3 Body Problem

The premise of this show... overarching premise, is kind of stupid.

Tuco said:

I read the first book a few months ago. What parts of the book(s) does season 1 of the show cover? I'm not sure if I want to be spoiled on it or not. Not sure if I'll read the next books.

Spoiler

I'd be interested in an anime of the VR game or whatever, the outside of the VR game story wasn't as interesting to me.

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First season covers a lot of stuff from the second book as well.

TJT said:

Lots of insufferable girl power in this.

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The modern era friends group stuff is pretty much the Game of Throne writer's fan fiction for a "modern audience". The original book was pretty much just focused on the lady in the past, the detective and a socially awkward nerdy chinese science guy. Mostly set in China.

Three episodes in and the central mystery element is hard carrying the show. The Science Club friends do some really dumb shit to be so smart, the decision by one of them that sets up the big moment of episode three makes no sense considering everything that had happened to that point. The detective is easily the most interesting character so far, but seems odd that for all the craziness going on in the world that it's a pretty small investigation. Maybe that's explained later, but seems like more governments, etc would be flipping their shit with everything happening.

Kanglor said:

Three episodes in and the central mystery element is hard carrying the show. The Science Club friends do some really dumb shit to be so smart, the decision by one of them that sets up the big moment of episode three makes no sense considering everything that had happened to that point. The detective is easily the most interesting character so far, but seems odd that for all the craziness going on in the world that it's a pretty small investigation. Maybe that's explained later, but seems like more governments, etc would be flipping their shit with everything happening.

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The whole world would be flipping its shit if the stars suddenly got a lot brighter and then started to blink on and off at seemingly random times.

Looked up info on the books because I knew nothing about them but now that I know they were written by a Chinese author the lazy, silly story makes more sense.

Every piece of media I've ever seen/read from China was MacGuffin central. And this doesn't feel any different.

Also, now that I know its from China my prevailing theory on what's going on is that this is a Matrix ripoff. The San Ti already arrived, already conquered earth, and are now keeping humans alive in VR to help them solve future problems by provoking them into rapid knowledge gain.

Khane said:

Looked up info on the books because I knew nothing about them but now that I know they were written by a Chinese author the lazy, silly story makes more sense.

Every piece of media I've ever seen/read from China was MacGuffin central. And this doesn't feel any different.

Also, now that I know its from China my prevailing theory on what's going on is that this is a Matrix ripoff. The San Ti already arrived, already conquered earth, and are now keeping humans alive in VR to help them solve future problems by provoking them into rapid knowledge gain.

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You’re incredibly wrong.

As a non-book reader, I didn't find it bad, but I had low expectations going in since it's on Netflix, along with reading some posts here, plus the IMDB reviews about wokeness and a kinda funny complaint about smoking.

I wouldn't be too surprised if they didn't spoil the ending with heavy handed foreshadowing: In the VR the aliens talked about only the "people" matter and their problem is unsolvable. Then, a few episodes later, one of the group of friends says something to the effect of: why are humans spending money trying to fix this problem when they could spend it improving the lives of people on earth for the time they have left (or to help some of them survive, which was also the business plan/idea of the investigator's son). To foreshadow that it was all a test to see if humans can think of saving the people, not fixing an unfixable problem.

Khane said:

Looked up info on the books because I knew nothing about them but now that I know they were written by a Chinese author the lazy, silly story makes more sense.

Every piece of media I've ever seen/read from China was MacGuffin central. And this doesn't feel any different.

Also, now that I know its from China my prevailing theory on what's going on is that this is a Matrix ripoff. The San Ti already arrived, already conquered earth, and are now keeping humans alive in VR to help them solve future problems by provoking them into rapid knowledge gain.

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There is a reason why this Chinese novel took off in the west and has a Netflix adaptation. The overall story is unique with interesting concepts.

That might be the case but the first season isn't illustrating that very well.

Auggie is one of the worst type of characters imaginable.

But from tidbits shared here by book readers it does sound like maybe D&D strike again. Even when the source material is complete they are hacks.

I finished the first season, and it had its moments, but overall it wasn't very compelling.

I read that there is a Chinese made show out there. Kinda curious to give it a watch. Hopefully it's like the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie verses the Swedish mini-series, where the mini-series was far superior.

