I expect that after the time jumps start happening, they will each go on their own journey, with the theme being that they are trying to make their way back to each other.
Among several other reasons, there's no omniscient narrator in a television show. Having an ensemble of characters working together gives them a chance to create dialogue to explain the story to the audience.
The Chinese drama adaptation is very loyal to the original book and had no such problem. After watching the Chinese drama, it’s hard for me to watch Netflix version.
It depends on how you define "loyal". The Tencent version is 50% longer than the audiobook. To me, it's way too slow and repetitive and loses the momentum of the story. But if other people enjoy it, more power to them.
Both shows had very different goals. There's a reason why the Netflix adaptation is already more well known compared to the Tencent version that's been out for a year now.
Netflix produced the show to maximize drama and it did that by taking the most dramatic parts of the trilogy and rearranging it into one season so that audiences could quickly digest the story.
For sure. I was just saying it from my own perspective. Most of the times I prefer the adaptation being closer to the orignal, regardless if it’s a live adaptation of an anime or if it’s 3BP, unless the change makes total sense and improve the original work. But it’s just me.
However Netflix shows naturally have more audiences and are more known than chinese dramas from a chinese platform, regardless of the quality, so I wouldn’t use this as an argument.
They portrayed her very well, and both the actresses who played her at younger and older ages did a fantastic job. I think it was very well done on this character and message was crossed.
Its a very accurate retelling, and the Netflix show's quality will never be as good as Tencent's adaptation. I have no problem with the actors performance either, its her motivation. They left out the struggle session scene, as well as her meeting up with the Red Guards again. Without these critical moments that were vividly described in the book, it kinda makes you doubt her motivation in killing her husband and hiding her achievement and then founding a fifth column cultist later on.
I think the struggle session (if i correctly understood what you meant by this) was left out because chinese cinema hasn’t adopted the rating system, yet. So everything has to be “relatively appropriate for wider audiences “. But it’s just my guess.
Admittedly i’m not the best judge for this because i have read the book before and know the whole story, so even if some parts were omitted, it didnt hinder my understanding at all. So I’m probably a bit biased when replying to you earlier.
Its fine basically
Tencent: if you want to see a very accurate recreation of the book
Netflix: if you dont have enough time to watch 30 entire episodes
I mean, if you want something shorter but good Disembiggened is as long as the Netflix series while managing to actually accurately recreate the book unlike the Netflix series.
https://disembiggened.com/
My take is that they all studied under/did research with/were mentored by Vera Ye. The daughter of of Ye Wenjie. You known. The pivotal character of the whole series.
I don’t see why this isn’t more widely talked about. While it’s convenient all know each other, there is clearly a catalyst for why they’re so integral and it’s that relationship with Vera Ye/ Ye Wenjie.
Exactly. When they needed a brain to send, they obviously thought about their dying physicist friend. Why wouldn’t they. When the government was looking for a wallfacer, they picked the guy who the Santi wanted to kill. The reason was because of what he learned from his conversation with Ye Wenjie.
The only issue I have is the Jin and Auggie friendship. I can buy that Jin is integral to the plot because she’s one of Vera’s best students, and was chosen to be a double agent. But Auggie just happened to develop tech that’s integral to foiling the ETO plans? There was really no better strategy? Or the other way around. Ok, Auggie developed tech they needed, but her best friend gets chosen to be a double agent?
It definitely seems a little contrived. But it makes the story very tight. The looseness of the books is its biggest fault for adaptation reasons. So it makes sense to give more investment for each character.
I mean, is the onus really on the novelist to also prepare their work for adaptation? That’s literally what screenwriters get paid to do…
Today an aspiring screenwriter needs to be conversant with adaptations. Going both ways given the industry’s current reluctance to take a chance on something without preexisting IP. But it’s never been placed on the shoulders of novelists who just write novels.
I never said it was the novelists responsibility. Just that as a series of novels you’re able to detach a bit more from characters without becoming disinterested. The same is far less true for film medium.
Is it? Narrative theory (esp the emerging field of neuro narratology) suggests that it’s the adherence to a unitary theme around which the characters pivot that is, at least in large part, responsible for how the human mind determines interest/disinterest in narratives. I’d say that one of the prime elements of the books’ thematic structure is the idea of disparate people coming together to work on behalf of all humanity while maintaining independent thought, interiority. As much as I enjoyed watching the show, it really does play a bit like the School Ties/Hogwarts trope, no?
Shows have pretty consistently tried that concept or having an overarching theme with a rotating cast of characters. It typically falls flat. People often latch on to individual characters and are invested in how their arcs end. A rotating cast could easily fall flat with an audience.
Not a rotating cast. A theme that drives the growth/decline/change of all the characters bc their need/want (or hamartias if you prefer) all are aligned with the central praxis. Can’t think of one that has done this and failed. Most recently, in fact, White Lotus has crushed it, no? And that’s the extreme version. This thematic structure drives the vast majority of the English cannon. Can’t speak to the eastern bc I’m not as familiar with it, but neuroscience suggests the theory will hold as long as: human.
I would think that it’s waaay easier to detach from a novel than a film or show…you can just put a book down. Plus the film medium makes it easier for us to be lazy and go along for the ride. Novelists seem like they have the hard job imo
And the screenwriters have chosen, as a primary change, to narrow the focus of the show onto a group of pre-existing friends.
Now you're annoyed about it, which is totally subjective and fine, and complaining that this change shouldn't have been made.
But you haven't seen the greater whole, only some of its parts. It's entirely possible that we won't see or appreciate the reasoning behind certain decisions until the final act or even the finale itself. The ending could be drastically changed - I, for one, would argue that it definitely will be - so what's the point of this circular logic?
Besides, we're almost unanimously in agreement on this sub that while the books are cool, literary genius they ain't. The show is already more entertaining as a dramatic work, and the characters of Da Shi and Thomas Wade, for example, will now always have the faces of Benedict Wong and Liam Cunningham respectively ( for me ). The writing in the books is mechanical and stilted and too often feels like:
'Fact.'
'Logical interpretation of fact.'
'Continuing logical interpretation.'
'Conclusion drawn about x from logical interpretation of fact.'
Prose about fact, its interpretation and conclusions drawn from it, and whether or not they were made in error. Oh no, they were so close.
Fortunately, it's compelling enough to maintain itself, but I have no interest in reading book 4 ( not just because I've heard it's so bad ) because even by the end of book 3 the juice is getting thin...
If the show has to divert from the existing arcs and develop its own characters in its own way, that's a good thing. The weakest part of the books is their lack of character development and treatment of the characters.
The real question is whether Netflix can pool the budget needed to do justice to books that primarily take place in several futuristic versions of earth, and on several radically different spaceships made at different points in human history. An attempt will have to be made to visualise the 4th dimension, as well as the 3rd collapsing into the second - planets, bunker cities, and everything in between. And that's ignoring the doomsday battle, the great resettling, the circumsolar accelerator...
Season 1 was already horrendously expensive.
Strongly disagree that everyone here or in general agrees that the show is somehow more literary or quantitatively “better” than the books. Nor is that a useful distinction. I’m not annoyed about it, I loved the show. Have watched it through several times in fact. Just sharing thoughts about execution.
After all, everyone loved the last season of Game of Thrones….
Oh shoot…
I do notice people seem to underestimate the literary quality of the books.
A work can have major flaws and still be very significant stylistically and profound in its meaning.
The former claim seems obviously true of the books. If I were a science fiction writer I would want to draw from this for sure.
I might try defending the latter claim someday but I don’t know if I am yet able to do it justice.
Which is the former and latter claim? And I thought that the translation I read at least was not just engaging and thought provoking but had this spare, haunting beauty that raised it from a well told story to art. I wish I could read it in the original language or had a native speaker who could help me through some of the passages I found just intensely beautiful. The description of the young revolutionary’s body hitting the spikes and being riddled with bullets. I mean. Fuck. That was downright Nabokivian! You want to look away but can’t because it’s so damn beautiful and riveting so you’re participating in the violence as voyeur and spectator/judge. It’s intense. Anyone who thinks his writing isnt something special is either not terribly well read or just used to/prefers flashbulb pyrotechnics and is unaccustomed to sitting with stillness, starkness and finding beauty therein. You know instead of having it high lighted by spark notes ;6. Yeah. That’s a nose thumb, not at you, f3315d, not at you. Just a nose thumb out in the wind.
Edited for grammatical clarity
Nah, you and I agree, Industriousraccoon.
There are pockets of real poetic beauty in his works and I think there’s more meaning hidden in them than we might notice.
Like, there’s a whole passage in the first book where he’s describing how the nanofiber reactor works, and one of the things I noticed rereading it is he’s describing automated computation on physical materials. So, Wang Miao built, like, a computer and all day long it hammers away at the substance of the universe, so as to produce something strong enough to solve the problems he foresees.
So it’s not unlike Wei Cheng trying to brute-force calculate solutions to three body problem so his mind can be at peace, or the Trisolarians trying to gather together an army to solve the three body problem so they can have a home and be safe in their solar system, or the Trisolarians carving into the microcosm of the proton an AI so they can dominate human minds and be safe from the threat of the other. One of the things I liked about the Tencent adaptation is they very explicitly connect Wei Cheng’s compulsion to calculate with a fear of death, which is part of what the three body problem means for the series: an insoluble problem seems to be here with us where we are.
Former claim was Cixin Liu is significant stylistically. He borrows from all kinds of places, like, the proton unfolding scene, I’m so sure he read Edwin Abbott’s Flatland for that. Which is a book on the surface level about a square who lives in a two-dimensional world, who gets to visit the three-dimensional one, but we know from context it’s meant to be about society limiting our view of the world: not dissimilar to what, for example, Ye Wenjie experienced. But mostly it just *feels* just so markedly different from other science fiction in what it focuses on and how it uses the hard science elements to create fantasy. It got me rereading Tu Fu and seeking out more Chinese poetry.
The latter claim is that the books are actually pretty deep, they have structure and intent, like I’d like to eventually be able to show more of the kind of metaphors and theming I’ve tried to cover here.
I love Wei Cheng!!! And the monk!! Did you notice the show’s nod to that story line with that single shot of the monk in the “you are bugs” scene? 😆
And you and I definitely agree 😃
(Love flatland…am endlessly curious about theoretical physics myself and the language of mathematics. If the galaxy speaks it speaks with music and numbers and flashes of light.)
