We Are Bugs in this thread for The Three-Body Problem 三体 and its various adaptations

i mean i'm also still watching, not everyone is acting badly, it's good to discover what quantum entanglement will be able to do when we truly master it = turn crowns of ppl into catmeat plus intergalactic nigerian-prince scams that select only for the least alert people to respond

> the other 2 books

aren't there 3 more? the last one written by someone else?

(yes - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42646354-the-redemption-of-time i've not read that one)

do they handwave away the fact that quantum entanglement can't be used to actually transmit information, or just not mention it?

*impatiently gestures at whiteboard full of three-body problem-type equations*

I do wonder how “to know something is to communicate it” jibes with “I am a pacifist lucky nobody else here on this planet got your message”.

See now, the more I'm thnking about that the more the plot falls apart like a Star Trek episode. If all they know is instantly communicated why was "do not reply" the only message we found? I agree with what someone upthread said, why did they not understand our concept of stories and lies long befre they spoke to us? But again, not read books, only up to ep 6, so will hang fire on it. I am enjoying it tbh.

One thing I was confused by. I dont think its a spoiler per se but I'll hide it anyway: Will is walking toward the sea, looking like he's going to off himself ,but then he sees 2 really-enlarged versions of the little origami boats Jin had made them. And so he laughs in amazement and turns back to shore. Was he trying to off himself or not? If he was, were the San Tei trying to save him somehow?

ok i promise this is my last book-related comment before actually watching the series, but they didn't have the instant communication technology until after ye wenjie's second message (the "come kill us" one). until then, they were reliant on the same kind of interstellar wave-based communication that ye used to communicate with them in the first place. there's an exhaustive–some like james morrison might say too exhaustive–sequence in the book where they detail the creation of the sophon technology

I don’t know the answer to that, it confused me too. But let’s talk about that character after you get to the end of the series

sequence in the book where they detail the creation of the sophon technology

Personally this is making me want to read the book more!

Upps sorry that shouldnt be a spoiler given its not in the show? lol

I'm on E5 and i'm impressed at how quickly they've got this plot to move along. It's a big old book with a lot of science in it, and they've done a mighty job of explaining just enough of it to make it entertaining for telly.

I really don't like Auggie's character though; not sure if it's the scripting or the acting but she's extremely hard to enjoy

I am not sure I like any of the characters - esp the Oxford ones - I guess Will is likeable? Dominic Chang's character is sort of likeable but doesn't quite get there, I dunno it never feels quite like the character and the actor marry up. Which is weird cos he is super likeable in Dr Strange as a pretty similar character.

But that probably applies to this whole show - the human drama aspect is pretty borked but the SF ideas keep you trundling along - and that is not uncommon in the SF space to be fair

*Benedict Wong! I don't know where I got Dominic Chang from

iirc most characters in the books weren’t very likable either

True. I dont necessarily want characters to be likable, but Auggie is weirdly and thinly painted for some reason. Her character has one emotional line that runs between dismay and aggro, even when it's uncalled for; like, the writers decided to create a character whose only job is to scowl and lay into people at any goven opportunity, and it doesn't ring true. Jin seems a lot better painted, but like you say, the Oxford 5 are quite unlovable on the whole

I don’t care if the characters are likable but they should be interesting. The only interesting person so far is the physicist whose father got Red Guarded.

Ye Wenjie, the character they've kept most loyally to the book

ye wenjie and da shi were the only interesting, fleshed-out characters in the first book. there were like two more interesting characters introduced in the second (haven’t yet read the 3rd)

I don’t think I’m getting past the third episode.

some like james morrison might say too exhaustive–sequence in the book where they detail the creation of the sophon technology

to be fair, the sophon-making in the book was interesting, though as far from hard SF as it's possible to be. I was talking more about the aliens themselves, and their culture, just really thinly imagined and dull.

To be clear, i read book 1 and quite enjoyed until the aliens showed up at the end and were as boring as fuck.so i never read the other 2 books.

i watched a bit of the tv series and might watch more. but yeah the direction, acting and speaking is… weird? vaguely npc like. benedict wong’s face is always something to delight in tho.

Also not sure how a little probe, and the meat inside it, is supposed to withstand 300 extremely nearby nuclear explosions without the gamma radiation turning it all into, at very best, a battered can of hot undifferentiated soup.

this will be addressed in season 3 when will's severed head, gifted and cursed with great and terrible power by radiation exposure, destroys the aliens and takes its place as intergalactic despot

mods pls add spoiler tags

This show definitely improves as it goes along, hitting its stride around e4 or 5. Still can't work out why Auggie is so, uh, aggy though

aliens may be boring af -- haven't read the books -- but they cant be worse than the humans we're focusing on, i am now aggressivly pro-sophon

Auggie is v tiresome and this whole thing w being mad at Saul but still CALLING Saul every time something happens expecting him to not be fucking someone else when he clearly CLEARLY is always fucking someone else

like

lady

either seek a better friend, or accept the friend you have

i like the way they animate Auggies countdown visions

it feels kinda uh realistic

i have had a couple of ocular migraines in the past and the first onset was like a weird bright crack of light like i was seeing Into some other dimension & the other one was like a small kaleidoscope that grew in size across my vision it fucking scared the shit out of me

but the way it sort of hovers and is bright but you can see through it but you can’t NOT see it

anyway, good imagery

The accompanying 3 Body Podcast is pretty good. They had an interview with Jung Chang, the author of Wild Swans, in one episode. The next had a chat with the visual effects people too

I'm reading the first book and really dislike all these characters, especially the police dude. They keep referring to the aliens as "our Lord" and that is making my brain shut down.

