't wait to read more of Ye being a girlboss and doom humanity like we didn't already fuck ourselves.

[midnightmoviereviews]

MIDNIGHT REVIEWS 3 Body Problem Episode Eight

Spare three minutes to read this review of the final episode of Netflix's 3 Body Problem, a show that can't escape from its own mediocrity.

Feel free to check out my other pieces, if you like!

[fhear]

Three Body Problem Netflix (Season 1) Review + Book Comparison

[rickchung]

3 Body Problem (prod. David Benioff, D. B. Weiss & Alexander Woo).

Netflix's cerebral, big-budget international television adaptation of the acclaimed but dense and long considered unfilmmable (as evidenced by a never released 2015 film) Chinese hard sci-fi novel trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past by computer engineer Cixin Liu hardly skimps on its ambitious scope. Layered with an alien first contact narrative and theoretical astrophysics conundrum, the series rushes through its Cultural Revolution political backstories, scattered character relationships, and mysterious plot machinations reloving around a life-liek virtual reality video game.

[princessdeia]

Life Lately - March 2024

I didn’t seem to consume as much media in March, I think the warmer weather and spring flowers encouraged me to leave the house. So instead of having cosy weekends at home, reading or watching TV, I opted to have weekend getaways, one staycation in London and another in Norfolk. Adventure of the Month To celebrate our wedding anniversary at the start of March we spent a few nights at the…

[dragonpunkwriting]

Three Body Problem not bad!

Having read and enjoyed the books, I was (hopefully) understandably nervous about the Netflix adaption of the Three Body Problem, from the minds of the writers who fucked up Game of Thrones. I’ll try not to give any spoilers here.

One episode out of eight down and it seems to be okay. Withholding overall judgement until I see it all, but the first episode was certainly good watching. The ideas from the book are actually there, and the plot is going in the direction it’s meant to. Considering there are only eight episodes, I’m imagining the pacing will be a little all over the place. I hope I’m wrong.

The good of this episode is definitely in the execution. ‘Science is broken because X’ is a difficult concept to convey to an audience that will mostly *not* be particle physicists. Some will be, probably. So, having science and non-science background characters discussing what this actually means is damn good. It also conveys why the inciting incident is so… inciting, I guess. With a few smaller things scattered about in there which will hopefully also be fun to watch. The bad (aside from the poor game design, putting the temple directly behind the player doesn’t indicate that that’s where you should be going, but that’s a different argument) is the dialogue, however. Every second sentence is seasoned with a fuck or two, sometimes several. I’m not offended by it or anything, but god damn it’s annoying once you notice it.

[libertyreads]

Book Review #18 of 2024--

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. Rating: 3 stars.

Read from March 7th to 10th.

I've waited about 12 hours after I finished the book to finally sit down to write my review. This is such a hard book for me to rate and an even harder book to discuss. It's translated from the original Chinese and it feels like I'm having little success with translated works this year. To be fair, this is the first year I'm really trying translated fiction so it might just be me. There was also the issue of writing style. I was told in college that American literature is mostly written in a linear style and so that's what we're used to; whereas a lot of Asian literature is written in a more circular style--often ending the story in the same or similar place it started in. But this one felt a lot more like a spiral. It discusses a lot of the same issues just with a different slant as the story goes on.

My main issue lies with the writing style...I think. I don't love coming back to the same topics over and over throughout the novel. Also, due to this, the novel feels less like a Science Fiction for me and more like a Literary Fiction with Sci-Fi elements thrown in throughout. Which feels so weird to say given how many hard Sci-Fi elements are needed to progress the plot. But we really did spend so much time discussing politics, the human condition, and evolution that calling it a Sci-Fi doesn't feel right either. I agree with others who say that the characters took a backseat in this story. They felt flat and cartoonish. And it's not like they took a backseat in order to further the plot. It was in order to discuss these topics that seem so important to the author. There's a reason I don't read Literary Fiction. I would also say that the hard Sci-Fi elements in this one are also suspect. I don't know nearly enough about actual science to point out the things that are wrong. But I feel like I do know enough to know when something seems too unbelievable. Because this book spends so much time trying to break down the science behind everything it makes it hard to suspend my disbelief.

I think there were a couple of topics that hit home for me but even those felt like beating a dead horse at the end. I also like the idea of first contact with aliens where the humans don't even understand their place in the universe or how crafty and manipulative the aliens can be. There was a plot twist in the last 40 pages that paid off really well for me in particular. But that part of the story was so small that it didn't impact the rest of it the way I had hoped it would. (I'm trying to be vague so I don't spoil it.) It was a moment of satisfaction in the novel that I hadn't gotten from it up to that point. And I think it's what lands the story in the 3 star rating for me. If it weren't for that, I think I would have landed around the 2.5 star rating. I won't be continuing the series or watching the Netflix show in the future.

[davidwatkinswriter]

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu - Review

The blurb: 1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China’s Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind. Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang’s investigation will lead him to a…

[lunaticbookblog]

Death’s End by CiXin Liu translated by Ken Liu

I almost didn’t read this book and that would have been a mistake. Book 2, Dark Forest, had such a satisfying ending I wasn’t sure where another book could possibly go with the plot. The first 75 pages or so seemed a bit disjointed but then around that point the book hit it’s stride and the next (approx.) 525 pages where packed with some of the best, most conceptually interesting writing I’ve read in awhile. This book specifically kept bringing to mind of one of my favorite video games of all time, Outer Wilds.

Must read, 10/10 series for me. Adding them all to my might reread list.

[tillietangerine]

Review: The Three-Body Problem (Liu Cixin)

It has been a couple of years since I’ve made the time to delve into serious science fiction, but I find it hard to believe I could have chosen a better book to get myself back into the genre. Liu Cixin’s novel is the sort of read that completely absorbs your week. From its heartbreaking opening imagery to its intense conclusion, The Three-Body Problem is one of the most interesting books that I…

[midnightmoviereviews]

MIDNIGHT REVIEWS 3 Body Problem Episode Seven

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