Netflix's Three Body Problem: An Extremely In-Depth Review

[@genericallyentertaining]

To learn more than ever from important non-fiction books, join me on Shortform: shortform.com/nathaniel. You'll get a five-day free trial and a discounted annual subscription. One of my favorite books on Shortform is Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.

[@AlternativPerspectiv]

The "strong female character" BS was off-putting. I came to 3 Body not having read the books. I'd seen the Chinese show's trailers but never watched it because subs are too fast and I tend to watch these shows while I work on a different PC. The bar scene where they rattle off their exploits to the nice guy is not the sole instance of the "strong female" trope. There is another on-the-nose scene where one woman says "I was at the doctor's office" (or something) and the other woman says "What did he say?" and the first woman says "Not he... she". I rolled my eyes hard. The gender swapping was much more obvious once I listened to reviews of the Chinese one then it made sense why the male characters in the western version were dumb, designed to be unlikeable or weak and the women were constantly being praised with "she is the smartest person i have ever met", "she is the only one who can do this", "we have 100's of the best engineers and physicist but we need her". I was just like... sigh... really? Even the prime anti-hero, wenjie... she doomed earth because of her feelings but in the western version u can see she gets the "women can't do wrong" treatment. A male character dooming earth to ruin would have been portrayed less favourably... probably getting the littlefinger exit.

[@atheistsquid]

The scientist suicides in the book weren't about the experimental results not matching theories, it was about them not being consistent. Doing the experiment over and over gave completely random results every time. It made it look like causality isn't real. It made the very idea of science seem wrong.

[@KGello]

It's still nonsense. Let's take the billiards ball thought experiment. They could still ask scientific questions of the experiment. What variables are random? What is the distribution across repeated collisions of those probabilistic variables? In my head canon, the primary san-ti goal isn't to kill off leading scientists, but to prevent progress. The scientific description of the interference can still go on, while the exploration of the properties of matter is made practically impossible. The particle accelerators fail to produce results and are closed, scientists lose their carriers and despair. At least while the invasion is still in its covert stage and understanding or circumventing the interference is not a pursued goal by itself. I've only read the first book so far though.

[@svtamanda649]

Yes, and it was also cultural. In the books, these were Chinese scientists and honestly, the pressure that they put on themselves to succeed is something that we westerners cannot fully comprehend

[@kadeshaderow]

@@svtamanda649 We comprehend it, we just roll our eyes and shake our head at a system so oppressive that your choices in life are excel or die

[@gamefax5741]

@@svtamanda649 In the show, its shown that many scientists are aware of this phenomenon, so why off yourself when it's happening everywhere? Maybe it was science no one understood yet? (Which it was via the super computers) The show makes the suicides appear juvenile and not what would really occur in that situation, even in an eastern culture. I initially thought, that while playing the VR game, their brains were being rewired to off themselves.

[@WorldConquerer2295]

“…comes from string theory and so probably has no basis in real science.” BRUTAL

[@hexPixelStarships]

Well, that's why it's called science fiction

[@ttrestle]

Yet true

[@Dank_Engine]

KO!

[@stevenhetzel6483]

​@@hexPixelStarshipsNot to get all argumentative, but science fiction is SUPPOSED to be based on science, science FANTASY (Star Wars) doesn't care. There's a reason why there's a hard line between Hard Sci Fi, and Sci Fi, hard sci fi leans into the science tenfold, but sci fi should still be leaning on it nonetheless... Otherwise it's just fantasy. Again, see Star Wars.

[@PedroTricking]

We should ban all peope who don't have degrees in physics from the internet, the strnig theory hate is so cringe

[@michaelnewsham1412]

The "universe winking" is great in that later scene when Saul is talking to Ye Wenjie and explains that even though people all over the world saw it, it had to be an illusion, one of the first hints that humans are not helpless in the face of the Trisolarians.

[@6Churches]

Not helpless? To me "had to be an illusion" means that humans are largely incredulous ... not resilient

[@bigusdicus9004]

Well you have the right spirit 😂​@@6Churches

[@elenabob4953]

That was a facepalm moment. Universe blinking for everyone defies the purpose of what it was supposed to be shown and the meaning behind it. But hey, we are in the west so let's throw the Science out of the window because our dumbed down public will get hired and we aren't capable of explaining it in a comprehensive manner anyway.

[@jeffbachman2949]

@elenabob4953 it wasn't scientifically accurate but I found it very creepy and thought it worked well instead of having Wang running back and forth with goggles on freaking out with bad acting.

[@Wrijvingsloos]

I thought the suicides were because other Scientist were seeing countdowns, or things like that too. That kind of psychological horror would do awful things to people

[@6Churches]

Yeah - I still don't have a clear grasp on what was causing the countdown - and whether it was happening to multiple people at once, or only one at a time

[@randallte2556]

​@@6Churches It would be the sophons wiggling inside their eyeballs creating the hallucination. Sophons are just protons, so they would produce electromagnetic radiation (light) when they accelerate.

[@6Churches]

@@randallte2556 Wade can hear the Sword Lady speaking as if she were standing in front of him - this is a multi-modality hallucination

[@randallte2556]

@@6Churches that is a good point which breaks the physical rules of sophon tech. They are powerful enough to accelerate to near light speed while being remote controlled light-years away via quantum entanglement bs, but limited to only producing light. They cannot physically interact with anything in an OP way, like producing sound, pushing objects, or cutting things. The manipulation of electronics is also something that may not be a physically accurate sophon power, would need to consult a better physicist. Although if you allow for this, maybe we can say they used an electronic device to produce the audio. I don't remember auditory hallucinations or electronics manipulation occuring in the books, so I think just the show gets it wrong there.

[@6Churches]

@@randallte2556 thanks man. You're not responsible, it's D&D being sloppy show runners

[@amirhamza8924]

I vastly prefer the Tencent version, but man, the decision to bring up the Death's End section to straighten out the timeline and its setup and the foreshadowings that came with it have been really well done. I think they've overdone a lot of the character related stuff but Will's part was absolutely phenomenal imo. Best depiction of the "You're special to me and I know I'm not that special to you but that doesn't make you any less special to me and I'd do anything for you but won't express my feelings cause I think you'll be happier that way" feeling I've ever seen on screen

[@genericallyentertaining]

I agree, that plotline in particular was what made the show go from "Eh, this was fun, but I couldn't really get past the flaws," to, "Wow, I actually really enjoyed that!" Still not a perfect show overall, but I'm disappointed that I haven't seen too many people praising the Will/Jin stuff. They're really taking full advantage of the foreshadowing potential and I'm all for it.

[@edumazieri]

@@genericallyentertaining I agree it should be praised, it definitely worked much better. But I guess the author couldn't simply go back in time and change the first books, while the writers of the adaptation have the privilege of knowing it all :P

[@jeffbachman2949]

I'm the opposite I had tons of problems with Tencent 30 episodes that drag on and on. Chinese censorship Changing Ye backstory with her father. Explaining things over and over again and then making tou watch flashbacks of the same scenes. Lots of sides characters to fill runtime. I liked some of it but I had a lot of issues with it. It also was filmed like a commercial imo

[@eden20111]

Completely agree! However I really enjoyed the Netflix version just as much as the Tenecent version. I love how they decided to make the characters friends with each other. It will make their transition into the future more impactful. Especially if they do the scene where Jin reunites with Saul in the Deterrence center. That's gonna be hard to watch.

[@zaviear]

Well i prefer the Minecraft version

[@jessehughes8274]

Short Form over here sponsoring your first long-form video? That's rich. Congrats, my dude.

[@edumazieri]

The "physics is broken" part, I agree with you that their actions might have been a bit exaggerated, but it's not just "because experiments are giving random results" - The Turkey story that is in the books and adapted in the Tencent version actually gives some insight into that: The reason for their despair was the possibility that there is NO WAY to understand what is actually going on in the universe. They felt like they were like those turkeys, that even the best of turkey science could never predict that they're actually just being bred for slaughter. It does make sense for a passionate scientist to feel some level of despair at that prospect. In fact it's one of the most memorable things about the book for me. The adaptations' straight up just muder a bunch of scientist is way less imaginative and boring... and also probably wouldn't work very well, science is a huge collaborative effort, they would have to murder a LOT more people for generations, hurting their chances of achieving their desired state of conquest.