Edit: The series from China:

Juvarisx said:

This book series has been a weird thing for me as I love Sci-Fi but I never read the books, or even really knew what the story was about. Wife and I watched three episodes so far, its been okay kinda confusing at times and GoT Sam is fucked as thats all I see him as now.

The reply the Chinese girl got from the transmission was A+ though, they played that just right and hit the right subtle music beats. That response would be fucking terrifying in the real world to get.

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The fact that the VR game was an actual representation of the alien species and an attempt to solve their living situation, if I remember it correctly, was pretty awesome.

The theories of the Dark Forest, the three body problem with life within it, relativity, higher dimensional science - later they find evidence of 4th dimensional decay within our third dimension - the debate on how to propagate the species - go forever dark by creating a slower than light speed safe area and be isolated for eternity, or spread out silently and indiscriminately, higher dimensional communication, weaponry, spying, etc, are all amazing concepts on their own, and all discussed within a single book series.

Humanity created a group of people with carte blanche in the world to come up with a way to fight the alien enemy on their own without being able to discuss it with anyone else - what a crazy concept, but if aliens are essentially omniscient because of higher dimensional spy technology, what can you do?

I say again that the books weren't the most exciting thing I have read, but they are definitely the highest of high science and interesting at the very least

Edit - I read the series because I watched this video, which made me intrigued:

Khane said:

Looked up info on the books because I knew nothing about them but now that I know they were written by a Chinese author the lazy, silly story makes more sense.

Every piece of media I've ever seen/read from China was MacGuffin central. And this doesn't feel any different.

Also, now that I know its from China my prevailing theory on what's going on is that this is a Matrix ripoff. The San Ti already arrived, already conquered earth, and are now keeping humans alive in VR to help them solve future problems by provoking them into rapid knowledge gain.

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Read my spoiler above. Your interpretation is way, way off.

So I read your Spoiler Slaanesh69 because I don't really care at this point about being spoiled.

A lot of those elements are in the show but they kind of fall flat because of how they are presented. There is no "hook". Stuff happens because it needs to happen to advance the story. Some of the characters are really good and interesting, most of them feel stiff and unnatural given the circumstances.

It feels a whole lot like later seasons of GoT and the "setup" isn't working because it feels like it's leading directly into a "she just kind of forgot" reveal.

I trust that the book readers are right, and I think the showrunners are just bad storytellers.

Khane said:

So I read your Spoiler Slaanesh69 because I don't really care at this point about being spoiled.

A lot of those elements are in the show but they kind of fall flat because of how they are presented. There is no "hook". Stuff happens because it needs to happen to advance the story. Some of the characters are really good and interesting, most of them feel stiff and unnatural given the circumstances.

It feels a whole lot like later seasons of GoT and the "setup" isn't working because it feels like it's leading directly into a "she just kind of forgot" reveal.

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Yeah, I said earlier that I was kind of doubting they could really encapsulate the power of the books into a series. And you, and the rest of the posts, are confirming this. I have not watched any of it yet, not sure I will.

Edit - and there is a LOT of Chinese history written in, with the revolution and how Maoism transformed huge swathes of the environment for seemingly no reason except to keep people working, lots of what is essentially CRITICISM of Chinese history, so it is anything but propaganda.

Looking at Netflix it isn't even #1 in shows. Some low rent true crime documentary about NYC homicide detectives is beating it

I guarantee if you haven't read the books you will never, ever, ever guess how the story ends. Its 3 books, book 1 & 2 are about the same size and i think season 1 covers all (?) of book 1. The big issue is book 3 is MASSIVE, about the size of books 1 & 2 combined so even if it gets renewed not sure where they go.

I just finished re-reading the books last week and I really enjoy them although there is a lot of extremely dry, technical physics discussions that is hard not to skip over. The more you like physics the more you will probably like the books.

The show is definitely nerfing most of the physics stuff to the point that its really hard to call it sci fi anymore, but I like the visuals and for the most part the cast. I don't find anyone really annoying, although it is hilarious how they are nerfing the looks of "Auggy" who is one of the hottest people IRL by giving her an odd haircut and oversized clothes. Elia Gonzalez was in Godzilla vs Kong, Ambulance, Hobbes and Shaw, etc and is just smoking when she wants to be



I hope the show is doing well but I can see most people turning it off in boredom, guess we'll find out. I knocked out 4 episodes in a 3 hour binge, probably finish the rest in the next day.