MovieChat Forums > 3 Body Problem (2024) Discussion > Just started watching this, hooked in th...

Just started watching this, hooked in the first episode

posted 10 months ago by TrentnQuarantino (9187)
13 replies | jump to latest

[ This was actually written about the Chinese production of "Three Body" which was a long series with many episodes. ]

The "3 Body Problem" is a TV series based on the science fiction book of the same name. It grabbed me in the first minutes with clever dialog and interesting global perspective.

The characters are strong and establish themselves operating on two level, immediately with a wink the audience they are both simple and complex as they draw the viewer into the suicide of a beautiful young women scientist and a secret admirer of hers who is also a scientist and who both have connections to a secret cabal of top scientists.

It turns out that many scientists across the world are committing suicide leaving notes that physics does not exist. Seems they are being driven crazy in some way. The military believes there is a connection to all these scientists and the suicides and wants to find a way to determine if the suicides have any connection to this mysterious group.

The good-cop, bad-cop tension is created quickly and piques the curiosity of the viewer as we feel sympathetic to the secret admirer scientist but want to find out why the bad-cop is such a dick. Is he really a dick or is he trying to goad the scientist into helping solve this mystery.

It is refreshing to see this done without the many low-brow tropes that Hollywood movies often cave to.

I am really excited to get deeper into this mystery.

That said, I wish there were voice-overs because it is hard to read and follow the subtitles and watch the screen because all the dialog is important to take in.

I think this is gonna be good. More to come.

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9187) 10 months ago

I have confused this, The 3 Body Problem, with the Chinese TV series Three Body. It is that to which I am referring.

[–] johnmiller (3889) 8 months ago

There's a thread for the Chinese TV Series:

https://moviechat.org/tt20242042/San-ti

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9187) 8 months ago

Yep, that's it.
I just finished the new NetFlix series.
I appreciated its shortness, and it turned out not to be bad,
but it wasn't good either. There was not a laugh in the entire
series, and no romance either.
Seems like it will need at least a second season and they will
try to draw it out longer, so I don't think it's finished.

[–] johnmiller (3889) 8 months ago

I have kind of just stopped in the middle of the third episode. With these series, it always seems like only 10 minutes of each episode advances the story and the rest is filler. The characters just aren't that interesting and, to be honest, I can't say I care about what happens to any of them.

Did the eight episodes complete the first book's material? Thanks for the answer.

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9187) 8 months ago

I'm not sure I really know how to answer that because it does not really follow the book and this series to me seems mostly like a setup for the next season.

[–] johnmiller (3889) 8 months ago

Oh, okay. So, the book is just a jumping off point for the series, it sounds like. Thanks for the answer. That is what I was afraid of, that they were just going to do a Mystery Box kind of a thing and make the series go on and on with no real answers, like "Lost," etc.

[–] johnmiller (3889) 10 months ago

I thought that this doesn't come out until March 21st.

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9187) 10 months ago

Read my last comment. I meant to be commenting on the Chinese TV series Three Body.

[–] johnmiller (3889) 10 months ago

Ah, I gotcha. I thought that was somebody else's comment. Is "Three Body" related?

[–] EconolineCrush (12) 9 months ago

It's the same show (based on the same book). America is just last in line to make their version.

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9187) 8 months ago

One thing about the "American" version is that all the Chinese scenes are very dark and violent and bad, the rest of the story takes place in the West, UK, and most of the important players are Chinese women with English accents and Benedict Wong with an English accent too.

Listed as Executive Producers are Brad Pitt and Rosamund Pike ...

Brad Pitt has a thing against China because they banned him from China for 20 years for starring in the movie Seven Years In Tibet.

The new series seems to have a generally negative feel towards China.

[–] keybored (2660) 8 months ago

I'm surprised you claim to have seen the Chinese series and then say that the Netflix version is negative towards China because having read all the books and watched the Chinese version 3 times already I was shocked at how brutally honest Liu Cixin's books were about his portrayal of Chinese history and even more astounded that they put this into the series because it is highly critical of China's past actions.

Netflix toned it down big time.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

I also hated that Netflix changed that the aliens thought we were good guys that they could coexist with. They omitted the turkey farmer story and also the later conversation with the alien who told them not to reply. All of those were of great importance to understanding their intent.

[–] TrentnQuarantino (9187) 8 months ago

China can comment about China with integrity. I've posted here or elsewhere how honest they were about Mao and the cultural revolution and the red guard. That is a big step for China, but also, China does not call itself communist anymore, or at least to the same extent. They want to distance themselves from Mao, like Russia wants to distance themselvse from Stalin. Both were brutal dictators. But this series did it in a different way.

Today China is capitalist with socialist enhancements, and they call themselves democratic with Chinese modifications, or some such. They have been very sensitive about media.

The slights to China I seemed to see in the new series are first that the Chinese characters were not Chinese - they were British or I think in the main character's case she was from New Zealand? Not sure about that.

It's a Chinese book, and series, and they cut China out of it pretty much. Benedict Wong and female stars all have non-Chinese accents.

Honestly the book and plot, to me, are full of holes the more I look at it.

If the aliens are so all powerful, why don't they find a way to pull their planet away from the three sun system, or push one or two of the stars away so they can stabilize their planet?

Why did they have the encounter between the main scientist lady in the research center and her father's murderer?

Why did the black dude get missed by the autonomous driving cars, but then get on an airplane and he was safe? It seems to me like an airplane would be easier to sabotage.

Then the probe that is going to be shot at the advancing fleet depends on nuclear bombs being places far out in space - and if they can get that far out in space - what do they need the bombs for.

I read the book a long time ago, so I don't really remember much about except that I remembered it being good.

Another thing I suspect is that when we finally get to see these aliens they will be hideously ugly as all the bad aliens in movies are.