[@Stillnothereanymore]

Agreed -- the horror and despair is coming from the possibility that science as a concept itself does not work in the universe, and that the mechanisms of physics might be either random or fundamentally unknowable for humans. The depth of emotion that arises in this context makes sense for scientists, something that the books and Tencent adaptation understood, and I felt the Netflix show did not really care about. A related idea forms the premise of Ted Chiang's short story "Division by Zero" for example.

[@edumazieri]

@@Stillnothereanymore In general, and the video also comments on that at the beginning, the adaptation from netflix fails to capture this scientific, even if fantastical, outlook that the book relies on to tell its' story.

[@morrigannibairseach1211]

Not to mention that it wasnt just random results it was the breaking of causality. Seeing that someone else got your random results before you ever did the experimemt must be spirit breaking especially when you bring in the pool analogies; ie does it matter where the pool table is to the result? Its a fundamental break in our ability to understand. Some greater power is actively fucking with you. The question is: is it a farmer or a bored sharpshooter? The book and tencent version also go in about this. It wasnt just how broken science was. It was that there was an alien worshipping cult presenting you with a false dichotomy as truth under the guise of religion. Their god gave them your random science experiment result before you did you experiment. Their god makes cosmic background radiation flicker. Imagine some young earth creationist prays and makes the universe flicker. That would be soul crushing. And all the while they are talking about how we don't deserve to live or the garden we live in. And using your answer of whether its a farmer or sharpshooter to help decide where to guide you or to eliminate you. To have a constant countdown projected onto your eyes that defies all known science.

[@RandomPerson-b1s]

@@Stillnothereanymore The notion that at that level of scale and energy the world is so random would still fail to explain why the world is so consistent at the macroscale. So even then I'd say high energy physics would still have plenty of avenues of exploration. Even just in trying to explain why experiments now are inconsistent with older ones.

[@jeffbachman2949]

So in an interview the creators said they're doind just the three books. They dont have any intention of doing the fourth and they said Netflix doesn’t even own the rights to that one anyway. Another interesting tidbit they dropped was they said under the contract they signed with the three body rights holders they were "only allowed " to do the Chinese parts in the past and modern day had to take place somewhere else. Apparently the Chinese rights holders wanted another version to be set more in the west

[@Hurricayne92]

You mean Tencent/(likely) The CCP

[@jeffbachman2949]

@Hurricayne92 so they signed a contract with the Chinese rights holders and they didn't go into detail what it all said only that they were only allowed a certain amount the take place in China

[@didyoutakemykombucha8336]

"They dont have any intention of doing the fourth and they said Netflix doesn’t even own the rights to that one anyway." LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@jeffbachman2949]

@@didyoutakemykombucha8336 lol I had a sigh of relief when they said that also

[@shApYT]

TV Show runners just don't have the balls to respect the viewers' intellect.

[@danielsjohnson]

Maybe they were afraid of getting the reception "Tenet" got. Which wasn't as confusing as some people made it out to be.

[@shApYT]

@@danielsjohnson that's why I respect Nolan. He doesn't give a fuck.

[@Hurricayne92]

I've heard that designing a bear proof trash can is incredibly difficult due to the fact that there is a significant overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest human.

[@RandomPerson-nd2ey]

​@@Hurricayne92 😂😂 Well, yeah... that makes sense.

[@thecrappyidols]

Just like Liu Cixin. Thats why it is insulting to call these books hard scifi.

[@alphaxneo]

As someone who has neither read the original book nor the Chinese live action adaptation, I went into this show without any expectations. Some of it I liked, some of it just seemed kinda off or rushed. However some things really stood out to me, and by far the best (and most heartbreaking) was the exceptional writing and acting around Will/Jin: They both play it so genuine, I was legit sobbing in that one episode. I also think they truly thought about how Will would feel as his condition worsens. As someone who is chronically ill with a condition that may or may not at some point in my life deteriorate my body rapidly without warning, I resonated a lot with Will and his musings about his life and decisions. Heart wrenching, but in a good way. But then, the scene that truly broke me was the one where Jin asks for the seeds to be included, subsequently seeing it all fall apart and (presumably) being told that those seeds were the crucial tipping point. And to her it's not only a failure to succeed in a mission, it was a failure towards her last tether to Will. Honestly, superb writing that just twists the knife so well. As for Auggie's scene, I can see your point that this one went too far the other way with the kids. But at the same time I think it was a good example of how, even when trying to persuade ourselves that we're doing it for the right reasons, we can cause harm to whom we least expect and that more often than not "the enemy" is not one homogenous group of bad people and I think it solidifies Auggie's conviction to repent in any way she can. To which I gotta say that another scene that I just LOVED was her publishing her work and basically make the patent obsolete. Gating stuff behind patents that disproportionally hit marginalized people/areas has long been an issue and for her to just rip it away and make it accessible to everyone? Just beautiful. On a lighter and pettier note, I honestly enjoyed the scene with Auggie and Jin at the bar at the start. I know how many say it's more tell than show, that it gives off the image of scientist superior - you are a pleb - but at the same time, I've seen so many women (myself included) just minding their own business wanting to chat, just to be interrupted for no reason and therefore getting rebuffed like that, gave me joy :')

[@jeffbachman2949]

My sister when that scene came on said "so many rude guys have done that to me before at a bar" lol

[@TheScholarabull]

I think it would be nice if her wrath was only directed at assholes but she directs it at her friends alll the time too. I also liked that scene and legit thought she was gonna be my fav character. Until she spent the entire show treating the one black character like absolute shite. Ignoring his phone call like he’s a pest when he’s trying to let them know their friend just died. And then calling upon that same friend whom she ignored (and continues to ignore even after he literally nearly gets assassinated) when she is in need. The only time she’s there for a friend is when she hugs Will cause shitting on a dude with cancer would make her absolutely irredeemable to everyone. She’s also not the best actor in this show. Unlike others I don’t think she’s bad, but I think she doesn’t have much range but I also think the script didn’t give her much to work with. But this is just my opinion and I think that everything you said is also valid. I’ve seen people be just straight up harsh towards her and unfair. And they seem to ignore every other character that does shit that makes ZERO sense.

[@DoctorBoson]

To echo a couple other comments, the "physics is broken" thing goes deeper than random results. (To an extent, randomness is expected in quantum physics anyways so it's not like that's a new thing.) Not that the show does a good job of portraying the nuances there-I had the same gut reaction of "new physics? Scientists would eat this up"-but on reflection I don't think the *concept* is unreasonable. The issue isn't that the understanding of physics was broken, it's that the *process* of science was being broken. Sure, you get weird results on an experiment, publish a paper... Now what? There's no way to achieve peer review because nothing is replicable (because it's being sabotaged). You have a flood of nonsense papers that are never used for anything, because they can't be. There's no underlying law or pattern to identify, so any attempts lead to running in circles. Lack of progress and meaningful outcomes leads to defunding, eventually, for the entire field-particle accelerators ain't cheap. In the face of that species of obsolescence, I can absolutely see utter despair overtake an alarming number of scientists. I don't know that it singularly kills all the top scientists-that may be a projection of Eastern honor and work culture to the rest of the world-but the morale hit would certainly be meaningful at the least. Other methods could also make up the difference too (countdown vision to undermine self-confidence, or just straight up murder as you said).

[@6Churches]

Exactly - and this would be a far more interesting drama to explore through Augie rather than the sensationalised numbers-countdown she gets (plus the Tatiana interlude and the sky blinking). If scientists cannot publish, then grants cannot be granted, tens of thousands of researchers lose their livelihoods and perhaps even their homes if they can't find new work. With Augie we just a sense she has such formidable independent wealth ... and this waters it all down, she never actually experiences desperation - nor does the show really explore the torment of being discredited

[@squamish4244]

I appreciated that someone actually looked like they were dying of pancreatic cancer, instead of romantically dying of cancer like all the suspiciously health-looking people in the "dying teenager" movies of the last ten years or so.

[@jeffbachman2949]

Apparently, the actor really committed to the role he spent a week at a cancer ward talking to patients and researching their behavior and physical appearance, and he lost weight for the role. Actually, apparently, all the cast did a lot of research. The other cast spent 2 weeks every day at a university studying scientists and students, and they said one thing they found was TV shows and movies wildly misrepresent scientist most of the time. They said they're mostly just normal people. They curse and joke a lot. They go out to bars and have drinks with each other. They have interpersonal relationships and date each other. They're not these people in lab coats that have all the answers and have no flaws. Instead, the complete opposite.

