Ye Wenjie's issue wasn't just only about the communist party, but also how we destroy nature. Even in mordern times she referenced that the aliens would come help us solve our problems like climate change. She was angry with the whole world not just China. She was disgusted with humanity as a whole even after she escaped China.
I'm kind of curious how she got the impression that the aliens would solve climate change, especially through the limited knowledge and communication she had with the San Ti in the early years. I would expect them to be so high tech that they could transform the planet in any which way they please and really erase the original nature of earth, but maybe her idea of "saving nature" is different from what I'm imagining. I guess she was a pretty bitter women for the rest of her life, so she probably did hate most humans (expect for the ones she deemed worthy of joining the cult and allying with the San Ti). Honestly she seems like such an interesting character that had so much potential if they had fleshed her out more.
@@JessInDreams7 their issues were with the 3 suns, but they might have tech that produce clean energy, remove green house gases from the atmosphere, ways to deal with trash etc. since they are able to live in a confined space like on a spaceship for hundred of years. Also her belief in them is blind faith, it doesn't need to make sense to her.
@@JessInDreams7She assumed that if the aliens were more advanced than humans, they would be better people and more enlightened than humans, and thought being colonised by aliens might keep humans from being destructive. She didn't expect the aliens would want to wipe out humans.
@@JessInDreams7 When one loses all faith in the internal, one looks to the external to solve our problems. She said it in her reply, "We can not save ourselves." People in a state of hopeless desperation will irrationally believe some other is the source of their salvation.
In the book and also the Tencent series, there was an 8 years period after Ye Wenjie's sun experiment "failed", she completely lost her direction in life, during this period she married Yang Weining, and the supposedly peaceful and non-busy years actually let the trauma once burried by her busy works resurfaced and haunting her again, she started to think more into the darkest side of mankind, she read a lot of foreign books about human science and learning about the Cold War which at it's peak at the time, that a nuclear war could be happening at anytime. And looking what happening in her country, she finally losing hope in humanity. The moment she learned about the alien message, took her 5 hours before she replied. To me it's much more believable than how it was shown in the Netflix series. I only felt hatred in the Netflix version of Ye Wenjie.
Ah yea, I do remember Ye Wenjie's character being much more complex than what they showed. I just feel like Netflix was so focused on depicting the brutality of the cultural revolution that they poured all their resources in showing that one thing and disregarded everything else. I saw so many positive reactions from people enjoying seeing the "uncensored" version of the violence that happened, and I'm just like ok it's fine to have that, but that shouldn't be the whole story of Ye Wenjie's life. There are so many other aspects that add dimension to a main character that they just seemingly didn't care or forgot about.
Yeah but how much of the Great Leap Forward did they censor though. The tencent version is so overrated. It's like reading the book, but in slow motion. It doesn't take me 25 hours to read a book. Took me 25 hours to watch that tencent version though. It took more hours, but it was still less than the book because of CCP censorship. Also. The tencent version ends at the end of book 1. Anyone who's read the trilogy know that all the interesting stuff happens in books 2 and 3.
@@bobhawke7373 it's Cultural Revolution not Great Leap Forward they're entirely different thing lol. And Tencent version wasn't targeting your kind so maybe put your Anglocentric mindset aside and let us enjoy what we like.
They also don't show the 100 years of Western imperialist colonialization of China that preceded the Chinese Revolution. They don't show how Chinese were second class citizens in their own country; where US gunboats patrolled the rivers of China and the major coastal cities had exclusive zones for the foreign invaders and Chinese were not allowed except as servants.@@bobhawke7373
The Tencent version didn't miss a lot on the cultural revolution que. Only missed her father dead. Yes, if you're not familiar with the history, you would have no idea what happened without reading the books. But also if you're Chinese, more or less you understand what happened. @@bobhawke7373
One major problem of Netflix's 3Body Problem is that all main characters are connected and know each other very well. The heroes of Earth are all members of the same signal social circle. Really, what? They all seem to reside in a little town, and Sn-ti can destroy humanity simply by blowing up a bar!!
It's unbelievable that Wade has so much power to command entire armies single-handedly. He seems to be involved in all the projects against San-ti. It's just so weird.
Haha yes omg! I think I saw somewhere online people were comparing it to the TV show "Friends". It's so unfathomable that they tried to sell this premise as a more globalized version, when they made the scope so narrow. Even the Avengers weren't friends until they had to be gathered to face a world ending threat.
Disagree. Ye wenjie was the most interesting character. She gave up on humanity but yet still had hope that the aliens would save humanity from its savagery. Willing to bet that either way, the aliens will solve "the human problem" of being savages in her eyes. Saving humanity or extinction. Its a win either way to her.
3 месяца назад+3
Ye Wenjie decides to contact the aliens after she reads the book "Silent Spring" from Rachel Carson.
I just think its interesting that the problem started in China with a Chinese person struggling with the state of China... but now we need people from the West to save the world.
I feel like you might not think about the simple curiosity of contacting aliens, even if you were warned about their bad intentions. She had nothing to lose and had little empathy for humanity, but was also a scientist, extremely curious and keen to discover new things. So she did.
The Cultural Revolution was a very important element in the source material I think (haven't read the books, but watched the Tencent Version) as not only provides context to Dr Ye's past, personality and the decision to betray humanity, but it was also in the very centre of the story and the spirit of this work. As is latter revealed (spoilers, maybe) the Trisolarians live in a society with an autocratic government, were art, creativity and even personal relationships are disregarded as unimportant or secondary to the main, and only goal: survival. It is clear, all of that was a very personal thing to the author, who is Chinese But while many people claim Netflix adaptation is better, and braver as it showed Ye's father been murdered during the Cultural Revolution unlike the Tencent version who faced censorship, it is, actually, totally the opposite. As you also noticed, Cultural Revolution is addressed in a very shallow way, and from the perspective of the West. The gruesome murder of the Professor served only to depict a very simplistic version of China: one in which all of its population is anti scientific, fanatic, communists who despite all human values. Dr Ye herself is depicted as just an unstable woman with a complete despite for all humanity and not as an idealist who ultimately was willing to go as far as needed to help humanity overcome it's problems, even if the solution she thinks to be the only one proves to be wrong and doomed humanity. If Netflix intention was to make a more international story, they would have changed the Cultural Revolution setting for a piece of western history, as there are many in which the same elements of oppression, betrayal, manipulation, deceiving can be found. We all know that US and British tv/cinema don't work that way. Although their entertainment industry claim to be free of censorship, truth is it censorship itself, by following western propaganda, while depicting other countries and their society as it fits US/British narrative. On doing so, almost every US/British production that deals with stories from other nations suffer from said bias, and can only deliver shallow, cartoonish stories that lack of the spirit and complexity of the source material, rest to say are not at all accurate in their representation of other cultures and ways of thinking. This was a very bad adaptation, where the few good things are just the result of the original work having lot of amazing concepts.
Wow, you hit my point right on the nose! This is exactly why I couldn't understand why they put so much effort into including the Cultural Revolution, when they could've easily chosen a Western scenario. If their goal was to just have some horrific event traumatize the main character, there are plenty of examples from around the world that would've worked even better for their "internationalized" version. But oh, they kind of said they want to be true to the books and put something culturally Chinese. Then I wonder why it's depicted in such a shallow way, from a Western point of view, and completely misses the purpose the original book included it for?
If the producers wanted to make the story more international, they should have removed any Chinese scenes in this new serie. Let me give it a try: Ye was born in a native American village, and she watched her father being scalped by white colonists from UK. Mike Evans was born in a rich family in US, and his father took him to Epstein Island when he was 13 and he was shocked and became disappointed in humanity. Several years later, when Ye met Mike, they decided to invite alien to earth to save this broken world. Or they can make Ye a black girl who watched her father being slau-g-ht-ered by a rac-i-st group with three Ks in the name. It will make it much easier for western audience to understand the motivations of the main characters.
@@aroonsubway2079 paradoxically, it is US cinema the one that is really subject to censorship, as you won't ever find something like what you described on the screens
I thought it was convincing that she'd invite the aliens. The main reason is that not only were things going terribly in China, but there was no sign that anyone else anywhere in the world cared about what was happening in China. Why would she feel any connection to the rest of humanity? Caring about the wider world is a luxury. Only when things are not so bad in your life are you going to care about what's happening to someone on the other side of the world. The UK characters were the unconvincing ones to me. For example, Will and Jin. He's presented as such a passive person I didn't see the point in the show wasting so much screen time on the question of whether he'd tell her how he felt about her or not. Obviously he was never going to speak up. I do give the show credit for coming up with a fitting end for his character. Spending eternity neither alive nor dead as the universe passes him by is what he was all about.
The Ye Wenjie was also heavily influenced by the Silent Spring book. She has plenty of reasons to want a change in management. As for Will, let's just say this is season one of (hopefully) four.
Ye Wenjie and everyone in China was trapped in China during the Cultural Revolution. No one was allowed to leave. She had no experience of life outside China and only witnessed the cruelty and brutality of people in China so she just believed all humans were cruel, violent and beyond redemption.
I'm just surprised she was fully fluent in English and even published a paper in English. I find it hard to believe she can publish a paper without any interaction with the English speaking world, but maybe it was like that back then? Also was she taught by other Chinese who were fluent in English or did she meet non-Chinese people in her life?
The only reason she is able to communicate with the aliens is because she read an American scientist's paper on bouncing signals off of the Sun. So she was aware of the rest of the world. The book has a more balanced depiction of the period. This show treats Chinese people as cartoon characters. Unfortunately, many Westerners think China is still like the Cultural Revolution and shows like this that eliminate modern China from the story help perpetuate that misunderstanding.
@@dharyllz9462 I don’t think she has to leave China to learn about the cultures of other countries, and I think it’s unrealistic to think she learned English without learning anything about the country that the language originated from. Also a lot of the scientific knowledge she’s so proud of flaunting originated in the Western world at the time.
@@JessInDreams7She would have learned English at university because she had to read papers by British and American scientists. And they taught English in schools in the cities before the Cultural Revolution.
I always have to laugh when I see how writers in their 50s write "edgy" 20-somethings, "just have them say fuck a lot and sex each other." nailed it. the human computer was funny, but lol, don't worry b/c you're not wrong. it's just silly.
Honestly they probably would've been better off with an older main cast. The way they portrayed these young "geniuses" made the whole alien invasion feel like a joke 😂
@@JessInDreams7 as someone who also spent far too long in academia before wising up, it's also just unrealistic. I still remember an article that referred to a woman in her mid-40s as a "young scientist and the beginning of her career." they always do that, though. I assume b/c they think they need a young cast to appeal to that key 18-34 demographic. I couldn't actually make it through the whole series, though. I was too tired and kept falling asleep... so, if someone actually used the phrase, "hashtag xyz," out loud unironically... again. just... truly writers who have their pulse on a generation. nailed it. no notes 😂
It's rare to see you give such an objective evaluation of the Netflix's 3 Body Problem. It can be said that even from a Westernized perspective, there are still many problematic parts in this TV series. They have cut out too many necessary details and created plotlines that contradict the core essence of the original work. They attempt to showcase a so-called 'internationalized' script within a small circle, yet desperately retain the 'China, bad' parts. I have watched a lot of videos criticizing the Netflix's 3 Body Problem on Chinese video websites. From the initial anger about the 'deterioration of an excellent work' to later rational analyses, most people's opinions are somewhat related to what you've said. Even as a casual viewer who doesn't care about the original work, this kind of production is still unconvincing.
Yes, just judging it as a TV show that supposed to tell a good story, I think the Netflix version skipped too many things and reached a lot of conclusions without much buildup. I really think scientific explanations need time and thought to get to the answer, and the Netflix series really lacks that. I'm currently watching Tencent's version of Three Body, and I'm noticing even more flaws with the Netflix version in comparison. Even though the Tencent version is set in China and most of the character's are Chinese, it still feels more broad in scope than the Netflix one that is only "internationalized" on the exterior. There are many more characters with different ideas and opinions despite them all being Chinese, whereas Netflix has many characters with different colored skin, but their mindsets are all similar. Overall, it just feels like the Netflix adaptation lacks seriousness and makes the entire story seem like a joke almost.
One thing that is really bizarre to me is that Ye Wenjie has an American Accent when she was young (near impossible at the time in China), and then her accent changed into British (when the actress portraying the elder Ye, Rosalind Chao, has an American accent in all her junket interviews). There was no attention to that in the production, which caused a lack of truthfulness. A sign that not sufficient care and "principling" was put into deciding everybody else is international but keeping Ye Chinese.
Oh haha, I didn't even notice that! They definitely did drop the ball on a lot of the details, and it seems like they were focused on the wrong things like making it more "diverse" and showing the brutality of the CR without enough thought into how accurate the portrayal is and what deeper purpose it serves.
@@JessInDreams7 The brutality of the CR depicted was pretty accurate. Why do you think there's not enough thought into it? The purpose is to show the depravity humans can get to under an Inquisitionist mob uprising within a totalitarian regime, and how that can mar and dismantle the soul of an individual person such as Ye. They didn't drop the ball on her accent, she immigrated to England and over time obviously picked up the British accent. She didn't have an American accent to begin with but a Chinese Mandarin one that was subtle and not thick.
@@Fear_the_Nog If you say "there is still a bit of an accent in Young Ye Wenjie's English--that accent is not 'purely American'," I can be behind that. But if you say there's a thing called Chinese Mandarin English accent, then I'm sorry, that's not true. She knows when to roll her tongue and when not to depending on the placements of the letter "r" in the spelling, that's American-sounding. That consistency alone is not something Chinese Mandarin habits can generate. As a Mandarin speaking person who began learning English with a heavy Shandong accent and then like to imitate Beijing/Shanghai/Guangdong accents in Mandarin and English, and who now talks in an American accent and have lived and worked across continents, I am bringing the perspective that: 1) having an American-sounding accent requires a type of teaching and teaching environment that hardly existed in that era; 2) when you're 30 years old, a professor, and having a child and a conspiratorial operation with an American, have had an accent already, it is rare that you just "pick up" a different accent because you now live in a different place. I'd like to believe that us ESL people have more agency and security. The most you do is you can go in-and-out, which I don't think is the case in the show (when a Russian spy who pretended to be American for years doesn't have to pretend to be American any more, and his accent is suddenly Russian, that also bugs me immensely). Now does it mean it was impossible for Ye Wenjie to have an American accent teacher in her upbringing, or it was impossible that she would change her accent? No, it was all possible. But did the show makers thought of these possibilities which was why they decided to have her accents change? If so, why did they want her to change like this? That's related to criticism. I believe this thing about accents is a big tangent. But it symbolizes something about representation. We are bringing insights and experiences with our voices. Such nuances are important. Such voices deserve credence.
@@Fear_the_Nog I'd also like to address your question about whether they were thoughtful enough about the CR. I don't dispute your views about the purpose and how the events impacted Ye. Having watched the Tencent show, which was missing a scene like that, I also believe including such as scene accurately is better. What the Tencent adaptation did, despite having to circumvent censorship by not including the most visceral stuff, was that it included (1) the detail that it was Ye Wenjie's own sister who was among those students, (2) the detail that Bai Mulin wanted to write a letter to the higher ups about the destruction of the forests, persuaded Ye to write it down and sign, did not sign the letter himself, betrayed her and accused her as the sole perpetrator when he realized it was a bad move, threw stuff at her and cracked her head when she tried to tell the truth, and (3) so many more details, "micro-aggressions" if you will, and vapid struggles on top of those two major events that led to a multitude of layers of sadness, melancholy, despair, doubt, resilience, scientific curiosity, etc. All I can say is that, when Ye Wenjie pushed that button on the Chinese show, I did not question the truthfulness or motivation of that moment. Many Chinese people are invested in seeing those stories portrayed accurately and fully (despite what you might hear. it's a divided and diverse world), not just the beheading-of-ned-stark style opening "moment," but the impact on generations of people and culture. All of that information can inform you much more of Ye Wenjie and her choice, and of the other Chinese characters and the society they are in in the book, but not enough of that was included, or made relevant in the Netflix show. That's why there's this question of, then why use the cultural revolution for the plot on the Netflix show? I've seen the suggestion of using mccarthyism as the stage of that happening, since -- I agree with Jess on this -- this is a "Westernized" cast. It's very difficult to fully unpack everything I feel, which can be really complicated and nuanced. It's a bit exhausting, but haunting as well. So thanks in advance for reading and reacting kindly to it.
@@Fear_the_Nog There were some obvious inaccuracies in the Cultural Revolution scenes including the printed signs that wouldn't have been possible at the time (should've been hand written) and slogans that didn't get coined until years later. Ye Wenjie's dad has an obvious accent when speaking Chinese and it kind of instantly takes you out of the moment if you are Chinese and can pick up on that. Also Ye Wenjie's reaction (screaming in the crowd and whatnot) was not something people would actually do because it would've been super dangerous and in reality they probably would've dragged her up to the stage and attacked her as well. Netflix really just made the whole scene sort of more of a dramatic spectacle. Also if you don't understand the complexities of the CR, you really only get the one dimensional view of oh the experience traumatized her and therefore she decided to condemn humanity. It was also included in the original book to provide a contrast to modern China (which they have removed from the show apparently).
But how does contacting aliens help her situation? They won't arrive to earth for another 400 years, so she would've been stuck in China her whole life. Oh but she moved out later and went to the UK so....even if she didn't know she would get to leave at the time, inviting aliens is not a solution to her problem.