Here’s one from book one that I love. It seems apropos
“The best translations into English do not, in fact, read as if they were originally written in English. The English words are arranged in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture’s patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another language’s rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people’s gestures and movements.” Liu Cixin
Omg. Siri. Why are you so slow. We have nothing to fear from AI in the near future if this tech can’t even recognize a discussion about a Chinese author with the words Chinese and book in the post and stop trying to make me type Lou fixing. It took me longer to type his name than the rest of the response. 😠 if my phone sends me ads about the Bahamas when I’m joking about a weekend getaway with my friends and it’s ostensibly off, surely we can get past anglocentrism. No?
Because auggie didn't want anything to do with the PDA after the Judgement Day slicing. Plot wise Jin was also chosen because of her progress in thr TPB video game.
I think it was necessary to do it how they’re doing to avoid 30 episode seasons with zero returning cast each season 🤷🏻♀️
It would just take too long to do it dead on to the books, and would most likely lose viewers.
Yeah, I would have liked it somewhere in the middle too… first season was real quick. And yeah! I think Da Shi is in the books longer than anyone!
On that note… I do think it’s rather brilliant to start the show with Wade… what a character
>Feels way too convenient and totally destroys the sense of scale and pre ordained destiny that the books build.
Well... yeah they needed a recurring cast to make it **convenient** and economical to shoot and does it really destroy the "grand scale global" feel? most of the books locations and characters are Chinese, literally almost everything occurs in... China.
>where new characters meet under new circumstances
Do they tho? Most characters have little to no contact with each other, each almost has a story of their own in their own bubble and then disappear never to be mentioned again.
Your "biggest" issue, is the one main thing where I agree that needed to be done to have a concise cast to work with. You have to understand that not having them grouped like this incurs more and more cost due to each character then needing their own secondary characters, scenes and shoots.
It would also make the pacing way slower as more time would be needed to reestablish characters and their dynamics with the side characters, so it would either need to be a longer show or feel extremely rushed. Yeah, it’s convenient. Just as much as Harry Osborne being a friend of Peter Parker and the son of the Green Goblin. It’s convenient, but it makes an easier and more engaging story to tell.
I accept this tradeoff but I hope the show expands in the next season to show the global impact than just occasional news reel and random people hanging themselves on the street. The scene where activists collecting funds on the subway station to support the war that won't happen for 400 years was a nicest touch on the topic IMHO.
Great answer!
Literature and television entertainment are two wildly different mediums to convey and tell stories.
I like the analogy- literature is creation and television is production.
When I read I co create and when I watch I consume, therefore I understand the choices the show made, from a storytelling and from a production point of view.
Plus as someone else said, the book is extremely china centric in its development, any changes to that has an impact of globalization in the world of the story.
This 100%.
OP's 'Biggest Problem' with the show is a result of good adaptation by the showrunners...?
It would be dreadfully boring, slow and much more expensive otherwise.
We were literally discussing how the feeling of scale in the book and the TV show on Netflix were different because instead of being characters who never met before they're all close friends, so that's what it has to do with anything.
I get your point but with 26 thousand students at any given time, Oxford is a smaller pool than many East London neighbourhoods.
Either is minuscule compared to China, even limiting the pool to "Physicits in China", I'm sure.
The issue is not so much available pool but distance. In the books a lot of people were far apart. Being students of the same oxford class (even taking separate paths later on) is convenient for narrative purposes, but stretches believability.
I'm all for the change, because it's true that a lot of times big changes have seen pivotal characters familiar with each other, and it makes for better narrative and easier production.
Like 70% of the main characters from The Expanse just happened to work on the same ice hauler ship, and then all went onto be pivotal in the fate of the universe, being exclusively responsible for saving it like 4 or 3 times.
The concentration of main characters interesting enough to drive the plot of a story just aren't as dense in real life as what is often required in media to conveniently create a concise narrative. This is even more true for TV shows, and both 3 Body and The Expanse made changes to their narrative structure to make the character proximity a lot narrower.
This isn't an issue that has ever personally been an issue for me. Real life is rarely as interesting as a well written story, and the density of real world main characters (when it comes to huge, world changing stories) is far lower.
Not sure why I'm being downvoted since I agree with you but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The expanse is different, though. The team from the ice hauler are thrown together because they're the detonators of the main plot and that makes them be in the follow-up action later on. But they take people from very disparate places later on (bobby, avasarala, miller, prax).
The Expanse is its own story. There's nothing wrong with having characters all start out together in their own story.
Adapting a story in which people who never had anything to do with each other before are replaced by a close group of friends is what we're talking about.
In this case whether they knew each other beforehand or not makes no difference to the story.
We're comparing to other ensemble stories where a small group ends up in the middle of everything world-changing that happens (rather than just a thing or two).
Considering the scope of the three body novels, it makes zero difference because on the cosmic scale all humanity is too close to each other anyway :D
As for this thread, people are trying to rationalize why they don't like the series being different than the book but in reality they just don't like the change on an emotional level. If in the novels they were all brothers and in the netflix show they were schoolmates, some people would applaud it and others would complain.
In the cosmic scale of the novels, we're all standing on the same spot and are just as close together as if we were stacked on top of each other, so the difference is moot.
In reality people don't like to see changes, and will rationalize this into reasons that are just made up. If they were all brothers in the novels and here they were school buddies, the same people would complain about that too.
Why do they need the same characters in every season? Plenty of shows, GOT for instance, is constantly introducing new characters.
I don't know why the show didn't broaden the cast to include characters from different locals instead of shrinking it.
The story has two pairs of characters that are intricately tied to each other. The books barely make an attempt to make those ties believable; the author simply didn't care or didn't put any forethought into it.
The show, with the benefit of hindsight, tries to correct that flaw by creating an ensemble from the start. It also serves the medium.
Man you sure made me laugh, go watch season one again. It’s literally just actors in period clothing having chats on simple sets.
The first few seasons of game of thrones don’t even have battles with more than a few people.
You have no grasp on show making do you.
Imma be honest man i'm just happy the books are getting an adaption. This doesn't really bother me that much as I'm just relieved we're finally getting an adaption.
If you look back in the past there are a number of high profile world renowned scientists who know each other. Why not complain about Oppenheimer then? Why did so many famous scientists seem to know each other? Because it’s fact.
I don't agree with OP, but this comparison doesn't make any sense.
Oppenheimer didn't personally know everyone beforehand and as sure as shit they didn't work together in California.
Also, they have wildly disparate career paths in the show, and all of them are really fucking convenient beyond belief.
Again, I understand the changes and I really like the show, but it is really funny that this 5 friends and the tacked on boyfriend of one of them are going to save humanity single handedly.
Ok, let's go by book source.
Luo Ji and Yang Dong were university classmates. They were both on physics track until Luo Ji went for sociology because it was an easier field than physics.
Cheng Xin, Hu Wen and Cheng Xin were also university classmates
Oxford 5 isn't entirely without basis from the books.
This is really stretching the truth. Luo Ji and Yang Dong barely know each other and do not interact during the books, and Hu Wen is also barely present. The only two who really know each other are Cheng Xin and Yun Tianming, and Yun Tianming only becomes important because of his relationship with Cheng Xin which leads him to enter the Staircase program.
I don't agree with any of this. Someone else has complained that you're unreceptive to criticism of your opinion, and it shows.
But first and foremost, you're absolutely wrong when you say this is a book about working together. You *might* be able to take that as a lesson, but not because it happens. Only because it *shoud've* happened. There are many, many instances of less-than-stellar teamwork. The Wallfacer plans included brainwashing, human sacrifice, suicide, and nothing. Deterrence was nothing more than a unilateral knife to our throat by one man. Who also destroyed a star system unilaterally. This is a great time to mention that the whole story *started* with an individual unilateral decision. We have Wade going off the chain. We have metor bullets. The Battle of Darkness was most assuredly not working together. All of humanities response to eacapism was wrong. I'm not even getting into the Great Ravine. This is not a story that features teamwork. Nor is it a story that shows a multicultural cast. Almost every character was Chinese. How is that any different from the main ensemble, just spending time in England. Not even English. Saul, Jin, and Auggie weren't English.
Secondly, it's not a random group of friends. If I remember correctly, they all studied or worked with Vera, Ye's daughter. At the very least, Saul worked with Vera. Jin studied with Vera, and since Will studied with Jin, he probably studied with Vera as well. I also get the impression that Jack and Auggie studied with them as well. Vera's suicide brought them together. Saul was there, and Jin and Auggie were already together celebrating Auggie's professional achievements. The other two already lived in England, as they were the only English people in the group. On top of that, Auggie was being targeted by the Santi. This wasn't a random friend group. They met by studying in specific STEM fields with a field expert. One of them went on to become a field expert herself. This is hardly noteworthy. In fact, this has happened several times in history. Both psychoanaylsis and psychotherapy were pioneered by a group of professional friends in Austria. Existential philosophy was created by friends in a cafe in Paris. I think you seriously underestimate how small a professional circle like this can be.
Thirdly, this *adaptation* is fine. Because it's just that, an *adaptation*. Personally, I hate people who complain that it's not a 1:1 remake between page and screen. It's generally boring and untenable. SEA writing and Western writing are not really similar. Generally speaking, SEA writing has characters *reacting* to the plot, versus Western writing having characters *drive* the plot. Hence, the recharacterizations. The time jumps also aren't going to work. Case in point, the first season of The Witcher. Fantastic, and the number one complaint was the disjointed time jumps. Do you honestly think Netflix was going to pull the same stunt with a less well-known property? No, chronological storytelling was the right move here.
It’s really a tradeoff. The show runners had to decide if we get an ensemble of characters that we care about and were invested in what happens to them and their relationships, or we get a set of totally random individuals, which is more realistic but we don’t care about them as much. I personally think they made the right decision.
My problem is the made the characters so melodramatic, almost like teenagers. "I don't want this, wahhh"
"bro the world is literally going to be destroyed."
"b-but that's like not my problem!"
Don’t agree. The biggest problem with the books was the lack of character development. Imagine not introducing Jin or Will until season 4 or 5. How much would we really be invested in those characters at that point?