[@yttamhtims]

I found his portrayal and acting very poor. And just disliked the entire whimpering poor me arc.

[@squamish4244]

@@yttamhtims Well yeah, he's a young person dying of cancer. That's one of the things I mean about romanticizing cancer. It's the most feared disease of our time, so we really don't want to hear about people who aren't stoically facing it, or even breaking down occasionally but then reasserting their stoicism. A lot of people do not face it stoically, they are "poor me" about it. They do not go gentle into that good night.

[@oscarnilsson1969]

I think the random results is way more demoralizing than you make it out to be. At first I'm sure the scientists were excited to discover what was going on but you cannot fit any model to random noise so eventually they would lose hope in the field. I agree that it being like an epidemic felt very exaggerated but it's pretty devastating to have your entire field of study disappear after investing a good part of your life into it.

[@6Churches]

Yes. It makes publishing now impossible because all results are non-significant and also non-repeatable - making you look like all you have is noise, randomness and bias

[@Hurricayne92]

I mean its heavily implied in the show that all the scientists (except Vera) were affected by the same thing as Auggie, hence the eyes being scratched out.

[@6Churches]

@@Hurricayne92 But how plausible is that? We see through Augie's eyes and she doesn't become s___cidal . Scientists would be curious about the phenomena

[@marlanivanovich1828]

@@6Churches Well, it could still be written off to the fact that the scientists who have passed away, specifically them, are fanatics of the extreme degree with a disturbed psyche. It is not clear: why here science is almost equated to religion, since when the scientist instead of spending more and more and more effort to study the nature of the phenomenon, not only selfishness, egoism, thirst to get rich moves them, but also (sometimes unhealthy) curiosity. At least this point is not quite successfully revealed, as it seems to be lacking a greater unfolding of this line of emerging madness in the eyes of scientists, when time after time all their experiments lead to results contrary to the foundations of science, making what we call the scientific method (terminology varies), an already fragile instrument, useless. It is hard to believe that such a thing has caused the deaths of so many scientists, hard...

[@Foxtrot6624]

You couldn’t be more wrong about the Netflix shows depiction of the nano fibre scene if you tried. The scene is the first glimpse of the dark Forrest. Wade decides that this group of life forms pose a credible threat to the very existence of his species, and decides they must go. They must be attacked ruthlessly, without the opportunity to even comprehend retribution Nevermind attempt it. We get to see him coldly observing his choice from a monitor, miles away, and we also get to see the brutal consequences. When you decide a population must be destroyed, that entails the innocents too. That is the conscious and logical decision Wade makes. The ship is demolished destroyed by an invisible predator with a hyper futuristic weapon beyond the prey’s understanding, irregardless of the innocent lives snuffed out. All that matters is the survival of civilisation. This directly foreshadows the fate of literally all of humanity. Wade is Singer. The Dark Forrest does not care about the banal and casual brutality. Describing this scene as “too extreme” shows a profound misunderstanding of the source text.

[@TheChronozoan]

I haven't yet started the video, but I have to say I am overjoyed to see more long-form content on your channel! Not that I don't enjoy all of your content, but long form is my favorite. Alright let's gooooooo

[@genericallyentertaining]

Thanks, I want to do more long form videos, but I keep putting them off! Lately, I've only been doing one long-form video every two months or so, which is horrible. Will try to get the next one out quicker.

[@ivy4360]

I think the problem for us non western viewers is that this a story written from a Chinese perspective and have all of the nuances and traditions of the characters ripped out and pasted to London is a really lazy way to adapt a novel from another culture. Fellow youtuber AvenueX did a really well deep dive into a Chinese perspective of the Netflix three body problem why it wasn't well received within China. I really didn't like how they race swapped important characters to westerners in a age when we lack good Asian representations. Netflix turned Ye Wenjie from this nuanced but strong willed women into this angry and spiteful villain, turned Da shi from this down to earth cunning cop to this random bodyguard with no personality, and race swapped positive Chinese characters like Luoji and Zhangbeihai. It just feels incredibly disrespectful as they turned this beloved Chinese epic into a generic hollywood popcornflix. I think there is a clash in values between western audiences and the Chinese perspective of the original trilogy that the screen writers unfortunately didn't try to bridge.

[@VerminaeSupremacy]

YES, CHEESUS FRIED CRUST, YES!

[@slatealan7082]

is not just race swap, the whole vibe are just... gone. might be a culture thing, there's a lot of characteristic gone and does not feel right. While foreigner had no problem watching. For example, in original book, it gave a feeling of everyone in the world are doing their part. But in netflix they making every character know each other, it given a dorm friends go haha and rescue world vibe. The scale are shrunken really fast. And Also too many ooc. Things like Ye Wen Jie bang someone who met in few day is just unimaginable. I mean do banging really something hard require for netflix series?

[@jeffbachman2949]

@slatealan7082 I have to disagree the first book is also pretty isolated to mostly just China and a small amount of characters also. The second book is really when it expands and the creators of the Netflix show said the second season is absolutely going to expand more I actually think the show did a really good job. My gripe with the books is they have great ideas but most of the characters are so dull and thinly written and lack almost any human emotions. I like that they gave the characters some human emotions and brought some in earlier so have it connect better on the later seasons. I liked some of Tencent but I had a lot of issues with the pacing and explaining things over and over again and they flashbacks to the same scene we already watched again along with some Chinese censorship also didn't help it imo. I actually think the did a really good job with Ye with the short amount of time they had. Apparently the creators said under the contract they signed with the Chinese rights holders they were only allowed a certain amount to be set in China. I completely disagree with her video and she seemed to do zero research about how the Chinese rights holders wanted a western version. Imo Netflix is the better show than Tencent

[@NagalandHH]

​@@jeffbachman2949 So many problems people have with Netflix's casting will be understood if they all knew about the contract

[@jeffbachman2949]

@Roachh2877 and that the Chinese rights holders wanted a western version but that would require doing some actual research

[@Multilipstik]

41:45 I do have to say that I think that’s the point of that scene. We’re put in Auggies place, she doesn’t really know what’s on that ship either. She’s just letting military use her equipment. And then she gets into those ruins and personally experiences how her choice killed hundreds of innocent children. It’s supposed to be unexpected and gory.

[@sislmira]

When I watched that part I was really interested how they will work it out and man it is incredibly brutal to see it play out.

[@nabilahalshari7880]

I think the non-Western, and especially Chinese criticism of the portrayal of the past plotline is fair. Yes, the Cultural Revolution is bad but the Netflix version basically took out all nuance of the years following that. In the book Ye Wenjie only confronts her father's killers around 20 years later, after she sent the signal and when the Cultural Revolution is over and is relegated to the annals of history. There's a more profound sense of hopelessness not just from Ye but from the Red Guards as well who eventually had to realize their ideals were useless and now are left behind. In the Netflix version it doesn't seem 5 years had even passed, and when the Red Guard girl said "no one repents" it's like she did it out of spite and she's evil but in the book "no one repents" is more about how nothing matters. That's my reading anyway.

[@jahipalmer8782]

It also seems like they are having Auggie take on some of the characteristics (and role) of AA from Death's End. We'll have to wait til later seasons to see for sure but I think that is what they're doing.

[@PedroTricking]

31:40 It's not that all of physics is wrong, it's not just that physics is "broken", it's that physics does not exist. It's not that the results haven't been figured out, it's that they can't be figured out.

[@Emanon...]

The characters were far better fleshed out in this version than in the books. They were two-dimensional and very monolithic in the books. And I don't mind at all that you convert a cast to be more like their intended audience. Or do we all expect actual Italians everytime we go to see "Romeo and Juliet"?

[@jeffbachman2949]

Absolutely they had actual human emotions in the show

[@alexanderoneal6553]

Wrong

[@Emanon...]

@@alexanderoneal6553 Would you care to add any final thoughts to your thoroughly convincing argument?

[@TeaWai]

I mean this is common in Sci-fi book though, the ideas are the main character and the characters just facilitate the idea. Sci-fi readers won't find this an issue but the average Netflix watcher definitely needed the change.

