Three Body Problem Netflix Review: Book Fan vs. First-Time Watcher - 3 Body Problem Minimal Spoilers
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- Netflix has finally released its highly anticipated adaptation of the beloved sci-fi series "The Three Body Problem," and we're giving you our honest review from the perspective of someone who binged the entire book series as well as from someone who had no previous exposure to the trilogy at all.
*This is a minimal spoilers review. We only discuss Episode 1 not the full season, so if you haven't watched the first episode this may not be for you. However, if you've just started the show, we won't be spoiling anything you don't already know.*
From changing the setting from China to the UK, and thereby the protagonist Wang Miao into a diverse group of friends led by a female Auggie, we talk about what we think about these changes and whether they will materially change the appeal of the show or not.
We also discuss the sub-plots fans of the book are likely eager to see play out in the show, like the virtual reality video game, vs. ones that we don't think the show producers did justice (explaining science, anyone?) and therefore flew over the heads of viewers with no exposure to the book series.
What do you think of the 3 Body Problem show? What level of exposure did you have to the book series prior to the show coming out? Let us know in the comments below!
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The cultural revolution scene is not dramatized. It is history
honestly makes it all that much more disturbing…
@@ButWhereAreYouReallyFrom As brutal as the seen was, it was so important to show that so the audience can understand how Ye Wenjie was able to make the decisions she did. I'm glad they didn't tone it down.
American history of China? :P Is US harbouring Nazi Scientists after 1945? :P/
Why no present day China?
I re-read the first chapters past few days and the cultural revolution stuff is in more detail and nuance true. But its also more brutal in some ways, the graphic violence is almost 1 to 1 with the screen and its more emotionally disgusting.
As to the westernization of things, I think a key factor was politics but also something that few people talk about the fact that China doesn't have netflix, so why would you invest in appealing and being honorable to the Chinese version and I don't even mean it in a cynical way its more so that, you want the story to be viewed and understood by who will view it, and that's westerners
Auggie is also Saul’s love interest and ‘dream girl’ in 2nd book, Zhuang Yan. That’s why she must be a beauty (in a boring way according to Saul). Auggie is also Ai AA, Cheng Jin’s business partner and room mate for centuries in 3rd book, so she must be an entrepreneur rather than a chief engineer.
Interesting, though have you any evidence for that? Auggie has gone humanitarian so I don't know if she'll turn that back around.
@@tennielguiver2706 Nah...but I bet I'm right. Auggie promote her tech to her hometown won't be a day to day job after all. There will be bigger missions for her in the future. 2DB pick Eiza González up won't be just for one season. Maybe we can find some evidences in her schedule.
omg based on this comment i'm piecing together the mesh of characters these people are supposed to be now. i wasn't expecting them to combine different characters together. only watched ep 1 so far so also didn't expect season 1 to cover more than the 1st book either...
so auggie is supposed to be both wang miao in book 1 AND zhuang yan from book 2??? and saul is supposed to be luo ji??
*note to self: watch the rest of the season ASAP lol
@@ButWhereAreYouReallyFrom the season is really good imo, for what it is trying to be. the themes and ideas behind the story are setup, so the changes from the book were appropriate. it's a drama show with horror elements designed to appeal to the masses, so i hope it becomes a success. i will be excited for the future seasons.
@@tennielguiver2706 Does not mean she will forever just be helping small villages. They could bring her back around to the big picture after finding herself helping people after her mind was almost shattered.
In an ideal world, this series would be 7-8 seasons, not the 4 being planned. Streaming and the complete lack of attention people have these days means that you can't adapt anything like this without major concessions. We can't blame D&D on this, we cam blame the fickleness of common-denominator viewers who put a show on, scroll on their phones and wonder why it made no sense. Simple put, we can't have nice things anymore. This series may be doomed by virtue of it's being on Netflix. If it were HBO or even Prime, I think the budget constraints would be a lot more forgiving.
As for adaptation, too many people don't know how to temper their expectations and take into account the budget that showrunners have to work with. Being too faithful to the book is also a danger, where you alienate viewers by dragging out the story to the fact that watching is tedious. The Chinese Tencent version is a testament to why books should never be adapted 1:1 - it was more work to watch that disaster than reading the book.
Your comment about adaptation is nothing but the truth!
Good review. You'll see that the other four of the five scientists aren't 'made up' but are most definitely characters from the three books.
ooo ok i'm interested to watch past ep 1 and figure out who they are supposed to be from the books!
their friendship though is indeed fabricated unless i'm completely forgetting what happens in the books? i don't remember wang miao being supported by a friend group...
Right the Oxford 5 is new but it will quickly become apparent who is who if you read all three books. I thought this was a good change from the books for the series
@@ButWhereAreYouReallyFrom That's right. There were some connections between Yun Tianming (Will), Cheng Xin (Jin) and Hu Wen (Jack), but they drifted apart (but still care) by the events in the book (Death's End).
Tencent did a series for Three Body Problem that is 30 episodes for the first book so far.
It is a long watch and has some issues but not terrible.