I gotta agree with your overall argument - none of the characters motivations seemed very justified with what we had seen from them. It was just stuff happening the whole time, and for the most part completely divorced from any kind of authentic motivation or characterization. They seemes so focused on laying the groundwork for the further seasons that they forgot that they still needed the human element in it.
Everybody keeps telling "Netflix internationalized the show! It made it global and less exclusively chinese" got me tired already... The Three Body trilogy is GLOBAL, is constantly talking about HUMANS, not chinese citizens. I'm from Argentina, I've read the whole 4 books twice and I've read how Liu Cixin included the whole world in his work. He did it in several of his other books as well. I didn't felt excluded, didn't felt this was "just for the chinese" but somehow, for americans, if they are not named and placed as the heroes of every book in existence, then they feel "outcasted" Damn, you're ridiculous people
It wouldn't make a lick of sense for Netflix to make a show with Chinese characters set mostly in China. Besides, they were contractually obligated to change the setting.
The author of the book is the one who suggested to Netflix and the showrunners that they should diversify the cast and the setting. So maybe people like you who keep ignorantly complaining about this should take it up with him.
Watching the Netflix adaptation was like reading a Wikipedia article where they are trying to hide the truth but there are too many factual things they can't deny.
I think the biggest problem with this show is it requires that you think a little, even though they dumbed it down some. Most people don't have the mental faculty anymore to watch a show like this that requires you to actually think.
Actually quite the opposite is true. To enjoy this show/books you have to NOT think,....or as the old expression goes, shut off your brain. If you think you begin to see all the logic plot holes and contradictions and it begins to fall apart like an old moldy sweater.
3BP books got a unique international horizon, it is mainly based different characters, like the face waller Rediaz(I can't believe Netflix deleted this character) People can sense the diversity of the culture from different characters and stories. And Netflix built this point in a superficial way, different race originally from different countries, but acting and thinking in the same western way. I'm really shocked when I saw some comments saying Netflix show is better than books. I mean, seriously, do those guys read and understand the books?😅
19:50, we are in agreement none of the Oxford 5 acted anything like scientists. They seemed more like a bunch of rich entitled hipsters looking for reason to be upset. If I don't know what a device does or who put it there I'm definitely not putting it on my head. 21:46, the US was involved via NASA - Cape Canaveral is in Florida. The US also probably paid for a lot of the space based project and the US Defense Department probably ponied up a lot of those nuclear warheads. But I understand what you mean that most big epic movies always show the US front and center.
I think the biggest problem is the series took the colonial reference out of the storyline. The book is constantly referencing to human history and since they adapted it from a once colonized country to a colonial country, those reference were almost all deleted.
Yes, the problem is that there is no depiction of a modern technologically advanced China that has moved on beyond the excess of the Cultural Revolution. There is no depiction of current time Chinese scientists or government officials that are reasonable and thoughtful The show needs a more balanced depiction of China, especially since the author is Chinese. In the book the present day Chinese work cooperatively with other countries, including the Chinese government.
They did pick a Chinese General as Wallfacer, trusting him because of his strategic skills and scholarly writing. I think they could have included more of modern China but honestly, as a NA-born Chinese person, I think the amount of 'representation' is adequate, even if their version of diversity is Western-centric. Showing more of China itself would do what precisely, for advancing the story once it's quickly turned into a global issue? I feel like interpretations definitely can be blamed for being whitewashed due to how common that is, but to me it feels slightly like saying Romeo Must Die featured too many black and Chinese actors and they needed more of England and white English people because the author they interpreted is Shakespeare.
Yea it just didn't make sense to me why they would include the past China part, and then never revisit modern China in the future. If the problem started in China, why are they not participating in solving the problem?
I believe it was a requirement from the Chinese rights holder that the Netflix version NOT be set in modern China. Probably due to not wanting to cause confusion with the Tencent version.
A number of your points resonated with me. I was a foreign student in Beijing in the 90s, so quite liked the Tencent show's way of dwelling "in place", and in time. The CR scene and murder looked just like my university main building, so that was unnerving. But after that, the decision to move away from Beijing created so many problems - it cuts the origins, drivers, legacy off at the roots. You don't see modern China; the Wang Miao and Shen Yufei characters get atom-smashed and split into others; and curiously in becoming "more international" it becomes smaller and "less international". On the science devices - not the overall astrophysics - the VR game is attractive on the surface, but the more you think about it the less sense it makes... If the San Ti cannot fathom an Other which can lie or dissemble, then they have little sense of empathy. How do they design a VR game, and VR Hot Girl to appeal to humans? How do they know it will be effective? If they only know consciousness as shared experience, why do they get different humans to try the game? Surely - in San Ti land - all humans would think the same? If there are differences, like one San Ti is a pacifist (??), then why not more differences? If one San Ti ren is known to be pacifist, and is surviving by lying, then they can, and do, and the whole logic structure of contact implodes. Oh yeah, the sophons have no rules and power limits. At all. They could have nixed Saul at the wallfacer ceremony. Blanked Wade when he proposes the ridiculous Brain in a Rocket scheme. I thought that was a joke, a misdirect. Last point (promise!), where are the governments? We have global society comprised of a) scientists b) renegade species traitors c) renegade deep state and d) the UN. Seriously? A better rewrite would have had sophons taking out state signals operations, and then a series of crisis meetings, mutual accusations, recriminations, and then Sensible Scientists telling the politicians it's all going to be fine if we listen to them. Overall it's such a mix of elements that I'm not sure the show succeeds on any level, basically because it's incoherent.
Yea, the Chinese scenes and the Modern day UK scenes felt like such a strange contrast that I couldn't connect them in anyway other than "oh this is an original Chinese work and we wanted to keep just this part untouched even though we changed everything else". It felt like one moment I was watching some Chinese drama my mom used to watch and the next I'm thrown into a Black Mirror episode. It's fine to have a stark contrast when there's actually a purpose behind it, but I'm grasping at straws with this one. As a viewer, I was wondering what happened to the rest of the people from that 1960s time period. What happened to the Red Coast Base? We see that it's abandoned, but did they really just completely drop the tech that allowed us to contact aliens?? All the unexplained science really made me wonder if I was just dumb and didn't understand anything 😂 They also didn't spend any time exploring the concept of the San iT's shared consciousness or even how much they knew about/understood humans. They also didn't show why anyone would join the cult after playing the VR game and getting selected. The only two examples Jack and Jin were freaked out when invited to that gathering and learning the truth. I can't imagine any sane person really going along with all of it, but alas, we seem to have quite a few members (who also have a bunch of kids). And yea, having the fate of the world rely on such a small group of people seems completely unrealistic, but I think someone online was also saying that Wade has some higher ups he reports to who haven't been revealed yet, so maybe there's more they haven't shown.
@@JessInDreams7 Exactly. It just falls down as an adaptation on the fundamental story point of "how does this world work? I can see it's different, but why is it different, and what are the implications and rules?" The character Jack is just the showrunners giving John Bradley some work, because they're mates. He's not there for critical character interactions or plot, and he sure isn't there for his acting. Wang Miao - they did you wrong!
The San-Ti do have limits. They have no physical presence or influence on Earth because they're still about four light years away. They use the sophons for surveillance, hacking and creating optical illusions. They couldn't kill anyone on Earth directly. They need human allies in the cult to kill people for them, which is why his would-be killer had to wait till he left the UN building before he could shoot him. The inside of the UN had too much security.
The San-Ti are not unified in thought. They do have factions. Remember the message she received, "I am a pacifist on my world." The implication is that there are pacifists and militants. That can only happen if their are multiple factions. You don't need lies to have a factionalized society. Also, the game doesn't provide a Hot Girl for you to sympathize with, it provides you with a Child (Follower) to sympathize with. The Sophons do push a problem of what they can and can not do that isn't resolved well in the story though, I agree. It seems they can control all audio and visual information, but can not directly kill a person (by say causing a brain aneurism). Jin says that it takes them a couple of seconds to travel around the globe so carefully timed experiments on opposite ends of the globe could make it possible to limit their ability to interfere with the test, but then they simultaneously deliver the YOU ARE BUGS message to all electronic devices over the entire globe that defies that distance over time limit. And if they can hack vehicles computers to make them drive on their own, then they can do a whole lot to kill or destroy our science with out ever having to drive people to suicide. The ability of their Sophons to hack computers has implications way beyond driving cars into people.
Another obvious mistake with Ye Wentai's storyline: Tsinghua university did not have the department of physics during cultural revolution. All professors who taught physics were sent to Peking University or some other organizations after some famous reorg.
It's Ye Zhetai. Tsinghua's physics department was there since the 1920s and the struggle session was about what he taught when he was teaching physics at one point, not that he was teaching physics in the Dept of Physics at the time. Media literacy, mate.
@@user-yp6yr9te7l You think Y Zhetai was a real person? Man, you cannot be serious. It was just a character from a scifi story written by Liu Cixin. OK，I made a typo here by saying Wentai, great catch and good job.
@@aroonsubway2079 WTF, no. lol Are you thick? why would you think I think he's real? No man, I know this is fictional. I'm saying the setting of the scene is about him having taught politically "wrong" ideas, the scene didn't say there WAS a physics dept or not
3BP is more plot-driven than character-driven. D&D tried to flesh out the characters, but they are terrible at it. They were fooled by the initial success of GoT -- thought they were just like George RR Martin and ended up destroying GoT.
5:30, people often make disastrous decisions based upon emotion. Also I don't think Ye Wenjie could just leave China during that time period. Furthermore, the 1960's was during the Cold War which was a pretty scare time for the whole human race.
i haven't watched the show (couldn't get through the first episode), but listened to the book instead and am now on the second. to me ye wenjie's character is super interesting and i never got the feeling that she did what she did just because of watching her father die. she's also betrayed and essentially trapped working in this research facility with no autonomy in her life, because she helped a stranger and read a book that was banned by china's government. you get these tiny glimpses into her feelings about the situation, but a lot of her life story is told with her emotions conspicuously missing, in contrast to wang miao, where his emotions are detailed at length. and once she actually contacts the trisolarans, she completely dissociates. ye makes this decision and one of the next things she does in the book is kill her own husband, which she seems to have absolutely no feelings about. same thing with the birth of her daughter. near the end of the book, when wang miao implies she may have killed her daughter, she dismisses his comment and just continues her exposition. she made her choice and then disconnected from reality so she never really had to face what she did. this is all to say i liked your video and i'm disappointed to hear they made ye wenjie's character real bland.
I'm currently watching the Chinese Version of the series made by Tencent, and I'm already liking Ye Wenjie's character miles more than the Netflix version. I absolutely despised Netflix's Ye Wenjie. She's almost completely boiled down to a one dimensional selfish, evil villain with just a lot of hatred for the world. In the Chinese show and the book, she's a very complex character that went through a lot throughout her life, continues to live with the consequences of her choices, and it never seemed like her decisions were made for selfish reasons or on a whim. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, and glad you enjoyed the video 😊
Having read the books recently, it's pretty noticable that they internationalize the modern era in the book, but keep it in China for the flashbacks... which is innocuous and maybe even justifiable on its own, but then they also cut all the redeeming moments from her time at Red Coast, including witnessing the reforms after the cultural revolution ends, her experience of being welcomed into the village community, that moment when she discovers the GaoKao has replaced nepotism in academia - all of the nuance and conflict is stripped out of her character. They also cut the redemptionists vs adventists factions from the ETO, and instead of Ye and Evans being rivals they turned them into lovers. And they turned the ETO from a scientific community into a cult... I mean, they were cultISH in the books but in the Netflix version they're just reduced to fanatics.
It's a little bit more covered in the book but I think that Ms Ye was well read to the point of speaking English in 1960s China. So I feel that she understands the scale of human atrocities beyond what the CCP did to her family. There is an ongoing human level cruelty and betrayal that is not an expression of a specific political ideology but an expression of the human experience. There is also Silent Spring, which details humanities crimes against nature and itself and those crimes specifically are Western-led. I would say that it would be unfair to characterize Ye's nihilism as driven mostly by political events in China. In the books, by the time she hits the send button she has been utterly betrayed by everyone in her life including her mother, lover, and her daughter's father, sure to some extent those are exacerbated by the cultural revolution - but its not the cause, the devil is in us regardless of Mao. I thought that this background and motivation is so important that you could have spent most of the first season on it. Ye's moment of betrayal of her species should not be hand waved.
Yeah that's how I viewed it, as someone who has not read the books. For her to be fairly fluent in english to read/write and even author a scientific paper in english meant she had contact and influences from outside, prior to all the atrocities. And there's also probably a sort of idea that China would have implied their own supremacy regardless of how true it was on different aspects of life, technology, society etc... so if they were capable of such destruction, then so are other nations. Ye just extrapolated the downfall of Earth globally in the name of progress... destroy the old world to build a new one. Evans was just one man who wanted to help save a bird species with a defiant, even potentially futile gesture by replanting the trees they were cutting down. And later on, I felt that the San Ti 'motto' of 'if one of us survives, we all survive' as being taken to heart even by Ye, to reconcile the risk that humans could get effectively exterminated. It's impossible for her not to have considered that risk, especially if she became such a cynic. Will Downing may have also seen being a cryogenically frozen brain to be later revived by the aliens as a very small chance to survive, maybe even as one sole representative of humanity. I'm not religious but it happens to have been Easter weekend, and I thought maybe him effectively dying and then becoming resurrected and then returning to Earth was also supposed to give the somewhat obvious Messiah allusions, with the Lord and their original 3 body system also having symbolism of the Trinity.
She's definitely more complex of a character in the books. Her characterization in the show made it hard for me to see her as anything more than a crazy lady.
@@JessInDreams7I agree. The show runners did something similar in the last season where they turned Dinerys into a crazed fire breathing murderer. I can see maybe the eventual turn but it was so badly done that it just felt unbelievable. I wonder what this says about their relationship with women and their lack of respect for their audience. Season 1 should have ended with Ye pushing the button after a sensa stark or Theon Greyjoy level of suffering depicted.
" the devil is in us" This sentence is so well put. Whether there was the Cultural Revolution or not, I can even see such people in modern life. They simply use the herd effect of the crowd, stigmatize, and destroy everything they don't like; it's the most disgusting part of the human dark side. The most obvious example is the current social environment in the United States, and in China's online environment, everyone has been vigilant about the rise of such people, knowing that they won't disappear.
For me, the series already has too many assumptions, which, even as the story progresses, increasingly develops away from scientific and socio-cultural facts and towards assumptions. This becomes even more extreme, so much so that this logical flaw of this person is relativized to a minimum. My point is: if you find this illogical - and I agree with you - then wait and see what's heading our way. Hopefully, not in 400 years' time. For me, the behaviour is illogical, naive, defiant. If someone tells you that the race is not pacifist, what else do you want to explain to them about coexistence? As a scientist, to then also stop science would at least hurt my heart. But, on the other hand, humans do illogical things. And so do the aliens in this book, because if they knew so much about quantum processes, they would deliberately drive humanity mad and to suicide from the very beginning - so rapidly that in 400 years they would have a gigantic deserted car park for their fleet. This book is pure fiction dressed up in science, it tries to use supposed facts like Dan Brown with his series of books and for entertainment it is good, it really is. But you can't read more into it than that. Because if there are aliens out there who act as stupidly as the ones heading for Earth in the book, then they would have perished a long time ago from themselves or other aliens and Earth would have no problem at all. They could have just waited 400 years for us to do it all for ourselves - we're doing a pretty good job of it. So why waste resources ;)
Yup, its pure science fantasy. Not science fiction. It wields science like a cudgel and expects the audience to be wowed by the jargon because most people don't understand science in a meaningful way. If Sophons could disrupt particle physics inside a collider, there's nothing from stopping Sophons from killing every human being on the planet. Blind them, cut their heart strings, the number of ways a single proton moving at lightspeed through our cells could destroy us are nearly endless. The show is even worse. Sophons can control every electronic device on the planet. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to think of all the ways just turning off electronics or reprogramming the targeting computers for nukes could be used to wipe out humanity before the San-Ti ever arrived. And 400 years would be plenty of time for radiation from a thermonuclear exchange to fade away. Far too much plot armor for all of humanity to make this series believable.
Being intelligent ≠ being emotionally strong Her doing that after losing her father and the bad experiences she went through is stupid I agree, but it makes sense given what she went through
Thanks so much for the review! I quite agree - I preferred ep 6-8 of the show, although most people prefer the first 5 episodes because it's faster in pace. Again, as someone who hasn't read the books, I only have the Tencent version to compare it to. I'm not Chinese, but I definitely felt uncomfortable about the portrayal of China in the Netflix version. Like you said, they show the Cultural Revolution and all the horrible things in China but they never show modern China. There's not even a glimpse into how China is a totally different place now. Considering that China is very much demonised in the West, this only helps enforce the stereotype that China is bad. They could've had a scene of Ye Wenjie going back to China (maybe even to Beijing or a big city) and taking it all in - and realising that the world has changed so much (and I'm getting ahead of myself, but perhaps she could've interacted with some kind Chinese people in China and had some guilt towards what she has condemned humanity to). The Tencent version, although slower, was way more my pace. I love engaging with scientific concepts (even if they're not plain science fiction) and the Tencent version really gave me that. I was able to really dive into those ideas, the philosophy, and just be immersed in the existential dread of the show. I felt that even if the Netflix version isn't total trash, it was more spectacle than cerebral and more flashy than philosophical. People hail the CR scene at the very beginning, but I feel that's such a Western thing to point out. I was perfectly content with Ye Wenjie in the Tencent version. She had done worse things than in the Netflix version (basically killed her husband and her superior), but somehow they made her a sympathetic character - or at least you don't hate her and feel like she struggled a lot with her actions. I think she had given up on humanity at that point, where the larger picture was more important than the smaller details. In the Netflix version, I totally hated her character. I also feel that the Oxford 5 didn't feel like scientists or researchers at all. I'm around academic circles a lot and I've never people any academics act that way. Auggie definitely came across as the worst of them. Jin Cheng was probably among the best (probably because they actually showed her doing some science stuff).