[@ryankwon8785]

It's interesting how the showrunners asked the author who gave them the greenlight, knowing there would be many changes. It is good that Dan and Dave asked the author for permission to make these changes before proceeding. I think Cixin Liu doesn't care about the character changes but he wants the overall theme of his stories to remain intact.

[@SnowOfAllTrades]

In general, I agree with most of your points, though of course not all. One thing that stands out to me is your comment about foreshadowing the paper boat and fairy tales: I assumed that was exactly the point of it in the book. She only knows to look deeper into his fairy tales for hidden messages BECAUSE she knows it's a lie, which implies that there is a different reason for him to tell them to her. If they truly had shared fairy tales as children, there would have been a reasonable chance she would have just accepted it as a sort of fulfillment of an emotional wish to relive that. Only because it was such an obvious lie did it work to get his true message across with 100% certainty!

[@IIxIxIv]

Yeah I'm mixed on this. On the one hand, their relationship in the books was really bad, this was compounded by my general dislike for Cheng Xin, in the series their relationship is much better and I don't hate Jin (so far). But yeah it showed Tianming's cleverness and was a stronger scene in the books because it was a lie.

[@tsukasa1608]

7:46 I rewatched the Tencent version recently and during this scene Ye Wenjie actually made her decision almost instantly when she heard the offer, it was Yang Weining that stopped her and asked her to think wisely, however she already made her mind and went through the gate.

[@fingerfeller]

great review thanks, i have seen both tv versions and read the books, i agree the chinese version is better than netflix even though i have to read subtitles, cant wait for season 2 and cant wait for season 3 of wheel of time and rings of power but they can keep the acolyte

[@genericallyentertaining]

Thanks so much for your support! I really appreciate it.

[@SashaFilmsUnlimited]

I think the neural seal plotline in books was about how humanity was too optimistic. And the droplet attack surprising them

[@tenorenstrom]

The ”cool” characters Saul and Auggie made me give up on the show after only half an episode. After a prolonged break I gave it another go. Saul did mostly redeem himself while Auggie was developed into a thoroughly unlikable character. So I can watch it while disliking her character. Win win.

[@caruso-caruso5791]

The book is the key that opens excitement to the TV show which fills a long winter void. Sir, thank you for the clear, knowledgeable conversation! Long live academic discourse.

[@peaceofcrap]

Hey your first sponsorship! Congratulations!

[@aai2962]

A 50 min video is not "extreme" in depth review of a series. Its a review.

[@yttamhtims]

It is in these TikTok times we live in

[@sanra167]

The fact that all the main characters were best friends ruined the whole show for me. Also the Augie character was really anoying and the acting skills didn’t help

[@TheScholarabull]

ONG why are not allowed to say she’s not the best actor. I mean she’s not BAD but compared to some of the other actor’s she’s just dry and boring at best

[@STORYME01]

No man, it DID NOT.. this is not a copy of the book, it's an ADAPTATION for western people.. that's it, get over it. I love seeing all kinds of mindsets over this plot of the three body.. both the book and the tencent version as well as the Netflix version... They all do a Great job at delivering a good insight into the correct geographical people and culture...

[@svargyle]

The idea that Auggie is too good looking has nothing to do with misogyny. Dismissing it as such is just a weak approach to your argument. (I don't like what you said so I'm going to call you a name and drop the mic.) My wife (and engineer) actually pointed out the reason that her good looks are not typical for top end scientists. The main reason is that looking that good is hard work. How much does that actress work out? How closely does she watch her diet. How many hours in makeup did she spend before the shoot each day. People at the top of their fields in things like science and engineering just put their priorities elsewhere. Only so many hours in a day.

[@youngrootv]

lol well, that’s just wrong and small minded. I went to graduate school at an engineering school and there were tons of beauties at my school. People that are mad at the casting of a good looking woman as a scientist just have no real life experience in these spaces so they turn to hating her for absolutely no reason, i.e. misogyny. It’s just nonsensical.

[@Maers_]

Good Lord 🙄

[@changdemi514]

The reason it bothered me that Auggie looked like a super model is that she (actress) had no other qualities that justifies Netflix's choice of hiring her. None of the other characters look especially pretty, regardless of their jobs, so seemed like Netflix really wanted her character to stand out from the rest. I think the fact that the "lead female" has to look like a super model is more misogynist. Also her acting / the writing was not convincing me that she is a scientist, it just looks like Auggie is trying very hard to act smart. It seemed to me like Netflix choose her because they wanted a pretty lead female instead of a actress/actor more fitting for the roll. This is not saying a scientist can't look like a super models, its simply saying you still need to be a good actress regardless of your looks. also saying that the character is meant to be unlikable is just an excuse. You can still be a good actor/actress and have good writing even for characters that are meant to be "unlikable".

[@changdemi514]

yeah like Wade is exactly a character that is meant to not be liked but was done well.

[@mykal4779]

​@@changdemi514 yes and also in the books wade was stressed out, sleep deprived, desperate, hopeless, he really felt like he was on his last leg, and Auggie doesn't really get that across for me, and i think part of it is that she always looks like a team of people spent hours on her hair, makeup, and outfit. her friends are being killed and she's seeing a countdown in the corner of her vision while mysterious strangers tell her to stop her work and always looks like she could be on the cover of a fashion magazine

[@UCUCUC27]

jack rooney was the worst for me i am not joking when i say i think you could take every scene with him out of the series and you would have another 2 hours to adapt the shooter and the farmer or something cool

[@TheScholarabull]

FACTS

[@akaidatenshi]

Sadly, the series had too few episodes. I love what they did to Will's character, tho. They took out Tian Ming's creepyness and made him likeable and endearing. Love the idea of Auggie becoming a version of Ding Yi, instead of Aa.

[@cdm966]

The thing about the Judgement Day scene that I really hated is how it isn't just confusing to understand what's happening until it's happening--it's the fact that it was clearly intended. During the scene there's someone that's part of the operation that, after seeing the boat pass through, remarks that it isn't working, as if he was led on to believe it was going to work like a net (which was actually the impression I was under at first) and didn't even know the purpose of the operation. I can see Wade being reserved about sharing this knowledge, but Augie is the first person to point out that it is working as intended, so surely that means she knew this was going to happen, but she's just been uncharacteristically quiet about it until the moment bodies start dropping. It really feels like a weird contrivance for the sake of an Epic Twist™, and it honestly made Augie in the back half feel a lot more whinny than depressed to me, because she really didn't seem to give a shit about the people she was going to kill before they actually started to die, at least not to the degree you'd expect from her character given how she acts in every other situation.

[@abynighteater5670]

I clearly didn't see it that way. I'm pretty sure the plan was clear for everybody involved. They didn't use her tech just to make a "net", the whole point was that they ruled out a traditional assault could result in loosing the data (I assume they thought even if they were so unlucky as having the harddrive cut, it could still be mended, put back together?). Why I think Raj is thinking it's not working is because he expected it to much more visually obvious limmediately that the thing was splitting the ship appart, but as we saw in the first episode when she splits the diamond, it doesn't instantly fall appart - I think the point is that she agreed because she experienced the countdown, was traumatized by it and its consequences, got a chance to "go back to work", and was sold on doing something to "save humanity". But she obviously couldn't stomach actually seeing the consequences. A sort of Oppenheimer situation if you will. She focused on the science, ignored the casulties that were going to be involved "for the greater good", cause "they're a group of traitors to humanity who get people killed, some she knew" but that all shattered once she saw the bodies drop.

