Given: In the People’s Republic of China in the 60s, a young astrophysicist watches his father being beaten to death by Red Guards (Members of youth groups created in 1966-1967 in China, one of the most active participants in the Cultural Revolution) – for refusing to subordinate the laws of physics to the ideas of Maoism. He is soon arrested himself and sent to hard labor, where he becomes involved in a secret government project. After a girl succeeds in her new job, she makes perhaps the most important decision in human history. The consequences of this are already noticeable today, when scientists are starting to die all over the world.
The first season of The Three Body Problem confirms two things:
a) There are no completely bad movies or TV series that feature Radiohead on the soundtrack;
b) Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss produce excellent material when they have the opportunity to build on specific finished and published text.
Here it is worth wishing mental fortitude to those who first read the epic of George RR Martin “A Song of Ice and Fire” and only then want to watch its film adaptation. However, those who are worried about the adaptation of Liu Cixin’s “Remembrance of the Earth’s Past”, which is almost the main science fiction work of the current century, can breathe.
Let’s see how things will turn out in the finale of the third (?) season, of course, but for now you can make yourself happy. Benioff and Weiss, as we remember, are excellent at managing worlds of gigantic size, so the universe of “Three Bodies” is given to them without any apparent difficulty. By the way, there are actually three bodies: This time, the writers of Game of Thrones are accompanied by screenwriter and producer Alexander Wu, who was once in the “True Blood” team and does not have a very rich filmography.
The current trio looks set to surpass even the Chinese on their home turf. They have already managed to shoot the series three times: in 2022 an animated series based on the second book “The Dark Forest” was released, in 2023 – a game series based on the first novel “The Three-Body Problem” (they planned) to continue and provide spin-offs ) plus somewhere a feature film based on “Trouble” has been gathering dust on the shelves of the YooZoo Pictures studio for nine years (apparently it was extremely unsuccessful and is not expected to be released).
It’s too early to tell whether the series will be the “new Game of Thrones”; b) There is no desire, although Netflix clearly wants it. Behind the scenes and in the frame are familiar faces from the HBO hit that set the course for television in the 2010s: the music is again written by Ramin Djawadi (the screensaver and main theme are not so exciting this time, perhaps). , but it’s pretty nice), bonnet pole Deborah Riley is busy again, the cast includes Liam Cunningham, Jonathan Pryce and John Bradley, and Conleth Hill and Mark Gatiss also appear.
In a meaningful sense, there’s also a whole Westeros story about how it happened. something terrible It’s approaching frantically slowly but terribly and promises nothing good, and people are trying to figure out what to do. That’s right, there are no dragons – they are Divorce got HBO. But there’s Benedict Wong as the cynical scoop cop. (dispersed police).
What can be said for certain is that the “Three-Body Problem” is unlikely to be a trendsetter. To be frank, it does not have a regular budget, it usually contains an ordinary cartoon that is not much visually superior to the Chinese cartoon, so there is no need to talk about new painting standards.
In addition, the show itself fits into the current trend towards films about scientists, ethical issues, and the synergy of knowledge with faith (Oppenheimer and his invention mentioned twice). Unlike HBO, The new season of True Detective Among other things, he enjoys demonizing scientists; Netflix still recommends not skipping school.
Ethical dilemmas exist not only within but also outside the Three-Body Problem. In this sense, fans of the good-natured, albeit slow, grandfather George RR Martin have a clear advantage over the experts of Liu Cixin, who gave a detailed interview to The New Yorker in 2019, in which he said a lot of interesting things. Like what
a) democracy is not suitable for modern China, give it free rein, it will disappear;
b) citizens are not very interested in personal freedoms;
c) the “one family, one child” campaign is excellent;
d) Policy towards Uyghurs is one thing, it is even better for them.
Republican senators even wrote a letter to Netflix based on the profile; In response, the streaming service rushed to ensure that Liu did not create the series and that her comments did not reflect the views of the platform and the series’ writers. nor are they related to the plot and issues addressed in the show.
The last one is, of course, disingenuous: Benioff and Weiss have on their hands a production of rather monstrous proportions based on the “Trolley Problem”, after which it will no longer be possible to look at the egg slicer the same way. In terms of moral relativism, the Netflix series seems even more disturbing than Liu Cixin’s books, which is quite funny in the context of his views.
Here’s a joke: There is no solution to the three-body problem, but the writers of “Game of Thrones” solved the “Three-Body Problem.” However, we are not delivering the books yet.
Release date: March 21, 2024
Duration: 8 episodes, 44-64 minutes each
Creators: David Benioff, DB Weiss, Alexander Wu
Casting: Jess Hong, Benedict Wong, Tseng Jine, Jovan Adepo, Eiza Gonzalez, Alex Sharp
Where to see: netflix