The review of the long-awaited serial adaptation of the first chapter of the Hard Sci-Fi trilogy by Chinese writer Liu Cixin, Memory of the Earth's Past. From March 21, 2024, on Netflix.
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| Image Credit: Netflix |
If with all that high, intellectual, and ambitious science fiction in its less mainstream declinations, the public all over the world has for decades been called upon to deal with bizarre puzzles on the one hand and contents of great depth and specific weight on the other, with 3 Body Problem, the new and highly anticipated Netflix series available from March 21, 2024, viewers, even particularly demanding ones, will have their money's worth.
Those who know the 2006 novel of the same name, the first chapter of the Memory of the Earth's Past trilogy, written by Liu Cixin, of which the show in question is the long-distance adaptation, will already have a clear idea of what they will encounter throughout the eight episodes (from approximately 60 minutes each) that go into composing it. On the contrary, those who have never had previous contact with the literary matrix will discover once again the level of complexity a certain type of science fiction can reach.
Hard Sci-Fi series that combines an imaginative plot with substantial use of academic concepts and scientific theories
It is no coincidence that we are talking about the so-called Hard Sci-fi, that is to say, the one which combines the imaginative plot with a substantial use of academic concepts and scientific theories which raises the difficulty bar quite a bit. This is why anyone who decides to venture into the vision will necessarily have to deal with a timeline full of content and very stratified, animated by a very large gallery of characters and above all by a complex system of terms, cross-references, and references that require discrete knowledge in the fields of physics, mathematics, engineering, and biology, starting from the title that even calls into question the "Three-body problem" in astrodynamics, i.e. the discipline that studies the motion of rockets, missiles and space vehicles determined starting from the laws of motion and Universal Gravitation by Isaac Newton.
This makes enjoyment rather difficult on paper, enough to discourage and risk alienating that portion of the public that has no intention of accepting certain rules of engagement. This danger has apparently been averted given the position obtained in the weekly ranking of the most-watched series on the Stars and Stripes platform, where it appears on the highest steps of the top ten.
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| Image Credit: Netflix |
Although the vision remains difficult, the authors have managed to control and shape the very intricate raw material available
We'll see how much and how the show will be able to defend it, in the meantime those of us who have read the pages of the book and seen the episodes of the transposition will have realized what an impressive and burdensome amount of work of reworking, rewriting, and adaptation the creators David Benioff, D. B. Weiss and Alexander Woo had to work hard to bring the Chinese writer's work to the screens. After all, part of the team of screenwriters had already accomplished a miracle with the serial transposition of the global success of Game of Thrones, which meant them competing with the firepower of George R. R. Martin's novels.
We know how it ended on that occasion, so the conditions for doing well and, above all, coming out unscathed even with The 3-Body Problem were all there. Although the vision remains difficult, the authors have managed to control and shape the very intricate raw material available, giving it an audiovisual form that is at least accessible and not totally repulsive.
To make the climb and complete the task of transcoding the first part of the monumental literary work in what is the inaugural season of the series, the showrunners had to, with the writer's permission, simplify and dry out the dense web of narrative and dramaturgical plots at the basis of the novel while maintaining the fulcrum fundamentally unchanged, but combining the number of main and secondary characters present in the story and in the multiple space-time lines (past, present-day and future) along which it branches. A story that for those who don't know describes and shows the first contact between human scientists and an alien civilization coming from a nearby star system composed of three stars similar to the Sun that orbit each other in an unstable triple system bodies.
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| Image Credit: Netflix |
Even the slightest distraction during viewing could be fatal
Everything that will happen, including the most relevant twists that generate the first and most significant earthquakes with related adjustments will concern the various figures involved, including the small group of young scientists, nicknamed the "Oxford Five" who try to shed light on the truth linked to a top-secret project, we obviously leave it to a vision which for the record requires a very high threshold of attention, because even the slightest distraction during use could be fatal, sending the compass into a tailspin just enough to cause the loss of orientation.
Losing your way is therefore a real danger that can only be fought with binge-watching without distractions. Unfortunately, not all one-lines work in the same way, just as some key characters are not developed properly, creating an imbalance that ends up weighing on the overall economy of the horizontal line of the series. Side effects,, due to a process of adaptation which on the one hand made the transition possible, on the other hand impoverished, weakened, and trivialized some sections of the architecture and as many supporting columns that support it.
Narrative and technical discontinuity is the Achilles heel of the show
These are the obstacles to overcome to be in tune with a product that, regardless of the result, greatly raises the standards and ambitions of the genre on the serial front. Indeed, Seventh Art has shown its teeth on more than one occasion, bringing films of the highest level to the big screen that have addressed themes common to The Three-Body Problem, leaving its mark on the minds and imagination of cinema audiences.
The visual impact and some highly spectacular moments of the series, which was able to count on the technical and directorial contribution of a solid quartet made up of Derek Tsang, Andrew Stanton, Minkie Spiro, and Jeremy Podeswa, compensate for others in which the CGI and VFX do not work to full rotation and do not provide the right contribution. This discontinuity, at times inexplicable if you consider the budget provided for each episode which amounted to 20 million dollars, is one of the Achilles' heels of the operation.
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| Image Credit: Netflix |
The 3-body problem: evaluation and conclusion
With the adaptation of The Three-Body Problem, the authors of Game of Thrones perform yet another miracle. Managing to transpose the first part of Liu Cixin's monumental Hard Sci-Fi literary work into a serial format was not at all simple. The showrunners had to put their hands heavily, with the approval of the Chinese writer, on the very complicated and layered source material without however violating its spirit and guidelines.
The simplification process has led on one hand to improvements that have made passages of the very dense plot accessible to all and on the other to structural imbalances that have weakened and impoverished the one-lines of some main characters. The same imbalances can also be found in the packaging with highly spectacular scenes that give way to others that show inexplicable structural failures as regards the quality of the CGI.
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