[@TheScholarabull]

It also didn’t make any sense because they didn’t want to bomb it out of fear they would destroy the information they’re looking for but they’re totally fine with setting up indestructible wires to slice the boat up into chunks and kill everyone on board? They could literally just have used gas to put everyone on the boat to fall asleep

[@TheScholarabull]

They could have sent an infiltrator inside the boat. So many options😭😭

[@abynighteater5670]

@@TheScholarabull Yeah so I'm no special operation professional, but "infiltrating a ship", especially *this* ship, sounds a tad complicated -

[@longboy5639]

Happy for the sponsor man, Buy nice things

[@moonbeamsunshine]

15:20 I can see where you’re coming from but I think painting some of critique of Auggie as based on misogyny is far too broad of a brush. FWIW, I’m female and I also could not stand her character. IMO, the character was not at all believable as a nanomaterials scientist. Personality-wise, She didn’t carry herself in a way that made it believable to me that she was someone of that stature and intelligence and experience. I think there are some people commenting on her “looking like a supermodel” out of bad faith, but I think the point people were trying to get at is that her glamorization (if you see her that way) just adds to the disbelief of her character - she just felt out of place for the role she was supposed to be in. I went into the show completely blind, but I can totally see how hearing the critique of Auggie beforehand would seem like an exaggeration. Kind of like people hyping up a show or movie as like the best ever, and when you watch it, it just doesn’t live up to the expectations that had been built up. That being said, my biggest complaint of the show by far is that I found most of the characters annoying. I could not be bothered to care about most of their emotional drama which paled in comparison to the rest of the story in terms of holding interest. IMO, Auggie was the most egregious example of that. By the time we get to her emotional difficulty handling her moral dilemma, I felt like it was too late for the character to redeem herself as a believable, realistic person by that point so despite the gravity of the situation, it just felt like more melodrama from her character.

[@TheScholarabull]

And five episodes of bro with cancer just smoking pot and drinking while everyone tries to get him to confess to his crush when he’s said 50 times he doesn’t want to is diabolical. Could cut all that out and it would do nothing for the story. I thought it was fair he accepted his fate and I was super sad at first. But after the fifth episode of watching him smoke pot, drink, and have negative agency is just dribble

[@moonbeamsunshine]

@@TheScholarabull Right! I found the plot line of him accepting his fate and deciding to donate his mind fascinating, and his feelings for Jun given her role in the project made it more poignant. But I could’ve done without the back and forth with the “Tell her you love her” and “No I don’t want to! Promise me you’ll never tell her!”

[@taylorsublett5710]

I loved the 4th book! It's definitely worth checking out. A very thoughtful nerd put it together, someone who was obviously obsessed with the original trilogy

[@joeybrett3967]

As a book fan I just can’t stand the Netflix version rushing all the big moments in such a hurry and the characters recreation is so bad, as if any Chinese lady in the show must to have a sexual relationship with every guy that shares the same idea with them or even literally sit NEXT to them😅

[@joeybrett3967]

And also, it’s kinda funny to see changing All the Asian characters in the book to white or black people just to say “hey we made them cooler!” It’s surprising how people find this is ok, but if they made any black people white in any show, people will immediately go crazy and accusing the show creator being White Wash. It was like shouting: Yes, People don’t care Asian people at all.

[@RofoTheGyrm]

I like your overall point about what the writers were going for having all main characters be life long friends with each other. Ultimately I feel like it's an odd element to try to bring into a story that's about all of these different people from around the world drawing on human experiences to try to understand these greater concepts. I think back to the Trisolarans using historical scientists to relate their own problems, or the Aboriginal man in Australia in the 3rd book relating the experience of being colonized. I think that theme is kinda at odds with this whole "dynamic group of friends" they've all put together, and I hope it focuses more on splitting them all apart rather than having them share another AirBnB by the beach again lol.

[@johnk6757]

The book was very light on character development or character relationships. This is common in written scifi, but I kind of wonder if it was a cultural difference too? Book was great but had very distinctive vibes to me - it "felt" Chinese. They couldn't do a straight adaptation because it just wouldn't play well on screen or to western audiences. Too fragmented, not human enough. Having the scientists be friends was a way to add back in that human element but still have the plot basically intact

[@tristanx3508]

unfolding a proton into the size of a planet in order to etch microprocessor patterns onto it's surface requiring engineering feat and humongous amount of energy that can bankrupt the resources of that civilization that attempt it, hence can only create a handful. And energy force field is needed in order to protect the fragile 2-dimensional proton surface from high-energy particles from the surrounding environment. Folding back into it's original size after completion also required the same resources. Unfolding the proton without the original alien equipment near Earth is very dumb in the Netflix show

[@yttamhtims]

One of many dumb perplexing and inexplicable occurrences in this story

[@celine_2084]

about the "physics is broken" plot line, my take is that the in the book it is more philosophical. because the data are random, the cause-effect logical chain for human being to understand the world is broken. and that is the philosophical basis of physics and science.

[@genericallyentertaining]

Yeah, I understand this, but I would still argue that most physicists don't think about their work purely from a philosophical perspective. After all, physicists have been debating the implications of quantum mechanics for a hundred years, but we're no closer to a deep philosophical explanation for that theory. Not to say that philosophy of science isn't a huge and important topic, but there's a reason physicists say "Shut up and calculate," regarding quantum mechanics: at a certain point, you just have to accept the experimental results and work backwards from there, even if the results don't immediately appear to follow the law of cause and effect or contradict all your philosophical notions. And anyway, how could you conclusively prove that "the data are random?" From a physicist's perspective, there could very easily be factors influencing the experiments that you're not aware of - and indeed, there are, since the interference is caused by sophons - and it would then be your job to find these unknown factors. The law of cause and effect is something that can be reasoned out a priori, not something that can be disproven experimentally, and I think physicists in this case would hold true to it while spending however many years it takes to figure out what is causing the interference. Wow, this turned into a long comment. But anyway, those are just my thoughts.

[@tsukasa1608]

​@@genericallyentertaining Yeah, that is one thing I find ridiculous from the book and the Tencent series, tho it sounds scary, no physicist in real world would actually ended their life when they found out physics doesn't exist, it would excited them. Yang Dong was a special case. Perhaps those who killed themselves were driven into serious existential crisis by sophon similar to Wang Miao's case but we never know. In the Tencent series the other two scientists other than Yang Dong that shown off-ed themselves seems to portrayed as they have strong belief in current science almost religously. However the Tencent series did mentioned on how different scientist react to the crisis and how those who didn't ended up killing themselves were either ended up joining ETO or killed by ETO disguised as suicide or incident, we were shown in some scene that Shen Yufei and Pan Han taking orders to "get rid of" Wang Miao from ETO's higher up, so probably not all suicide case were actually suicide case. The Netflix series also brought up similar plot with a scientist found "drowned" himself in a bathtub and the murder of Jack. One thing I find kinda dumb in the Netflix series is why sophon only removing the killer from CCTV footage but not the whole killing intead? Or the scene when Tatiana lit a cigarate for Auggie but the CCTV footage only shown the cigarate lit up itself. Wouldn't it made more sense if they just altered the CCTV footage by removing everyone? It would left more mystery to the authority and Auggie would suffers more serious crisis because there's no evidence of her meeting Tatiana therefore she couldn't talks to anyone without her sounding like she's making things up.

[@coloboquito]

​​​@@genericallyentertainingtheoretical physicists do think about philosophy. At least the good ones should At the philosophical level at the foundation of all of the theoretical physics are invariants and simmetries. The basis of physics shouldn't depend on your location and time. If this doesn't hold you basically have no way to repeat the experiment so there's no way to check the results. This basically cripples science, because it's based on reproducibility of experiments

[@6Churches]

@@genericallyentertaining It would have been nice to see some of this show's incredible budget go to paying for real life popular physicists ... Michelle Thaller, Neil DT, Micchio and Brian Cox all arguing on the set of a talk show to underscore the colossal, global impact and catastrophe of this and the arguments that now erupt in the public sphere about the collapse of physics

[@squirrel_slapper]

I think it would be better if the explanation was that the sophons were directly flashing messages into the eyes of scientists to coerce them to commit suacede. Lil microscopic LowTierGod.

[@BattleCatsEnthusiast]

Is the 4th book actually bad? I just started the first so I'm wondering if I should buy the 4th.

[@tsukasa1608]

There's no 4th book, only a fanfic and an unofficial prequel called Ball Lightning(which referenced a lot in the OG Chinese version but completely removed in the English version).

[@kch9686]

So glad to find a reviewer that actually understands the subject matter

[@rue2838]

The imaginary girlfriend part in the book was really weird but something about it worked for me and I felt connected to it in a weird way. Im glad they cut it though, the plot point would not have worked in the show at all. Edit: I will defend Redemption of Time. It isnt perfect, and has plenty of issues, and some of the characterization seems a tad bit off, however it feels like a love letter to A Remembrance of Earths Past. One that got the attention of the original creator. I dont think of it as cannon though, but it does explore some interesting ideas.