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch and comment 😊 The absence of modern China as a contrast to the Cultural Revolution era was the root of all of my questions regarding Ye Wenjie's motives and what we as the audience are supposed to take away from the story. I really did try to give the show runners the benefit of the doubt by justifying it with their desire to stay somewhat faithful to the source material and provide a strong backstory for Ye Wenjie, but the more I thought about it, the less sense it made haha. It would've been great to see Ye Wenjie go back to modern China and have her reflect on her past decisions. She lost so much dimensionality in this show that I really couldn't understand any of her actions. They definitely changed the story to make it like all of the other mainstream shows in the West with a heavy focus on action, spectacle, personal relationships, and humor. And lol, it is funny that no one among the Oxford 5 except Jin did any substantial scientific explanation 😆
The point it conflicts you I think its also the one they try to explain, there a lots of people that based on their personal experience are willing to give the world away. This is a fundamental flaw that humans have, maybe we are able to empathized but that doesn't mean that will think with empathy everytime. I think that you will love the books, in the first one there is a pretty good explanation on how the "human" computer works.
The Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy has several major themes and plot points that make it unique to science fiction: 1. Every civilization in the universe is hostile towards one another and if your location is known, you will be swiftly wiped out. This is known as the Dark Forest Hypothesis and is the explaination for the Fermi Paradox. The San-Ti are unique in that they desire to take our planet due to the classical three-body problem. 2. Life destroys its environment. Do you know how humanity destroys the Earth with abandon? Civilizations in the universe destroy the universe with abandon. The universe was once a perfect 10 dimensions but the countless eons of violence has reduced it to 3D (and eventually 2D) because species routinely attack others using Dimension Strikes and flatten others into lower dimensions. 3. Humanity is most destructive towards itself. Before the San-Ti even arrive we sabotage Earth in an attempt to militarize for the San-Ti invasion but end up harming Earth, causing famine and killing 3/4 of Earth's population before they even arrive. 4. The human mind is resilient and adaptable. When pressed up against the wall (or into 2D by Singer's civilization) we fight and show resolve. As we must do, unless we die in our cradle as cosmic infants.
The Netflix version hits Tencent ep30 level of plot by ep5, the increase of pace definitely hurts some of the raitonale behind YeWenJies actions and the VR game stuff
Ayyy I watched the show!!! funny enough contrary to your experience I actually found the first half much better than I thought 😂 maybe cuz I went in with such low expectations? It genuinely drew me in haha. I thought the China scenes were really well done and mirrored the book scenes quite well. The international setting was *better than I expected* too. YAS Sir Davos and Sam were my fav! Sir Davos was a cool no-BS get-it-done no-filter charismatic leader who also showed sides of warmth. So sad when Sam died I was like "wHaT you kill me fav??" In terms of 叶文洁 I actually feel completely justified that she called Aliens 😅 maybe cuz the book made it much easier to sympathize with her? She was so trapped and hopeless, and saw human nature at its worse and decided to f--- 'em all lol. Sorry to be annoying but the book did made what she suffered much worse & detailed. But then yeah I also thought "wow you seem like you really got to experience the better side of life huh? Even you said that 'times change', still wanna kill everyone? 0-0"
Sorry to spam! additional thoughts: it gets to a point where you just have to go "yeah she is just a villain now, albeit one we (may) have sympathized with". Just like how I get it with Eren stomping the rest of the world for his small group of friends, I'm like ok that's a heavy burden to bear but I can see myself doing similar things in his shoes, only difference is I'd finish the rest of the 20% off... 🙊 (IM KIDDING) But not everyone who's been through the worst of humanity decides to give in and be the judge, jury & executioner of everyone else. This is why the movie Joker was really good, but I HATED that character (not even my real charismatic "Batman smells Robin laid an egg" joker 😠) Does he think he's the only one suffering? Plenty people who've gone through similar or much worse things still choose to be good. They didn't decide to release their temper tantrums upon the world. I know friends who have grandparents killed during the stupid culture revolution. An 80 something year-old pianist I know who is the 11th or 13th generation student of Chopin got his fingers crushed by the Red Guards during that time, literally destroying his entire world, but he is now still a wise and loving man. My grandma also suffered horrible things before (tho not in the C.R.) but to this day she appreciates the better side of life and is a blessing for us all. They are both Christians. But on the other side, they are also plenty of people who do disgusting villainous things for much much less. People who prey on the vulnerable just to feel powerful because they have no power over anything else in life. I guess my point is these villains can be some of the best characters for fiction because we (may) sympathize with them AND deeply despise them at the same time (like me with that "fake" Joker lol). They'd take things way too far when most people wouldn't (for our entertainment). But it takes so much more strength and character to go through horrible 💩 but still overcome and CHOOSE to be above it all. That's the ultimate hero vs villain story perhaps. Ye Wenjie sadly becomes this less intriguing TV version of her tragic counterpart (because I was really rallying behind her at first in the book 😂)
Ahh what good timing because I just finished watching and filming my review of the Chinese Tencent version of Three Body 😁, and I had so much to say about Ye Wenjie in that version because she was fleshed out way more compared to the Netflix one. But it's good to hear you actually enjoyed the Netflix one! I think a lot of people did like the way Netflix portrayed the CR and Ye Wenjie's past, for me I think it was a bit too rushed (as was the entire show in general), so it almost felt like they only showcased a small piece of the larger picture which made the whole backstory feel like it lacked depth. I think since you read the book recently, you were probably able to fill in the gaps a lot better. Though the fact that Netflix made it so that Ye Wenjie and Mike Evans fell in love and had a kid was really wild haha. I think that's what ultimately confused me about her character in the show because as someone who had lost all hope in her life and turned to aliens to destroy humanity, I just can't understand how she could fall in love, move to the UK, and live a presumably pleasant life as if nothing in her past happened 😅 Well written villains are indeed challenging to make, but when done well, they are some of the most interesting characters, which is probably why I was disappointed by Netflix's version of Ye Wenjie. Overall though, the adaptation was decent, not on the level of being the next Game of Thrones, but it was nice to see some of GoT cast in this.
@@JessInDreams7 thank you for your time & response! I think my low expectations really helped with enjoying it🤣Exactly the family & UK stuff is so weird! And some show exec clearly loved GOT a little too much “let’s have that dude play a cult leader & die dramatically again👌”. Looking forward to your review for the Chinese version! doesn’t it have like 52 episodes or sth can’t believe you just binged it 😮I’ll watch its quick recap if there is one
@@MarkLearns Haha, it actually has 30 episodes, but I think they released an anniversary version recently that is cut down to 25 episodes 😂It is very long but practically follows the first book 1-1.
It was unlikely for Ye Wenjie to find anyone who was willing or able to help. Also, I don't find her character to be trusting enough to let people help her at this point. There was no way she could escape China by herself; it wasn't an option for the general populace, not to mention her political status, and she was practically still a prisoner at the base. The only choice was probably self-exit. She grew up witnessing the Land Reform, People's commune, the Great Leap Forward, the Great Chinese Famine, and the Cultural Revolution, and before she was born, there were wars. Though I agree they could have shown more messed up situations outside of China, I don't blame her for losing faith in humanity. I appreciate your perspectives; this review for me is an interesting take.
Yea, I can understand how her life experiences put her in a very dark place, but I think they could've put more scenes of her exploring different avenues to resolve the challenges in her life but ultimately failing or something additional to make her seem more logical in her decision to give up humanity's fate to aliens. In my mind, I was expecting the reason they put so much effort into showing 1960s China and cultural revolution was to give Ye Wenjie a good "villain" backstory, so that we as the audience could sympathize with her or see her as a more complex character. But after watching the show, I got the impression that she was just a crazy lady out for revenge. Then add to the fact that later on, she does leave China and lives a pretty decent life made me dislike her even more because it seems like she never regretted her decision or even deeply contemplated her choices. Then on top of that, she didn't even get revenge on the people of her own generation. She basically destroyed the world for all future generation not even born yet and are innocent 😅
@@JessInDreams7 Yeah, I understand the frustration; the depiction is indeed very one-dimensional. I partly thought of this story as a cautionary tale, like how being mean to people may cause unimaginable destruction, so I never cared too much about the complexity. Liu Cixin's writing has other aspects that I don't enjoy, and there are more unlikeable characters, so Ye Wenjie isn't the biggest issue for me. Since there are bigots who can't change their minds regardless of the knowledge they have access to, being intelligent doesn't always mean being rational. Clinging onto one's beliefs and past decisions and actively avoiding facing the truth is very common, so I can see why she appears lacking in contemplation. For humanity, it is too bad the opportunity presented itself to Ye Wenjie too early lolol, before she could have more life experiences to make a more thoughtful decision.
@@yaonieh again it wasn't just because of the trauma of the cultural revolution that she decided to responded back. It was also because as a scientist she believes any intellectual advanced civilization that can travel through space must've overcome their social issues, learned to manage their planet, species, environment etc... in a peaceful way. Otherwise they would have destroyed themselves first. It doesn't actually said that to your face in the book but you understand her more since there are more details. In the show it was like "China bad, alien come kill the bad people". Obviously in all version she regretted her decision after the bug moment. Even if it wouldn't matter if she didn't respond... Anyway she didn't know back there since it was before she even think about that "theory" explain in book 2. Which is true and "the rule" in the universe of the Remembrance of Earth's Past.
I found this comments from others which I feel makes a lot of sense: In the book and also the Tencent series, there was an 8 years period after Ye Wenjie's Solar experiment "failed", she completely lost her direction in life, during this period she married Yang Weining, and the supposedly peaceful and non-busy years actually let the trauma once burried by her busy works resurfaced and haunting her again, she started to think more into the darkest side of mankind, she read a lot of foreign books about human science and learning about the Cold War which at it's peak at the time, that a nuclear war could be happening at anytime. But this Netflix adaptation is ALL ABOUT China's culture revolution. But they still delibrately removed one important scene from the book: "The supreme directive: fight with words, not with force!" Ye Zhetai's two students finally made up their minds and shouted these words. They rushed over at the same time and pulled away the four little girls who were already in a semi-crazy state. It makes a big difference，because this sentence showed that Chinese leadership didn't encourage violence during the cultural revolution, and Ye Zhetai's death was an accident in which the four teenage girls lost control.
Hmm I feel like some of your points are open to interpretation. I don’t think everything needs to be spoon fed to the audience, so some of the things you mention are probably known to the characters “off screen” • Ye Wenjie’s choices seem believable to me. I know quite a few highly intelligent people who believe humanity are a scourge to the planet. They also have the narcissism to think they know what’s best for society. Academics are not immune to severe personality flaws and misjudgments, in fact they might be more susceptible. • In regard to the San-Ti being so advanced they should know how deception works: they evolved to be telepathic. It’s not possible to lie when you immediately have access to everyone’s thoughts. • “They don’t show up n CCTVs for some reason.” The Sophon’s can manipulate what humans can see (the countdowns, flickering stars, etc), I think it’s implied that that’s how they manipulate CCTV. • I agree with your points about the OxFord 5. I think they glossed over a lot of things bc they’re setting up plot hooks that were originally introduced in books 2 & 3.
If Sophons can manipulate what humans see, they can easily disrupt the cells within our bodies to the point of breaking down critical components. There are fibers in our heart 10 micrometers in length that if destroyed would cause the heart to cease to function. I read a biologist's perspective on this and he calculated the amount of energy required to do this would equal the amount of energy required to redirect light into someone's eyes to display a countdown. The Sophons could have killed every on earth seamlessly, and D&D's overpowered version of Sophons (who can modify every electronic device on the planet) are even worse. I can think of countless ways to wipe out humanity if I could modify or hack any and every electronic device on the planet. If anything, this series relies heavily on the audience being wowed by flashy science wielded like a cudgel, neither the author or the audience with a lick of understanding on the real science.
RE : >>>>" • In regard to the San-Ti being so advanced they should know how deception works: they evolved to be telepathic. It’s not possible to lie when you immediately have access to everyone’s thoughts. " Then how would they know how to create an Artificial Intelligence that knows how to lie right off the bat and how to misrepresent itself? Also, isn't a big aspect of the Dark Forest hypothesis (which plays a big role in the next books) that species like the San-ti that know about the more dangerous advanced species in the galaxy are able to survive partly because they know how to hide themselves and not let their presence be known? Isn't that just a lie or lying in a more complex way?
the thing about the "if one of us survives, we all survive" is that in the books we get to know that they can merge to other person so they live inside the other, the past generations live inside future ones as well or something like that, the problem is that the show doesn't take it's time to explain none of that
Im kinda surprised to find this video, it is a different opinion with those western reactions of Netflix 3BP. In Chinese platform, the reviews of Netflix version r almost all negative, like how Netflix destroyed the book in lots of aspects. Some of ur opinions r similar to Chinese audience, but in a western guy angle more or less. Interesting，Subscribed！😀
Putting aside that Netflix apparently went out of its way to murder her character, you got it right at 8:30... You are NOT supposed to like Ye Wenjie that much. She's the (first) villain of the saga. And her decision is supposed to be an emotional one ("My life was too fucked up, humanity as a whole is trash, let's put the aliens in charge of everything"), not a brilliant strategic move.
Good vid! I watched the entire thing - it's a pretty good watch if it was a show on its own, but it's a pretty horrible adaptation imo. Overall I strongly disliked Auggie's character for being less scientist and more smartass - I never got the impression she was ever actually a scientist. Could've been solved by having her do something as simple as like a simple pen and paper calculation like Wang MIao does in the tencent version. The same kinda goes for everyone else except rooney and cheng jin, which is that their emotional story arcs overshadowed their role in science fiction. I suppose that's a compromise of "westernizing" this show. Special effects were...somewhat better than the Viki version? Honestly the tencent show holds up pretty well. I also shared your opinion on how it was less sciencey and more narrative focused - none of the concepts are really expounded upon. Also yeah you nailed it with diversity - I'm surprised that an american show made britain the center of this interstellar scope (+) story - would at least make sense for it to be american. All the main characters are five british students and no one else can do what they do. They're also not diverse in age, culture, ideology, political background, educational background, etc. all of which actually really matter a lot in the dark forest and death's end books (I forget if you mentioned if you read those). A lot of the more dramatic cool moments like the military conference were substituted for some...smartass lines? That's something that bugs me a lot about american shows actually - there's way too much in the way of "cool" one-liners, to the point that I consider them cringe now. Also as an Asian I am disappointed to see the whitewashing of asian characters, especially the male ones. Tis sad. But it's a more minor point for me. Overall, IMO, 8/10 show, 3-4/10 adaptation. Appreciate your content as always :)
Thank you 😊 I'm glad you enjoyed the video and share some similar opinions! I totally agree that Auggie's character was not convincing as a genius nanotech engineer at all. It really felt like she was there to just look good on screen. In one of the later episodes, there's a scene where she's throwing up in the middle of the night after drinking too much, and she has a full face of makeup on. Idk why she even has the motivation to put on makeup when she's too traumatized from the Judgement day incident to even function properly, and she's also not washing it off before bed lol. Also yea, I think one would expect the Netflix version to have better effects since the budget was many times higher than the Chinese version. I think each episode of the Netflix one cost 20 million USD or something. The Chinese Tencent one was only around 10 million for all 30 episodes. Oh the diversity...honestly I tried giving this show the benefit of the doubt because in my last video, so many people were like "it's not whitewashing, they're adding so much diversity!!". So I was really ready to see this so called diverse group of heroes coming to save humanity, and then after watching the show it just felt so shallow for them to try and sell diversity as just the color of one's skin. Does nobody care about what's on the inside 😂 And agreed, they really should've had at least one Asian male in the Oxford 5. Like Asian males make up a huge chunk of the STEM population. How could you not have at least one in a group of scientific geniuses??
@@JessInDreams7 Hahaha I didn't even think Auggie looked good tbh cause of that personality, just disliked her character in general. I definitely agree with you that wade was the star of the show but I kinda don't like how they made him british (irish) - imo should've stayed american. CIA has a way gnarlier reputation than MI6. Again, so weird it's centered around the UK. Also I didn't dislike Cheng Xin from the original books for being a moral obstacle because humanity specifically selected her knowing who she is/what she represents, so I view her decisions as humanity's decisions by proxy, but in the case of Auggie her moral opposition to judgment day was frustrating because it was her own moral convictions. Also, again, no one except her - a student - can make these nanomaterials? Auggie Saul romantic hints feel hyper-forced. I kinda liked Ye Wenjie and Mike Evans' twisted romance. Downing and Cheng Jin would be better if Cheng Jin wasn't already in a relationship imo. This is also a general show criticism and is probably my biggest problem is that the scope of the story was hyper-reduced. I feel like in the books while a lot of the characters were chinese every nation had involvement, as in the US had more involvement than China. Characters came from diverse backgrounds and met not by coincidence but because they were all involved in humanity's defense. Whereas in this show they want us to believe that six (incl Raj) out of like the seven (Wade is the other) pivotal members already know each other, and five are already friends, and ALL went to the same university at the same time. It's a little unbelievable and resembles like an anime power-of-friendship plotline lol.
