Agreed the books were some of the most inventive speculation I've ever read but the character development is limited and a lot of the plot happens in someone's head or in thought experiments. It'll be really tough to film.

The other interesting thing here is the political angle - the author is a pretty pro-CCP guy but the books display the cultural revolution in pretty negative tones. Netflix is probably banking this does well in China since the books did well there but seeing the cultural revolution on screen could flop.

I'm excited for this, as it's one of my favorite sci-fi book series. I've watched the Chinese/Tencent version (free on youtube) so it'll be interesting to see how this compares. That version definitely glossed over the worst parts of the cultural revolution, which it doesn't look like Netflix will from that trailer. Netflix's budget is also probably a fair bit larger. Da Shi was the best character in the Chinese version by far.

I think the first book, while not "easy" to translate to this medium, is definitely doable. The real question is how they would (and if they would even consider) adapting the second and especially the third books. Everything with higher/lower dimensions and pocket dimensions gets real ****y from what I recall and would be incredibly difficult to pull off convincingly.

Yeah. This is going to be trippy. As noted the later books are mind bending bonkers.

I just read all three books faster than I've ever read a sci-fi trilogy! Couldn't put them down.

Very interested to see how this turns out. I hope it doesn't run into the problem Foundation had where the cerebral/mind bending portions don't translate well to the screen.

I think they can cover 2/3 of the first book with about 7 minutes of flashbacks. No clue how they will handle the last half of the third book. I could barely follow it reading it on my own time, fitting all those weird concepts into a time limit and on screen will be quite a feat.

Book spoilers (all 3 books):

Looks like they'll be showing different scenes from the 3 Body game, at least the one where all the suns align and the combined gravity pulls everything up. Those game cycles get trippy so if they pull them off then I think the show will work.

Seems to be Sophon at the end there with her katana although that's not until book 3.

I think they'll be able to capture 3D collapsing into 2D pretty well. It will be the 4D they have problems with representing.

Searched for this because I only recently saw the trailer but there was a sneak peak a couple of weeks ago. (Language warning)



This is going to get gloriously weird. I'm confident they can at least pull off most of it. Certain points I don't know what they're going to do but I'm excited to see the attempt.

Samwise w a brief appearance!

I think I remember TCTTS talking about this, either that he was involved in it somehow or they had considered optioning it?
I forget

Can't wait! Optimistic they can pull it off…hopefully they don't stray too far from source material.

PatAg said:

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I think I remember TCTTS talking about this, either that he was involved in it somehow or they had considered optioning it?
I forget

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Ha, neither. Maybe you're thinking of Dawn? That's currently the only sci-fi project we have on our slate, but it's stalled for the time being (for reasons I can't get into online).

Definitely looking forward to this, though.

For the book readers, books legit good? I some the reviews I read (yes, lots of good reviews but always balance it with the negatives) speak to lots of mundane details (full chapters) of material that would belong in a physics text book. Even though I'm an engineer, this isn't my cup of tea for non work related reading. Thoughts?

I personally think it's my favorite book series I've ever read because of how different it is than everything else. One of the very few times I've read something that just felt completely new and made you think in different ways about things.

(Some other favorites of mine if it helps you decide if we like the same books: The Expanse, Red Rising, The Murderbot books, Harry Potter, Dark Matter and Recursion by Blake Crouch, Children of Time)

But it's definitely not going to be for everyone. It gets pretty weird pretty quick. That said, I don't recall there just being a bunch of boring physics stuff.

I will say that if you're someone who quits books fairly easily you'll need to commit yourself to making it through the first one.

StinkyPinky said:

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For the book readers, books legit good? I some the reviews I read (yes, lots of good reviews but always balance it with the negatives) speak to lots of mundane details (full chapters) of material that would belong in a physics text book. Even though I'm an engineer, this isn't my cup of tea for non work related reading. Thoughts?

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First two books were really good, I didn't care as much for the third.

First book is exceptional.