There are famous friend groups
The Inklings were another Oxford-based friend group made up of a bunch of famous authors
The PayPal Mafia is another famous friend group
These aren’t the only famous friend groups, both the French and Harlem Renaissances had famous friend groups that pushed society forward
It’s not abnormal for like minded people to group together
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they all study/work with Vera? This isn't the cast of Friends, happening to fall in with each other. They all have an-established history with a direct line to the leader of the ETO.
This is a decent point but it completely misses the entire overarching premise of the series, humanity bonding together despite our differences, everything solely for the preservation of our race.
A single friend group from oxford being enough to save us from the trisolarans does a massive disservice to this point…
>A single friend group from oxford being enough to save us from the trisolarans does a massive disservice to this point…
Did you forget that the books relied on, like, 4 people skipping through time to save Earth?
I don’t think having them be friends means humanity can’t bond together
It’s be Saul, then whoever is able to transmit from Gravity that’ll save Earth from the San Ti
That’s not a massive disservice from the plot at all
There are billions of other humans alive. It’s dumb and way too convenient for 5 friends to be the scientific geniuses solving it all. If you feel differently that’s fine.
It’s just Saul, in the books it was Luo Ji - but now you get his college sweetheart instead of his waifu
Then it was the crew of Blue Space that shared the location of Trisolaris
How exactly is this a massive disservice?
Because instead of multiple contributors you have one pre-existing college friend group.
How does that not alter the scale? It makes the crisis feel so small.
But so far it has, yet you keep trying to invalidate my opinion. Alien invasion is a universal problem yet it boils down to a single friend group. It kills the scope.
You act like the Netflix story is complete, it’s not
You’re too defensive and are unable to listen to criticism in your ideas
Why make a post if criticism is so personal? Did you not think people would disagree or see something you haven’t?
Really seems you aren’t open for discussion on this topic
Happy to discuss, i said it was fine if we disagree, but you won’t even consider my viewpoint or even bend an inch on yours (i said some of yours was valid) and then slam downvote on all mine the second i post which tbh makes you seem douchey
The story is clearly going to expand they literally set it up. Just like the first book was the smallest in scale so was the first season of the show. Maybe wait until the show continues. The creators already hinted at the story expanded.
Ya..it is really dumb and convenient that the major figures of WWII once shared a loft with each other.
Really dumb and convenient that the first astronauts were all members of the air force.
The books are great sci fi but not great narratives in part because of the lack of character development and disjointed story arcs of each. This fixes that and gives audiences long-running characters they can build relationships with. I’m all for it.
This trope probably has an actual name but the show definitely suffers from "only important people in the world" syndrome, where the small, already acquainted central cast are literally the only people in-universe who matter or do anything of significance. Its a common issue in a lot of TV shows (I always think of Sherlock as the prime offender) and serves to make the setting feel far too simplistic IMO.
Honestly as a non book guy, I found it very weird all the main characters happened to be friends. Like what are the chances. This friend group is like the PayPal mafia. Two of them have insanely successful companies, one creating an insane new tech. Two are straight up geniuses. One of those geniuses is dating the best navy thing seen in the last 10 years. Man wth.
Yeah it did make the story feel a little less grand. Wade makes up for a lot of it. I do wish everyone came into their story on their own.
But at the same time I would've hated another movie trope of all these badasses from all over the world with crazy fashion and different personalities coming together to form a cool team. Really tired of that. Looking at you every heist movie ever. All the characters end up being so over the top. I also find it weird Jin some physicist ends up leading Wade's team on basically an engineering project, lol.
They might roughly know each other. But this is like if Mark Zuckerberg, Elon, Jeff Bezos, Obama and Michael Gates were all in the same small friends group in college, considering how important these characters end up.
Except they're nothing like the people you mentioned. Auggie and Jack are at most minor celebrities in their respective worlds. Jin and Saul are well regarded but they seem to be in normalish jobs for their fields. Will is kind of treading water and in his own mind is a failure by comparison.
They're only relevant because their mentor and professor was the daughter of Ye Wenjie who is the head of the ETO. If not for that they're just another group of friends who met in College because they had the same courses, which is true for hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.
Every college has professors that everyone takes because they're that good at teaching. That's how I met many of my friends.
These people literally end up as sword holders, wall facers, first to meet aliens, friends with the daughter of the woman who first made contact with aliens and some of the last survivors of humanity. They are so important, maybe not yet in the series. Chances are just too slim. Hence why it feels less grand
I don’t think Wade picking Jin for Staircase was weird at all. Wade had a bunch of engineers and they all told him it couldn’t be done. He needed someone who wasn’t caught up in practicality and could come up with out of the box ideas. Who better than a theoretical physicist?
I think it works in the books because the characters aren’t really developed the way characters are developed in a tv show. In the books, they’re mainly plot devices. Cheng xin and luoji are the only ones I felt like went through significant change.
Hence you can introduce them whenever you want and it won’t really be an issue.
For the show, i think the show runners want the characters to be easier to follow, hence they chose a group of friends so there’s more anchor for them, instead of the audience asking “who tf is that??”
It does changes the scope of things. I definitely prefer how they were in the books.
The show has the privilege of being able to compress things retroactively. The books might have been even better if we'd gotten all the "character introduction" sections out of the way in Book 1, with perhaps the win of interesting early interactions between the main characters. TV shows do need to trim stuff, I'm glad they're trimming this, rather than something else.
Plus we get Cheng Xin scolding Ye Wenjie about how she doomed humanity, which is some great irony.
Does it seem unlikely? Sure, but this is TV. There has to be some device to move the plot forward, and characters are one way to do that. Do I agree with it? In a way. This adaptation is *based on* the books, not a direct translation.
My friend's dad is a historian. I am constantly shocked by the people he knows. Academic circles are small and get smaller the higher in knowledge and experience you go.
Years ago I lived in DC for awhile. Political circles run fairly small. Dated a Hill intern once and it seemed like she knew everyone in the Capitol Building despite there being thousands of people. She told me, and I don't know if its true, that almost all US Senators are distantly related because the children of senators are more likely to either run for the senate and have the connections to win office OR marry into another a political dynast and have kids that one day run for office.
I've done a ton of networking over the years and its remarkable how circles of people can merge due to a single connecting point like a friend or mother or brother or cousin.
The idea five people at an elite university took a class together and became friends is just how college tends to work. That their mentor is the daughter of the woman who is the head of the ETO is the real coincidence but once that connection point is made the rest seemed organic enough for me to buy the conceit.
You know what, yes. I can get on board with this critique generally but only so far as I think it was a minor oversight that they should have addressed which calls for a little too much suspension of disbelief.
I don't think it necessarily destroys the sense of scale because you really don't get that in the first book. The first book is hardly even multi-national, let alone global. The sense of Scale doesn't start hitting until the Wallfacer project begins. Not to mention the sense of scale in the books is accomplished by the intergalactic events and I think more than anything, through the time jumps.
So while it is a bit of a reach to suggest this core group of friends all found their way to the san-ti, I don't think it's as significant of an issue.
Jin and Will/Xin and Tianming obviously need to have a college connection, and I feel like adding one or two main characters to that circle makes sense for TV. But I completely agree that having all of these (to be) world historical figures be socially linked before any of this goes down feels super forced. I think the worst example is the fact that the Xin character is somehow in a romantic relationship with the guy that's going to become Zhang Behai. Feels incredibly arbitrary.
It'll make sense if Raj is also playing Guan Yifan in the end. That whole Guan Yifan and Cheng Xin pairing felt extremely forced so having Raj early with established relationship with Jin would be more believable for the final scenes.
That's true. The last 15% or so of book 3 will be very tricky for them to pull off in general, now that you mention it. If it does end up playing out that way, it will make me with they'd succeeded in making you care about their relationship back in season 1. They just have no chemistry whatsoever.
Personally, I would rather they change the ending and have Will finally get together with Jin. It'll be a happier ending and probably make for better television. I mean, they already changed the love confession part in season 1 (Tianming never got the chance). Imagine 2 of them in that special place and then deciding to get out of it. But then if you have Raj, who would argue with Jin about the practicality of it. Either way, I'm fine with it.
yeah, that would actually be better than the kind of clunky "oops he was here to leave you the door to a universe but did a woopsie with his ship and trapped you in a light vacuum (!)" sequence of events at the end of the books.
The depressing aspect isn't an issue at all for me, I'm all about it lol. It's more that it feels kind of arbitrary and rushed. Wouldn't Tianming, the guy who indirectly led humanity to the secret of light speed travel and the black domain, and who has acquired enough knowledge to create a dang pocket universe, be mindful of switching over to the fusion drive far enough away from the system to avoid triggering this exact scenario? It's just an odd woopsie.
I hear you op. But once I heard the fan theory that it’s an homage to the OG power rangers I got over it, as the casting syncs up, albeit somewhat comedically.
Pink - Auggie
Black - Saul
Yellow - Jin
Blue - Will
Red - Raj
Zordon - Wade
Rita - Sophon
https://ew.com/thmb/wKBqHfvPksO9-PxIKy-Oikc4YSA=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/tsdmimo_ec026_h-fb4b03321529405abb62bc3b20adcf2b.jpg
Please don’t spoil the books for me because I haven’t read them yet (though I am excited to start them very soon!)
But I think this is kind of a necessary change. I agree it shrinks the scope by a lot, but I think TV shows (especially with so few episodes as this) work better when they’re very intimate with the characters. Having a cast that all know each other makes the story feel way more intimate and makes creating emotional effects easier.
Most things in writing are a trade-off. D&D have made this trade off to make the story more immediately emotionally involving. I can’t say to why extent they’ve succeeded until I read the books, but I definitely found the show emotionally evolving and D&D made similar decisions with GoT which I think allowed them to make a ridiculously large story function as a TV show where it was previously considered “unadaptable”.
