3 Body Problem is a new sci-fi series streaming right now on Netflix, about humanity's first contact with an extraterrestrial species. The show comes from Alexander Woo, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the latter two of whom created Game of Thrones for HBO. That series was often talked about in the context of what it changed from its source material, the Song of Ice and Fire series by author George R.R. Martin. They're up to their old tricks in 3 Body Problem, which is based on the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Liu Cixin. Again, they've changed a lot.
Which isn't to say that the show is bad; in fact, we really enjoyed it and hope it gets renewed for a second season. But if you're interested in what the show changed from the books, you've come to the right place. Let's get into it:
The Oxford Five are (kind of) invented for the show
There are three books in Liu Cixin's trilogy: The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest and Dearth's End. In The Three-Body Problem, we follow Wang Miao, who professor who's working on nanotechnology. He starts seeing a mysterious countdown appear in front of his eyes that only goes away when he shuts down his lab.
Reading that, you may be reminded of the characters of Auggie Salazar (Eiza González), who has pretty much the exact same thing happen to her. So the show took the character of Wang Miao and turned him into Auggie Salazar. It did this with every member of Auggie's friend group, called the Oxford Five. Here's how the transfers break down:
- Wang Miao from the books becomes Auggie Salazar in the show.
- In The Dark Forest, a professor named Luo Ji is named as a Wallfacer, someone charged with thinking up plans to defend against a coming extraterrestrial invasion, with the stipulation that he can't mention his plans to anyone or the aliens will know. In the show, Luo Ji becomes Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo).
- In Death's End, Yun Tianming is a terminally ill engineer nurses an unspoken love for his old classmate Cheng Xin. After he comes into some money, he buys a star in her name and then volunteers to have his brain extracted, placed in a probe, and launched towards the coming extraterrestrial fleet, with the hope that he can eventually become a spy for humanity. In the show, Yun Tianming becomes Will Downing (Alex Sharp).
- You've probably already guessed that Cheng Xin from the books becomes Jin Cheng (Jess Hong) in the show. Like Cheng Xin in Death's End, Jin Cheng is recruited to work on the Staircase Project, designed to plant a human spy within the ranks of the aliens.
- In Death's End, Yun Tianming receives a big chunk of money from Hu Wen, an old college classmate who struck it rich thanks to an idea from Yun Tianming. This is the role that Jack Rooney (John Bradley) plays in the show.
Netflix's 3 Body Problem has made two big changes here: first, it's taken a lot of characters who were originally Chinese and diversified them, probably because the show is being produced for an English-speaking audience and the producers don't want to use subtitles the whole way through.
The other big change is that, in the books, most of these five characters don't know each other. A lot of them don't even feature in the same books. The show has rearranged things so they're all part of a friend group. That reduces the scope of the story but also gives us a few core characters we can follow throughout the whole thing.
The pacing is much faster on the show
The book The Three-Body Problem is mostly set up a slow burn mystery. Wang Miao has a countdown floating in front of his face, but he doesn't know why. We get flashbacks to Ye Wenjie's experiences during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, but we don't know why. Wang Miao is invited to play the Three Body virtual reality game, but we don't know what it means for a long time.
The show speeds all this up. By the end of the third episode, we know that the Three Body game is supposed to simulate the inhospitable home world where the aliens live. We know that Ye Wenjie sent a communication to them back when she was working at Red Coast base, and we know that they're on their way to Earth. We don't get confirmation of any of this until later in the first book.
The producers of 3 Body Problem have an eye towards adapting the whole story, and they're already getting a jump on it. The last few episodes of the first season import things from the second and third books, including the Staircase Project and the Wallfacer program. They clearly felt they needed to get through some of the early revelations so they could start setting up the events of the second and third books, which are considerably longer than the first.
The science is made simpler
Liu Cixin was a scientist himself before he wrote the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, which is full of robust scientific explanations for a lot of what's going on. The show cuts a lot of this out so everything goes down smoother for the viewers at home.
One example is how, in the first episode, Auggie told that if she looks up at the night sky at a certain time, the universe will "wink" at her. She does, and sees the stars blink on and off. This is true for anyone who happened to look up at the sky at this time. In the book, things are more complicated. Wang Miao goes to a lab and we get an explanation of how cosmic background radiation works. The "wink" is expressed as inexplicable changes in the patterns of data, not the stars literally winking off and on.
Later in the show, we learn that the aliens have sent sophons — massive super-computers compressed to the size of a single proton — to spy on humanity. On the show, these sophons write "You are bugs" on every screen in the world, and expand to show the form of a huge eye looking down on the Earth. In th book, we also get some lengthy scenes showing how the aliens made the sophons, which involves unfolding protons into multiple dimensions over and over again until they get it right.
Names are changed
Up until now, we've talked about things the producers of the Netflix show changed to make the story more digestible. But some changes just seem odd, like some of the names.
Take the aliens themselves. In the English translations of the books, they're called the Trisolarans. Their name is a reference to the fact that their world has three suns. But on the Netflix show, they're called the San Ti, which we're told means "three-body people" in Chinese.
The show goes the opposite direction with the character of Clarence (Benedict Wong), a hardened military operative working for Thomas Wade (Liam Cunningham). In the books, Clarence is named Da Shi. What's weird is that the press materials for 3 Body Problem name Wong's character as "Da Shi," and Wong himself calls his character "Da Shi" when giving interviews. But on the show, everyone calls him Clarence. We don't hear him called "Da Shi" once.
The adventures of Ye Wenjie
In both versions of the story, we spend a lot of time with Ye Wenjie back when she's a young physicist working at the Red Coast base in China in the 1960s and 70s. In the books as on the show, Ye Wenjie is the first person to contact the San Ti, having grown disillusioned with humanity's ability to manage itself and inviting the aliens to come and fix our problems. But there's a big plot twist involving her that the show cuts from the books entirely.
In the books, we learn that Ye Wenjie marries the military physicist Yang Weining while working at Red Coast base. It's a loveless marriage — Ye Wenjie is too damaged at this point to form many strong connections — but she has affection for him. She has a much more combative relationship with the military physicist Lei Zhicheng, who continually steals her work in an attempt to elevate his status in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party.
Eventually, Ye Wenjie receives an answer to a message she beamed into space years before. It's from the San Ti. That's when she invites them to come to Earth. Lei Zhicheng finds out aliens have contacted them. Not wanting Lei Zhicheng to reveal what's happened, which he absolutely plans to do (and to take credit for it), Ye Wenjie arranges to have him killed by sabotaging a winch. It comes loose and Lei Zhicheng falls from a cliff but manages to hang on. Yang Weining, who doesn't know the full extent of what's going on, goes to help Lei Zhicheng, and Ye Wenjie cuts both of them loose to prevent her secrets from getting out.
There are more changes where that came from. If you're interested in reading further, the Netflix how has led to increased sales for The Three-Body Problem book.
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