In a couple of weeks, Netflix will drop the first season of 3 Body Problem, its adaptation of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Liu Cixin. This is a hard story to summarize, but it basically involves mankind's first contact with a hostile extraterrestrial species. Can we get ready before they cross the vast gulf of space to arrive on Earth, or will we be too busy fighting amongst ourselves?
That description sort of recalls Game of Thrones, where everyone was too busy fighting each other to properly prepare for the coming of the White Walkers. That may not be accidental, because 3 Body Problem comes from David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who served as showrunners on Game of Thrones for all eight seasons. This is their first big project since the end of the HBO fantasy hit. Will it also be a smash? Watch the trailer below and decide for yourself:
The trailer is interesting, although I feel like the uninitated may still be a little confused about what exactly 3 Body Problem is about. Speaking to ABC News, cast member John Bradley (who played Samwell Tarly in Game of Thrones), said that when the first trailer came out, his friends said they had less of an idea of the show than before they'd watched.
3 Body Problem is a complex story that engages with lots of complicated scientific concepts, and I'm very curious to see how Benioff and Weiss make it work onscreen. The trailers are cool in a "ooh, this looks like a mind-bending good time" kind of way, but I think clips like this one give a better idea of the show will operate moment to moment.
3 Body Problem is "more ambitious" than Game of Thrones
"It's one of the most ambitious scripts I've ever read, especially for TV," Bradley told ABC News. "We've got eight episodes to adapt a very, very dense and very complex book...It's following on from Game of Thrones in the way that the guys broke all of the rules of TV and kind of reestablished what TV can be. They've not taken it easy on themselves with this. In some ways it's even more ambitious and got even more scope to it than Game of Thrones."
Everyone knows how Game of Thrones was complicated: it had approximately 30,000 characters all with their own agendas and relationships. The show asked viewers to learn them all, and we did. 3 Body Problem is a little different. As Bradley points out, the story takes place in multiple worlds and across time; there are scenes set in China in the 1960s, scenes set in the present day as our cast of characters tries to figure out the meaning of a strange virtual game called 3 Body, and scenes set within the game itself, which shows players things from across the cosmos.
"The thing about Game of Thrones...it was all set in the same time, kind of in the same logic," Bradley said. " are in so many different landscapes and so many different points in history that it's hard to kind of get a grasp on it." According to Bradley, the show delights in "blurring the line between what's concrete real and what's tangible and what's real and what isn't."
Will this gamble pay off? We'll find out when 3 Body Problem drops on Netflix on March 21.
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