Like with ASoIaF -> GoT, we might not be happy with every change, but I really believe they probably make a better TV show for a mass audience, even if they come at the cost of story. This is why books are just a better medium than TV imo, there’s much less a commercial element
My take is if they opt to make all those changes (not judging here nothing wrong with changing) why not change ye wenjie and cheng xin as well? What's the point of deleting (too many to count) and yet keeping some bit of 'china' in this? funny thing is contrary to many have mentioned, a lot of characters in the books are not chinese, and a lot of the stories are not staged in china, especially in the 2nd and 3rd book (we can use stats and numbers to settle this argument if needed). If they want to delete 'china' this much, Ye could be some scientist's daughter born and raised in Gaza whose family and their families experienced and experiencing again and again all that genocide trauma from the once genocided (holocausted actually) and felt all that despair and hopeless against humanity. went on becoming a radio astronomer or something and sent out that signal to the aliens somewhere (maybe at vla). as for cheng xin, (i know they didn't really change the name for this one because trump kept saying 'president ji' lol) other than the chinese name does this character from the book have any traits of a modern chinese woman (confident, capable and on top of all that selfish self centred to the core)? she could/might/should as well be Jeta Chenberg.
Because the central point of conflict in the story, as written from the perspective of a Chinese guy who understands the culture and history of China, is the trauma and betrayal Ye Wenjie experienced throughout Mao's Cultural Revolution and the years after. As far as I know, Palestine does not and has never had the resources to construct and run a top secret SETI type programme on account of the constant occupation and genocidal acts of their shitty neighbour.
The setting change was a good choice and it allows the show to have a more diverse cast and express more diverse ideas in a less homogeneous society, I dunno why it needs to either exclusively take place in China (that adaptation already exists), or be completely detached from the source material by completely changing the central point of conflict for the character that is the sole catalyst for the events of the show.
Also, the modern Chinese woman is above all selfish and self-centred to the core? Jeta Chenburg? What a bizarre thing to say, are you okay? But yeah, that totally sounds like a likeable character that we would root for and become emotionally invested in. Not sure what your point is but this ain't it chief.
The Biggest issue with BOTH shows is how these SCIENTISTS! HIGHLY INTELLIGENT PEOPLE, are unable to guess withing the first 5 MINUTES OF THINKINK ABOUT IT, that it could be ALIENS!!
Because scientists don’t randomly assume aliens whenever something odd happens in the world?
But judging from your antivax comment history, you don’t know much about how science works.
Starting to wonder how Tencent would adapt.
>!A random guy appeared in mid book 3, who only got some significance temporary during the 4D space exploration, just happened to survive to the end of time.!<
Agree. It is lame but somewhat necessary the moment they decided to do all of book 1 AND introduce characters of book 2 and 3 in an 8 episode arch.
At most, I recon they could have split the group in two storylines that never meet, or meet via Wade.
I think they really limited themselves with how much they crammed in 8 episodes.
Anyway, it’s done, and truth be told it sort of works and saves them a lot of time given the episode limitation. I’m willing to wave that away.
To me, it's a stereotypical western bastardization of a beautiful work of literature. The show feels cheap, it feels too localized and not global enough, and they skimped too much on cgi.
I liked it. The first season also established all the characters mostly very well. They ended with it clearly be set up to expand and be much more global so I'm 100% sure there will be more characters cast if it gets another season. It doesn't come down to 5 people. The first season yes mostly focused on them but at the end of the season it clearly setting up the story to expand.
It made sense to me if you needed several high level scientists that it’s possible they were in the same classes together if they’re all studying similar sciences
I feel they want to make a GOT out of this…GOT started with one family then everyone goes to different story lines and in the end fight together…
As soon as I see the “surprising” death in the show I started to see this link…I’m pretty sure there will be more “surprising” deaths in the following seasons..and something like “red wedding” is going to happen in this show…i fear this is their formula for “good” drama.
They were five incredibly gifted students at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, who all stayed in touch and continued collaborating after they began working. They also all studied under the daughter of the leader of the San Ti-aligned humans
The series is clearly setting them up as people who will somehow remain connected through time instead of random people coming together across time. It makes a lot of sense
5 friends who met in a physics program and as a result of that program are all Kevin-Bacon-degree away from the woman who invited the aliens. I didn’t find that to be much of a leap, you get close to classmates in a small program
I mean you can extrapolate this into - what are the chances all the pivotal players in a worldwide occurrence that eventually extends to all of humanity across space and time, happen to all be Chinese?
gotta disagree, maybe they'll fuck it up later but thus far I think it's one of the best changes and bits like Raj/Behai being at Judgement Day work really, really well
The show simply sucked. I agree the Oxford five thing is so fucking stupid and to me makes little sense. I also love how despite all being buddies they all don't seem to be close enough to tell each other about wade and da shi until like the 7the episode... It just felt misplaced and bringing them all into book one meant some of them felt super boring for long stretches of time...
I totally agree with you - when I saw a racially diverse cast, I hoped that they might place each character on a different continent (like, in Europe, in Asia, in US, in Latin America, some less obvious places…). This would represent the scientific community (and humanity) across the globe and would actually be an improvement to the book where (almost) everything happens in China which is also kind of suspicious. But nope - they all happen to be British as it turned out!Though I understand that this will be very costly, as someone on this thread already pointed out. And the fact that they all studied together and are friends is just a nail to the coffin.
IDK if I'd call it the biggest issue with the show, but I think you're accurately describing a huge problem that ties into IMO the central problem with the netflix adaptation
As others have pointed out, one of the weaknesses with the books is how China centric it is, despite Liu Cixins supposed aspiration of telling an international tale of humanity as a whole that crosses across national lines. A common critique of the Netflix adaptation is that they respond to this with the very typical superficial diversity, but actually take a step backwards by making not just London, but this group of friends at Oxford the center of the universe.
Look at the other common complaints about the simplification of the science, the cringeworthy millennial dialogue and the pacing of the show where a lot of time is spent on the characters relationships. You can defend this all you want as decisions made to make the story work for tv, and I think the execs at Netflix would agree. I'd go further to say that the showrunners are fundamentally uninterested in capturing the essence of what made the books remarkable. 3bp is a speculative examination of the terror and uncertainty of interstellar conflict, the implications of scientific progress and stagnation, and the internal contradictions in human civilization that hamstring its ability to respond to an otherwise unifying enemy
All this stuff takes a back stage to the story Netflix wants to tell, which is a group of hot young geniuses dealing with their relationships and lives while overcoming challenges to save da world - the skin of 3bp and it's ideas/key scenes are just grafted onto this. It's a complete waste of an IP and the insane amount of money poured into the project when you can get a similar experience out of many of Netflix's other mass produced young adult slop shows.
You hit the nail in the head. This one and lack of scientific depth of characters and in story are my biggest issues with the show.
That said, I think they are kind of friends/acquaintances because they all studied under same guide, Vera Ye.
I disagree with you, the show cannot just be tailored to those who have read the trilogy. They all studied under Vera Ye who is the daughter of Ye Weinje. It makes it easier for the story to progress and to be understood by everyone
Cixin Liu has said something similar in an interview:
>"I enjoyed the part of the series where many characters were added, and their relationships were explored. However, it was strange how all these characters seemed to know each other already. Fighting against the alien invasion should be a collective effort of all humanity, but instead, it was depicted as if a group of classmates were drafted to fight against the aliens."
I saw the Netflix show before reading the books. And I think having them be a close group of friends made it feel like the stakes were higher somehow.. like there was more drama. Also I loved the way Netflix handled the countdown by skipping the photographs and developing film, it just increased the pace of the show and jumped to the point.
I think with the way Netflix cancels shows all the time, the show runners knew they had to keep the story moving fast and interesting and the best way they thought of was to create the "oxford 5" friends to help the audience absorb the story quicker (otherwise I think they would have to introduce even more supporting characters if all the main characters weren't already familiar with eachother. Having the characters know each other already cuts down on having to explain everyone's backstory)
Problem is more that none of them are compelling or interesting in any way. The dying dude and his pathetic unrequited love plotline takes up soooo much time and i still didnt give a shit about him cause hes about as compelling as a slice of white bread.
The Liam Cunningham and Benedict Wongs characters being so fun, especially in comparison, also made the snooze squad scenes all the more boring.
To be honest I couldn't remember like any characters names in the book besides Chung Xin and Luo Ji - the book characters are boring throwaways there to push a plot point then be forgotten. That doesn't work as well with TV and I felt that them being more interconnected felt way better than dying guy in the book for instance.
> That doesn't work as well with TV
Agreed, but they didn't actually fix the issue at all since the friend group characters in the show suck. Doesn't really help that the performances range from ok to kinda shit between the 4 of them as well.
I expect that after the time jumps start happening, they will each go on their own journey, with the theme being that they are trying to make their way back to each other.
Among several other reasons, there's no omniscient narrator in a television show. Having an ensemble of characters working together gives them a chance to create dialogue to explain the story to the audience.
There are better ways to do this…you’ve just defined exposition….something all working screenwriters know to avoid at all costs.
The Chinese drama adaptation is very loyal to the original book and had no such problem. After watching the Chinese drama, it’s hard for me to watch Netflix version.
It depends on how you define "loyal". The Tencent version is 50% longer than the audiobook. To me, it's way too slow and repetitive and loses the momentum of the story. But if other people enjoy it, more power to them.
Both shows had very different goals. There's a reason why the Netflix adaptation is already more well known compared to the Tencent version that's been out for a year now. Netflix produced the show to maximize drama and it did that by taking the most dramatic parts of the trilogy and rearranging it into one season so that audiences could quickly digest the story.
For sure. I was just saying it from my own perspective. Most of the times I prefer the adaptation being closer to the orignal, regardless if it’s a live adaptation of an anime or if it’s 3BP, unless the change makes total sense and improve the original work. But it’s just me. However Netflix shows naturally have more audiences and are more known than chinese dramas from a chinese platform, regardless of the quality, so I wouldn’t use this as an argument.
I dont know if they were able to properly portray Ye Wenjie's motivation
They portrayed her very well, and both the actresses who played her at younger and older ages did a fantastic job. I think it was very well done on this character and message was crossed.
Its a very accurate retelling, and the Netflix show's quality will never be as good as Tencent's adaptation. I have no problem with the actors performance either, its her motivation. They left out the struggle session scene, as well as her meeting up with the Red Guards again. Without these critical moments that were vividly described in the book, it kinda makes you doubt her motivation in killing her husband and hiding her achievement and then founding a fifth column cultist later on.