@@lowdefinition4250 Oh yea, the whole concept of Auggie being the sole owner of the nanotech stuff made no sense to me. Even if she was the one who invented it, there's no way the whole lab/project would be shut down just because she decides she doesn't want to continue. The love triangle with Jin, Raj, and Will was super confusing after it was later shown that Jin did have feelings for Will. Like why was she with Raj then? They didn't even seem to get along that well, and I have a hard time believing she couldn't tell Will had feelings for her when they've been friends for so long. I totally agree with the scope of the story reduced now that they've made all the main characters a group of friends. They are also all young people with a bunch of personal issues that don't seem like a reliable group to leave the fate of humanity to 😅
@@JessInDreams7 Yeah the thing with Will too is that I don't even remember what he contributed in terms of scientific prowess. In the original story the guy he's based off of, Yun Tianming, is just a guy - not anything actually special. The characterization overshadowed the concepts of the story itself. Also i find it kind of unconvincing, even though I like the character, that netflix Wade came up with all these plans. In the original story he was only involved with the failed staircase project (up to this point in the story). Wallfacer was a UN thing I believe, and judgment day was a coalition operation. Also why only 3 wallfacers 🤔. Again, it's just scope reduction in the "interest" of mainstreaming it for western audiences i suppose. Ah man, I'm being too negative 😅. I really love the original trilogy, so this poor adaptation hits a sore spot for me. Also weird that I'm noticing it now but you kinda resemble Jin's actor.
@@lowdefinition4250 They said it subtlety in the first episode. Will is the less accomplished of the group and he feels like his contribution now is to teach kids physics. Same for Saul, he feels like he can’t contribute anything anymore to science advancement since he is past his prime “30”. Now he is just lazy and all dumb things. And Jack wasn’t as gift and so used his degree to create his own snacks industry.
While the show has its flaws, it was intriguing enough that it caused me to download the trilogy from audible and I am in the process of listening to them now.
That's great! The ideas and concepts in this story are really interesting and definitely worth exploring. The show is just one of the many interpretations/portrayals, so even with its flaws the overarching concept still carries through.
here to like and comment for the algo, will come back after I finish the books AND the show. still reading the book since your last video and the books are sooo goood :O
Thank you so much for the support ☺️ It's honestly so great to hear you're reading the books and loving them. Would love to hear your opinions on this show after reading the books! This also makes me think I should really go back and read them again (in English this time haha).
Exactly. That's just 1 plothole. Why didn't the Shan ti just tell their ai to kill all of humanity before they destroy the earth for them to live in? Make them all blind. They die, and earth is safe. So easy.
Nor would humanity have a chance against Sophons. If they can disrupt particle physics in a collider they could disrupt human cells enough to stop the heart of every human being on the planet, for the same amount of energy required to project light onto someone's eyes.
This so was good. I don't know why you are going on and on about China. It's how it is in the book. Ye Winje was ij china and seeing your father killed and be slave in a labour came with no escape can make anyone loose hope. It's not anything out of ordinary, but then their will always be snob who would expect a complete reality in a scifi show, they might even teach a thing or two to trisolarians from their couch. They did a good job this show.
Nah, show was trash. Characters were utterly boring, and there are so many plotholes the show ends up tripping over itself in two seconds. Sophons in the Netflix Adaptation can affect every electronic device on the planet. Why not just wipe out electronics to destroy humanity? Why not project state secrets onto the eyes of rival nations and start a global war? Why not just reprogram the targetting computers of nukes to wipe out humanity? Certainly 400 years is plenty of time for nuclear winter and background radiation to fade away. If you think about this show for even a few minutes, it simply requires too much suspension of disbelief to be truly enjoyable.
@@mateobarrett6829 if you expect reality in fantasy might as well just look out the window and spare us people who wants to enjoy things in life and not always be like a kill joy and say things like "ackschually this is not real" for a fiction.
@@supasapien Nothing wrong with fantasy that is consistent in its in-world rules and logic. This show demands the thinking viewer to suspend far too much disbelief to enjoy it, combined with banal dialogue and flat characters, its all too familiar territory for the likes of D&D. The same people who enjoyed the end of Game of Thrones are likely to like this show. In other words, it acts as a sort of litmus test for cinema literacy - those who are easily wowed by flashing lights and big words will enjoy it, whilst those all to tired of seeing the same character tropes and empty romances will see it as the trash it is. One day your tastes may expand, but something tells me I doubt it
Interesting take. I didn't think of that. You're right, why would she condemn all of humanity? I'm editing my take on the show and the books, and I have many problems. Like the women characters being responsible for the worse thing that happens to humans in the story. (You didn't read the trilogy. It not a bad story, but extremely problematic.) Here goes my problem with the depiction of the Chinese Cultural revolution, and up front I'm Black American and only know the history as it's been told. You see the problem is the bias. I'm sure there were really bad things that happened, but in 1966 my people were fighting just to get our society to stop murdering us at will, and now they pat themselves on the back for stopping without ever really acknowledging or apologizing. I say that to say, if I was in 1966 America after church bombings and people being attacked by dogs and fire hoses, I would be hard pressed not to tell the aliens to come on board and do what you will too. However, what always goes missing the context. Why was the Mao philosophy so popular? Why would an entire population not only agree with it but fight against it. Because they always leave out a very important detail - the colonization. England was a colonial force in China at that time, and colonial force - especially European colonial forces - do what they're going to do. And what they do is never nice, nor pretty nor something any human beings should be proud of. I mean let's look at what happened to the other place Europeans colonized. How'd that work out the the indigenous populations? It's not like Chinese people woke up one day and started to called Western teaching evil out of a vacuum. Even when Black people say "The white man is the devil" it's not like they didn't earn the title by so many blood soaked deeds you don't even want to think about it. This is how I feel when America or any western nation talks about other places, especially non-white places. I mean there's a line Benedict Wong says to the woman who called the aliens back "What an advanced civilization encounters a primitive civilization it never goes well. That's not science or history, it's white people making excuses. "You see, we Europeans and Americans were so advanced, we had to destroy those primitives." And the rationale they used for all Asians and African and Indians "primitive" was "They don't speak our language, or wear our clothes, or go to our schools, or act like us. So we have no other choice but to invade them and teach them God's law according to us." That's why the scenes made me uncomfortable. I'm not saying this sort of thing did not happen, I'm saying there's a kind of slant to it that I'm surprised came from the author himself. And it doesn't help he added a heavy dose of sexism in the story. That's my take.
Oh yea, I think I have come across opinions pointing out that there was a lot of sexism in the books. It almost feels like it's quite normalized in China to stereotype women as emotional and men as logical, so I think the author may not even realize it himself. As for the Cultural Revolution, I totally agree with you on the bias. In the anglocentric world, it's too often taken out of context as this independent event that was just bad and used to condemn China's history. Chairman Mao is always portrayed as an evil leader that caused death and suffering, but nobody ever talks about how he rose to power or why was able to gather supporters. It's like Western people think he just randomly popped out of nowhere for no apparent reason. It's unfortunate that they leave out how bad the situation was when the West went over to attempt to colonize the country. China during that period was a mess, and when you try to bring up the evil deeds of the colonizers, they always have some sort of justification.
Agree. There's a reason most of China was never colonized by the British. You had to be a monster to face a monster like the British at that time. But it's not ok for the Chinese to be that way according to this adaptation. 😅
@@lukelee3 This is a debate I’ve heard a lot. Is the actions of the colonized just as wrong as the colonizer? I fall on the “hell no, it’s not” under the F.A.F.O. rules. 😁
Oh haha, it's been many years, but I think I just got busy with 9-5 jobs and other life changes. As for this channel, there's no real specific plan. Just sharing thoughts on movies and TV shows and hopefully providing some fun and entertainment 😁
oki doki...but we both know the dreams are calling right! The chracter that fascinates me in the Netflix series is Tatiana, the implacable enforcer. I'm now watching the 30 episodeTenCent version. Better music and made for a tenth of the Netflix budget. And its engaging to watch the chinese version of Chinese.@@JessInDreams7
The fact is both TV series are a bit naive. Netflix on is massively propped up by Hype. The premise is what makes it palpable and be called out cheap AF😅
Your problem with the VR game just being a job interview and evobiology stuff kind of hits the problem I have with the book series right on the head: it seems smart, but when you get down to it the core concepts of The Dark Forest are insultingly simple. The universal rule is 'stranger danger'. That's it. The entire point of the series is to champion xenophobia. Your vid actually makes me want to check out the show. It seems like the characters improved at least.
Oh yea, definitely check out the show if you've got the time to spare! It is definitely quite different from the books even though they tried to capture the essence, and I'm sure I would have deeper and more complex opinions if I were making that comparison. I also need to find time to re-read the books and probably in English this time 😅
They really, really didn't. It's ironic to me that one common criticism of the book was having "mechanic characters" that felt "like they existed only to advocate a specific viewpoint" and then you get a show like this, almost proving that approach a far better fit for a hard sci-fi story where the ideas are far more interesting than the personalities. As a result, in the attempt to give them a "more human side" and more "nuance", most of the new characters have been made borderline insufferable in the netflix version.
D&D and Woo said that Netflix's rights to the series had a few requirements. They only have rights to adapt the English version, which means the majority of the show must have English dialogue. Tencent is making the Mandarin language adapation so it is likely listed in the contract that they do not want an American company redoing the show using another Asian cast. D&D and Woo said thet pushed as much Mandarin as they could with Cultural Revolution section without violating the contracts. As for why you don't understand Ye Wenjie... I think you will need to research what really happened to people in China during that time period. The show's depiction is actually far tamer than what really happened. It was a harrowing time that would absolutely drive people to turn them against humanity. I reckon you will get some older Chinese really upset you said Ye can just leave... Hahah oh child, you have no idea. Episode 1 - 5 = Book 1 Episode 6 - 7 = Book 3 first few chapters Episode 8 = Book 2 and 3 first few chapters
No it really felt like she did everything on a whim. She wasn’t even treat badly. This is insane to me. Like the girl that kill her dad would had be more convincing for pushing the bouton! She lost an arm and her situation is worse. I mean if you think you can explain more about that period of china, why was it that bad?
@ronaldflint1741 I think most western audiences watching this show would not understand Ye Wenjie if it is due to lack of understanding of the cultural revolution. Which supports my criticism of the show not making it more convincing. Maybe they could've showed her exploring other options, like leaving China but being unable to? Idk, I feel like there was something more they could've done there besides showing a violent struggle session and people betraying her. Are we supposed to believe it's realistic that she did not come across any acts of kindness in her life? How did she even survive as a child and live to be an adult/astrophysicist? It just felt like she was purely an emotionally unstable, vengeful, and one dimensional villain that no one could sympathize with. Also the fact that she eventually did leave China, had a child with a Caucasian man, moved to the UK, started a cult, even had friends and people respecting her as a person, and living a seemingly good life doesn't really show that internal turmoil she faced when making that fateful decision or living with the knowledge of a doomed humanity.
@@JessInDreams7 to be fair to the Netflix adaptation even in the book when Ye Wenjie lives in China with her husband Yang Weining and daughter, she still founded ETO with Mike Evans. But since we have more details we know she also believes and hopes that the high technology Trisolarus could improve human civilization after their arrival.
I don't think westerners need to know any more than they were shown. If they actually saw what happened during Cultural Revolution, they would be beyond horrified. But it doesn't matter because by ep7, Ye Wenjie already redeemed herself. That's not obvious to new viewers but as book reader, we know what she told Saul and that would change the entire conflict to come. Again, this was in the original books, The show is not as complex as the books but the main theme is still present. Cultural Revolution fucked over a lot of people and it just so happened that bad political decisions (Mao Zedong) fucked over a young female scientist and she decided to invite aliens to come and hoping aliens would help remove the evil regime that she was living under. Ye Wenjie genuinely believed San Ti is coming to save humanity (not extermination), however, when she found out the truth, she did try to help out (while knowing she's 100% will be killed) and I can't tell you because that would be spoiling season 2. @@JessInDreams7
@@snowshock8958 You remembered it wrong, in the book she killed Yang Weining and her superior at the cliff, but she wasn't suspected cuz she made it looked like an accident. And the 1st time she was able to leave Red Coast base because she's giving labor to Yang Dong, and later stayed in the village with the villagers took care of her. Later Cultural Revolution ended and her father's case was overturned, and she received an offer from Tsinghua University. She met Mike Evans much later for the 1st time after Cultural Revolution when participated in field visit at Northwest region for a radio astronomy observation base site selection. And later Mike Evans contacted her, depressed about how the villagers cutting down his trees, that's when Ye Wenjie revealed her past to Mike Evans and with a lot of money Mike Evans went on and build 2nd Red Coast on a converted oil tanker and established ETO, he invited Ye to his ship and introduced her to the 1st batch of ETO members and they made her the commander of the organization.
ok, you read the book 1, you forget it. So let just be straight, Sci-Fi isn't for you. Ye Wenji is the soul of the book (book 1), not "Wang Miao"(divided to Anggie and Jin). The character is much much more complicated, and Netflix dumb down everything everybody for the western audience. You're too young and too ignorant growing up in US so you won't knew what happened on the book. IDK, maybe reading is hard for the young generation. I would suggest you go watch the Tencent 2023 version. It's actually much better version, enjoyable to watch, easy to understand and quite faithful to the books.
The book is garbage. So many plot holes that do not make sense. If you have even a routine understanding of physics you have to suspend a tremendous amount of disbelief just to enjoy the book. Clearly the author is not a scientist, he wields science like a cudgel and relies on readers who have no understanding of physics to be wowed by the jargon he learned.
@@davidej6310 The worst part about the book are the "intellectual" fans of the series that claim superiority over critics as if they have some sort of deeper understanding than those who criticize the work. (Like OP here) And yet, if you asked them to explain the glaring plotholes in the book, or try to justify the science presented to them within its pages, they couldn't tell you, since they, like the author, simply do not have a meaningful grasp of scientific concepts. Ask them to explain how a second dimension is actually a dimension, rather than merely a human conceptualization of a 2D space, not a literal dimension that 3D space can collapse into, or why couldn't the Trisolarians solve their own Three Body Problem if they have the technological capability of unfolding a PROTON INTO THE SIZE OF A PLANET. The latter of which is pure magic, absolutely not remotely grounded in physics; nothing more than a fantastical wolf in sheep's clothing, a trap for the faux intellectual to lean back and stroke their egos for having the capability of simply reading the jargon - but unaware of their inability to understand any of it. I see them no different than flat earthers or other intellectually dishonest fools
I really wanted to.see this and like it but i was very hesitant . Because i was a big fan of the early seasons of G.O.T. and i hated what Dan and Dave did to the later seasons. So i tried my best to bkock it out and give it a chance. But i just couldn't get into it, I didn't like any of the characters. That's my humble opinion anyway. Also you're so pretty. I hope all is well on your end. Best wishes to you and yours. 🤍
Aww thank you so much, you’re so sweet. I hope everything is going well on your end too ☺️ And yea, this show is quite different from G.O.T, so it’s totally understandable if you couldn’t get into it. I think the content of this show is definitely more niche, and is really just for people who are super into Sci Fi though D&D tried to make it appeal to a wider audience. I don’t think I would even know about this story if I hadn’t been suggested to read the book for a Chinese class 😅
@@JessInDreams7 you're most welcome. I watched all your videos this morning, I liked all of them and subscribed. I look forward to what you post next. Enjoy the rest of your day beautiful. Your new fan - Luciana 🤍
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Ye Wenjie's issue wasn't just only about the communist party, but also how we destroy nature. Even in mordern times she referenced that the aliens would come help us solve our problems like climate change. She was angry with the whole world not just China. She was disgusted with humanity as a whole even after she escaped China.
I'm kind of curious how she got the impression that the aliens would solve climate change, especially through the limited knowledge and communication she had with the San Ti in the early years. I would expect them to be so high tech that they could transform the planet in any which way they please and really erase the original nature of earth, but maybe her idea of "saving nature" is different from what I'm imagining.
I guess she was a pretty bitter women for the rest of her life, so she probably did hate most humans (expect for the ones she deemed worthy of joining the cult and allying with the San Ti). Honestly she seems like such an interesting character that had so much potential if they had fleshed her out more.
@@JessInDreams7 their issues were with the 3 suns, but they might have tech that produce clean energy, remove green house gases from the atmosphere, ways to deal with trash etc. since they are able to live in a confined space like on a spaceship for hundred of years. Also her belief in them is blind faith, it doesn't need to make sense to her.
africa here, we didn't destroy things lol until the west came and forced industralization, same for all indegenous communities,
@@JessInDreams7She assumed that if the aliens were more advanced than humans, they would be better people and more enlightened than humans, and thought being colonised by aliens might keep humans from being destructive. She didn't expect the aliens would want to wipe out humans.
@@JessInDreams7 When one loses all faith in the internal, one looks to the external to solve our problems. She said it in her reply, "We can not save ourselves." People in a state of hopeless desperation will irrationally believe some other is the source of their salvation.
In the book and also the Tencent series, there was an 8 years period after Ye Wenjie's sun experiment "failed", she completely lost her direction in life, during this period she married Yang Weining, and the supposedly peaceful and non-busy years actually let the trauma once burried by her busy works resurfaced and haunting her again, she started to think more into the darkest side of mankind, she read a lot of foreign books about human science and learning about the Cold War which at it's peak at the time, that a nuclear war could be happening at anytime. And looking what happening in her country, she finally losing hope in humanity. The moment she learned about the alien message, took her 5 hours before she replied.
To me it's much more believable than how it was shown in the Netflix series. I only felt hatred in the Netflix version of Ye Wenjie.