[@kleko]

I read RoT in one or two sittings and the only thing I remember thinking was how it was just a long string of Cheng Xin stepping on the same rake named "don't let your womanly love steer your choices". I did however love the imaginary girlfriend plot in the second book. It was the one redeeming thing about Luo Ji.

[@rue2838]

@@kleko lmao the thing about RoT definitely feels accurate.

[@21kaduku]

19:40 - When I found out Benedict Wong would play Da Shi, I was pretty happy because he's who I imagined in that role when I was reading.

[@Dank_Engine]

I didn’t like it at all and I’m glad I read the books first. The series is just watered-down garbage. You lose most of the characters and details that make the story interesting

[@thecrappyidols]

The books are watered down garbage. Seriously, the fucking so called science in these book is like magic.

[@Dank_Engine]

@@marlanivanovich1828I’m not a racist person and I don’t have a racist worldview. So “DEI” does not mean the same thing to me. Bold of you to assume everyone thinks like you do. We don’t. Thank god

[@marlanivanovich1828]

@Dank_Engine At first, before calling someone a racist, wouldnt it be more helpful to ask at first what does it mean Dei for him? Considering there are multiple sides of this term. By Dei I mean giving exclusive rights to minority while actually all the people are equal, valuable whatever race, color, social place they are. If you don't agree with me feel free to argue. Maybe we are talking about eggs and apples. If so, I'd rather edit my comment then. Otherwise I see that calling someone a racist becoming a trend in these days in social media. It's not a joke. It's rather mentality problem.

[@Dank_Engine]

@ “DEI” is not a problem. It’s just a racist taking point. People entertain the idea because it suits their unconscious biases. But it is 100 % racist rhetoric. You may not be explicitly racist. You may simply be exploring some biases you aren’t fully conscious of. It’s none of my business. And it’s not my problem. Good luck 🍀

[@marlanivanovich1828]

@@Dank_Engine So that this doesn't turn into empty demagoguery, I'll ask this question: are we familiar with The Shawshank Redemption and Anne Boleyn (2021)? Have you read Andrzej Sapkowski's novels in the Witcher cycle and watched the Netflix series of the same name and the earlier series of the same name from a Polish studio? Have you seen the TV series Everybody Hates Chris? Have you seen the film Pulp Fiction? If so, it will be easier. In my opinion (nobody forces you to agree with it): films like Escape from Shawshank, Everybody Hates Chris, Pulp Fiction, Polish series The Witcher are really cool, perhaps many people will agree with me here. If you want, you can break down the nuances in detail, but the bottom line is that the pictures are interesting, engaging, exciting, immerse you in the atmosphere with the head, everything looks in its place. And I am aware that the literary Red was a middle-aged white Irishman I can NOT say that about the series The Witcher from Netflix, as well as the film Anne Bollain 2021, they are worse than the first on the production, they do not just deviate from the book's original basis (as they say: if you want to remake, remake, but make it better than it was originally), they change the races of historically existing figures to those that do not fit into the setting, the pale-skinned and gaunt vampire (who plays a key role in the denouement of the events of the novels, the image of which is already perfectly conveyed in the game trilogy from cDPR) turns into a dark-skinned and with a decent belly Laurence Fishburne (an outstanding actor, undoubtedly). Dark-skinned actors are now in the place of dryads and elves: the presence of dark-skinned characters in medieval fantasy, well enough described, takes out of the atmosphere completely, because originally Sapkowski set the task to depict the likeness of medieval Europe, and the racism of those years was a problem, not at all the level of the current verbal altercations: such a striking difference in skin colour with 99.9% would entail constant clashes, you would be looked at as a stranger. That's unthinkable now, and thank heavens we've passed that line. But a medieval setting is a different matter: why turn the market of a notional Vyzima into New York? Why not emphasise the horror of racism in its purest form? Why rewrite history?

[@larllarfleton]

I don't think I really enjoyed the netflix adaptation at all. Making all the main characters from the books part of the same friend group in 21st century Britain is just stupid to me. Everything about the netflix show was just so flat. The cinematography, the lighting, the music, the writing. It just fucking sucked

[@genericallyentertaining]

The cinematography was definitely one of the weakest parts of the show for me; the lighting and compositional choices were rather uninspired, albeit typical for many shows these days. But the story itself was enjoyable enough that I didn't hate the show at all.

[@jeffbachman2949]

​​​@@genericallyentertainingI disagree I mostly liked the look of it I liked the look of the game and really liked the look of 1960s red coast base I also think the character writing was much better than the books the characters are so poorly written in the books imo and lack any human emotions

[@jeffbachman2949]

I disagree i really liked the show

[@Centauri902]

The red coast base scene is literally more acurate to the books in the netflix version. In the books, she instantly wants to go inside, and the officers have to tell her to slow down and think about it. And she refuses and still wants to instantly go inside. Its one of the few things that the netflix version does more acurately.

[@christopherrousseau1173]

I think they cut the fourth wall facer because Wade is essentially a wall facer already

[@tamagothchic]

Love the long form video! Ofc I dont expect every video on every channel to exceed 30 minutes but the little 2 and 5 minute ones just don't hold my interest. And as someone who just can't get into the 3 Body books, I appreciate being able to find solid reviews that do spoil things and acknowledge issues with both the original work and the adaptations

[@owenelliott5742]

The Minecraft version is goated

[@baahcusegamer4530]

Just finished the Netflix version. Never read the books and won’t bother tbh. The Netflix characters were universally unlikable for most the show. 2 characters took 6 episodes to be remotely relevant (probably an artifact of the series adaptation that the writers should have accounted for). And they needed a better science advisor if they wanted to avoid gaffs like calling the brain capsule the fastest ship ever when the Parker Solar Probe from 2018 beat it by more than twice the speed (though perhaps the episode was shot before 2023). It did have some entertaining moments at least and the fact that I finished the series with my ADHD is a compliment to the story (excuse it by reminding the audience this is an alternate universe to ours)?. The acting was overall excellent. And finally, can we talk about the elephant in the room: the fact that CCH Pounder hasn’t aged a day since I saw her in Lifepod? Not. A. Day. 😅

[@LydiosVidias]

I just finished the series and except for the scientist who jumped into the accelerator, I didn’t think any of the others were caused by despair over science. (And even then, I thought maybe she had a countdown.) It seemed more like they were going insane from the countdown/the countdown being the literal cause. Maybe even whatever they were shown after the countdown. If there were scientists that died unrelated to the countdowns, that detail was completely lost on me.

[@island_dancer]

In the books the scientist suicides remain a mystery, even after the revelation of Sophon. One plausible theory is some grew deranged from the visual hallucinations of Sophon. Others may have become despondent at the failure of their research (through Sophon's interference). Another plausible theory is some had suicide "happen to them" - that is, they were assassinated by ETO members and their deaths made to look like suicides. In the show, ETO is not named and its organisational structure has been greatly simplified. In the books, ETO is a deeply divided, deeply dysfunctional organisation. It has many smaller factions within itself like Frontiers of Science, which tries to recruit scientists like Wang Maio (roughly Jin/Auggie) to solve three body problems. These ETO splinter factions broadly fall into 3 opposing schools of thought - Adventism, Redemptionism and Survivalism. Frontiers of Science is a Redemptionist faction. They don't want the Trisolarans (San-ti) to invade earth but do want to co-operate with them by solving each other's problems. The Adventists think humanity is the author of its own demise and cannot help but destroy the natural world. The Adventists are opposed to the Redemptionists because if they succeed in their mission to solve the three body problem, they believe the Trisolarans wont need to invade earth and the natural world will die at our own hands. The book characters Pan Han and Mike Evans are Adventists. The Survivalists intend to sell everyone out to ensure their own survival in whatever new world emerges post human/trisolaran contact. They are thought of as cowards and everyone hates them. They all have conflicting goals and they all have extremist elements that sabotage, terrorize and murder each other. Shit gets crazy. In the show, ETO is depicted like a cult with singular vision and purpose. In the books, ETO is depicted as all of Ye Wenjie and Mike Evans's inner conflict and doubt made real. It shows how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That even the most enlightened thinkers are not above dogmatism and when they are given over to extremist thinking, the ends will justify the dirtiest means.

[@magnusbeacon]

As someone who read The redemption of time, the themes and concepts it dwells in are endlessly fascinating and on par with the original trilogy. However, its treatment of previous characters are arguably lackluster, but as someone mostly invested in the big ideas I remained hooked throughout the end.