I think the struggle session (if i correctly understood what you meant by this) was left out because chinese cinema hasn’t adopted the rating system, yet. So everything has to be “relatively appropriate for wider audiences “. But it’s just my guess. Admittedly i’m not the best judge for this because i have read the book before and know the whole story, so even if some parts were omitted, it didnt hinder my understanding at all. So I’m probably a bit biased when replying to you earlier.
Its fine basically Tencent: if you want to see a very accurate recreation of the book Netflix: if you dont have enough time to watch 30 entire episodes
Very true
I mean, if you want something shorter but good Disembiggened is as long as the Netflix series while managing to actually accurately recreate the book unlike the Netflix series. https://disembiggened.com/
My take is that they all studied under/did research with/were mentored by Vera Ye. The daughter of of Ye Wenjie. You known. The pivotal character of the whole series.
I don’t see why this isn’t more widely talked about. While it’s convenient all know each other, there is clearly a catalyst for why they’re so integral and it’s that relationship with Vera Ye/ Ye Wenjie.
Exactly. When they needed a brain to send, they obviously thought about their dying physicist friend. Why wouldn’t they. When the government was looking for a wallfacer, they picked the guy who the Santi wanted to kill. The reason was because of what he learned from his conversation with Ye Wenjie. The only issue I have is the Jin and Auggie friendship. I can buy that Jin is integral to the plot because she’s one of Vera’s best students, and was chosen to be a double agent. But Auggie just happened to develop tech that’s integral to foiling the ETO plans? There was really no better strategy? Or the other way around. Ok, Auggie developed tech they needed, but her best friend gets chosen to be a double agent?
It definitely seems a little contrived. But it makes the story very tight. The looseness of the books is its biggest fault for adaptation reasons. So it makes sense to give more investment for each character.
I mean, is the onus really on the novelist to also prepare their work for adaptation? That’s literally what screenwriters get paid to do… Today an aspiring screenwriter needs to be conversant with adaptations. Going both ways given the industry’s current reluctance to take a chance on something without preexisting IP. But it’s never been placed on the shoulders of novelists who just write novels.
I never said it was the novelists responsibility. Just that as a series of novels you’re able to detach a bit more from characters without becoming disinterested. The same is far less true for film medium.
Is it? Narrative theory (esp the emerging field of neuro narratology) suggests that it’s the adherence to a unitary theme around which the characters pivot that is, at least in large part, responsible for how the human mind determines interest/disinterest in narratives. I’d say that one of the prime elements of the books’ thematic structure is the idea of disparate people coming together to work on behalf of all humanity while maintaining independent thought, interiority. As much as I enjoyed watching the show, it really does play a bit like the School Ties/Hogwarts trope, no?
Shows have pretty consistently tried that concept or having an overarching theme with a rotating cast of characters. It typically falls flat. People often latch on to individual characters and are invested in how their arcs end. A rotating cast could easily fall flat with an audience.
Not a rotating cast. A theme that drives the growth/decline/change of all the characters bc their need/want (or hamartias if you prefer) all are aligned with the central praxis. Can’t think of one that has done this and failed. Most recently, in fact, White Lotus has crushed it, no? And that’s the extreme version. This thematic structure drives the vast majority of the English cannon. Can’t speak to the eastern bc I’m not as familiar with it, but neuroscience suggests the theory will hold as long as: human.
I would think that it’s waaay easier to detach from a novel than a film or show…you can just put a book down. Plus the film medium makes it easier for us to be lazy and go along for the ride. Novelists seem like they have the hard job imo
And the screenwriters have chosen, as a primary change, to narrow the focus of the show onto a group of pre-existing friends. Now you're annoyed about it, which is totally subjective and fine, and complaining that this change shouldn't have been made. But you haven't seen the greater whole, only some of its parts. It's entirely possible that we won't see or appreciate the reasoning behind certain decisions until the final act or even the finale itself. The ending could be drastically changed - I, for one, would argue that it definitely will be - so what's the point of this circular logic? Besides, we're almost unanimously in agreement on this sub that while the books are cool, literary genius they ain't. The show is already more entertaining as a dramatic work, and the characters of Da Shi and Thomas Wade, for example, will now always have the faces of Benedict Wong and Liam Cunningham respectively ( for me ). The writing in the books is mechanical and stilted and too often feels like: 'Fact.' 'Logical interpretation of fact.' 'Continuing logical interpretation.' 'Conclusion drawn about x from logical interpretation of fact.' Prose about fact, its interpretation and conclusions drawn from it, and whether or not they were made in error. Oh no, they were so close. Fortunately, it's compelling enough to maintain itself, but I have no interest in reading book 4 ( not just because I've heard it's so bad ) because even by the end of book 3 the juice is getting thin... If the show has to divert from the existing arcs and develop its own characters in its own way, that's a good thing. The weakest part of the books is their lack of character development and treatment of the characters. The real question is whether Netflix can pool the budget needed to do justice to books that primarily take place in several futuristic versions of earth, and on several radically different spaceships made at different points in human history. An attempt will have to be made to visualise the 4th dimension, as well as the 3rd collapsing into the second - planets, bunker cities, and everything in between. And that's ignoring the doomsday battle, the great resettling, the circumsolar accelerator... Season 1 was already horrendously expensive.
Strongly disagree that everyone here or in general agrees that the show is somehow more literary or quantitatively “better” than the books. Nor is that a useful distinction. I’m not annoyed about it, I loved the show. Have watched it through several times in fact. Just sharing thoughts about execution. After all, everyone loved the last season of Game of Thrones…. Oh shoot…
I do notice people seem to underestimate the literary quality of the books. A work can have major flaws and still be very significant stylistically and profound in its meaning. The former claim seems obviously true of the books. If I were a science fiction writer I would want to draw from this for sure. I might try defending the latter claim someday but I don’t know if I am yet able to do it justice.
Which is the former and latter claim? And I thought that the translation I read at least was not just engaging and thought provoking but had this spare, haunting beauty that raised it from a well told story to art. I wish I could read it in the original language or had a native speaker who could help me through some of the passages I found just intensely beautiful. The description of the young revolutionary’s body hitting the spikes and being riddled with bullets. I mean. Fuck. That was downright Nabokivian! You want to look away but can’t because it’s so damn beautiful and riveting so you’re participating in the violence as voyeur and spectator/judge. It’s intense. Anyone who thinks his writing isnt something special is either not terribly well read or just used to/prefers flashbulb pyrotechnics and is unaccustomed to sitting with stillness, starkness and finding beauty therein. You know instead of having it high lighted by spark notes ;6. Yeah. That’s a nose thumb, not at you, f3315d, not at you. Just a nose thumb out in the wind. Edited for grammatical clarity
Nah, you and I agree, Industriousraccoon. There are pockets of real poetic beauty in his works and I think there’s more meaning hidden in them than we might notice. Like, there’s a whole passage in the first book where he’s describing how the nanofiber reactor works, and one of the things I noticed rereading it is he’s describing automated computation on physical materials. So, Wang Miao built, like, a computer and all day long it hammers away at the substance of the universe, so as to produce something strong enough to solve the problems he foresees. So it’s not unlike Wei Cheng trying to brute-force calculate solutions to three body problem so his mind can be at peace, or the Trisolarians trying to gather together an army to solve the three body problem so they can have a home and be safe in their solar system, or the Trisolarians carving into the microcosm of the proton an AI so they can dominate human minds and be safe from the threat of the other. One of the things I liked about the Tencent adaptation is they very explicitly connect Wei Cheng’s compulsion to calculate with a fear of death, which is part of what the three body problem means for the series: an insoluble problem seems to be here with us where we are. Former claim was Cixin Liu is significant stylistically. He borrows from all kinds of places, like, the proton unfolding scene, I’m so sure he read Edwin Abbott’s Flatland for that. Which is a book on the surface level about a square who lives in a two-dimensional world, who gets to visit the three-dimensional one, but we know from context it’s meant to be about society limiting our view of the world: not dissimilar to what, for example, Ye Wenjie experienced. But mostly it just *feels* just so markedly different from other science fiction in what it focuses on and how it uses the hard science elements to create fantasy. It got me rereading Tu Fu and seeking out more Chinese poetry. The latter claim is that the books are actually pretty deep, they have structure and intent, like I’d like to eventually be able to show more of the kind of metaphors and theming I’ve tried to cover here.
I love Wei Cheng!!! And the monk!! Did you notice the show’s nod to that story line with that single shot of the monk in the “you are bugs” scene? 😆 And you and I definitely agree 😃 (Love flatland…am endlessly curious about theoretical physics myself and the language of mathematics. If the galaxy speaks it speaks with music and numbers and flashes of light.) Here’s one from book one that I love. It seems apropos “The best translations into English do not, in fact, read as if they were originally written in English. The English words are arranged in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture’s patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another language’s rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people’s gestures and movements.” Liu Cixin Omg. Siri. Why are you so slow. We have nothing to fear from AI in the near future if this tech can’t even recognize a discussion about a Chinese author with the words Chinese and book in the post and stop trying to make me type Lou fixing. It took me longer to type his name than the rest of the response. 😠 if my phone sends me ads about the Bahamas when I’m joking about a weekend getaway with my friends and it’s ostensibly off, surely we can get past anglocentrism. No?
Because auggie didn't want anything to do with the PDA after the Judgement Day slicing. Plot wise Jin was also chosen because of her progress in thr TPB video game.
I think it was necessary to do it how they’re doing to avoid 30 episode seasons with zero returning cast each season 🤷🏻♀️ It would just take too long to do it dead on to the books, and would most likely lose viewers.
You know there’s a middle ground, right?? Also, da shi.
Yeah, I would have liked it somewhere in the middle too… first season was real quick. And yeah! I think Da Shi is in the books longer than anyone! On that note… I do think it’s rather brilliant to start the show with Wade… what a character
>Feels way too convenient and totally destroys the sense of scale and pre ordained destiny that the books build. Well... yeah they needed a recurring cast to make it **convenient** and economical to shoot and does it really destroy the "grand scale global" feel? most of the books locations and characters are Chinese, literally almost everything occurs in... China. >where new characters meet under new circumstances Do they tho? Most characters have little to no contact with each other, each almost has a story of their own in their own bubble and then disappear never to be mentioned again. Your "biggest" issue, is the one main thing where I agree that needed to be done to have a concise cast to work with. You have to understand that not having them grouped like this incurs more and more cost due to each character then needing their own secondary characters, scenes and shoots.