Ah yea, I do remember Ye Wenjie's character being much more complex than what they showed. I just feel like Netflix was so focused on depicting the brutality of the cultural revolution that they poured all their resources in showing that one thing and disregarded everything else. I saw so many positive reactions from people enjoying seeing the "uncensored" version of the violence that happened, and I'm just like ok it's fine to have that, but that shouldn't be the whole story of Ye Wenjie's life. There are so many other aspects that add dimension to a main character that they just seemingly didn't care or forgot about.
Yeah but how much of the Great Leap Forward did they censor though.
The tencent version is so overrated. It's like reading the book, but in slow motion. It doesn't take me 25 hours to read a book. Took me 25 hours to watch that tencent version though. It took more hours, but it was still less than the book because of CCP censorship.
Also. The tencent version ends at the end of book 1. Anyone who's read the trilogy know that all the interesting stuff happens in books 2 and 3.
@@bobhawke7373 it's Cultural Revolution not Great Leap Forward they're entirely different thing lol. And Tencent version wasn't targeting your kind so maybe put your Anglocentric mindset aside and let us enjoy what we like.
They also don't show the 100 years of Western imperialist colonialization of China that preceded the Chinese Revolution. They don't show how Chinese were second class citizens in their own country; where US gunboats patrolled the rivers of China and the major coastal cities had exclusive zones for the foreign invaders and Chinese were not allowed except as servants.@@bobhawke7373
The Tencent version didn't miss a lot on the cultural revolution que. Only missed her father dead. Yes, if you're not familiar with the history, you would have no idea what happened without reading the books. But also if you're Chinese, more or less you understand what happened. @@bobhawke7373
One major problem of Netflix's 3Body Problem is that all main characters are connected and know each other very well. The heroes of Earth are all members of the same signal social circle. Really, what? They all seem to reside in a little town, and Sn-ti can destroy humanity simply by blowing up a bar!!
Besides, although the characters seem diverse, their behaviors are just so"American"....
It's unbelievable that Wade has so much power to command entire armies single-handedly. He seems to be involved in all the projects against San-ti. It's just so weird.
Haha yes omg! I think I saw somewhere online people were comparing it to the TV show "Friends". It's so unfathomable that they tried to sell this premise as a more globalized version, when they made the scope so narrow. Even the Avengers weren't friends until they had to be gathered to face a world ending threat.
at this point the San Ti feel they are in control - they are passing the time before arrival playing with their food in a sense ...
@@crowleyking7128 Their behaviour isn't "American" so much as Western. British friend groups act that way too.
Disagree. Ye wenjie was the most interesting character. She gave up on humanity but yet still had hope that the aliens would save humanity from its savagery. Willing to bet that either way, the aliens will solve "the human problem" of being savages in her eyes. Saving humanity or extinction. Its a win either way to her.
Ye Wenjie decides to contact the aliens after she reads the book "Silent Spring" from Rachel Carson.
I just think its interesting that the problem started in China with a Chinese person struggling with the state of China... but now we need people from the West to save the world.
just build a space catapult on the moon and launch rocks at their fleet for the next 400 years. mission accomplished
If those rocks are off by even 1% of a degree, they will sail harmlessly past the fleet at a distance greater than the size of our solar system.
I feel like you might not think about the simple curiosity of contacting aliens, even if you were warned about their bad intentions. She had nothing to lose and had little empathy for humanity, but was also a scientist, extremely curious and keen to discover new things. So she did.
The Cultural Revolution was a very important element in the source material I think (haven't read the books, but watched the Tencent Version) as not only provides context to Dr Ye's past, personality and the decision to betray humanity, but it was also in the very centre of the story and the spirit of this work. As is latter revealed (spoilers, maybe) the Trisolarians live in a society with an autocratic government, were art, creativity and even personal relationships are disregarded as unimportant or secondary to the main, and only goal: survival. It is clear, all of that was a very personal thing to the author, who is Chinese
But while many people claim Netflix adaptation is better, and braver as it showed Ye's father been murdered during the Cultural Revolution unlike the Tencent version who faced censorship, it is, actually, totally the opposite.
As you also noticed, Cultural Revolution is addressed in a very shallow way, and from the perspective of the West. The gruesome murder of the Professor served only to depict a very simplistic version of China: one in which all of its population is anti scientific, fanatic, communists who despite all human values. Dr Ye herself is depicted as just an unstable woman with a complete despite for all humanity and not as an idealist who ultimately was willing to go as far as needed to help humanity overcome it's problems, even if the solution she thinks to be the only one proves to be wrong and doomed humanity.
If Netflix intention was to make a more international story, they would have changed the Cultural Revolution setting for a piece of western history, as there are many in which the same elements of oppression, betrayal, manipulation, deceiving can be found. We all know that US and British tv/cinema don't work that way. Although their entertainment industry claim to be free of censorship, truth is it censorship itself, by following western propaganda, while depicting other countries and their society as it fits US/British narrative.
On doing so, almost every US/British production that deals with stories from other nations suffer from said bias, and can only deliver shallow, cartoonish stories that lack of the spirit and complexity of the source material, rest to say are not at all accurate in their representation of other cultures and ways of thinking.
This was a very bad adaptation, where the few good things are just the result of the original work having lot of amazing concepts.
Wow, you hit my point right on the nose! This is exactly why I couldn't understand why they put so much effort into including the Cultural Revolution, when they could've easily chosen a Western scenario. If their goal was to just have some horrific event traumatize the main character, there are plenty of examples from around the world that would've worked even better for their "internationalized" version. But oh, they kind of said they want to be true to the books and put something culturally Chinese. Then I wonder why it's depicted in such a shallow way, from a Western point of view, and completely misses the purpose the original book included it for?
If the producers wanted to make the story more international, they should have removed any Chinese scenes in this new serie. Let me give it a try:
Ye was born in a native American village, and she watched her father being scalped by white colonists from UK. Mike Evans was born in a rich family in US, and his father took him to Epstein Island when he was 13 and he was shocked and became disappointed in humanity. Several years later, when Ye met Mike, they decided to invite alien to earth to save this broken world. Or they can make Ye a black girl who watched her father being slau-g-ht-ered by a rac-i-st group with three Ks in the name.
It will make it much easier for western audience to understand the motivations of the main characters.
@@aroonsubway2079 paradoxically, it is US cinema the one that is really subject to censorship, as you won't ever find something like what you described on the screens
It's really not hard to understand
I thought it was convincing that she'd invite the aliens. The main reason is that not only were things going terribly in China, but there was no sign that anyone else anywhere in the world cared about what was happening in China. Why would she feel any connection to the rest of humanity? Caring about the wider world is a luxury. Only when things are not so bad in your life are you going to care about what's happening to someone on the other side of the world. The UK characters were the unconvincing ones to me. For example, Will and Jin. He's presented as such a passive person I didn't see the point in the show wasting so much screen time on the question of whether he'd tell her how he felt about her or not. Obviously he was never going to speak up. I do give the show credit for coming up with a fitting end for his character. Spending eternity neither alive nor dead as the universe passes him by is what he was all about.
The Ye Wenjie was also heavily influenced by the Silent Spring book. She has plenty of reasons to want a change in management.
As for Will, let's just say this is season one of (hopefully) four.
Ye Wenjie and everyone in China was trapped in China during the Cultural Revolution. No one was allowed to leave. She had no experience of life outside China and only witnessed the cruelty and brutality of people in China so she just believed all humans were cruel, violent and beyond redemption.
I'm just surprised she was fully fluent in English and even published a paper in English. I find it hard to believe she can publish a paper without any interaction with the English speaking world, but maybe it was like that back then? Also was she taught by other Chinese who were fluent in English or did she meet non-Chinese people in her life?
@JessInDreams7 she comes from educated parent's, you don't have to go to an english speaking place to learn it
The only reason she is able to communicate with the aliens is because she read an American scientist's paper on bouncing signals off of the Sun. So she was aware of the rest of the world. The book has a more balanced depiction of the period. This show treats Chinese people as cartoon characters. Unfortunately, many Westerners think China is still like the Cultural Revolution and shows like this that eliminate modern China from the story help perpetuate that misunderstanding.
@@dharyllz9462 I don’t think she has to leave China to learn about the cultures of other countries, and I think it’s unrealistic to think she learned English without learning anything about the country that the language originated from. Also a lot of the scientific knowledge she’s so proud of flaunting originated in the Western world at the time.
@@JessInDreams7She would have learned English at university because she had to read papers by British and American scientists. And they taught English in schools in the cities before the Cultural Revolution.
I always have to laugh when I see how writers in their 50s write "edgy" 20-somethings, "just have them say fuck a lot and sex each other."
nailed it.
the human computer was funny, but lol, don't worry b/c you're not wrong. it's just silly.
Honestly they probably would've been better off with an older main cast. The way they portrayed these young "geniuses" made the whole alien invasion feel like a joke 😂
@@JessInDreams7 as someone who also spent far too long in academia before wising up, it's also just unrealistic. I still remember an article that referred to a woman in her mid-40s as a "young scientist and the beginning of her career." they always do that, though. I assume b/c they think they need a young cast to appeal to that key 18-34 demographic.
I couldn't actually make it through the whole series, though. I was too tired and kept falling asleep... so, if someone actually used the phrase, "hashtag xyz," out loud unironically... again. just... truly writers who have their pulse on a generation. nailed it. no notes 😂
It's rare to see you give such an objective evaluation of the Netflix's 3 Body Problem. It can be said that even from a Westernized perspective, there are still many problematic parts in this TV series. They have cut out too many necessary details and created plotlines that contradict the core essence of the original work. They attempt to showcase a so-called 'internationalized' script within a small circle, yet desperately retain the 'China, bad' parts. I have watched a lot of videos criticizing the Netflix's 3 Body Problem on Chinese video websites. From the initial anger about the 'deterioration of an excellent work' to later rational analyses, most people's opinions are somewhat related to what you've said. Even as a casual viewer who doesn't care about the original work, this kind of production is still unconvincing.
Yes, just judging it as a TV show that supposed to tell a good story, I think the Netflix version skipped too many things and reached a lot of conclusions without much buildup. I really think scientific explanations need time and thought to get to the answer, and the Netflix series really lacks that. I'm currently watching Tencent's version of Three Body, and I'm noticing even more flaws with the Netflix version in comparison. Even though the Tencent version is set in China and most of the character's are Chinese, it still feels more broad in scope than the Netflix one that is only "internationalized" on the exterior. There are many more characters with different ideas and opinions despite them all being Chinese, whereas Netflix has many characters with different colored skin, but their mindsets are all similar. Overall, it just feels like the Netflix adaptation lacks seriousness and makes the entire story seem like a joke almost.
One thing that is really bizarre to me is that Ye Wenjie has an American Accent when she was young (near impossible at the time in China), and then her accent changed into British (when the actress portraying the elder Ye, Rosalind Chao, has an American accent in all her junket interviews).
There was no attention to that in the production, which caused a lack of truthfulness. A sign that not sufficient care and "principling" was put into deciding everybody else is international but keeping Ye Chinese.
Oh haha, I didn't even notice that! They definitely did drop the ball on a lot of the details, and it seems like they were focused on the wrong things like making it more "diverse" and showing the brutality of the CR without enough thought into how accurate the portrayal is and what deeper purpose it serves.
@@JessInDreams7 The brutality of the CR depicted was pretty accurate. Why do you think there's not enough thought into it? The purpose is to show the depravity humans can get to under an Inquisitionist mob uprising within a totalitarian regime, and how that can mar and dismantle the soul of an individual person such as Ye. They didn't drop the ball on her accent, she immigrated to England and over time obviously picked up the British accent. She didn't have an American accent to begin with but a Chinese Mandarin one that was subtle and not thick.
@@Fear_the_Nog If you say "there is still a bit of an accent in Young Ye Wenjie's English--that accent is not 'purely American'," I can be behind that. But if you say there's a thing called Chinese Mandarin English accent, then I'm sorry, that's not true. She knows when to roll her tongue and when not to depending on the placements of the letter "r" in the spelling, that's American-sounding. That consistency alone is not something Chinese Mandarin habits can generate.
As a Mandarin speaking person who began learning English with a heavy Shandong accent and then like to imitate Beijing/Shanghai/Guangdong accents in Mandarin and English, and who now talks in an American accent and have lived and worked across continents, I am bringing the perspective that: 1) having an American-sounding accent requires a type of teaching and teaching environment that hardly existed in that era; 2) when you're 30 years old, a professor, and having a child and a conspiratorial operation with an American, have had an accent already, it is rare that you just "pick up" a different accent because you now live in a different place. I'd like to believe that us ESL people have more agency and security. The most you do is you can go in-and-out, which I don't think is the case in the show (when a Russian spy who pretended to be American for years doesn't have to pretend to be American any more, and his accent is suddenly Russian, that also bugs me immensely).
Now does it mean it was impossible for Ye Wenjie to have an American accent teacher in her upbringing, or it was impossible that she would change her accent? No, it was all possible. But did the show makers thought of these possibilities which was why they decided to have her accents change? If so, why did they want her to change like this? That's related to criticism.
I believe this thing about accents is a big tangent. But it symbolizes something about representation. We are bringing insights and experiences with our voices. Such nuances are important. Such voices deserve credence.
@@Fear_the_Nog I'd also like to address your question about whether they were thoughtful enough about the CR. I don't dispute your views about the purpose and how the events impacted Ye. Having watched the Tencent show, which was missing a scene like that, I also believe including such as scene accurately is better. What the Tencent adaptation did, despite having to circumvent censorship by not including the most visceral stuff, was that it included (1) the detail that it was Ye Wenjie's own sister who was among those students, (2) the detail that Bai Mulin wanted to write a letter to the higher ups about the destruction of the forests, persuaded Ye to write it down and sign, did not sign the letter himself, betrayed her and accused her as the sole perpetrator when he realized it was a bad move, threw stuff at her and cracked her head when she tried to tell the truth, and (3) so many more details, "micro-aggressions" if you will, and vapid struggles on top of those two major events that led to a multitude of layers of sadness, melancholy, despair, doubt, resilience, scientific curiosity, etc. All I can say is that, when Ye Wenjie pushed that button on the Chinese show, I did not question the truthfulness or motivation of that moment.
Many Chinese people are invested in seeing those stories portrayed accurately and fully (despite what you might hear. it's a divided and diverse world), not just the beheading-of-ned-stark style opening "moment," but the impact on generations of people and culture. All of that information can inform you much more of Ye Wenjie and her choice, and of the other Chinese characters and the society they are in in the book, but not enough of that was included, or made relevant in the Netflix show. That's why there's this question of, then why use the cultural revolution for the plot on the Netflix show? I've seen the suggestion of using mccarthyism as the stage of that happening, since -- I agree with Jess on this -- this is a "Westernized" cast.
It's very difficult to fully unpack everything I feel, which can be really complicated and nuanced. It's a bit exhausting, but haunting as well. So thanks in advance for reading and reacting kindly to it.
@@Fear_the_Nog There were some obvious inaccuracies in the Cultural Revolution scenes including the printed signs that wouldn't have been possible at the time (should've been hand written) and slogans that didn't get coined until years later. Ye Wenjie's dad has an obvious accent when speaking Chinese and it kind of instantly takes you out of the moment if you are Chinese and can pick up on that. Also Ye Wenjie's reaction (screaming in the crowd and whatnot) was not something people would actually do because it would've been super dangerous and in reality they probably would've dragged her up to the stage and attacked her as well. Netflix really just made the whole scene sort of more of a dramatic spectacle. Also if you don't understand the complexities of the CR, you really only get the one dimensional view of oh the experience traumatized her and therefore she decided to condemn humanity. It was also included in the original book to provide a contrast to modern China (which they have removed from the show apparently).
At that time, in her situation, she won't have chance to move out of China, she couldn't even leave the Red Coast...
But how does contacting aliens help her situation? They won't arrive to earth for another 400 years, so she would've been stuck in China her whole life. Oh but she moved out later and went to the UK so....even if she didn't know she would get to leave at the time, inviting aliens is not a solution to her problem.
I gotta agree with your overall argument - none of the characters motivations seemed very justified with what we had seen from them. It was just stuff happening the whole time, and for the most part completely divorced from any kind of authentic motivation or characterization. They seemes so focused on laying the groundwork for the further seasons that they forgot that they still needed the human element in it.
Everybody keeps telling "Netflix internationalized the show! It made it global and less exclusively chinese" got me tired already... The Three Body trilogy is GLOBAL, is constantly talking about HUMANS, not chinese citizens. I'm from Argentina, I've read the whole 4 books twice and I've read how Liu Cixin included the whole world in his work. He did it in several of his other books as well. I didn't felt excluded, didn't felt this was "just for the chinese" but somehow, for americans, if they are not named and placed as the heroes of every book in existence, then they feel "outcasted" Damn, you're ridiculous people
It wouldn't make a lick of sense for Netflix to make a show with Chinese characters set mostly in China. Besides, they were contractually obligated to change the setting.
@@hoos3014 They weren't. Liu Cixin literally sold them the rights of the whole trilogy
True dude
The author of the book is the one who suggested to Netflix and the showrunners that they should diversify the cast and the setting.
So maybe people like you who keep ignorantly complaining about this should take it up with him.
@@Cbricklyne Source: my deep thoughts and desires 😂
Watching the Netflix adaptation was like reading a Wikipedia article where they are trying to hide the truth but there are too many factual things they can't deny.
I think the biggest problem with this show is it requires that you think a little, even though they dumbed it down some. Most people don't have the mental faculty anymore to watch a show like this that requires you to actually think.