[@Hurricayne92]

33:30 the self offing we see at the start of the show has nothing to do with the science but the San'Ti/Trisolarans are still involved.

[@counting1234]

i really loved the three body problem book series when i first stumbled on it in college. as a chinese american, i was particularly enamored by the many evocative references that a personal connection to the culture might hit harder with (such as the guzheng attack, referencing historical violence and modern societal problems). but looking back on it now, it feels like there were plenty of dramatic scenes, thrilling turnabouts, and novel ideas, but i do question the overall cohesion of the series and the message it was building up to. the characters did amazing things but always felt really thin to me (albeit memorable). i completely understand criticisms of the book as a soap opera; i do think it has literary value, but in a different way perhaps than people might think.

[@RobertPine89]

I just don’t know how they’re going to possibly put books 2 and 3 on screen….

[@TheScholarabull]

15:12 I have to firmly disagree. The most critiques I’ve seen is how she treats every other character in the show. It’s not believe that she would have ANY friends. She’s a decent person maybe twice throughout the entire show. Also, tf are microfibers that can cut anything supposed to be used for?💀 she really thought that such an idea would NEVER be used by the military? And she’s supposed to be a genius scientist?💀 the character is genuinely a terrible person. There are tons of unlikable characters that are well written. She’s not one of then. In part because I feel like the show writers try to convince you she’s a good person. And she has no character arc lmao. She remains the SAME exact person the entire show. A dick to her friends who doesn’t care about anyone but her self and goes out to use her science for others just to make herself feel good and make herself feel validated. She’s no different than a damn missionary, bumbling into a village and calling them all a bunch of idiots and how she knows better than all of them. She still thinks she’s better than everyone. She’s holier than though. And before you call me sexist, I agree that her reaction to killing children is accurate. And I really am not a fan of half the characters in this series. Saul is atrocious. He is not just a scientist who has given up on the world but a bumbling bafoon who nearly gets assassinated and then denied security or assistance. And I’m supposed to believe this guy is a genius? I don’t mind him not wanting all of that power and responsibility but dear lord he sounds like insufferable child who doesn’t want to mow the lawn because it’s too hot outside. Not a scientist who is troubled by the implications of having so much power and understands that the foe is just too damn powerful and advanced. Instead he’s like “ugh but mom I don’t wanna be a face walker, I wanna walk outside with no security after two cars tried to smash me into chunks of meat” There are characters who are unlikable and unsympathetic within this show that I love but are actually well written!! And most importantly fun to watch! Half the characters are simply not fun to watch and do not make decisions you would expect their character to make.

[@brunoqueiroz2759]

There is a scene where she uses her tech, nanofibers, to clean water on poor villages. i liked her character. and in the books the real use for nanofibers are the space elevators, so not necessarily something that kills humans, but does improve space exploration.

[@etienne6916]

I mean that wheel of time poster should have been a warning about the quality of the adaptation 😅

[@TheScottSlater]

I really enjoyed this review and it pretty much lines up with exactly how I felt about the show. I loved the books and was really excited about the Netflix series. As it started I found myself not enjoying it very much (and kind of surprised about how many plot lines were borrows from books 2 & 3). But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really did enjoy it.

[@fritzhanszirkel4185]

I really liked the Netflix show, I feel like a lot of the changes worked really well and I'm excited for season 2

[@JJWolford]

This doesn't have to do with anything, but I just want to say that when I first had heard of the title of the show, I thought that it was a murder mystery about finding three "odd" bodies.

[@oyindamolaoluwadiya180]

As someone who doesn't really like Sci-fi shows or books, generally because most of the science in them usually flies way over my head. Somehow I was able to finish this show with a moderate understanding of things that were going on and I still loved it.

[@kbucket]

I think what I didn't like about Auggie was just that she was so unrelatable, she felt the least like a real person and it stood out, especially when compared to Jin and Wenjie. Every scene her hair is perfect, her makeup is perfect, her clothing is perfect, and it personally just took me out of it considering everything they were going through. I think it's more of a personal gripe I have with a lot of portrayals of female characters in shows, and this just sort of tipped me over cause it was so unnecessary. She can still be beautiful but like damn, let a girl have a bad hair day or something like the rest of us :'0

[@jeffbachman2949]

I saw tons of female scientists praise the female characters especially Jin

[@Fronema1]

very nice video, you pointed things that i didnt realize. Just one sugestion just about the form. Sometimes your sentences are edited so close together that it almost sounds like they overlap. I am non native speaker, not sure if it is relevant. But it made listening to it slightly uncomfortabe in those moments.

[@Blaueswunder_]

a bit late to the party, but here are my 2 cents ^^ i am clearly leaning heavily towards the tencent version and the books. netflix did some things right, but not many. also i am pretty harsh in my criticism and kind of a book fan to the point i dont necessarily see that many "book flaws" as you described them as that bad or better portrayed in the netflix version. but i think theres one thing they did right: the soundtrack. you may call it boring, but some themes are sticking out for me, so much that i put the score of the netflix series over the tencent one (which may be more colorful and diverse, but also has many clearly ripped versions of other western media soundtracks, e.g. Interstellar). Origami boats is grim and melancholic and punches me in the gut every time its on, and the intro scene was the BEST for me. this track will clearly be my no1 track on spotify this year, and the intro is great as well. netflix just did a huge crime by cutting the intro out of 7 of the 8 episodes. I love it to death, and this may be over the top, but a company that doesn't even take the time to leave in an 80 second intro into an aleeady insanely cut-down show, shouldn't be allowed to tell a story this grand.

[@Yesica1993]

Darnit, I STILL have to read these books!

[@oonmm]

No bro, there are already a TV series. Why waste time doing something so primitive as reading a book when there's a film/TV series already based on it? A book will just be the first draft of any story, film makers can develop and fully realize a story when adapting it. Also remember that any book worth reading will be adapted for the screen, so the smart thing to do is just to wait till that happens instead of potentially reading a bad book. I'm not saying that every single film based on a book will be good though, as sometimes a film maker will choose to adapt a bad book without being able to fix the story - this is what happened to The Hobbit film trilogy for example.

[@Yesica1993]

@@oonmm Good grief, I hope this is some sort of joke/parody. There are both poorly done books and poorly done movies. They are two separate things. But reading is not "primitive." It's the foundation of a society. It's not "the first draft" and then the story is the real thing or the finished thing. Unbelievable.

[@mykal4779]

​@@oonmm lol quality b8

[@tremarley9648]

It’s one of the greatest book series I’ve ever come across

[@Yesica1993]

@@tremarley9648 So everyone says! I hate that I'm missing out. I'm just buried in books at the moment.

[@MissFazzington]

Amazing video 🙏 Now let's watch it

[@jammminjase]

I have dug through the bottom of the barrel inside kindle unlimited hard science fi!!! Lol. During times on said couch with other nutcases from the phsych wards, I could read up to 600 wpm, track conversations, tell guy who wants mental piracy, while I still keep track of time. Therapist turns me on to 3 body. First two books paid for kindle unlimited. Last book, hard cover he loans me. He sits across the living room watching my eyes to understand how fast wpm I can get up to. In bed, reading alone, my stress levels increased when they were cooking fish on a boat swirling down a maelstrom of water.

[@d_ruggs]

I loved the book, its not perfect and I expected changes, but the choices they made I just wasn't a big fan of. Splitting the main character of the first book into so many new characters wasn't my favorite, and these new character's in the show and their decisions come across a lot dumber than they did in the book. It also seemed their focus on personal relationships caused it to lose the weight of the original story. The show does that tired cliche where no one will talk to each other, and then the bad guys OVER SHARE. That was poor. But, I enjoyed their attempt at tackling these very complex concepts, that were probably hell to figure out how to convey on screen. NGL, When I saw D&D on it, I really wanted to hate it, I'm still upset about Season 8 lol, but tbf, this show has great moments. But, it also has a lot of cliche shit moments that felt like S8 writing all over again. It was very back and forth for me, much more so than anything in GoT, in terms of writing quality. I can't say its "bad", I did enjoy this adaptation and the themes of unity & strength together, which the books definitely have pieces of but the show makes it a substantially bigger piece, and it worked well at times. But, it also had a lot of moments where I was rolling my eyes.. "I wish someone could love me that much someday", "maybe they already do".. smh. I think I also prefer the tencent one, as it just gets closer to the ideas at the core of the book.