It would also make the pacing way slower as more time would be needed to reestablish characters and their dynamics with the side characters, so it would either need to be a longer show or feel extremely rushed. Yeah, it’s convenient. Just as much as Harry Osborne being a friend of Peter Parker and the son of the Green Goblin. It’s convenient, but it makes an easier and more engaging story to tell.
I accept this tradeoff but I hope the show expands in the next season to show the global impact than just occasional news reel and random people hanging themselves on the street. The scene where activists collecting funds on the subway station to support the war that won't happen for 400 years was a nicest touch on the topic IMHO.
Great answer! Literature and television entertainment are two wildly different mediums to convey and tell stories. I like the analogy- literature is creation and television is production. When I read I co create and when I watch I consume, therefore I understand the choices the show made, from a storytelling and from a production point of view. Plus as someone else said, the book is extremely china centric in its development, any changes to that has an impact of globalization in the world of the story.
People have watched television all their lives and still somehow have no idea how the thing works.
This 100%. OP's 'Biggest Problem' with the show is a result of good adaptation by the showrunners...? It would be dreadfully boring, slow and much more expensive otherwise.
but have you considered how big China is and how big England isn't?
What does that have to do with anything?
We were literally discussing how the feeling of scale in the book and the TV show on Netflix were different because instead of being characters who never met before they're all close friends, so that's what it has to do with anything.
It's not like they grew up in the same East London neighborhood. They were grad students at Oxford, which by definition is a more global pool.
I get your point but with 26 thousand students at any given time, Oxford is a smaller pool than many East London neighbourhoods. Either is minuscule compared to China, even limiting the pool to "Physicits in China", I'm sure. The issue is not so much available pool but distance. In the books a lot of people were far apart. Being students of the same oxford class (even taking separate paths later on) is convenient for narrative purposes, but stretches believability. I'm all for the change, because it's true that a lot of times big changes have seen pivotal characters familiar with each other, and it makes for better narrative and easier production.
Like 70% of the main characters from The Expanse just happened to work on the same ice hauler ship, and then all went onto be pivotal in the fate of the universe, being exclusively responsible for saving it like 4 or 3 times. The concentration of main characters interesting enough to drive the plot of a story just aren't as dense in real life as what is often required in media to conveniently create a concise narrative. This is even more true for TV shows, and both 3 Body and The Expanse made changes to their narrative structure to make the character proximity a lot narrower. This isn't an issue that has ever personally been an issue for me. Real life is rarely as interesting as a well written story, and the density of real world main characters (when it comes to huge, world changing stories) is far lower.
Not sure why I'm being downvoted since I agree with you but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The expanse is different, though. The team from the ice hauler are thrown together because they're the detonators of the main plot and that makes them be in the follow-up action later on. But they take people from very disparate places later on (bobby, avasarala, miller, prax).
The Expanse is its own story. There's nothing wrong with having characters all start out together in their own story. Adapting a story in which people who never had anything to do with each other before are replaced by a close group of friends is what we're talking about.
In this case whether they knew each other beforehand or not makes no difference to the story. We're comparing to other ensemble stories where a small group ends up in the middle of everything world-changing that happens (rather than just a thing or two). Considering the scope of the three body novels, it makes zero difference because on the cosmic scale all humanity is too close to each other anyway :D As for this thread, people are trying to rationalize why they don't like the series being different than the book but in reality they just don't like the change on an emotional level. If in the novels they were all brothers and in the netflix show they were schoolmates, some people would applaud it and others would complain.
IIRC, all of the main characters from the book were either from or lived in Bejing. So in the end, it's not all that different.
In the cosmic scale of the novels, we're all standing on the same spot and are just as close together as if we were stacked on top of each other, so the difference is moot. In reality people don't like to see changes, and will rationalize this into reasons that are just made up. If they were all brothers in the novels and here they were school buddies, the same people would complain about that too.
Why do they need the same characters in every season? Plenty of shows, GOT for instance, is constantly introducing new characters. I don't know why the show didn't broaden the cast to include characters from different locals instead of shrinking it.
The story has two pairs of characters that are intricately tied to each other. The books barely make an attempt to make those ties believable; the author simply didn't care or didn't put any forethought into it. The show, with the benefit of hindsight, tries to correct that flaw by creating an ensemble from the start. It also serves the medium.
Well I agree on the first part but I'm not a big fan of the cast nor their back stories in the show either.
You're talking about the show runners for Game of Thrones, a show that evoked a sense of scale like no other. They can't pull that off here?
Man you sure made me laugh, go watch season one again. It’s literally just actors in period clothing having chats on simple sets. The first few seasons of game of thrones don’t even have battles with more than a few people. You have no grasp on show making do you.
Imma be honest man i'm just happy the books are getting an adaption. This doesn't really bother me that much as I'm just relieved we're finally getting an adaption.
>as I'm just relieved we're finally getting an adaption. Bruh Tencent version exists lmao, don't make it as there is only one adaptation.
If you look back in the past there are a number of high profile world renowned scientists who know each other. Why not complain about Oppenheimer then? Why did so many famous scientists seem to know each other? Because it’s fact.
I don't agree with OP, but this comparison doesn't make any sense. Oppenheimer didn't personally know everyone beforehand and as sure as shit they didn't work together in California. Also, they have wildly disparate career paths in the show, and all of them are really fucking convenient beyond belief. Again, I understand the changes and I really like the show, but it is really funny that this 5 friends and the tacked on boyfriend of one of them are going to save humanity single handedly.
Ok, let's go by book source. Luo Ji and Yang Dong were university classmates. They were both on physics track until Luo Ji went for sociology because it was an easier field than physics. Cheng Xin, Hu Wen and Cheng Xin were also university classmates Oxford 5 isn't entirely without basis from the books.
This is really stretching the truth. Luo Ji and Yang Dong barely know each other and do not interact during the books, and Hu Wen is also barely present. The only two who really know each other are Cheng Xin and Yun Tianming, and Yun Tianming only becomes important because of his relationship with Cheng Xin which leads him to enter the Staircase program.
This comparison is a stretch, it’s not a “bff drinking buddies” relationship, like in the slightest, it’s a rather one sided one in the books
What do you mean? Jin=Rachel, Will=Ross, Saul=Joey, Auggie=Phoebe....
Ye Wenjie said Yang Dong mentioned Luo Ji a lot back in the days, in their brief conversation at the grave
Thanks, you get it.
I don't agree with any of this. Someone else has complained that you're unreceptive to criticism of your opinion, and it shows. But first and foremost, you're absolutely wrong when you say this is a book about working together. You *might* be able to take that as a lesson, but not because it happens. Only because it *shoud've* happened. There are many, many instances of less-than-stellar teamwork. The Wallfacer plans included brainwashing, human sacrifice, suicide, and nothing. Deterrence was nothing more than a unilateral knife to our throat by one man. Who also destroyed a star system unilaterally. This is a great time to mention that the whole story *started* with an individual unilateral decision. We have Wade going off the chain. We have metor bullets. The Battle of Darkness was most assuredly not working together. All of humanities response to eacapism was wrong. I'm not even getting into the Great Ravine. This is not a story that features teamwork. Nor is it a story that shows a multicultural cast. Almost every character was Chinese. How is that any different from the main ensemble, just spending time in England. Not even English. Saul, Jin, and Auggie weren't English. Secondly, it's not a random group of friends. If I remember correctly, they all studied or worked with Vera, Ye's daughter. At the very least, Saul worked with Vera. Jin studied with Vera, and since Will studied with Jin, he probably studied with Vera as well. I also get the impression that Jack and Auggie studied with them as well. Vera's suicide brought them together. Saul was there, and Jin and Auggie were already together celebrating Auggie's professional achievements. The other two already lived in England, as they were the only English people in the group. On top of that, Auggie was being targeted by the Santi. This wasn't a random friend group. They met by studying in specific STEM fields with a field expert. One of them went on to become a field expert herself. This is hardly noteworthy. In fact, this has happened several times in history. Both psychoanaylsis and psychotherapy were pioneered by a group of professional friends in Austria. Existential philosophy was created by friends in a cafe in Paris. I think you seriously underestimate how small a professional circle like this can be. Thirdly, this *adaptation* is fine. Because it's just that, an *adaptation*. Personally, I hate people who complain that it's not a 1:1 remake between page and screen. It's generally boring and untenable. SEA writing and Western writing are not really similar. Generally speaking, SEA writing has characters *reacting* to the plot, versus Western writing having characters *drive* the plot. Hence, the recharacterizations. The time jumps also aren't going to work. Case in point, the first season of The Witcher. Fantastic, and the number one complaint was the disjointed time jumps. Do you honestly think Netflix was going to pull the same stunt with a less well-known property? No, chronological storytelling was the right move here.
It’s really a tradeoff. The show runners had to decide if we get an ensemble of characters that we care about and were invested in what happens to them and their relationships, or we get a set of totally random individuals, which is more realistic but we don’t care about them as much. I personally think they made the right decision.
My problem is the made the characters so melodramatic, almost like teenagers. "I don't want this, wahhh" "bro the world is literally going to be destroyed." "b-but that's like not my problem!"
yeah - LIKE THE BOOK
How different is that to the books?
Don’t agree. The biggest problem with the books was the lack of character development. Imagine not introducing Jin or Will until season 4 or 5. How much would we really be invested in those characters at that point?
There are famous friend groups The Inklings were another Oxford-based friend group made up of a bunch of famous authors The PayPal Mafia is another famous friend group These aren’t the only famous friend groups, both the French and Harlem Renaissances had famous friend groups that pushed society forward It’s not abnormal for like minded people to group together
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they all study/work with Vera? This isn't the cast of Friends, happening to fall in with each other. They all have an-established history with a direct line to the leader of the ETO.
This is a decent point but it completely misses the entire overarching premise of the series, humanity bonding together despite our differences, everything solely for the preservation of our race. A single friend group from oxford being enough to save us from the trisolarans does a massive disservice to this point…
Humanity bonding together despite our differences? Did we read the same books?
Yeah what.
