A Watered Down Netflix Three Body Problem Is Still OK

 

I just finished watching Netflix's rendition of the first novel of the great trilogy of novels by Chinese author Liu Cinxin. As always, the novels eclipse any possible film treatment. Last summer, I read through all three: The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest and Death's End. The final two are much better than the first, so there is much to look forward to in future adaptations. The Netflix series is entertaining, but lacks the powerful environmental and global cooperative messages of the novels and the 30 episode Chinese dramatization of the first novel which was excellent.

 

The series is faithful to the novel and while it was the most popular show in China, American attention spans might find the faithful transfer of the novel to video slow since most of the action is intellectual and psychological. Still, I enjoyed the books so much it was a joy to see them put on screen.

 

I was skeptical about what Netflix might do, but was pleasantly surprised in some areas. While the Chinese version is superior, Netflix did a better job explaining things like the scientific "three body" idea, probably because many more people already had the books as background in China. The interjection of characters from the last two books into this first part of the story was also good since the books overlap on a timeline. For example, starting the character of Jin Cheng, who is a stand-in for Chung Xin in the last novel, Death's End, is great since her timeline reaches back into the period of the first. I hope that Netflix will get another season to take the story to the next level. I will undoubtedly be watching the Chinese adaptation of The Dark Forest when it is available with subtitles. 

 

The Netflix series seems to water down the strong environmental message of the books. While the first book has a powerful ecological theme and the second a very allegoric one in humanity joining together to face an existential threat, Netflix waters it down to "the bad guys are coming, and we are bugs," taking away much of its power. While the reading of Carson's Silent Spring and Mike Evans's planting of trees are part of that environmental message that Netflix does include, unlike in the novels where they are potent symbols tied to Ye Wenjie and Mike Evans's decision to welcome the aliens because humans are destroying their world, you don't get that from the Netflix story. In fact, unlike in the novels where they anchor their character's motivations to work with the aliens to save the world from humans, they are empty of meaning. At a time when we can use allegories for global cooperation in face of an existential environmental threat, it seems like a glaring omission and lost opportunity.