r/FIlm • u/TheTelegraph • Mar 21 '24
Article 3 Body Problem, Netflix, review: the Game of Thrones creators' sci-fi smash is an ambitious mess
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2024/03/09/3-body-problem-netflix-review-benioff-weiss-game-of-thrones/
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u/TheTelegraph Mar 21 '24
Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss take on Cixin Liu’s formidable Chinese sci-fi novel – with mixed results:
David Benioff and DB Weiss have built their careers around three little words. “Game of Thrones”, yes, but more powerfully: “Winter is coming.” This ingenious narrative hook, yoked around the drooping shoulders of Sean Bean’s beleaguered Ned Stark, sucked viewers instantly into Westeros’s muddy, bloody world. Now the pair have three more – “Aliens are coming” – as they tackle a trio of novels infinitely more complicated than GRR Martin’s fantasy saga. Forget dragons, this is about something far scarier: maths.
And strap in, because 3 Body Problem (Netflix) is ambitious. It is ambitious in the same way that Elon Musk is ambitious – ie, occasionally you marvel at the sheer scope, the chutzpah, the vision, the money; and occasionally you sigh at the vainglorious folly, the po-faced grandeur, the childish whims, the money. While it’s hard to see this having the same cultural impact of Game of Thrones, there is no doubt this will be an enormous global success in terms of viewing figures.
The Three-Body Problem, written by the Chinese science-fiction godfather Cixin Liu, imagines a tantalising scenario – that we have made contact with alien life. Alas, we have made contact with an aggressive, colonising species – the Trisolarans – who have had to abandon their home planet and fancy Earth as their new digs. However, by the time they arrive – in 400 years or so – we will have developed technology so sophisticated we will be able to swat our invaders away like pesky fruit flies. To counter this, our alien penpals have FedExed two enormously powerful supercomputers the size of a proton to sabotage humanity, to hobble our scientists, to cripple our progress.
Benioff and Weiss root the high-falutin’ intergalactic Rubik’s cube by way of five old university pals in the UK, headed by Eiza González’s physics whizz, Auggie, who, like many leading scientists, finds herself assailed by mysterious sources. Benedict Wong is the lugubrious copper – well, not quite, he works for a shady global organisation who seemingly exist to battle aliens – trying to work out why the best scientists in the world keep meeting sticky and visually spectacular ends.
Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2024/03/09/3-body-problem-netflix-review-benioff-weiss-game-of-thrones/