I feel like they don't actually want the audience to think, because if you think about it, the show falls apart.
Yeah once I start thinking about this show all I can see are endless plotholes. Maybe you didn't think about it enough
Actually quite the opposite is true.
To enjoy this show/books you have to NOT think,....or as the old expression goes, shut off your brain.
If you think you begin to see all the logic plot holes and contradictions and it begins to fall apart like an old moldy sweater.
That wasn’t the joke you got it wrong
3BP books got a unique international horizon, it is mainly based different characters, like the face waller Rediaz(I can't believe Netflix deleted this character) People can sense the diversity of the culture from different characters and stories. And Netflix built this point in a superficial way, different race originally from different countries, but acting and thinking in the same western way. I'm really shocked when I saw some comments saying Netflix show is better than books. I mean, seriously, do those guys read and understand the books?😅
19:50, we are in agreement none of the Oxford 5 acted anything like scientists. They seemed more like a bunch of rich entitled hipsters looking for reason to be upset. If I don't know what a device does or who put it there I'm definitely not putting it on my head.
21:46, the US was involved via NASA - Cape Canaveral is in Florida. The US also probably paid for a lot of the space based project and the US Defense Department probably ponied up a lot of those nuclear warheads. But I understand what you mean that most big epic movies always show the US front and center.
without US and Russia, where they find the unclear bomb to build the Staircase?
I think the biggest problem is the series took the colonial reference out of the storyline. The book is constantly referencing to human history and since they adapted it from a once colonized country to a colonial country, those reference were almost all deleted.
Yes, the problem is that there is no depiction of a modern technologically advanced China that has moved on beyond the excess of the Cultural Revolution. There is no depiction of current time Chinese scientists or government officials that are reasonable and thoughtful The show needs a more balanced depiction of China, especially since the author is Chinese. In the book the present day Chinese work cooperatively with other countries, including the Chinese government.
They did pick a Chinese General as Wallfacer, trusting him because of his strategic skills and scholarly writing. I think they could have included more of modern China but honestly, as a NA-born Chinese person, I think the amount of 'representation' is adequate, even if their version of diversity is Western-centric. Showing more of China itself would do what precisely, for advancing the story once it's quickly turned into a global issue? I feel like interpretations definitely can be blamed for being whitewashed due to how common that is, but to me it feels slightly like saying Romeo Must Die featured too many black and Chinese actors and they needed more of England and white English people because the author they interpreted is Shakespeare.
Yea it just didn't make sense to me why they would include the past China part, and then never revisit modern China in the future. If the problem started in China, why are they not participating in solving the problem?
I believe it was a requirement from the Chinese rights holder that the Netflix version NOT be set in modern China. Probably due to not wanting to cause confusion with the Tencent version.
I find it interesting that you can't understand why Mr Rogers would tell a stranger so much. Have you never used Facebook, Twitter, tick-tock, etc?
lol I thought he was supposed to be somewhat intelligent and rational
A number of your points resonated with me. I was a foreign student in Beijing in the 90s, so quite liked the Tencent show's way of dwelling "in place", and in time. The CR scene and murder looked just like my university main building, so that was unnerving. But after that, the decision to move away from Beijing created so many problems - it cuts the origins, drivers, legacy off at the roots. You don't see modern China; the Wang Miao and Shen Yufei characters get atom-smashed and split into others; and curiously in becoming "more international" it becomes smaller and "less international".
On the science devices - not the overall astrophysics - the VR game is attractive on the surface, but the more you think about it the less sense it makes... If the San Ti cannot fathom an Other which can lie or dissemble, then they have little sense of empathy. How do they design a VR game, and VR Hot Girl to appeal to humans? How do they know it will be effective? If they only know consciousness as shared experience, why do they get different humans to try the game? Surely - in San Ti land - all humans would think the same? If there are differences, like one San Ti is a pacifist (??), then why not more differences? If one San Ti ren is known to be pacifist, and is surviving by lying, then they can, and do, and the whole logic structure of contact implodes.
Oh yeah, the sophons have no rules and power limits. At all. They could have nixed Saul at the wallfacer ceremony. Blanked Wade when he proposes the ridiculous Brain in a Rocket scheme. I thought that was a joke, a misdirect.
Last point (promise!), where are the governments? We have global society comprised of a) scientists b) renegade species traitors c) renegade deep state and d) the UN. Seriously? A better rewrite would have had sophons taking out state signals operations, and then a series of crisis meetings, mutual accusations, recriminations, and then Sensible Scientists telling the politicians it's all going to be fine if we listen to them.
Overall it's such a mix of elements that I'm not sure the show succeeds on any level, basically because it's incoherent.
Yea, the Chinese scenes and the Modern day UK scenes felt like such a strange contrast that I couldn't connect them in anyway other than "oh this is an original Chinese work and we wanted to keep just this part untouched even though we changed everything else". It felt like one moment I was watching some Chinese drama my mom used to watch and the next I'm thrown into a Black Mirror episode. It's fine to have a stark contrast when there's actually a purpose behind it, but I'm grasping at straws with this one. As a viewer, I was wondering what happened to the rest of the people from that 1960s time period. What happened to the Red Coast Base? We see that it's abandoned, but did they really just completely drop the tech that allowed us to contact aliens??
All the unexplained science really made me wonder if I was just dumb and didn't understand anything 😂 They also didn't spend any time exploring the concept of the San iT's shared consciousness or even how much they knew about/understood humans. They also didn't show why anyone would join the cult after playing the VR game and getting selected. The only two examples Jack and Jin were freaked out when invited to that gathering and learning the truth. I can't imagine any sane person really going along with all of it, but alas, we seem to have quite a few members (who also have a bunch of kids).
And yea, having the fate of the world rely on such a small group of people seems completely unrealistic, but I think someone online was also saying that Wade has some higher ups he reports to who haven't been revealed yet, so maybe there's more they haven't shown.
@@JessInDreams7 Exactly. It just falls down as an adaptation on the fundamental story point of "how does this world work? I can see it's different, but why is it different, and what are the implications and rules?"
The character Jack is just the showrunners giving John Bradley some work, because they're mates. He's not there for critical character interactions or plot, and he sure isn't there for his acting.
Wang Miao - they did you wrong!
The San-Ti do have limits. They have no physical presence or influence on Earth because they're still about four light years away. They use the sophons for surveillance, hacking and creating optical illusions. They couldn't kill anyone on Earth directly. They need human allies in the cult to kill people for them, which is why his would-be killer had to wait till he left the UN building before he could shoot him. The inside of the UN had too much security.
The San-Ti are not unified in thought. They do have factions. Remember the message she received, "I am a pacifist on my world." The implication is that there are pacifists and militants. That can only happen if their are multiple factions. You don't need lies to have a factionalized society. Also, the game doesn't provide a Hot Girl for you to sympathize with, it provides you with a Child (Follower) to sympathize with. The Sophons do push a problem of what they can and can not do that isn't resolved well in the story though, I agree. It seems they can control all audio and visual information, but can not directly kill a person (by say causing a brain aneurism). Jin says that it takes them a couple of seconds to travel around the globe so carefully timed experiments on opposite ends of the globe could make it possible to limit their ability to interfere with the test, but then they simultaneously deliver the YOU ARE BUGS message to all electronic devices over the entire globe that defies that distance over time limit. And if they can hack vehicles computers to make them drive on their own, then they can do a whole lot to kill or destroy our science with out ever having to drive people to suicide. The ability of their Sophons to hack computers has implications way beyond driving cars into people.
@@JessInDreams7They didn't explain enough in the show to rush through the story. The books explain everything to the finest detail.
Another obvious mistake with Ye Wentai's storyline: Tsinghua university did not have the department of physics during cultural revolution. All professors who taught physics were sent to Peking University or some other organizations after some famous reorg.
It's Ye Zhetai. Tsinghua's physics department was there since the 1920s and the struggle session was about what he taught when he was teaching physics at one point, not that he was teaching physics in the Dept of Physics at the time. Media literacy, mate.
@@user-yp6yr9te7l You think Y Zhetai was a real person? Man, you cannot be serious. It was just a character from a scifi story written by Liu Cixin. OK，I made a typo here by saying Wentai, great catch and good job.
@@aroonsubway2079 WTF, no. lol Are you thick? why would you think I think he's real? No man, I know this is fictional. I'm saying the setting of the scene is about him having taught politically "wrong" ideas, the scene didn't say there WAS a physics dept or not
3BP is more plot-driven than character-driven. D&D tried to flesh out the characters, but they are terrible at it. They were fooled by the initial success of GoT -- thought they were just like George RR Martin and ended up destroying GoT.
5:30, people often make disastrous decisions based upon emotion. Also I don't think Ye Wenjie could just leave China during that time period. Furthermore, the 1960's was during the Cold War which was a pretty scare time for the whole human race.
i haven't watched the show (couldn't get through the first episode), but listened to the book instead and am now on the second. to me ye wenjie's character is super interesting and i never got the feeling that she did what she did just because of watching her father die. she's also betrayed and essentially trapped working in this research facility with no autonomy in her life, because she helped a stranger and read a book that was banned by china's government. you get these tiny glimpses into her feelings about the situation, but a lot of her life story is told with her emotions conspicuously missing, in contrast to wang miao, where his emotions are detailed at length. and once she actually contacts the trisolarans, she completely dissociates.
ye makes this decision and one of the next things she does in the book is kill her own husband, which she seems to have absolutely no feelings about. same thing with the birth of her daughter. near the end of the book, when wang miao implies she may have killed her daughter, she dismisses his comment and just continues her exposition. she made her choice and then disconnected from reality so she never really had to face what she did.
this is all to say i liked your video and i'm disappointed to hear they made ye wenjie's character real bland.
I'm currently watching the Chinese Version of the series made by Tencent, and I'm already liking Ye Wenjie's character miles more than the Netflix version. I absolutely despised Netflix's Ye Wenjie. She's almost completely boiled down to a one dimensional selfish, evil villain with just a lot of hatred for the world. In the Chinese show and the book, she's a very complex character that went through a lot throughout her life, continues to live with the consequences of her choices, and it never seemed like her decisions were made for selfish reasons or on a whim.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, and glad you enjoyed the video 😊
Having read the books recently, it's pretty noticable that they internationalize the modern era in the book, but keep it in China for the flashbacks... which is innocuous and maybe even justifiable on its own, but then they also cut all the redeeming moments from her time at Red Coast, including witnessing the reforms after the cultural revolution ends, her experience of being welcomed into the village community, that moment when she discovers the GaoKao has replaced nepotism in academia - all of the nuance and conflict is stripped out of her character. They also cut the redemptionists vs adventists factions from the ETO, and instead of Ye and Evans being rivals they turned them into lovers. And they turned the ETO from a scientific community into a cult... I mean, they were cultISH in the books but in the Netflix version they're just reduced to fanatics.
The ETO was the definition of a cult in the books.
And just how do you think they were going to fit all that into an 8 episode season where they had to tell a larger story on a limited budget?
It's a little bit more covered in the book but I think that Ms Ye was well read to the point of speaking English in 1960s China. So I feel that she understands the scale of human atrocities beyond what the CCP did to her family. There is an ongoing human level cruelty and betrayal that is not an expression of a specific political ideology but an expression of the human experience. There is also Silent Spring, which details humanities crimes against nature and itself and those crimes specifically are Western-led. I would say that it would be unfair to characterize Ye's nihilism as driven mostly by political events in China. In the books, by the time she hits the send button she has been utterly betrayed by everyone in her life including her mother, lover, and her daughter's father, sure to some extent those are exacerbated by the cultural revolution - but its not the cause, the devil is in us regardless of Mao. I thought that this background and motivation is so important that you could have spent most of the first season on it. Ye's moment of betrayal of her species should not be hand waved.
Yeah that's how I viewed it, as someone who has not read the books. For her to be fairly fluent in english to read/write and even author a scientific paper in english meant she had contact and influences from outside, prior to all the atrocities. And there's also probably a sort of idea that China would have implied their own supremacy regardless of how true it was on different aspects of life, technology, society etc... so if they were capable of such destruction, then so are other nations. Ye just extrapolated the downfall of Earth globally in the name of progress... destroy the old world to build a new one.
Evans was just one man who wanted to help save a bird species with a defiant, even potentially futile gesture by replanting the trees they were cutting down. And later on, I felt that the San Ti 'motto' of 'if one of us survives, we all survive' as being taken to heart even by Ye, to reconcile the risk that humans could get effectively exterminated. It's impossible for her not to have considered that risk, especially if she became such a cynic. Will Downing may have also seen being a cryogenically frozen brain to be later revived by the aliens as a very small chance to survive, maybe even as one sole representative of humanity. I'm not religious but it happens to have been Easter weekend, and I thought maybe him effectively dying and then becoming resurrected and then returning to Earth was also supposed to give the somewhat obvious Messiah allusions, with the Lord and their original 3 body system also having symbolism of the Trinity.
She's definitely more complex of a character in the books. Her characterization in the show made it hard for me to see her as anything more than a crazy lady.
@@JessInDreams7I agree. The show runners did something similar in the last season where they turned Dinerys into a crazed fire breathing murderer. I can see maybe the eventual turn but it was so badly done that it just felt unbelievable. I wonder what this says about their relationship with women and their lack of respect for their audience. Season 1 should have ended with Ye pushing the button after a sensa stark or Theon Greyjoy level of suffering depicted.
@@guyincognito1136Daenerys was always a firebreathing murderer, she was just OUR firebreathing murderer, so we didn't mind.
" the devil is in us" This sentence is so well put. Whether there was the Cultural Revolution or not, I can even see such people in modern life. They simply use the herd effect of the crowd, stigmatize, and destroy everything they don't like; it's the most disgusting part of the human dark side. The most obvious example is the current social environment in the United States, and in China's online environment, everyone has been vigilant about the rise of such people, knowing that they won't disappear.
For me, the series already has too many assumptions, which, even as the story progresses, increasingly develops away from scientific and socio-cultural facts and towards assumptions. This becomes even more extreme, so much so that this logical flaw of this person is relativized to a minimum. My point is: if you find this illogical - and I agree with you - then wait and see what's heading our way. Hopefully, not in 400 years' time.
For me, the behaviour is illogical, naive, defiant. If someone tells you that the race is not pacifist, what else do you want to explain to them about coexistence? As a scientist, to then also stop science would at least hurt my heart. But, on the other hand, humans do illogical things. And so do the aliens in this book, because if they knew so much about quantum processes, they would deliberately drive humanity mad and to suicide from the very beginning - so rapidly that in 400 years they would have a gigantic deserted car park for their fleet.
This book is pure fiction dressed up in science, it tries to use supposed facts like Dan Brown with his series of books and for entertainment it is good, it really is. But you can't read more into it than that. Because if there are aliens out there who act as stupidly as the ones heading for Earth in the book, then they would have perished a long time ago from themselves or other aliens and Earth would have no problem at all. They could have just waited 400 years for us to do it all for ourselves - we're doing a pretty good job of it. So why waste resources ;)
Yup, its pure science fantasy. Not science fiction. It wields science like a cudgel and expects the audience to be wowed by the jargon because most people don't understand science in a meaningful way. If Sophons could disrupt particle physics inside a collider, there's nothing from stopping Sophons from killing every human being on the planet. Blind them, cut their heart strings, the number of ways a single proton moving at lightspeed through our cells could destroy us are nearly endless.
The show is even worse. Sophons can control every electronic device on the planet. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to think of all the ways just turning off electronics or reprogramming the targeting computers for nukes could be used to wipe out humanity before the San-Ti ever arrived. And 400 years would be plenty of time for radiation from a thermonuclear exchange to fade away.
Far too much plot armor for all of humanity to make this series believable.
I agree with most of your observations. This one person dooms all of humanity! That’s not cool at all. She didn’t tell anyone at all.
That's the story. The show couldn't change that part.
hey jess, are you gonna watch and review the dune tv show on hobo when it comes out?
Oh yes! I probably will 😁
Being intelligent ≠ being emotionally strong
Her doing that after losing her father and the bad experiences she went through is stupid I agree, but it makes sense given what she went through
intelligent and independent review
Thanks so much for the review! I quite agree - I preferred ep 6-8 of the show, although most people prefer the first 5 episodes because it's faster in pace. Again, as someone who hasn't read the books, I only have the Tencent version to compare it to. I'm not Chinese, but I definitely felt uncomfortable about the portrayal of China in the Netflix version. Like you said, they show the Cultural Revolution and all the horrible things in China but they never show modern China. There's not even a glimpse into how China is a totally different place now. Considering that China is very much demonised in the West, this only helps enforce the stereotype that China is bad. They could've had a scene of Ye Wenjie going back to China (maybe even to Beijing or a big city) and taking it all in - and realising that the world has changed so much (and I'm getting ahead of myself, but perhaps she could've interacted with some kind Chinese people in China and had some guilt towards what she has condemned humanity to). The Tencent version, although slower, was way more my pace. I love engaging with scientific concepts (even if they're not plain science fiction) and the Tencent version really gave me that. I was able to really dive into those ideas, the philosophy, and just be immersed in the existential dread of the show. I felt that even if the Netflix version isn't total trash, it was more spectacle than cerebral and more flashy than philosophical. People hail the CR scene at the very beginning, but I feel that's such a Western thing to point out. I was perfectly content with Ye Wenjie in the Tencent version. She had done worse things than in the Netflix version (basically killed her husband and her superior), but somehow they made her a sympathetic character - or at least you don't hate her and feel like she struggled a lot with her actions. I think she had given up on humanity at that point, where the larger picture was more important than the smaller details. In the Netflix version, I totally hated her character. I also feel that the Oxford 5 didn't feel like scientists or researchers at all. I'm around academic circles a lot and I've never people any academics act that way. Auggie definitely came across as the worst of them. Jin Cheng was probably among the best (probably because they actually showed her doing some science stuff).
