For 3 Body Problem, the popular sci-fi book was heavily modified. However, the big character change turns out to be the Netflix series’ greatest strength.
3 Body Problem is one of the most expensive Netflix series ever and the adaptation of the globally acclaimed Trisolaris novels by Cixin Liu. The unusual invasion story surprises with lots of crazy science fiction ideas – and many a Game of Thrones cameo. However, anyone familiar with the original will be confronted with drastic changes. As a fan, I was very irritated by some of them, but in one respect the series adaptation can even outdo the original.
Warning, spoilers for the entire first season follow:
The biggest 3 Body Problem change hides an ingenious twist
The Game of Thrones duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and co-showrunner Alexander Woo have made numerous changes to the original for their Netflix adaptation. The main storyline was moved from China to Great Britain and some storylines were cut, streamlined or rearranged. However, one other change seemed particularly strange beforehand.
In the novel The Three Suns – and the first series adaptation Three Body – it is the Chinese nanoscientist Wang Miao who leads the story and is confronted with impending countdowns, blinking universes and the three-body problem in a virtual reality game. The Netflix series, on the other hand, has turned one character into five, with the experiences of the original book split between them
(The new 3 Body Problem characters are not that new)
As a fan of the original, this change seemed sensible to me at first. After all, the characters in the Trisolaris trilogy are not author Cixin Liu’s greatest strength. With the Oxford Five, the Game of Thrones makers have not only replaced the book protagonist Wang Miao with a few more exciting characters. Their change also conceals an ingenious twist that made 3 Body Problem a particularly surprising viewing experience for me.
It took me a few episodes to realize that the Oxford Five are not new characters invented for the Netflix series, but familiar characters from all three books. However, they have all been given new names and small changes to their stories. The series thus became an unexpectedly exciting puzzle game in which I was able to spin new theories from episode to episode as to which novel characters the characters were actually based on.
Netflix’s 3 Body Problem surprises even book fans
The moments of surprise run through the whole first season right up to the finale. However, the big theory game didn’t really get going for me until episode 3. When Oxford Five member Jack Rooney (John Bradley) dies unexpectedly and leaves part of his fortune to his best friend Will (Alex Sharp), the first pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place in my head.
Because the lovable snack mogul is actually a variation on a minor character who appears in just a few pages in the third book, Beyond Time, and gives his pal Yun Tianming a considerable sum of money. Within one episode, Will Downing, who seemed boring to me, suddenly became exciting. After all, he is the Netflix version of one of the most important characters in the Trisolaris saga.
While I was initially annoyed as a book fan by the sometimes radical cuts to the story, my disappointment turned to euphoria in the second half of the season. After the spectacular climaxes in episode 5, 3 Body Problem surprisingly left the original The Three Suns behind and adapted parts of the other two novels.
I could certainly have noticed earlier that the physicist Jin Cheng (Jess Hong) is actually the book character Cheng Xin. However, I didn’t see a surprise coming. At first I thought that the unambitious Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo) was the Netflix version of the lab assistant Ding Yu from The Three Suns, but I cheered out loud in front of my TV when he was chosen as the wall-shower in episode 8. The spectacular revelation: Saul Durand takes over the role of Luo Ji, the main character from the second book, The Dark Forest.
After the end of the first season, I was far from having all my theories and questions answered. My hopes for a season 2 extension are all the higher now. Because I have to find out whether Raj (Saamer Usmani) turns into the psychopathic spaceship captain Zhang Beihei and whether Auggie (Eiza González) could possibly become interesting as the astronomer AA in the future
