Show Cover

If one of us survives, we all survive.

# Review

I recently watched the Western Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s novel. The backstory of this adaptation is pretty crazy and definitely worth reading into. I had relatively high expectations for this show, because David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, despite being terrible writers (last few seasons of Game of Thrones), are pretty solid at adapting novels to the screen (first few seasons of Game of Thrones). Unfortunately, 3 Body Problem is very mediocre and more akin to the last few seasons of Game of Thrones.

For one, the adaptation is a complete reimagining of the book, where Benioff, Weiss, and their accomplice Alexander Woo, dumb down the story and strip it of all nuance. For instance, instead of keeping the story Chinese, they opted to make it British with a few token Chinese characters. While I understand why they did it (to appeal to a broader Western audience), it strips much of the cultural nuance from the story, such as making Ye Wenjie (Rosalind Chao) into a one dimensional character whose only characteristic is revenge.

Likewise, the newly created characters such as Saul (Jovan Adepo) and Will (Alex Sharp) have terrible dialogue, are mostly boring, and have paper-thin character development. I especially disliked Augie (Eiza González) who managed to make almost every scene insufferable with her constant overly edgy whining and selfishness. Despite the show completely missing the mark on the narrative side, there are some very cool and visually impressive scenes, especially the one relating to Panama.

# Conclusion

Some visually impressive scenes but overall a mediocre adaptation.

# Overall rating: 7.1

What does the rating mean?