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch and comment 😊 The absence of modern China as a contrast to the Cultural Revolution era was the root of all of my questions regarding Ye Wenjie's motives and what we as the audience are supposed to take away from the story. I really did try to give the show runners the benefit of the doubt by justifying it with their desire to stay somewhat faithful to the source material and provide a strong backstory for Ye Wenjie, but the more I thought about it, the less sense it made haha. It would've been great to see Ye Wenjie go back to modern China and have her reflect on her past decisions. She lost so much dimensionality in this show that I really couldn't understand any of her actions. They definitely changed the story to make it like all of the other mainstream shows in the West with a heavy focus on action, spectacle, personal relationships, and humor. And lol, it is funny that no one among the Oxford 5 except Jin did any substantial scientific explanation 😆
The point it conflicts you I think its also the one they try to explain, there a lots of people that based on their personal experience are willing to give the world away. This is a fundamental flaw that humans have, maybe we are able to empathized but that doesn't mean that will think with empathy everytime. I think that you will love the books, in the first one there is a pretty good explanation on how the "human" computer works.
The Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy has several major themes and plot points that make it unique to science fiction:
1. Every civilization in the universe is hostile towards one another and if your location is known, you will be swiftly wiped out. This is known as the Dark Forest Hypothesis and is the explaination for the Fermi Paradox. The San-Ti are unique in that they desire to take our planet due to the classical three-body problem.
2. Life destroys its environment. Do you know how humanity destroys the Earth with abandon? Civilizations in the universe destroy the universe with abandon. The universe was once a perfect 10 dimensions but the countless eons of violence has reduced it to 3D (and eventually 2D) because species routinely attack others using Dimension Strikes and flatten others into lower dimensions.
3. Humanity is most destructive towards itself. Before the San-Ti even arrive we sabotage Earth in an attempt to militarize for the San-Ti invasion but end up harming Earth, causing famine and killing 3/4 of Earth's population before they even arrive.
4. The human mind is resilient and adaptable. When pressed up against the wall (or into 2D by Singer's civilization) we fight and show resolve. As we must do, unless we die in our cradle as cosmic infants.
The Netflix version hits Tencent ep30 level of plot by ep5, the increase of pace definitely hurts some of the raitonale behind YeWenJies actions and the VR game stuff
The Tencent pace hurts the story much more.
Ayyy I watched the show!!! funny enough contrary to your experience I actually found the first half much better than I thought 😂 maybe cuz I went in with such low expectations? It genuinely drew me in haha. I thought the China scenes were really well done and mirrored the book scenes quite well. The international setting was *better than I expected* too. YAS Sir Davos and Sam were my fav! Sir Davos was a cool no-BS get-it-done no-filter charismatic leader who also showed sides of warmth. So sad when Sam died I was like "wHaT you kill me fav??" In terms of 叶文洁 I actually feel completely justified that she called Aliens 😅 maybe cuz the book made it much easier to sympathize with her? She was so trapped and hopeless, and saw human nature at its worse and decided to f--- 'em all lol. Sorry to be annoying but the book did made what she suffered much worse & detailed. But then yeah I also thought "wow you seem like you really got to experience the better side of life huh? Even you said that 'times change', still wanna kill everyone? 0-0"
Sorry to spam! additional thoughts: it gets to a point where you just have to go "yeah she is just a villain now, albeit one we (may) have sympathized with". Just like how I get it with Eren stomping the rest of the world for his small group of friends, I'm like ok that's a heavy burden to bear but I can see myself doing similar things in his shoes, only difference is I'd finish the rest of the 20% off... 🙊 (IM KIDDING) But not everyone who's been through the worst of humanity decides to give in and be the judge, jury & executioner of everyone else. This is why the movie Joker was really good, but I HATED that character (not even my real charismatic "Batman smells Robin laid an egg" joker 😠) Does he think he's the only one suffering? Plenty people who've gone through similar or much worse things still choose to be good. They didn't decide to release their temper tantrums upon the world. I know friends who have grandparents killed during the stupid culture revolution. An 80 something year-old pianist I know who is the 11th or 13th generation student of Chopin got his fingers crushed by the Red Guards during that time, literally destroying his entire world, but he is now still a wise and loving man. My grandma also suffered horrible things before (tho not in the C.R.) but to this day she appreciates the better side of life and is a blessing for us all. They are both Christians.
But on the other side, they are also plenty of people who do disgusting villainous things for much much less. People who prey on the vulnerable just to feel powerful because they have no power over anything else in life. I guess my point is these villains can be some of the best characters for fiction because we (may) sympathize with them AND deeply despise them at the same time (like me with that "fake" Joker lol). They'd take things way too far when most people wouldn't (for our entertainment). But it takes so much more strength and character to go through horrible 💩 but still overcome and CHOOSE to be above it all. That's the ultimate hero vs villain story perhaps. Ye Wenjie sadly becomes this less intriguing TV version of her tragic counterpart (because I was really rallying behind her at first in the book 😂)
Ahh what good timing because I just finished watching and filming my review of the Chinese Tencent version of Three Body 😁, and I had so much to say about Ye Wenjie in that version because she was fleshed out way more compared to the Netflix one.
But it's good to hear you actually enjoyed the Netflix one! I think a lot of people did like the way Netflix portrayed the CR and Ye Wenjie's past, for me I think it was a bit too rushed (as was the entire show in general), so it almost felt like they only showcased a small piece of the larger picture which made the whole backstory feel like it lacked depth. I think since you read the book recently, you were probably able to fill in the gaps a lot better. Though the fact that Netflix made it so that Ye Wenjie and Mike Evans fell in love and had a kid was really wild haha. I think that's what ultimately confused me about her character in the show because as someone who had lost all hope in her life and turned to aliens to destroy humanity, I just can't understand how she could fall in love, move to the UK, and live a presumably pleasant life as if nothing in her past happened 😅
Well written villains are indeed challenging to make, but when done well, they are some of the most interesting characters, which is probably why I was disappointed by Netflix's version of Ye Wenjie. Overall though, the adaptation was decent, not on the level of being the next Game of Thrones, but it was nice to see some of GoT cast in this.
@@JessInDreams7 thank you for your time & response! I think my low expectations really helped with enjoying it🤣Exactly the family & UK stuff is so weird! And some show exec clearly loved GOT a little too much “let’s have that dude play a cult leader & die dramatically again👌”.
Looking forward to your review for the Chinese version! doesn’t it have like 52 episodes or sth can’t believe you just binged it 😮I’ll watch its quick recap if there is one
@@MarkLearns Haha, it actually has 30 episodes, but I think they released an anniversary version recently that is cut down to 25 episodes 😂It is very long but practically follows the first book 1-1.
It was unlikely for Ye Wenjie to find anyone who was willing or able to help. Also, I don't find her character to be trusting enough to let people help her at this point. There was no way she could escape China by herself; it wasn't an option for the general populace, not to mention her political status, and she was practically still a prisoner at the base. The only choice was probably self-exit. She grew up witnessing the Land Reform, People's commune, the Great Leap Forward, the Great Chinese Famine, and the Cultural Revolution, and before she was born, there were wars. Though I agree they could have shown more messed up situations outside of China, I don't blame her for losing faith in humanity. I appreciate your perspectives; this review for me is an interesting take.
Yea, I can understand how her life experiences put her in a very dark place, but I think they could've put more scenes of her exploring different avenues to resolve the challenges in her life but ultimately failing or something additional to make her seem more logical in her decision to give up humanity's fate to aliens. In my mind, I was expecting the reason they put so much effort into showing 1960s China and cultural revolution was to give Ye Wenjie a good "villain" backstory, so that we as the audience could sympathize with her or see her as a more complex character. But after watching the show, I got the impression that she was just a crazy lady out for revenge. Then add to the fact that later on, she does leave China and lives a pretty decent life made me dislike her even more because it seems like she never regretted her decision or even deeply contemplated her choices. Then on top of that, she didn't even get revenge on the people of her own generation. She basically destroyed the world for all future generation not even born yet and are innocent 😅
@@JessInDreams7 Yeah, I understand the frustration; the depiction is indeed very one-dimensional. I partly thought of this story as a cautionary tale, like how being mean to people may cause unimaginable destruction, so I never cared too much about the complexity. Liu Cixin's writing has other aspects that I don't enjoy, and there are more unlikeable characters, so Ye Wenjie isn't the biggest issue for me. Since there are bigots who can't change their minds regardless of the knowledge they have access to, being intelligent doesn't always mean being rational. Clinging onto one's beliefs and past decisions and actively avoiding facing the truth is very common, so I can see why she appears lacking in contemplation. For humanity, it is too bad the opportunity presented itself to Ye Wenjie too early lolol, before she could have more life experiences to make a more thoughtful decision.
@@yaonieh again it wasn't just because of the trauma of the cultural revolution that she decided to responded back. It was also because as a scientist she believes any intellectual advanced civilization that can travel through space must've overcome their social issues, learned to manage their planet, species, environment etc... in a peaceful way. Otherwise they would have destroyed themselves first. It doesn't actually said that to your face in the book but you understand her more since there are more details. In the show it was like "China bad, alien come kill the bad people". Obviously in all version she regretted her decision after the bug moment. Even if it wouldn't matter if she didn't respond...
Anyway she didn't know back there since it was before she even think about that "theory" explain in book 2. Which is true and "the rule" in the universe of the Remembrance of Earth's Past.
I found this comments from others which I feel makes a lot of sense:
In the book and also the Tencent series, there was an 8 years period after Ye Wenjie's Solar experiment "failed", she completely lost her direction in life, during this period she married Yang Weining, and the supposedly peaceful and non-busy years actually let the trauma once burried by her busy works resurfaced and haunting her again, she started to think more into the darkest side of mankind, she read a lot of foreign books about human science and learning about the Cold War which at it's peak at the time, that a nuclear war could be happening at anytime.
But this Netflix adaptation is ALL ABOUT China's culture revolution. But they still delibrately removed one important scene from the book:
"The supreme directive: fight with words, not with force!" Ye Zhetai's two students finally made up their minds and shouted these words. They rushed over at the same time and pulled away the four little girls who were already in a semi-crazy state.
It makes a big difference，because this sentence showed that Chinese leadership didn't encourage violence during the cultural revolution, and Ye Zhetai's death was an accident in which the four teenage girls lost control.
Hmm I feel like some of your points are open to interpretation. I don’t think everything needs to be spoon fed to the audience, so some of the things you mention are probably known to the characters “off screen”
• Ye Wenjie’s choices seem believable to me. I know quite a few highly intelligent people who believe humanity are a scourge to the planet. They also have the narcissism to think they know what’s best for society. Academics are not immune to severe personality flaws and misjudgments, in fact they might be more susceptible.
• In regard to the San-Ti being so advanced they should know how deception works: they evolved to be telepathic. It’s not possible to lie when you immediately have access to everyone’s thoughts.
• “They don’t show up n CCTVs for some reason.” The Sophon’s can manipulate what humans can see (the countdowns, flickering stars, etc), I think it’s implied that that’s how they manipulate CCTV.
• I agree with your points about the OxFord 5. I think they glossed over a lot of things bc they’re setting up plot hooks that were originally introduced in books 2 & 3.
If Sophons can manipulate what humans see, they can easily disrupt the cells within our bodies to the point of breaking down critical components. There are fibers in our heart 10 micrometers in length that if destroyed would cause the heart to cease to function. I read a biologist's perspective on this and he calculated the amount of energy required to do this would equal the amount of energy required to redirect light into someone's eyes to display a countdown.
The Sophons could have killed every on earth seamlessly, and D&D's overpowered version of Sophons (who can modify every electronic device on the planet) are even worse. I can think of countless ways to wipe out humanity if I could modify or hack any and every electronic device on the planet.
If anything, this series relies heavily on the audience being wowed by flashy science wielded like a cudgel, neither the author or the audience with a lick of understanding on the real science.
RE : >>>>" • In regard to the San-Ti being so advanced they should know how deception works: they evolved to be telepathic. It’s not possible to lie when you immediately have access to everyone’s thoughts. "
Then how would they know how to create an Artificial Intelligence that knows how to lie right off the bat and how to misrepresent itself?
Also, isn't a big aspect of the Dark Forest hypothesis (which plays a big role in the next books) that species like the San-ti that know about the more dangerous advanced species in the galaxy are able to survive partly because they know how to hide themselves and not let their presence be known?
Isn't that just a lie or lying in a more complex way?
the thing about the "if one of us survives, we all survive" is that in the books we get to know that they can merge to other person so they live inside the other, the past generations live inside future ones as well or something like that, the problem is that the show doesn't take it's time to explain none of that
it's not on the books.
Im kinda surprised to find this video, it is a different opinion with those western reactions of Netflix 3BP. In Chinese platform, the reviews of Netflix version r almost all negative, like how Netflix destroyed the book in lots of aspects. Some of ur opinions r similar to Chinese audience, but in a western guy angle more or less. Interesting，Subscribed！😀
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed listening to my perspective 😊
you are just explaining the plot and having biased opinion so far 5 mins into this , waiting for illogical part
I know exactly why she pushed the button, have you met people? all you have to do is walk through a Trump rally.
Putting aside that Netflix apparently went out of its way to murder her character, you got it right at 8:30...
You are NOT supposed to like Ye Wenjie that much. She's the (first) villain of the saga. And her decision is supposed to be an emotional one ("My life was too fucked up, humanity as a whole is trash, let's put the aliens in charge of everything"), not a brilliant strategic move.
Haha, I guess she's a lesson on why one person should never have the sole power to decide something for the masses.
@@JessInDreams7Certainly not one horribly traumatised person, because they might decide to blow up the whole world like Ye Wenjie did.
Good vid!
I watched the entire thing - it's a pretty good watch if it was a show on its own, but it's a pretty horrible adaptation imo. Overall I strongly disliked Auggie's character for being less scientist and more smartass - I never got the impression she was ever actually a scientist. Could've been solved by having her do something as simple as like a simple pen and paper calculation like Wang MIao does in the tencent version. The same kinda goes for everyone else except rooney and cheng jin, which is that their emotional story arcs overshadowed their role in science fiction. I suppose that's a compromise of "westernizing" this show.
Special effects were...somewhat better than the Viki version? Honestly the tencent show holds up pretty well.
I also shared your opinion on how it was less sciencey and more narrative focused - none of the concepts are really expounded upon.
Also yeah you nailed it with diversity - I'm surprised that an american show made britain the center of this interstellar scope (+) story - would at least make sense for it to be american. All the main characters are five british students and no one else can do what they do. They're also not diverse in age, culture, ideology, political background, educational background, etc. all of which actually really matter a lot in the dark forest and death's end books (I forget if you mentioned if you read those).
A lot of the more dramatic cool moments like the military conference were substituted for some...smartass lines? That's something that bugs me a lot about american shows actually - there's way too much in the way of "cool" one-liners, to the point that I consider them cringe now.
Also as an Asian I am disappointed to see the whitewashing of asian characters, especially the male ones. Tis sad. But it's a more minor point for me.
Overall, IMO, 8/10 show, 3-4/10 adaptation.
Appreciate your content as always :)
Thank you 😊 I'm glad you enjoyed the video and share some similar opinions! I totally agree that Auggie's character was not convincing as a genius nanotech engineer at all. It really felt like she was there to just look good on screen. In one of the later episodes, there's a scene where she's throwing up in the middle of the night after drinking too much, and she has a full face of makeup on. Idk why she even has the motivation to put on makeup when she's too traumatized from the Judgement day incident to even function properly, and she's also not washing it off before bed lol.
Also yea, I think one would expect the Netflix version to have better effects since the budget was many times higher than the Chinese version. I think each episode of the Netflix one cost 20 million USD or something. The Chinese Tencent one was only around 10 million for all 30 episodes.
Oh the diversity...honestly I tried giving this show the benefit of the doubt because in my last video, so many people were like "it's not whitewashing, they're adding so much diversity!!". So I was really ready to see this so called diverse group of heroes coming to save humanity, and then after watching the show it just felt so shallow for them to try and sell diversity as just the color of one's skin. Does nobody care about what's on the inside 😂 And agreed, they really should've had at least one Asian male in the Oxford 5. Like Asian males make up a huge chunk of the STEM population. How could you not have at least one in a group of scientific geniuses??
@@JessInDreams7 Hahaha I didn't even think Auggie looked good tbh cause of that personality, just disliked her character in general. I definitely agree with you that wade was the star of the show but I kinda don't like how they made him british (irish) - imo should've stayed american. CIA has a way gnarlier reputation than MI6. Again, so weird it's centered around the UK. Also I didn't dislike Cheng Xin from the original books for being a moral obstacle because humanity specifically selected her knowing who she is/what she represents, so I view her decisions as humanity's decisions by proxy, but in the case of Auggie her moral opposition to judgment day was frustrating because it was her own moral convictions. Also, again, no one except her - a student - can make these nanomaterials?
Auggie Saul romantic hints feel hyper-forced. I kinda liked Ye Wenjie and Mike Evans' twisted romance. Downing and Cheng Jin would be better if Cheng Jin wasn't already in a relationship imo.