It does have the classic signs of CCP censorship though
It does not help when they only do 8 episodes. Even doing their standard 10 episodes would have helped a lot of these issues.
Also, there are beautiful scientists and having ugly ones would only feed the stereotype. I think it goes both ways, plus more attractive characters draw more people, that is just fact.
They blended elements from all the books into the 1 season I suppose to make the story more coherent and entertaining.
It is a hard book to adapt do to there being so much going on.
Why don't you make a reaction video? The show skipped out a lot of great details, which I found disappointing. You guys can point them out scene by scene, so those who didn't read the book can hear more about the story. 😍
to be honest it’s a technology limiter! we live in diff parts of the world and our remote recording software is not strong enough to support recording us + screen share to make the react work 🥲 one day we will figure it out! It’s something we’ve wanted to do forever
I really don’t care how diverse the crew were, it is just that the notion of making a Sci-fi from China into an anti China series disgusted me. It is obvious the adaptation reinforced Stereotype of Chinese that all Chinese are bad unless they have flea the country or not born in China, therefore the Dashi clearly stated in the series he is from new Hampton. In China, most people who had the chance to watch it hated it. You can misrepresent us that ok, we kinda get use to it, but use a Chinese novel to stigmatize us? That’s worse than shameless.
It has nothing to do with Chinese people . China is a civilisational state , it has great culture and people . CCP is an authoritarian regime which oppress Chinese people . There is nothing good about extreme left wing Maoist ideology. It is anti progress .
I haven't read the book yet so I'm purely judging the series. I love story but above all I love character and there are a lot of excellent character performances so I'm happy (8 out of 10 happy).. Fascinated by Tatiana (and all other implacable enforcer types). Yes I binged it. Heritage wise I'm an Eastern/Western person so have a foot in both those rivers of history and culture. I look forward to more from you guys. (just being colloquial, in case you're offended. Ha. I know you're not)
Very interesting discussions. I wonder if either of you has watched the Chinese Tencent adaptation that came out last year and what you thought of that? I've now watched both versions (Netflix and Tencent) but I've not read the books. I watched the Tencent version when it came out last year and I was blown away by the science and the existential dread. I felt the Netflix version was dumbed down - definitely more of a events focused show rather than a concept focused one.
Watched both and read the books multiple times. The Tencent version is just.. okay. Personally I prefer the Netflix adaptation.
The Chinese version is partly censored with certain scenes and stuff being scrubbed such as the betrayal and such.
Classic CCP censorship. The tencent one is very drawn out and they try to stay relatively close to the book.
It is okay if you do not mind watching a lot of dialogue or some repitition.
first time hearing about the Tencent adaptation now reading these comments! Will have to look into it so I can compare!
@@ButWhereAreYouReallyFrom It's on UA-cam if you search "MiGu Three Body" and is 30 episodes long. I heard they recently released a 26 episode director's cut but I don't think that's available widely as of now.
Yes I've seen both versions I can confirm the Chinese version is heavily censored esp. the arc surrounding and depicting the Cultural Revolution that's central to the development of the Ye character. The reason she did what she did. It also glossed over the duplicity and moral cowardice/conviction of the characters which makes it unnecessarily long and draggy.
As someone who got a degree in molecular biology and genetics, there are very good looking people. One of the girls in my class was the best looking girl in the university probably.
1000% agree w everything you said. I’ve read all the books and had the same criticisms. The girl power tropes only diminish the strong female character of ye winjea and I don’t understand why that one scientist is a stoner now. It’s not awful but most of the tension and suspense is lost.
You clearly did not read the books closely enough to correlate the characters in the TV show with it
you correlated all the characters after watching only episode 1? cuz that’s what this video is based on. and ya fair enough I read all the books but it’s been 3ish years since I last read the full trilogy so def don’t remember all the details
In one comment on Facebook, someone said that it was like watching an episode of Friends. And I reply, it is more like an episode of Big Bang Theory. They have Raj in the group 😅
😂
as someone who is late to the party (i have all 3 books but yet to read them, also haven't seen the netflix or tencent adaptations), i really should be avoiding all these spoiler-y reviews 🙃
HAHA oh no! I’m sorry. hopefully not spoiling all that much since we only discuss ep 1 but ya it’s not 100% spoiler free. please read the books!! So so worth it
@@ButWhereAreYouReallyFrom
yep, my books are always staring back at me wondering why i haven't started with the first one yet 😹 i already know i'll enjoy the trilogy since reading some of cixin liu's short stories to get a "warm up" of sorts but i'm still very late to the party
@@maggyfrog 😂
da shi went from fav chr in the books, to least fav in the show. He has lost his edge in the show.
oh nooo. haven’t watched the rest of the eps yet but sad to hear that. he definitely was the glue in a lot of ways in the books
like, like, its kinda like, like its, like a, like, maybe like, like, kinda like
do you actually listen to yourself ?
was thinking that they used fck too much in the eps, but this american like-like-like-kind-a-like is utter BS.
you’re free to not watch 😘
Pure Hollywood propaganda :P