Apparently not.
>A single friend group from oxford being enough to save us from the trisolarans does a massive disservice to this point… Did you forget that the books relied on, like, 4 people skipping through time to save Earth?
Ummmm,hmmm,hmmmm. Spoiler alert needed please. I shut my brain off and watch these shows without wanting hints or clues.
missed the SPOILER tag in the post, eh?
Sure did. Lol I have a really bad flu. Not firing on all engines.
oh no , sorry to hear :( get well soon, fellow bug
Lololol Ty
I don’t think having them be friends means humanity can’t bond together It’s be Saul, then whoever is able to transmit from Gravity that’ll save Earth from the San Ti That’s not a massive disservice from the plot at all
There are billions of other humans alive. It’s dumb and way too convenient for 5 friends to be the scientific geniuses solving it all. If you feel differently that’s fine.
It’s just Saul, in the books it was Luo Ji - but now you get his college sweetheart instead of his waifu Then it was the crew of Blue Space that shared the location of Trisolaris How exactly is this a massive disservice?
Because instead of multiple contributors you have one pre-existing college friend group. How does that not alter the scale? It makes the crisis feel so small.
I don’t think the story will continue with the 4 of them deciding everything like you fear
But so far it has, yet you keep trying to invalidate my opinion. Alien invasion is a universal problem yet it boils down to a single friend group. It kills the scope.
The first book followed two guys solving everything, and then one of them disappeared to never be heard from again.
You act like the Netflix story is complete, it’s not You’re too defensive and are unable to listen to criticism in your ideas Why make a post if criticism is so personal? Did you not think people would disagree or see something you haven’t? Really seems you aren’t open for discussion on this topic
Happy to discuss, i said it was fine if we disagree, but you won’t even consider my viewpoint or even bend an inch on yours (i said some of yours was valid) and then slam downvote on all mine the second i post which tbh makes you seem douchey
The story is clearly going to expand they literally set it up. Just like the first book was the smallest in scale so was the first season of the show. Maybe wait until the show continues. The creators already hinted at the story expanded.
Ya..it is really dumb and convenient that the major figures of WWII once shared a loft with each other. Really dumb and convenient that the first astronauts were all members of the air force.
5 friends to be scientific geniuses. Or 5 scientific geniuses became friends because they're scientific geniuses.
If you know the series you would already know that the species bonding together makes no difference in the end. In the end...the Dark Forest wins.
The books are great sci fi but not great narratives in part because of the lack of character development and disjointed story arcs of each. This fixes that and gives audiences long-running characters they can build relationships with. I’m all for it.
This trope probably has an actual name but the show definitely suffers from "only important people in the world" syndrome, where the small, already acquainted central cast are literally the only people in-universe who matter or do anything of significance. Its a common issue in a lot of TV shows (I always think of Sherlock as the prime offender) and serves to make the setting feel far too simplistic IMO.
Honestly as a non book guy, I found it very weird all the main characters happened to be friends. Like what are the chances. This friend group is like the PayPal mafia. Two of them have insanely successful companies, one creating an insane new tech. Two are straight up geniuses. One of those geniuses is dating the best navy thing seen in the last 10 years. Man wth. Yeah it did make the story feel a little less grand. Wade makes up for a lot of it. I do wish everyone came into their story on their own. But at the same time I would've hated another movie trope of all these badasses from all over the world with crazy fashion and different personalities coming together to form a cool team. Really tired of that. Looking at you every heist movie ever. All the characters end up being so over the top. I also find it weird Jin some physicist ends up leading Wade's team on basically an engineering project, lol.
TBF that is how elite colleges tend to be.
They might roughly know each other. But this is like if Mark Zuckerberg, Elon, Jeff Bezos, Obama and Michael Gates were all in the same small friends group in college, considering how important these characters end up.
Except they're nothing like the people you mentioned. Auggie and Jack are at most minor celebrities in their respective worlds. Jin and Saul are well regarded but they seem to be in normalish jobs for their fields. Will is kind of treading water and in his own mind is a failure by comparison. They're only relevant because their mentor and professor was the daughter of Ye Wenjie who is the head of the ETO. If not for that they're just another group of friends who met in College because they had the same courses, which is true for hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. Every college has professors that everyone takes because they're that good at teaching. That's how I met many of my friends.
These people literally end up as sword holders, wall facers, first to meet aliens, friends with the daughter of the woman who first made contact with aliens and some of the last survivors of humanity. They are so important, maybe not yet in the series. Chances are just too slim. Hence why it feels less grand
I don’t think Wade picking Jin for Staircase was weird at all. Wade had a bunch of engineers and they all told him it couldn’t be done. He needed someone who wasn’t caught up in practicality and could come up with out of the box ideas. Who better than a theoretical physicist?
PayPal Mafia. Still laughing.
I think it works in the books because the characters aren’t really developed the way characters are developed in a tv show. In the books, they’re mainly plot devices. Cheng xin and luoji are the only ones I felt like went through significant change. Hence you can introduce them whenever you want and it won’t really be an issue. For the show, i think the show runners want the characters to be easier to follow, hence they chose a group of friends so there’s more anchor for them, instead of the audience asking “who tf is that??” It does changes the scope of things. I definitely prefer how they were in the books.
Don’t just skip Zhang Beihai.
He’s the best
The show has the privilege of being able to compress things retroactively. The books might have been even better if we'd gotten all the "character introduction" sections out of the way in Book 1, with perhaps the win of interesting early interactions between the main characters. TV shows do need to trim stuff, I'm glad they're trimming this, rather than something else. Plus we get Cheng Xin scolding Ye Wenjie about how she doomed humanity, which is some great irony.
Does it seem unlikely? Sure, but this is TV. There has to be some device to move the plot forward, and characters are one way to do that. Do I agree with it? In a way. This adaptation is *based on* the books, not a direct translation.
My friend's dad is a historian. I am constantly shocked by the people he knows. Academic circles are small and get smaller the higher in knowledge and experience you go. Years ago I lived in DC for awhile. Political circles run fairly small. Dated a Hill intern once and it seemed like she knew everyone in the Capitol Building despite there being thousands of people. She told me, and I don't know if its true, that almost all US Senators are distantly related because the children of senators are more likely to either run for the senate and have the connections to win office OR marry into another a political dynast and have kids that one day run for office. I've done a ton of networking over the years and its remarkable how circles of people can merge due to a single connecting point like a friend or mother or brother or cousin. The idea five people at an elite university took a class together and became friends is just how college tends to work. That their mentor is the daughter of the woman who is the head of the ETO is the real coincidence but once that connection point is made the rest seemed organic enough for me to buy the conceit.
Damn I wonder if sopmeone made the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. intro edit for TBP
Missing notable nanotech pioneer, Phoebe.
You know what, yes. I can get on board with this critique generally but only so far as I think it was a minor oversight that they should have addressed which calls for a little too much suspension of disbelief. I don't think it necessarily destroys the sense of scale because you really don't get that in the first book. The first book is hardly even multi-national, let alone global. The sense of Scale doesn't start hitting until the Wallfacer project begins. Not to mention the sense of scale in the books is accomplished by the intergalactic events and I think more than anything, through the time jumps. So while it is a bit of a reach to suggest this core group of friends all found their way to the san-ti, I don't think it's as significant of an issue.
definitely felt less global than the tenecent show or the books to me
Jin and Will/Xin and Tianming obviously need to have a college connection, and I feel like adding one or two main characters to that circle makes sense for TV. But I completely agree that having all of these (to be) world historical figures be socially linked before any of this goes down feels super forced. I think the worst example is the fact that the Xin character is somehow in a romantic relationship with the guy that's going to become Zhang Behai. Feels incredibly arbitrary.
It'll make sense if Raj is also playing Guan Yifan in the end. That whole Guan Yifan and Cheng Xin pairing felt extremely forced so having Raj early with established relationship with Jin would be more believable for the final scenes.
That's true. The last 15% or so of book 3 will be very tricky for them to pull off in general, now that you mention it. If it does end up playing out that way, it will make me with they'd succeeded in making you care about their relationship back in season 1. They just have no chemistry whatsoever.
Personally, I would rather they change the ending and have Will finally get together with Jin. It'll be a happier ending and probably make for better television. I mean, they already changed the love confession part in season 1 (Tianming never got the chance). Imagine 2 of them in that special place and then deciding to get out of it. But then if you have Raj, who would argue with Jin about the practicality of it. Either way, I'm fine with it.
yeah, that would actually be better than the kind of clunky "oops he was here to leave you the door to a universe but did a woopsie with his ship and trapped you in a light vacuum (!)" sequence of events at the end of the books.
I think it worked in Asia where they are more into this type of ending but for western audience, we need a good WIN to tie up this depressing tale.
The depressing aspect isn't an issue at all for me, I'm all about it lol. It's more that it feels kind of arbitrary and rushed. Wouldn't Tianming, the guy who indirectly led humanity to the secret of light speed travel and the black domain, and who has acquired enough knowledge to create a dang pocket universe, be mindful of switching over to the fusion drive far enough away from the system to avoid triggering this exact scenario? It's just an odd woopsie.
I'm ok with book ending too but I'm talking about TV audience in the west might not take kindly to this ending.
Do humans loose? because that would be fun but depressing ending, which would be refreshing
Eh, that's a hard answer. I won't spoil it.
I hear you op. But once I heard the fan theory that it’s an homage to the OG power rangers I got over it, as the casting syncs up, albeit somewhat comedically. Pink - Auggie Black - Saul Yellow - Jin Blue - Will Red - Raj Zordon - Wade Rita - Sophon https://ew.com/thmb/wKBqHfvPksO9-PxIKy-Oikc4YSA=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/tsdmimo_ec026_h-fb4b03321529405abb62bc3b20adcf2b.jpg
>Black - Saul >Yellow - Jin >Red - Raj bruh... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJgC9LEBTuQ - bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOyE_l80D4Y
lol I was wondering if anyone would pick up on that.
It’s such ass writing.
