Zine Tseng in 3 Body Problem (2024) | IMDb
With Netflix adaptation of the trippy Chinese sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem, David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo have taken a dense book about thinly drawn characters solving math problems and turned it right into a visually stunning sci-fi horror-mystery. Now, it’s true that the series has not noted the breathless passages about Newtonian physics that made the book and its two sequels so engrossing. However, long stretches of characters explaining trigonometry wouldn’t look great on TV. We watch TV to unwind – to not change into higher people.
Still, 3 Body Problem could have benefited from a bit more hard science if it really desired to capture the cerebral twistiness of its source material. It could have also benefited from a bit more nuance in its depictions of its fundamental characters. To be fair, though, the show didn’t have much to go on. It even needed to invent some characters to make up for the novel’s dearth of them. Indeed, in a single case, it even improved upon a personality by expunging the sexism that plagued her novelized version.
As a type of entertainment in a visible medium and all, Netflix’s 3 Body Problem had to offer us flesh-and-blood humans to root for. That’s how characters just like the wealthy Jack Rooney (John Bradley) got here to life. By growing to love or at the least tolerate him, we learned to fear for his safety when the increasingly threatening ETO got here knocking. Additionally, Auggie (Eiza Gonzalez) is basically an invention for the series; she appears to be based on a male character from the novel. That aforementioned male character has been split into two female characters for the series, each of whom are much more dynamic than their novel counterpart. The other is Jin Cheng (Jess Hong).
Though each characters are largely defined by the plot mechanics that they set in motion, they still provide a welcome female presence on a show that might have easily change into a sexist mess. Published from 2006 to 2010, the Three-Body trilogy – dubbed Remembrance of Earth’s Past – was almost heavy-handed in its argument that girls weren’t able to leading the world from destruction. In traditional Chinese manner, the novel’s creator Liu Cixin ultimately makes a case for yin and yang, suggesting that girls need the logic of men to balance them and temper their irrationality. Moreover, Cixin makes the character of the previous revolutionary Ye Wenjie right into a quasi-villain just because she shows morbid curiosity in an alien species. (Well, she also desired to see the world burn, but mostly, she just desired to bring Earth right into a latest era of interstellar communication.) In any case, she’s depicted as an untrustworthy, incompetent, irrational liability. Overall, Cixin just isn’t shy in blaming the Earth’s destruction on women like Ye Wenjie, and even claims that the Earth of his novels is doomed since it’s too “feminized.”
The series, thankfully, has been stripped of that sexism. Ye Wenjie is portrayed as a principled anti-hero somewhat than a hothead devoid of logic. When she presses the button that contacts the Trisolarans, the motion is framed as a Regina George “watch the world burn” moment as a substitute of a contemptible act of self-destruction. Plus, at no point is she, or every other woman, depicted as irrational because she’s a girl. In fact, one could argue that the lads of this series are the silly ones. Of course, that’s partly because there are simply more women on this series. (By episode five, Jin Cheng is the show’s closest thing to a protagonist).
More likely, it’s since this show was made for an American audience. In China, in any case, feminism tends to look quite a bit different. While China does produce feminists who share views which are just like Western feminists, these Chinese progressives often operate inside an antagonistic framework. Due to the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s stranglehold over media, Chinese feminists often can’t use well-worn hashtags like #MeToo without being flagged and reported to the federal government. This normally leads to the federal government deleting their accounts. Thus, feminists resort to using code words akin to mitu (literally, “rice bunny”) to bypass this. Overall, this adds as much as an environment that just isn’t very friendly to the fight for female equality. So, you possibly can imagine why this version of 3 Body Problem may not have gone over as well in China. (In fact, it might be why China produced its own TV adaptation of the novel last 12 months.)
So, when all is claimed and done, the American 3 Body Problem has managed to adapt its source material in additional ways than one – thematically, visually, and culturally. And considering what might have been if it didn’t achieve that last endeavor, we should always probably be grateful. Netflix doesn’t need one other controversy after airing all of those problematic comedy specials that it’s change into known for. Now let’s just hope that it gets things right again for 3 Body Problem 2.