This is also a general show criticism and is probably my biggest problem is that the scope of the story was hyper-reduced. I feel like in the books while a lot of the characters were chinese every nation had involvement, as in the US had more involvement than China. Characters came from diverse backgrounds and met not by coincidence but because they were all involved in humanity's defense. Whereas in this show they want us to believe that six (incl Raj) out of like the seven (Wade is the other) pivotal members already know each other, and five are already friends, and ALL went to the same university at the same time. It's a little unbelievable and resembles like an anime power-of-friendship plotline lol.
@@lowdefinition4250 Oh yea, the whole concept of Auggie being the sole owner of the nanotech stuff made no sense to me. Even if she was the one who invented it, there's no way the whole lab/project would be shut down just because she decides she doesn't want to continue. The love triangle with Jin, Raj, and Will was super confusing after it was later shown that Jin did have feelings for Will. Like why was she with Raj then? They didn't even seem to get along that well, and I have a hard time believing she couldn't tell Will had feelings for her when they've been friends for so long.
I totally agree with the scope of the story reduced now that they've made all the main characters a group of friends. They are also all young people with a bunch of personal issues that don't seem like a reliable group to leave the fate of humanity to 😅
@@JessInDreams7 Yeah the thing with Will too is that I don't even remember what he contributed in terms of scientific prowess. In the original story the guy he's based off of, Yun Tianming, is just a guy - not anything actually special. The characterization overshadowed the concepts of the story itself.
Also i find it kind of unconvincing, even though I like the character, that netflix Wade came up with all these plans. In the original story he was only involved with the failed staircase project (up to this point in the story). Wallfacer was a UN thing I believe, and judgment day was a coalition operation. Also why only 3 wallfacers 🤔. Again, it's just scope reduction in the "interest" of mainstreaming it for western audiences i suppose.
Ah man, I'm being too negative 😅. I really love the original trilogy, so this poor adaptation hits a sore spot for me.
Also weird that I'm noticing it now but you kinda resemble Jin's actor.
@@lowdefinition4250 They said it subtlety in the first episode. Will is the less accomplished of the group and he feels like his contribution now is to teach kids physics. Same for Saul, he feels like he can’t contribute anything anymore to science advancement since he is past his prime “30”. Now he is just lazy and all dumb things. And Jack wasn’t as gift and so used his degree to create his own snacks industry.
叶文杰的问题不仅仅涉及共产党，还涉及我们如何破坏自然。即使在现代，她也提到外星人会来帮助我们解决气候变化等问题。她不仅对中国感到愤怒，还对全世界感到愤怒。即使她逃离了中国，她仍然对整个人类感到厌恶。
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共产党把令雌送到火葬场完全燃烧了？
While the show has its flaws, it was intriguing enough that it caused me to download the trilogy from audible and I am in the process of listening to them now.
That's great! The ideas and concepts in this story are really interesting and definitely worth exploring. The show is just one of the many interpretations/portrayals, so even with its flaws the overarching concept still carries through.
three body problem is uncontroness
Interesting take, i think having an international cast at a Chinese/Taiwanese university would've made more sense.
here to like and comment for the algo, will come back after I finish the books AND the show. still reading the book since your last video and the books are sooo goood :O
Thank you so much for the support ☺️ It's honestly so great to hear you're reading the books and loving them. Would love to hear your opinions on this show after reading the books! This also makes me think I should really go back and read them again (in English this time haha).
The 3 Body Problem series sucks.
life would never evolve in an unstable system to begin with.
Exactly. That's just 1 plothole. Why didn't the Shan ti just tell their ai to kill all of humanity before they destroy the earth for them to live in? Make them all blind. They die, and earth is safe. So easy.
Nor would humanity have a chance against Sophons. If they can disrupt particle physics in a collider they could disrupt human cells enough to stop the heart of every human being on the planet, for the same amount of energy required to project light onto someone's eyes.
So when the science fan fics dropping ? 🤨
Probably not anytime soon 🤣
14:25, Mike Evans and everyone on the Judgement Day had it coming they. I did feel sorry for their children.
Shit is so dumb. D&D added children to the boat purely for shock factor.
This so was good. I don't know why you are going on and on about China. It's how it is in the book. Ye Winje was ij china and seeing your father killed and be slave in a labour came with no escape can make anyone loose hope. It's not anything out of ordinary, but then their will always be snob who would expect a complete reality in a scifi show, they might even teach a thing or two to trisolarians from their couch. They did a good job this show.
Nah, show was trash. Characters were utterly boring, and there are so many plotholes the show ends up tripping over itself in two seconds. Sophons in the Netflix Adaptation can affect every electronic device on the planet. Why not just wipe out electronics to destroy humanity? Why not project state secrets onto the eyes of rival nations and start a global war? Why not just reprogram the targetting computers of nukes to wipe out humanity? Certainly 400 years is plenty of time for nuclear winter and background radiation to fade away.
If you think about this show for even a few minutes, it simply requires too much suspension of disbelief to be truly enjoyable.
@@mateobarrett6829 if you expect reality in fantasy might as well just look out the window and spare us people who wants to enjoy things in life and not always be like a kill joy and say things like "ackschually this is not real" for a fiction.
@@supasapien Nothing wrong with fantasy that is consistent in its in-world rules and logic. This show demands the thinking viewer to suspend far too much disbelief to enjoy it, combined with banal dialogue and flat characters, its all too familiar territory for the likes of D&D. The same people who enjoyed the end of Game of Thrones are likely to like this show.
In other words, it acts as a sort of litmus test for cinema literacy - those who are easily wowed by flashing lights and big words will enjoy it, whilst those all to tired of seeing the same character tropes and empty romances will see it as the trash it is.
One day your tastes may expand, but something tells me I doubt it
Interesting take. I didn't think of that. You're right, why would she condemn all of humanity? I'm editing my take on the show and the books, and I have many problems. Like the women characters being responsible for the worse thing that happens to humans in the story. (You didn't read the trilogy. It not a bad story, but extremely problematic.) Here goes my problem with the depiction of the Chinese Cultural revolution, and up front I'm Black American and only know the history as it's been told. You see the problem is the bias. I'm sure there were really bad things that happened, but in 1966 my people were fighting just to get our society to stop murdering us at will, and now they pat themselves on the back for stopping without ever really acknowledging or apologizing. I say that to say, if I was in 1966 America after church bombings and people being attacked by dogs and fire hoses, I would be hard pressed not to tell the aliens to come on board and do what you will too. However, what always goes missing the context. Why was the Mao philosophy so popular? Why would an entire population not only agree with it but fight against it. Because they always leave out a very important detail - the colonization. England was a colonial force in China at that time, and colonial force - especially European colonial forces - do what they're going to do. And what they do is never nice, nor pretty nor something any human beings should be proud of. I mean let's look at what happened to the other place Europeans colonized. How'd that work out the the indigenous populations? It's not like Chinese people woke up one day and started to called Western teaching evil out of a vacuum. Even when Black people say "The white man is the devil" it's not like they didn't earn the title by so many blood soaked deeds you don't even want to think about it. This is how I feel when America or any western nation talks about other places, especially non-white places. I mean there's a line Benedict Wong says to the woman who called the aliens back "What an advanced civilization encounters a primitive civilization it never goes well. That's not science or history, it's white people making excuses. "You see, we Europeans and Americans were so advanced, we had to destroy those primitives." And the rationale they used for all Asians and African and Indians "primitive" was "They don't speak our language, or wear our clothes, or go to our schools, or act like us. So we have no other choice but to invade them and teach them God's law according to us." That's why the scenes made me uncomfortable. I'm not saying this sort of thing did not happen, I'm saying there's a kind of slant to it that I'm surprised came from the author himself. And it doesn't help he added a heavy dose of sexism in the story. That's my take.
Oh yea, I think I have come across opinions pointing out that there was a lot of sexism in the books. It almost feels like it's quite normalized in China to stereotype women as emotional and men as logical, so I think the author may not even realize it himself. As for the Cultural Revolution, I totally agree with you on the bias. In the anglocentric world, it's too often taken out of context as this independent event that was just bad and used to condemn China's history. Chairman Mao is always portrayed as an evil leader that caused death and suffering, but nobody ever talks about how he rose to power or why was able to gather supporters. It's like Western people think he just randomly popped out of nowhere for no apparent reason. It's unfortunate that they leave out how bad the situation was when the West went over to attempt to colonize the country. China during that period was a mess, and when you try to bring up the evil deeds of the colonizers, they always have some sort of justification.
Agree. There's a reason most of China was never colonized by the British. You had to be a monster to face a monster like the British at that time. But it's not ok for the Chinese to be that way according to this adaptation. 😅
@@lukelee3 This is a debate I’ve heard a lot. Is the actions of the colonized just as wrong as the colonizer? I fall on the “hell no, it’s not” under the F.A.F.O. rules. 😁
Why aren't you writing anymore/? What is the Jess in Dreams plan?
Oh haha, it's been many years, but I think I just got busy with 9-5 jobs and other life changes. As for this channel, there's no real specific plan. Just sharing thoughts on movies and TV shows and hopefully providing some fun and entertainment 😁
oki doki...but we both know the dreams are calling right! The chracter that fascinates me in the Netflix series is Tatiana, the implacable enforcer. I'm now watching the 30 episodeTenCent version. Better music and made for a tenth of the Netflix budget. And its engaging to watch the chinese version of Chinese.@@JessInDreams7
you have to watch the chinese version. no comparison.
you feel unconformable because you deep down associate with red guard
The fact is both TV series are a bit naive.
Netflix on is massively propped up by Hype.
The premise is what makes it palpable and be called out cheap AF😅
Book wasn’t even that good imo. I think somethings got lost in translation.
Book is overhyped garbage. There are other Chinese Science fiction authors who deserve more attention to their work than this tripe
Your problem with the VR game just being a job interview and evobiology stuff kind of hits the problem I have with the book series right on the head: it seems smart, but when you get down to it the core concepts of The Dark Forest are insultingly simple. The universal rule is 'stranger danger'. That's it. The entire point of the series is to champion xenophobia.
Your vid actually makes me want to check out the show. It seems like the characters improved at least.
Oh yea, definitely check out the show if you've got the time to spare! It is definitely quite different from the books even though they tried to capture the essence, and I'm sure I would have deeper and more complex opinions if I were making that comparison. I also need to find time to re-read the books and probably in English this time 😅
They really, really didn't.
It's ironic to me that one common criticism of the book was having "mechanic characters" that felt "like they existed only to advocate a specific viewpoint" and then you get a show like this, almost proving that approach a far better fit for a hard sci-fi story where the ideas are far more interesting than the personalities.
As a result, in the attempt to give them a "more human side" and more "nuance", most of the new characters have been made borderline insufferable in the netflix version.
D&D and Woo said that Netflix's rights to the series had a few requirements. They only have rights to adapt the English version, which means the majority of the show must have English dialogue. Tencent is making the Mandarin language adapation so it is likely listed in the contract that they do not want an American company redoing the show using another Asian cast. D&D and Woo said thet pushed as much Mandarin as they could with Cultural Revolution section without violating the contracts.
As for why you don't understand Ye Wenjie... I think you will need to research what really happened to people in China during that time period. The show's depiction is actually far tamer than what really happened. It was a harrowing time that would absolutely drive people to turn them against humanity. I reckon you will get some older Chinese really upset you said Ye can just leave... Hahah oh child, you have no idea.
Episode 1 - 5 = Book 1
Episode 6 - 7 = Book 3 first few chapters
Episode 8 = Book 2 and 3 first few chapters
No it really felt like she did everything on a whim. She wasn’t even treat badly. This is insane to me. Like the girl that kill her dad would had be more convincing for pushing the bouton! She lost an arm and her situation is worse. I mean if you think you can explain more about that period of china, why was it that bad?
@ronaldflint1741 I think most western audiences watching this show would not understand Ye Wenjie if it is due to lack of understanding of the cultural revolution. Which supports my criticism of the show not making it more convincing. Maybe they could've showed her exploring other options, like leaving China but being unable to? Idk, I feel like there was something more they could've done there besides showing a violent struggle session and people betraying her. Are we supposed to believe it's realistic that she did not come across any acts of kindness in her life? How did she even survive as a child and live to be an adult/astrophysicist? It just felt like she was purely an emotionally unstable, vengeful, and one dimensional villain that no one could sympathize with.
Also the fact that she eventually did leave China, had a child with a Caucasian man, moved to the UK, started a cult, even had friends and people respecting her as a person, and living a seemingly good life doesn't really show that internal turmoil she faced when making that fateful decision or living with the knowledge of a doomed humanity.
@@JessInDreams7 to be fair to the Netflix adaptation even in the book when Ye Wenjie lives in China with her husband Yang Weining and daughter, she still founded ETO with Mike Evans. But since we have more details we know she also believes and hopes that the high technology Trisolarus could improve human civilization after their arrival.
I don't think westerners need to know any more than they were shown. If they actually saw what happened during Cultural Revolution, they would be beyond horrified. But it doesn't matter because by ep7, Ye Wenjie already redeemed herself. That's not obvious to new viewers but as book reader, we know what she told Saul and that would change the entire conflict to come. Again, this was in the original books, The show is not as complex as the books but the main theme is still present. Cultural Revolution fucked over a lot of people and it just so happened that bad political decisions (Mao Zedong) fucked over a young female scientist and she decided to invite aliens to come and hoping aliens would help remove the evil regime that she was living under. Ye Wenjie genuinely believed San Ti is coming to save humanity (not extermination), however, when she found out the truth, she did try to help out (while knowing she's 100% will be killed) and I can't tell you because that would be spoiling season 2. @@JessInDreams7
@@snowshock8958 You remembered it wrong, in the book she killed Yang Weining and her superior at the cliff, but she wasn't suspected cuz she made it looked like an accident. And the 1st time she was able to leave Red Coast base because she's giving labor to Yang Dong, and later stayed in the village with the villagers took care of her. Later Cultural Revolution ended and her father's case was overturned, and she received an offer from Tsinghua University. She met Mike Evans much later for the 1st time after Cultural Revolution when participated in field visit at Northwest region for a radio astronomy observation base site selection. And later Mike Evans contacted her, depressed about how the villagers cutting down his trees, that's when Ye Wenjie revealed her past to Mike Evans and with a lot of money Mike Evans went on and build 2nd Red Coast on a converted oil tanker and established ETO, he invited Ye to his ship and introduced her to the 1st batch of ETO members and they made her the commander of the organization.
别太在意你的身份，中国人美国人都是人。让叶文洁失望的是人性，不是中国人或者政府。
ok, you read the book 1, you forget it. So let just be straight, Sci-Fi isn't for you. Ye Wenji is the soul of the book (book 1), not "Wang Miao"(divided to Anggie and Jin). The character is much much more complicated, and Netflix dumb down everything everybody for the western audience.
You're too young and too ignorant growing up in US so you won't knew what happened on the book. IDK, maybe reading is hard for the young generation. I would suggest you go watch the Tencent 2023 version. It's actually much better version, enjoyable to watch, easy to understand and quite faithful to the books.
Sheesh. You seem really nice.
The book is garbage. So many plot holes that do not make sense. If you have even a routine understanding of physics you have to suspend a tremendous amount of disbelief just to enjoy the book. Clearly the author is not a scientist, he wields science like a cudgel and relies on readers who have no understanding of physics to be wowed by the jargon he learned.
@@mateobarrett6829 you're a breath of fresh air. Such a garbage book.
@@davidej6310 The worst part about the book are the "intellectual" fans of the series that claim superiority over critics as if they have some sort of deeper understanding than those who criticize the work. (Like OP here)
And yet, if you asked them to explain the glaring plotholes in the book, or try to justify the science presented to them within its pages, they couldn't tell you, since they, like the author, simply do not have a meaningful grasp of scientific concepts.
Ask them to explain how a second dimension is actually a dimension, rather than merely a human conceptualization of a 2D space, not a literal dimension that 3D space can collapse into, or why couldn't the Trisolarians solve their own Three Body Problem if they have the technological capability of unfolding a PROTON INTO THE SIZE OF A PLANET.
The latter of which is pure magic, absolutely not remotely grounded in physics; nothing more than a fantastical wolf in sheep's clothing, a trap for the faux intellectual to lean back and stroke their egos for having the capability of simply reading the jargon - but unaware of their inability to understand any of it.
I see them no different than flat earthers or other intellectually dishonest fools
@@mateobarrett6829 Plot holes? There are no plot holes. The entire book is a hole without a plot. The author drags the reader kicking and screaming.
I've watched the first two episodes of the Chinese version. It's actually pretty good. Amazon. Subs in English.
I'm planning on watching it too 😊
@@JessInDreams7The English subtitles are embarrassingly awful.
I really wanted to.see this and like it but i was very hesitant . Because i was a big fan of the early seasons of G.O.T. and i hated what Dan and Dave did to the later seasons. So i tried my best to bkock it out and give it a chance. But i just couldn't get into it, I didn't like any of the characters. That's my humble opinion anyway. Also you're so pretty. I hope all is well on your end. Best wishes to you and yours. 🤍
Aww thank you so much, you’re so sweet. I hope everything is going well on your end too ☺️ And yea, this show is quite different from G.O.T, so it’s totally understandable if you couldn’t get into it. I think the content of this show is definitely more niche, and is really just for people who are super into Sci Fi though D&D tried to make it appeal to a wider audience. I don’t think I would even know about this story if I hadn’t been suggested to read the book for a Chinese class 😅
@@JessInDreams7 you're most welcome. I watched all your videos this morning, I liked all of them and subscribed. I look forward to what you post next. Enjoy the rest of your day beautiful. Your new fan - Luciana 🤍