3 Body Problem Season 1 Review: Game Of Thrones Creators Tackle One Of The Most Ambitious Sci-fi Stories In Recent Memory And Stumbles On The Way

3 Body Problem Season 1 Review(Photo Credit –IMDb)

3 Body Problem Season 1 Review: Star Rating:

Cast: Benedict Wong, Jess Hong, Jovan Adepo, Eiza Gonzalez, John Bradley, Alex Sharp, Rosalind Chao, Jonathan Pryce, and Liam Cunningham.

Creator: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss

Director: Derek Tsang

Streaming On: Netflix

Language: English, Mandarin (with subtitles)

Runtime: 8 episodes, around 1 hour each.

3 Body Problem Season 1 Review(Photo Credit –IMDb) 3 Body Problem Season 1 Review: What’s It About

In 2006, writer Cixin Liu began the serialization of The Three-Body Problem, the novel that would later become the cornerstone of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past Trilogy and the basis for this television season on Netflix. The novel tells an epic tale full of mystery that starts when several scientists start seeing things that should be impossible; when the mysterious happenings start spreading among the scientific community, the existence of a strange video game titled The Three-Body Problem seems to be the key to finding the answers.

3 Body Problem Season 1 Review: Script Analysis

3 Body Problem is based on the first novel in the trilogy, and it also takes elements from future novels and tries to create a television season that sets up everything that is to come in the story. The book is an epic tale on a cosmic scale, and seeing the many changes that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have made to the story, it feels like the show will be very different from the books. Being different from its source material isn’t particularly bad; it comes with the process of adaptation.

However, if you change something from the source material, you should be aware that you should substitute those elements with something equally good, if not better. Sadly, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are incapable of doing this, making changes that, at least at this point of the story, don’t make little change while also taking away some of the best elements from the novels. As a fan of the books, I find it hard to see so many characters being exchanged for nothing or simply destroyed in favor of more simplified versions.

Most people watching the show will not have read the books, so that will be fine for them. As it stands, 3 Body Problem feels like a fine science fiction show, nothing too excellent, but not wrong either; the mystery will surely be compelling for most audiences as they try to piece together all the pieces of the puzzles to come to the final revelation, although, the show throws away the nature of the mystery a bit too early for my taste. In the book, Cixin Liu managed to create a compelling situation for the characters, and so it was fun to follow them around even if you didn’t know what was happening, while here on the show, the writers are not confident enough in the characters to let us spend time with them.

I have several other issues with the show’s narrative, but that would be entering entire spoiler territory. However, it is safe to say that the scale of the story has been severely diminished, which in many ways defeats the purpose of a story that sees humanity facing one situation all at once. Still, the show tries to make it seem like this is happening only to a very few people. It is one of the most egregious changes, and while I understand that it could be budget-related, it is a shame that the show could not take the chance to go as big as it needed to.

3 Body Problem Season 1 Review(Photo Credit –IMDb) 3 Body Problem Season 1 Review: Star Performance

Performances are fine all around, but something about that comes straight from the writing and hurts the scenes and acting. Much of the dialogue doesn’t feel natural, and in many instances, you can see how the characters are pretending to talk to each other, but they are talking to the audience. The writers fear that the audience will need to comprehend the many concepts developed in the story and transform the characters into mouthpieces.

Eiza Gonzalez places herself as our protagonist, or at least the main character, one in a list of several main characters, but sadly, her character is a truncated version of a more significant, more complex character from the book. The decision to split this character into several has left the actors with just a fraction of a complete character. Rosalind Chao is the standout member of the cast this season, delivering a powerful performance in what may be the most faithful storyline to the source material.

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3 Body Problem Season 1 Review: Direction & Music

Regarding what is on-screen, 3 Body Problem feels very inconsistent, with some sequences being quite impressive while others feel like a total cop-out from their book counterparts. Director Derek Tsang sets the mood for the entire season, but neither he nor the other directors seem to get the tone right. The direction feels too static and not cinematic enough for a story that screams mystery and class, and it is ready to challenge the audience in every single step. As it is, the show looks fine, but even the visual effects feel inconsistent.

Ramin Djawadi comes back to collaborate with his Game of Thrones showrunners and creates excellent music for the show, this time using more modern instruments, thus creating this techno-thriller soundscape that fits the show well. Still, when it comes to the show’s central theme, the music isn’t as catchy as it could be, making this theme something that you will not be humming around the same way as you did with this Game of Thrones central theme or even the one from Westworld.

3 Body Problem Season 1 Review: Last Words

3 Body Problem is an adaptation with all the ingredients for success, but it doesn’t match the original material’s efforts doesn’t to create something unique and compelling. Tencent released an adaptation of the book not long ago that feels more in line with the source material and hits the right tone for the story a lot closer than this, even if it doesn’t have the budget that this Netflix production does. At least, the show pushes audiences to read the books to see what happens, which feels like a victory.

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