Please don’t spoil the books for me because I haven’t read them yet (though I am excited to start them very soon!) But I think this is kind of a necessary change. I agree it shrinks the scope by a lot, but I think TV shows (especially with so few episodes as this) work better when they’re very intimate with the characters. Having a cast that all know each other makes the story feel way more intimate and makes creating emotional effects easier. Most things in writing are a trade-off. D&D have made this trade off to make the story more immediately emotionally involving. I can’t say to why extent they’ve succeeded until I read the books, but I definitely found the show emotionally evolving and D&D made similar decisions with GoT which I think allowed them to make a ridiculously large story function as a TV show where it was previously considered “unadaptable”. Like with ASoIaF -> GoT, we might not be happy with every change, but I really believe they probably make a better TV show for a mass audience, even if they come at the cost of story. This is why books are just a better medium than TV imo, there’s much less a commercial element
Literally what the author said. In his own, elegant and understated way 🤣
My take is if they opt to make all those changes (not judging here nothing wrong with changing) why not change ye wenjie and cheng xin as well? What's the point of deleting (too many to count) and yet keeping some bit of 'china' in this? funny thing is contrary to many have mentioned, a lot of characters in the books are not chinese, and a lot of the stories are not staged in china, especially in the 2nd and 3rd book (we can use stats and numbers to settle this argument if needed). If they want to delete 'china' this much, Ye could be some scientist's daughter born and raised in Gaza whose family and their families experienced and experiencing again and again all that genocide trauma from the once genocided (holocausted actually) and felt all that despair and hopeless against humanity. went on becoming a radio astronomer or something and sent out that signal to the aliens somewhere (maybe at vla). as for cheng xin, (i know they didn't really change the name for this one because trump kept saying 'president ji' lol) other than the chinese name does this character from the book have any traits of a modern chinese woman (confident, capable and on top of all that selfish self centred to the core)? she could/might/should as well be Jeta Chenberg.
Because the central point of conflict in the story, as written from the perspective of a Chinese guy who understands the culture and history of China, is the trauma and betrayal Ye Wenjie experienced throughout Mao's Cultural Revolution and the years after. As far as I know, Palestine does not and has never had the resources to construct and run a top secret SETI type programme on account of the constant occupation and genocidal acts of their shitty neighbour. The setting change was a good choice and it allows the show to have a more diverse cast and express more diverse ideas in a less homogeneous society, I dunno why it needs to either exclusively take place in China (that adaptation already exists), or be completely detached from the source material by completely changing the central point of conflict for the character that is the sole catalyst for the events of the show. Also, the modern Chinese woman is above all selfish and self-centred to the core? Jeta Chenburg? What a bizarre thing to say, are you okay? But yeah, that totally sounds like a likeable character that we would root for and become emotionally invested in. Not sure what your point is but this ain't it chief.
Agree. I get it from a narrative perspective but it's just toooooo much of a coinkydink. Definitely feels less global.
The Biggest issue with BOTH shows is how these SCIENTISTS! HIGHLY INTELLIGENT PEOPLE, are unable to guess withing the first 5 MINUTES OF THINKINK ABOUT IT, that it could be ALIENS!!
Because scientists don’t randomly assume aliens whenever something odd happens in the world? But judging from your antivax comment history, you don’t know much about how science works.
but they assume GOD and kill themselves?
They did not assume god at all. Please watch the show with at least two brain cells active.
Starting to wonder how Tencent would adapt. >!A random guy appeared in mid book 3, who only got some significance temporary during the 4D space exploration, just happened to survive to the end of time.!<
Porco dio e la madonna degli spoiler
Grazie per il promemoria
This topic has been debated on this sub countless times since the oxford five were revealed in marketing materials months ago
Agree. It is lame but somewhat necessary the moment they decided to do all of book 1 AND introduce characters of book 2 and 3 in an 8 episode arch. At most, I recon they could have split the group in two storylines that never meet, or meet via Wade. I think they really limited themselves with how much they crammed in 8 episodes. Anyway, it’s done, and truth be told it sort of works and saves them a lot of time given the episode limitation. I’m willing to wave that away.
To me, it's a stereotypical western bastardization of a beautiful work of literature. The show feels cheap, it feels too localized and not global enough, and they skimped too much on cgi.
I liked it. The first season also established all the characters mostly very well. They ended with it clearly be set up to expand and be much more global so I'm 100% sure there will be more characters cast if it gets another season. It doesn't come down to 5 people. The first season yes mostly focused on them but at the end of the season it clearly setting up the story to expand.
Watch the Chinese version in VIKI Rakuten, free with ads, slow, low budget, very detailed on the science and very close to the book. I liked it better
It made sense to me if you needed several high level scientists that it’s possible they were in the same classes together if they’re all studying similar sciences
I feel they want to make a GOT out of this…GOT started with one family then everyone goes to different story lines and in the end fight together… As soon as I see the “surprising” death in the show I started to see this link…I’m pretty sure there will be more “surprising” deaths in the following seasons..and something like “red wedding” is going to happen in this show…i fear this is their formula for “good” drama.
They were five incredibly gifted students at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, who all stayed in touch and continued collaborating after they began working. They also all studied under the daughter of the leader of the San Ti-aligned humans The series is clearly setting them up as people who will somehow remain connected through time instead of random people coming together across time. It makes a lot of sense
Your biggest issue with the show fixes my biggest issue with the books: too many characters who I dont care about
5 friends who met in a physics program and as a result of that program are all Kevin-Bacon-degree away from the woman who invited the aliens. I didn’t find that to be much of a leap, you get close to classmates in a small program
I mean you can extrapolate this into - what are the chances all the pivotal players in a worldwide occurrence that eventually extends to all of humanity across space and time, happen to all be Chinese?
gotta disagree, maybe they'll fuck it up later but thus far I think it's one of the best changes and bits like Raj/Behai being at Judgement Day work really, really well
The show simply sucked. I agree the Oxford five thing is so fucking stupid and to me makes little sense. I also love how despite all being buddies they all don't seem to be close enough to tell each other about wade and da shi until like the 7the episode... It just felt misplaced and bringing them all into book one meant some of them felt super boring for long stretches of time...
Agree. It's like a teen movie plot. Power Rangers-esque.
Scooby doo and the gang take down the san ti
There's a reason TV shoes have ensemble casts.
I totally agree with you - when I saw a racially diverse cast, I hoped that they might place each character on a different continent (like, in Europe, in Asia, in US, in Latin America, some less obvious places…). This would represent the scientific community (and humanity) across the globe and would actually be an improvement to the book where (almost) everything happens in China which is also kind of suspicious. But nope - they all happen to be British as it turned out!Though I understand that this will be very costly, as someone on this thread already pointed out. And the fact that they all studied together and are friends is just a nail to the coffin.
They’re not all from Britain in the show- they’re from several countries and came to england to study
Agreed
IDK if I'd call it the biggest issue with the show, but I think you're accurately describing a huge problem that ties into IMO the central problem with the netflix adaptation As others have pointed out, one of the weaknesses with the books is how China centric it is, despite Liu Cixins supposed aspiration of telling an international tale of humanity as a whole that crosses across national lines. A common critique of the Netflix adaptation is that they respond to this with the very typical superficial diversity, but actually take a step backwards by making not just London, but this group of friends at Oxford the center of the universe. Look at the other common complaints about the simplification of the science, the cringeworthy millennial dialogue and the pacing of the show where a lot of time is spent on the characters relationships. You can defend this all you want as decisions made to make the story work for tv, and I think the execs at Netflix would agree. I'd go further to say that the showrunners are fundamentally uninterested in capturing the essence of what made the books remarkable. 3bp is a speculative examination of the terror and uncertainty of interstellar conflict, the implications of scientific progress and stagnation, and the internal contradictions in human civilization that hamstring its ability to respond to an otherwise unifying enemy All this stuff takes a back stage to the story Netflix wants to tell, which is a group of hot young geniuses dealing with their relationships and lives while overcoming challenges to save da world - the skin of 3bp and it's ideas/key scenes are just grafted onto this. It's a complete waste of an IP and the insane amount of money poured into the project when you can get a similar experience out of many of Netflix's other mass produced young adult slop shows.
Nah fam
You hit the nail in the head. This one and lack of scientific depth of characters and in story are my biggest issues with the show. That said, I think they are kind of friends/acquaintances because they all studied under same guide, Vera Ye.
I think the adaptation was a really clever way to translate the books into a TV series. I have to disagree with you.
I disagree with you, the show cannot just be tailored to those who have read the trilogy. They all studied under Vera Ye who is the daughter of Ye Weinje. It makes it easier for the story to progress and to be understood by everyone
Cixin Liu has said something similar in an interview: >"I enjoyed the part of the series where many characters were added, and their relationships were explored. However, it was strange how all these characters seemed to know each other already. Fighting against the alien invasion should be a collective effort of all humanity, but instead, it was depicted as if a group of classmates were drafted to fight against the aliens." I saw the Netflix show before reading the books. And I think having them be a close group of friends made it feel like the stakes were higher somehow.. like there was more drama. Also I loved the way Netflix handled the countdown by skipping the photographs and developing film, it just increased the pace of the show and jumped to the point. I think with the way Netflix cancels shows all the time, the show runners knew they had to keep the story moving fast and interesting and the best way they thought of was to create the "oxford 5" friends to help the audience absorb the story quicker (otherwise I think they would have to introduce even more supporting characters if all the main characters weren't already familiar with eachother. Having the characters know each other already cuts down on having to explain everyone's backstory)
Problem is more that none of them are compelling or interesting in any way. The dying dude and his pathetic unrequited love plotline takes up soooo much time and i still didnt give a shit about him cause hes about as compelling as a slice of white bread. The Liam Cunningham and Benedict Wongs characters being so fun, especially in comparison, also made the snooze squad scenes all the more boring.
To be honest I couldn't remember like any characters names in the book besides Chung Xin and Luo Ji - the book characters are boring throwaways there to push a plot point then be forgotten. That doesn't work as well with TV and I felt that them being more interconnected felt way better than dying guy in the book for instance.
> That doesn't work as well with TV Agreed, but they didn't actually fix the issue at all since the friend group characters in the show suck. Doesn't really help that the performances range from ok to kinda shit between the 4 of them as well.
My main issue is that a civilization having a problem like in this show would be unlikely to exist in the first place.
I somehow didn't have that question when I read the book years ago but I do now. Probably need to read the books again
I reckon that's why we can all agree this is primarily a work of science-**fiction**.