“Instead of pride and celebration, the Netflix series [Three Body Problem] has been met with anger, sneer and suspicion in China.”
Li Yuan, New York Times review of the Netflix Three Body Problem (April 8, 2024)
“Onscreen, with a cast that mostly doesn’t rise above adequate, [the closeness of the book content to the Three-Body television script] is not very exciting. It also doesn’t help that the vivid imagery of the book’s video-game scenes, which helped compensate for the flatness of the narrative and the characterizations, isn’t done justice in the show’s prosaic 3-D animation.”
Mike Hale, New York Times review of the Tencent production Three-Body 三体
(February 3, 2023)
Dear Comrades,
Thank you! 謝謝! On this auspicious day, International Worker’s Day, I thank you for your hard work reviewing both the Netflix and Tencent television series based on the science fiction novel Three Body 三体 by Liu Cixin 刘慈欣. Television is an opiate of the masses! But you risked all, you avant-garde of the New York Times, and for the collective good!
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with Comrade Li: how could the motherland not celebrate with pride the Netflix capitalist roader’s interpretation of the Cultural Revolution and the book? Especially when Netflix spent roughly $20 million USD per episode, making the series ten times more expensive than the Tencent version. To get rich is glorious!
The real point: it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mouse! But that begs the question: which television series was which cat?
In the spirit of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a thousand schools of thought contend, let me make five small points about the Netflix show. First, the producers dumbed down the scientific content so that the masses could understand it. Serve the people! Second, reducing the grand scale of the alien threat by having the characters address it from a pub rather than the UN was a welcome reminder to comrades around the world that the revolution will begin at home, over beers. Third, the average quality of acting was so relatable, just like Trotsky in better days. Fourth, when the scientists spent their time gossiping about who was sleeping with whom, rather than getting to work to save the planet, we improved our revolutionary outlook; I am not sure how we improved it, but we did! Finally, in re: the lead role Ye Wenjie, we get it! She is an enemy of the people! (Also, she has questionable taste in men). Eliminate the black elements!
What about the Tencent production? Prompted by Comrade Hale’s suggestion that the subtitles enhanced the wooden quality of the performance, I watched it twice, once with subtitles, once without. (Well, to engage in a bit of revolutionary self-criticism, I started to watch it with subtitles, but then I lost track of what was happening on screen, so my red, red heart wavered. I ended up watching it twice without subtitles).
Alas, unlike Comrade Hale, I found that the performances were far from average. Ye Wenjie (in her older years brilliantly acted by Chen Jin 陈瑾 and in her youth by Wang Ziwen 王子文) was gentle and fierce, caring and vicious, hopeless and obsessive. Over the 30 episodes, I felt as though I was watching the nanoparticle physicist (Zhang Luyi 张鲁一) sweat pounds away through intensifying anxiety. The policeman (Yu Hewei 于和伟) was bonkers! How could this level of superior acting incite world revolution? It’s reason for thought struggle!
And as for the CGI: Comrade Hale thought it wasn’t good, and some of it was not, but that scene when the nanoparticles sliced the ship so that it spread like a deck of cards on the canal bank was spectacular! But then again, the boat crew were hardened criminals and there were no children on board at the critical moment when the ship was destroyed, as they were in the Netflix version. So once more, Tencent failed to convey the bloody reality of the revolution where Netflix succeeded!
As Comrade Deng Xiaoping used to say, “seek truth from facts!” The unmitigated mediocrity, frivolous content, and paper-thin characters in the Netflix production reveal it to be the truly revolutionary show. It’s a masterpiece––a manifesto, a hymn, an internationale––of bland averageness! As for the Tencent production’s sophisticated acting, focus on the science of the science fiction, and complexity of roles and script, well, try harder next time. 加油!
Down with the bourgeoisie! Up with cats!
Yours in the revolution,
Comrade Claypool
staring at the ceiling 