“3 Body Problem” Review: Netflix presents an eight-episodic American science fiction thriller series “3 Body Problem” with a runtime of about 1 hour per episode. Ye Wenjie was the daughter of a Chinese scientist. Her father was murdered in front of everyone for his research. She got a choice to join the secret research team by the Chinese government or die.
She started working for the government at their secret camp on the hilltop. While working, she intercepted alien messages at the lab saying that they were coming to the Earth and also warned her not to tell anyone.
Ye Wenjie replied as she with other people welcomed them to this world. Things went sideways when many scientists started to die over this. The aliens named San-Ti declared war on Earth. Governments started their precautions and missions to defend the Earth and stop their incoming to Earth is the main plot of this series.
From the creators of David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo this series is one of the costliest series from Netflix. The story of the series is based on the popular Chinese novel “The Three-Body Problem” by Liu Cixin. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were co-creators of one of the biggest series in the world “Game of Thrones”.
Read More: “Iron Reign” Review | Netflix – Mano De Hierro
When they joined hands again for another series that too with Netflix is where the real hype for this series started. Even though the creators had a fanbase around the world it didn’t make the popularity for this series for them, but also the story from the novel they took for this series is what makes this series more popular.
The novel “The Three-Body Problem” is a very well-known and top-selling novel. It is very complicated to make a series. Taking such a big story and trying to portray it in a series was the biggest task the creators had. The series is shot mainly in the UK and many shots were shot in studios. There are a lot of CGI shots needed for this series which were shot in Shepperton Studios in Surrey. Adapting the novel needed a lot of visual effects to portray the scenes for gaming scenes and space scenes.
Netflix spend their highest budget on this series. Each episode costs around 20 million dollars, so for eight episodes around 160 million dollars they invested on this series. The series used different cinematic tones to differentiate the Chinese old scenes and the current running story. At the same time, a different tone was given to gaming parts.
The cinematography was good but the CGI shots overshadowed at many portions confusing if it’s real or CGI. Visual effects were very neatly done at some scenes but most of the other scenes had bad visual effects by the team. Viewers could easily tell if it’s CGI or not. Especially in the scene on the mission to kill the persons on the ship, the place surrounded by trees had poor CGI.
The important positive thing about the series is the casting. The creators picked good casts who pulled the series to a good level. We can see some cast who were in the “Game of Thrones” series. Rosalind Chao and Zine Tseng acted as Ye Wenjie. Liam Cunningham acted as Thomas Wade. Also, Benedict Wong acted as Clarence “Da” Shi. Everyone who acted in the series did a very good job in portraying the characters of the novel. Such a performance they showed in this series. Their involvement in uplifting the series is undeniable.
The background music works were very well done. The series started in a complicated way but later started to change to a plain story. Especially in the eighth episode they just made it very plain and simple. The essence that made the viewers attached to the series in the initial episodes was missing when it came to the final episodes. The series started very fast and thrilling way at start but the ending was like a feel-good story.
The novel had too much content but making it into a series needed to match its soul. They rushed on many points and avoided many good moments in the novel. Taking a novel like this and not portraying it like it was intended to show viewers was a negative from the makers. The makers won’t be able to satisfy the readers with this series. But if they come up with another season and try to improve what they lacked can make it more pleasing.
Overall as a viewer who didn’t read the novel or watched the Chinese series, i can say it was an okayish watch for me. The book readers may think it as an average or below average work as they can compare more to the story and characters. For me, it was just another Netflix science fiction series with huge budget and cast. More than than that it didn’t make to hook to the plot or the scenes. Starting was really good but they couldn’t keep up that pace and tell at the end.
If you wanna a new science fiction series with an unfinished ending you can watch this series, else if you wait a bit longer if they make another season and the reviews are good just watch both seasons same time.
I rate 2 out of 5 for the science fiction series.
You May Like: 3 Body Problem Episode 3 Recap and Explained