Books are legit good. Takes a bit to get rolling, but it is worth it. You are already hooked before it gets way out there.

DubFalls said:

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StinkyPinky said:

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For the book readers, books legit good? I some the reviews I read (yes, lots of good reviews but always balance it with the negatives) speak to lots of mundane details (full chapters) of material that would belong in a physics text book. Even though I'm an engineer, this isn't my cup of tea for non work related reading. Thoughts?

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First two books were really good, I didn't care as much for the third.

First book is exceptional.

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I would agree with this

Awesome, thanks everyone. Yes, my OCD force me to finish any book I've started. Will definitely give it a read based on the strong support and tastes of this group. Cheers.

New trailer

unimboti nkum said:

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I found the first book unreadable. Maybe it was the translation, but it was a slog and I gave it up. Might pick it up again at some point. Will def watch the series if the reviews aren't terrible.

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Yeah, was pretty rough. Second one a little better, except for the main guy (li?) with his weird women fantasies that I struggled getting through. Cool concepts, but the writing really didn't translate well. Or at least I'm giving the difficulty to slog through the benefit of the doubt as being due to the translation.

Translating into visual form might be an even bigger challenge than translating into English though. Should be an interesting, and very ambitious, effort. I'm a bit skeptical they can pull it off, knowing the crazy concepts in the source material, but if they can…it could be incredible.

unimboti nkum said:

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I found the first book unreadable. Maybe it was the translation, but it was a slog and I gave it up. Might pick it up again at some point. Will def watch the series if the reviews aren't terrible.

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Glad I'm not the only one. I really tried. I keep hearing how great the books are, international best seller, etc. And I'm sitting here thinking, i know I'm not dumb. I read a lot of sci-fi. some of it pretty dense. WTF? But then I failed at reading The Satanic Verses when it came out as well.

I went through all 3 books plus the 4th book as audio books and I think that really helped me understand them.

rednecked said:

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unimboti nkum said:

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I found the first book unreadable. Maybe it was the translation, but it was a slog and I gave it up. Might pick it up again at some point. Will def watch the series if the reviews aren't terrible.

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Glad I'm not the only one. I really tried. I keep hearing how great the books are, international best seller, etc. And I'm sitting here thinking, i know I'm not dumb. I read a lot of sci-fi. some of it pretty dense. WTF? But then I failed at reading The Satanic Verses when it came out as well.

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It took me two tries as well but once you power thru first couple chapters it really takes off. I found it to be the best sci-fi I've read since The Expanse

tk for tu juan said:

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Ive read the books, and watching that trailer makes me confused about what this show is about. Is it supposed to give some semblance of ANYTHING about what this show is? Or just random scenes with no point?

1 episode in and it's looking good. Already some strong deviations from the first book though

I read the books a while ago when they were first popular so I didn't remember all the details. The show is helping me remember.
It was slow going the first few reproduces and too many characters to bounce between. One they get everyone established it's much better.

Well Chinese Twitter is mad about it I guess.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/22/style/china-reaction-netflix-show-3-body-problem-intl-hnk

The little red guard in the first scene of the first episode was pretty cute for a communist

Binged all 8 episodes. Found myself kind of oscillating between loving it and meh. I can see how someone who hasn't read the books might think wtf is going on? Some of the things probably seemed rushed if you didn't already know the plot.

Spoilers including book spoilers:
The scene with the converted cargo ship getting sliced up by nano fibers was intense and well done.
Took me a minute to get used to most of it happening in UK instead of China.
How they've adapted and pulled forward the character Sophon seems to be working.
Enjoyed the scenes of the game especially the human computer and the syzygy.

Huge fan of the books as well. (At least the trilogy, haven't read that other one). You might like 3 Body on Amazon if you don't mind reading captions unless you speak Chinese. It can be a bit of a slog at times though. 30 episodes long, all focusing on book one. It goes pretty heavy into Ye's time at the Chinese military base. Da Shi character is a lot better in it.