Netflix’s 3 Body Problem has a new release date and a promising teaser clip to ease the wait.
I recently finished the trilogy and I’ve got to say… Even though this clip looks neat I’ve never had less faith in an adaptation of anything. Particularly with Benioff and Weiss at the helm.
Seriously? Who would let those clowns touch their IP after what they did to Game of Thrones
If GoT taught us anything, if they have Original Source MaterialTM to adapt, they do a decent job. It’s when they are left to improvise that things get awful.
I would get seriously more skeptical if the people in charge of Foundation got their hands on this adaptation tho.
The way they decided to dice up the source material for GoT even before they ran out of books was the most jarring thing about reading that series. George gave them a meticulously detailed account of things and they tweaked it a lot. At least that series was grounded in historical fantasy. So there was rules that needed to be followed and George was there to guide them. If GRRM wasnt there from the start they could have gone off the rails from the beginning.
The Three Body Problem is way more abstract idea wise and extremely dry in terms of character interaction. And is Liu gonna be able to help them to steer the ship the same way GRRM did? I don’t think so. Right off the bat these guys are being left to their own devices for a lot of this story. I read an interview where they mentioned changing the story to fit a wider audience. And looking at the two trailers, I already noticed major changes that just don’t make sense. Skepticism is gonna be at an all time high for me.
I watched and loved GoT just as much as anybody. I read the books and quickly figured out why they took precedent over the show, even for the good years. I’ve already read Three Body Problem. On my first read through I thought this was the greatest scifi trilogy ever written. I’m not ready for someone to come and make a shitty TV adaptation of it. Especially those two.
For me it was how they lit the show on fire when they thought they’d be moving on to bigger and better things. “If we can’t run this show, we’ll make it so that nobody can”.
For real - in a vacuum (ha), it’s… passable, but mostly just the parts that involve Empire… and it has to be mentioned that those additions were barely present in the source work. I find most of the rest of the storylines to be unengaging and nonsensical, and the entire vibe of the show series is substantially different from what Asimov was clearly going for.
I don’t see it as adaptable. There’s limits to what can be portrayed on screen.
The Chinese adaptation by Tencent is available for free on YouTube. It does a generally good job. Episode 6 seems heavily censored, but it is otherwise a sensible adaptation of the original.
Netflix could have easily built on that and improve on it tremendously. There are parts in the Tencent adaptation that are plain bad (e.g., Evans).
However, if seems that they went on a different route. I hope that this “teaser” is not a faithful representation of the final product.
I really wonder what the Netflix version would have been like if the Congresses producer they were going to work with hadn’t been fricking murdered.
All the “Fuuuuck shiiiiit fuuuuck fucking fuck” in the trailer is a turnoff. Sounds like it was written by teenagers.
Now that sounds really off, there is no cursing at all in the books.
Some people just talk that way.
“Some” is the operative word. Those who do are usually seen as idiots.
Here’s a direct link to the teaser, via an inviduous instance.
I only got halfway through the first book; I thought the game sequences were extremely boring, so I hope the series doesn’t focus on them too much.
I hate finished the trilogy. It was at this point I learned I don’t like SciFi, I like space operas
Speculative Fiction /Science Fiction covers such a huge range of potential topics!
I’m a huge fan of the older masters Heinlein/Clarke/Niven/Asimov/EE Smith, etc. Many of their stories are smaller in scope than a typical space opera (not counting the absurd scale of Foundation!).
Ian Banks’s Culture books have fascinating worlds and usually great characterization. I highly recommend them.
In Military Sci-fi, I’m a big fan of Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleets serieses. Honestly most of the characters aren’t terribly deep, but it’s great fun. My #1 shared world is Battletech (big robots), but because that’s been written by so many authors, the quality really varies.
I really didn’t like the first book, but I can’t not finish reading one. The Chinese political side was really interesting, the concept of folding up dimensions was neat (not unique, though; I’ve read of computers or ships or creatures that only exist as an abstract version of their higher-dimensional selves) but the game stuff was extremely boring. Maybe it was a translation issue, but most of the time spent with the aliens was painful.
I really liked the first book, the 2nd book much less so, but it was still okay, but holy shit that 3rd book… I think I got half way through and I gave up on it. I can’t believe anyone thought it was a good idea to try to make a live action tv show based on these books. I can’t imagine how they’ll do the game parts even remotely well with out being intensely boring.
Don’t worry, since this is Netflix, they’ll probably cancel it after the first season, or definitely cancel it after the second season.
And I liked the second book the most, now we have all three books covered in these comments.
First one was okay, third one just went off the rails for me. Interesting, but the story failed to continue to engage me.
Agree on the adaption though, especially given the recent record of bad ones.
I’m with ya, I use the “don’t light a torch in a dark forest” analogy all the time
Yeah, the first book was a bit weird, but still in a good way, after that it went to straight up “what if the universe, like, ended, man?” Territory.
The ideas in the first book and the (to me, novel) insights into some Chinese history etc, kept me involved in the first book. The characters were shittily written, especially the final American bad guy who was an underdeveloped trope more than a character.
I barely got through the second book. It had some interesting ideas, but far fewer. The main conciet they build up to is hollow.
I started the third book, on tape this time. I have a long commute and it is always my last choice of what to listen to.
I had the same thoughts. The books are heavily conceptual, even though there are some action sequences. A lot of incredibly abstract stuff to try and translate to episodic drama.
It’s a different translator on the second book. It definitely suffers for it.
Funny I read someone else on here say the third was the best and in particular the ending so it might be worth powering through if you’re half way there.
I’ve only read the first myself but I’m reluctant to start the second with reviews like yours.
There is a decent, albeit a bit long, adaptation already which is very true to the first book. It was made by tencent and is enterily in chinese. You can watch it on YouTube; https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMX26aiIvX5oCR4bBg2j0W4KKgjYtYBfv&si=_3CrgYDZJfQlvm8y It’s interesting to say the least.
I just hope that it isn’t like apples take on foundation. This really can’t be too actiony, I’m hopeful that this trailer was only showing a minor part without showing their intent. Three body has a bit more fighting foundation so I’m willing to wait and see. But I was immensely disappointed that so much of foundation was just pew pew laser battles.
And so little… Foundation.
of course it has to be westernized …
I mean there is already a Chinese adaptation
and they white washed it :(
