The label that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss charge as “creators of Game of Thrones” is one of those that weighs. Justly. Instead of distancing themselves from the public’s expectations, they embark with Alexander Woo (The Terror: Infamy) on the adaptation of another literary work accused of being unadaptable: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu.
If the fantastic saga of G.R.R. Martin was impossible due to the narrative ambition and the budget it required, Cixin’s science fiction trilogy was feared for addressing a potential extraterrestrial invasion from a scientific perspective. The Chinese writer bases his fictional universe on the explanation of theoretical physics. Translating mathematical language into audiovisual terms was, to say the least, a risky maneuver.
The series is told from two timelines. In the sixties, Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng) witnesses her father being murdered during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and her regime banishes her to a remote base from where the authorities want to broadcast messages in search of extraterrestrial life.
At present, experiments in particle accelerators have ceased to follow the laws of physics: science, some maintain, could be dead. Five Oxford students reunite after their mentor dies during a wave of suicides that affects the international scientific community and discover that she dedicated her last days to an enigmatic video game that consists of solving the three-body problem of orbital mechanics.
The orthodox of literary adaptations may possibly hold their heads: the Chinese context of the original work is diluted in favor of a Westernization that is disguised as a supposed diversity. It is a creative decision that warps the DNA of the work, both due to the transformation of the characters and the discourse of the novels, which could be interpreted as a warning against Europe and the United States.
What Benioff, Weiss and Woo do achieve is to propose an entertaining and more accessible version of Cixin’s proposal, which in its simplification also loses courage: where is the artistic curiosity to dramatize science on the audiovisual level?
The Oxford physicists played by Jess Hong, John Bradley, Eiza González, Alex Sharp and Jovan Adepo are designed to diversify the targets, streamline the plots and, incidentally, offer an emotional component with the bonds of friendship. As the episodes go by, however, the dramatic illusion of character creation is never sold: they are perceived as tools for the scriptwriters to develop a long-term story and the attempts to breathe life into them are superficial.
The 3-Body Problem is positioned as an interesting science fiction proposal, a satisfying marathon, but it does not live up to expectations, both for those looking for the definitive science fiction story (as Game of Thrones was for the fantastic) or for lovers of the Chinese trilogy, intelligent and with a very determined and local sensitivity in terms of the treatment of characters.
The direction, without epicness, personality or attractive choices when approaching scenes that on paper should cause an impact (and with poorly polished visual effects), does not help either. As was the case in February with Avatar: The Last Airbender, perhaps it’s time to question why Netflix’s big television shows have such unsophisticated direction and lack of ideas.