Three episodes in and I actually kind of like this? I have some complaints, but I like the body horror aspect of the dehydration process and it's moving along surprisingly well (so far). Turns out John Bradley is pretty well cast as a rich man-baby.

yeah i'm enjoying it after the first couple of episodes. i was impressed by the dialog-free scene at the end of episode 2, which i thought was given appropriate weight despite it coming so early in the story relative to the novel

An executive who worked on the show was sentenced to death for fatally poisoning one of its producers.

The release of Netflix's series 3 Body Problem has been watched millions of times around the globe since its release late last month.

It has even found an audience in China where Netflix is unavailable, sparking much chatter among viewers of the series.

But many fans of the three-book series, credited with propelling China's nascent science fiction genre after its publication in 2008, have also been paying attention to a court room in Shanghai where one of the key players behind the adaptation was sentenced to death just a day after the show's release.

His crime? Murdering a man sometimes dubbed China's "billionaire millennial" - the gaming tycoon Lin Qi, whose company Yoozoo Games owns the rights for film adaptations of the Chinese science fiction epic.

According to the court, Xu Yao, who was known as a distinguished lawyer, became consumed by professional rivalry after Lin sidelined him shortly after he helped land the Netflix deal in 2020.

Within months of this apparent slight, Lin was dead - the victim of a poisoning plot described as both "premeditated" and "extremely despicable" by the court last week.

...

Lin and Xu were reportedly on good terms at the start: Lin had appointed Xu to spearhead a subsidiary called The Three Body Universe a year after he joined Yoozoo as the company's chief risk officer in 2017.

The subsidiary was in charge of securing intellectual property rights for the film adaptations, and the two had worked closely together in brokering the deal to adapt the novel into a Netflix original series.

But they fell out when Lin - who founded Yoozoo in 2009 - decided to put other executives in charge of business operations, local reports said. Xu, authorities allege, began to plot.

Some reports said he set up a company in Japan to acquire the lethal substances and even tested them on animals. Xu then disguised the substances as probiotic pills and gave them to Lin.

Lin checked himself into the hospital when he felt unwell after taking the pills, and was initially in stable condition. But his condition took a dramatic turn - he died 10 days later, on Christmas Day 2020, at the age of 39. At the time, he was believed to have had a net worth of around 6.8bn yuan (£745m; $941m), according to the Hurun China Rich List

Four other people fell sick from drinking poisoned beverages in the Yoozoo office but survived, the court heard.

binge watched this and loved it way, way, way more than i imagined I might. lots of great things about it but the greatest, as many have already mentioned, is Benedict Wong.

He is great. I love his response when American Wallfacer guy asks him if everyone's just going to smile at him from now on.

yeah that was proper lol. they talk about it in the books too

just gone back to the trilogy of books as I started the third one and thought "Eh, I'll come back to this". Hoping it's as rewarding as the other two

it goes to some wild places, figuratively and literally

my memory of it is that it's about 600 pages and has about 10 new ideas in it all of which could've been their own book

i doubt i'll ever re-read all 1800 pages though.

I had no idea so much of the show cribs from books 2 and 3. Even stuff in the opening first episode takes place in 3. Have to admit, that's some clever adapting

Yeah, they don't seem to have tried to do the usual streaming thing of padding it out eternally. Feels this could be comfortable done in 3 (maybe even 2?) seasons.

How can you guys just skip past the fucking crazy Walter White lawyer poisoning his billionaire boss story?

any time Benedict Wong is mentioned i think of him on the phone to his mum in 14 Storeys High.
"hi mum, it's me, your son. yes, the Chinese one..."

quite liked this

How can you guys just skip past the fucking crazy Walter White lawyer poisoning his billionaire boss story?

I don’t want to watch a movie of this

could wade be any more over-the-top tho

ep 5, man.
Annoys me when you can't tell if something makes zero sense intentionally because of sneaky people in the plot or because it makes good TV.

forgot Kevin Eldon was in it in one of the first eps too to add to the weird-but-I-like-it vibe

yeah episode five was good stuff. it’s one thing reading that culebra cut scene, another thing entirely watching it *shudder*

I started reading the books after watching the Netflix show. It's good to know the physicists version of Friends was a creation of the GoT guys.