[@ccmzadv4879]

Yes, it sucked. The "writers" were more worried about expressing girl-power and diversity than honoring the story and viewers. It was pandering that got in the way of an already complex story. Not to mention they injected all kinds of vulgarity that just did not belong. I had to grind my teeth through the first two episodes, and could barely make it past the third.

[@yootoobvyooer]

China still has dowry for women. Written under that culture, I can't see any misogyny. Rather, it's revolutionary in equality.

[@Kefuddle]

The series is full of bizarre and irrational story threads that really make absolutely no sense at all. Well made, well acted, well produced, very entertaining, but very very silly.

[@rouxenophobe]

This what I thought when I was reading the books, but every single thread is eventually drawn together and explained.

[@TRYCLOPS1]

Yes. It sucked. Can’t wait for season 2 of the Chinese version 🤷‍♂️

[@BohemianRaichu]

I can't imagine Shi being whimsical and the show keeping the neccessary tone.

[@riley8939]

The mental seal is The important catalyst for the government to awaken Baihai/Raj and give him command of a ship. But it can honestly just be introduced by a random scientist and then debated for the same effect while saving time. However, I am going to miss Bill's wall breaker reveal.

[@yrrep27]

Ah, perfect. Now I can stop thinking about maybe watching this show.

[@Sondergirl1610]

The flickering in the show was also the countdown in morse code right? It serves the same purpose and it's simpler

[@tright6]

Honestly I liked it at the start but the ending kind of felt drawn out and kind of dissapointing

[@TheChronozoan]

I think this is going to be one of the shows that is excellent once it has all of its parts. This book series really needs each of its parts to function as a whole, and I don't mean that as a bad thing by any means. It is a very measured and well structured literary pie.

[@lukefindlay6845]

I think with Ye's character in the netflix adaptation may have been them not wanting to be seen sucking up to China as many films and shows have done to death. I thought they had done the best to keep to the original but keep it fresh and digestible for english audiences.

[@zibberebbiz]

I really like the Chinese adaptation even though it's like a fucking telenovela with all the melodrama

[@davidrossi5096]

I absolutely loved this show and rewatched it probably 5 times

[@PinkPenguinMovie]

Auggie is irredeemable. She walked into her company's cleanroom without gowning.

[@eeavwinex7869]

As someone that never got around to reading TBP but watched the show, the Santi invasion didn't really seem like an invasion, it seemed like a refugee voyage... After watching your video, I really wish they translated the consequences of what the Santi would do BEFORE they decided that all of humanity were bugs

[@kylesplace]

I had never heard of these books and hadnt even heard of the Netflix show until joe rogan meantioned it. I thought it was great. And could grasp many of the concepts. I predicted what the plan was with the nanofiber in the canal but it was still super cool to see. Now after learning more about the other books it'll be interesting to see if the next seasons will be able to live up to expectations

[@vincencures]

NETFLIX´s 3body was a very well made fan fiction of the original. I was really sceptical, but pleasantly surprised in the end.

[@Maers_]

I actually liked Auggies character, i cant believe people were hating smh 🙄

[@sanra167]

I couldnt stop watching it, but I hated it. I mean some of the very basic ideas made no sense.

[@yttamhtims]

Agreed. Interesting concepts but it was all over the shop with no real plausibility for much of the story. Just plot points tenuously stitched together, that doesn’t make a lot of sense

[@Maz-h8f]

Hard to decide which show was more underwhelming Amazons Rings of Power or Netflix 3 body problem.

[@sharpsheep4148]

46:43 I am not sure where people got "positive" vibes from the books. For me, it felt like sci-fi horror. The author propped things up, just so that he could crash everything down again.

[@marlanivanovich1828]

30 episodes San Ti (2023) is great adaptation! And Netflix.... is Netflix as always ;) 3 excellent works to 999 gray ones. Nonetheless Three body (San Ti) and Dark are my favourite sci fi tvshows right now. They not only make you enjoy, they make you THINK, hypothesize, deduct and verify your ideas on an episode to episode basis. That is the best part of this kind of shows. In the end at least its a good introductory to big philosophic problems and motivation to study them deeper.

[@rouxenophobe]

Nice review, I've just finished the books and am now looking forward to seeing the TV adaptations. It was interesting to get an outline from your review, I'll try both! Of the books my reviews are: 1. Meh! 2. Very good. 3. Endlessly inventive and entertaining! I wanted more! You pointed out some of the interesting flaws, particularly of book 1 and the VR game. I always thought that this was somehow connected directly to Trisolaris, but here I am probably wrong, but without this, as you say, it doesn't make much sense. And I agree about Tianming, without them being better friends (as in the TV series) then his behavior is a bit odd! However, the relationship I have the most problem with is that of Cheng Xin with Sophon! I mean, she only tried repeatedly to kill everybody, the way of tea doesn't seem enough as an apology!

[@grantlauzon5237]

The 2 sequel books are especially un optimistic IMO. There are some small victories but in the grand scheme of things you need to be monstrous to be in the neighborhood.

[@6Churches]

D&D Utterly fudged the two most important pillars apparent in the Netflix show: 1 the dilemma of technological advancement between competing species, and 2 the alien psychology that is meant to plausibly not understand lying or fictional characters: 1_ Sophons could have destroyed the nano-fibers directly during their alpha test; there was no need at all for Augie to get phantom visions of numbers, have the sky blink for her, be visited by that ETO woman or any of it. Simply breaking her fibers would humiliate her and possibly end her career 2_ The San Ti must be credited with giving the ETO virtual reality tech - and the sword woman is a representation of a San Ti - so they absolutely 100% know what it is like to alter their appearance to mislead, entrap and manipulate (just like the Big Bad Wolf does to Red Riding Hood - the Sword Woman is to the VR players and Wade) So it ultimately works directly against the two main concepts that could have been very fascinating if not butchered and contradicted. You eventually get to this at 28:00 but don't you think this makes the San Ti MASTERFUL storytellers rather that utterly oblivious to fiction? You say the fictional/ disguised / representational little girl makes a lot of sense? It makes sense if you're telling a story YES, but it DOES NOT make sense if you're telling a story about an alien race that don't know what stories are.

[@6Churches]

Additionally - at 33:00 you remind me - that the technology that hides the woman from all the security cameras IS yet another obvious tell that the San Ti know how to deceive, lie, manipulate etc. Concealment is a form of lying and misrepresentation. "A person whose images are false" is an easy parallel to "a person whose words are false"

[@6Churches]

40:00 Is the Sophon causing the visual hallucination of the countdown numbers for Augie etc? That's what I thought was happening.. which makes it seem like it has many applications to kill, confuse people or cause psychosis

[@jeffbachman2949]

I disagree I think they did a great job

[@6Churches]

@@jeffbachman2949 Sure. But all I'm hearing from you is "liking" and liking is personal Plot consistency and the translation of a book to a series without the creation of crushing inconsistencies is no a matter of liking. I've talked about this on a few other videos and had feedback from people that have read the books and the Sophons cannot do in the book what they can do in the show - making the show more inconsistent. For instance, in the book the sophons can create visual hallucinations by moving about in people's eyes, but in the show the sophons can create full auditory, visual and kinesthetic hallucinations for Wade; which makes them far more powerful and far more able to instigate death (e.g. they could cause Wade's security detail to hallucinate that he is the enemy, he'd then be shot. game over. The VR tech, the security system hacking tech, the visual obstruction of Tatiana when she murders Rooney, the seemingly superhuman strength of Tatiana, the extremely high capacity data storage on the boat, the global hack of the internet, the hyper specific hack of even the visual display screen of the voice recorder - all credit the sophons with story-breaking capacities, and mean the San Ti shared tech with the ETC that never happened in the books. .... it therefore becomes extremely unsatisfying to watch because we've now seen the sophons do incredible things and then pull back.

[@cartho1103]

Wait, Auggie was supposed to be disliked? She was my favorite character

[@GayFrogsTho]

It's a Netflix adaptation, so you've got to go into it accepting that. It's a bit "Messagy", but the cast is good for what it is. I don't feel as though they caught the creeping horror essence of the book very well.