Would we really be responsible if we already knew that an extraterrestrial civilization would come to invade Earth in 400 years? And, almost worse, he is already watching us. That is one of the threads of
The 3-Body Problem
, an ambitious science fiction series that seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot. Netflix has not yet confirmed the second season. Each episode costs a whopping 20 million dollars. And the result of the first days did not seem to be what was expected in critics or in the public, despite the label “from the creators of
Game of Thrones
.” A cancellation would be a good fiasco, because the first season has left everything open. But the risk is dissipating: it is already the most watched Netflix series in the world (it has been there for three weeks) and the project leaders (David Benioff and DB Weiss) assume that it will continue. Another of those responsible for it, the millionaire Chinese producer Lin Qi, was murdered in 2020 and his poisoner sentenced to death shortly before the premiere, in a script twist of the kind that reality sometimes designs. There seemed to be a jinx.
More problems: the series has angered the Chinese, at least those close to the regime. Because Liu Cixin's original novel trilogy sets the entire plot in the Asian giant, presented as a scientific superpower capable of saving humanity. And in this production there is a team of researchers from different origins (the
five from Oxford)
and the main setting is the United Kingdom. Everything is more globalized, that's very Netflix. The references to China are there from the beginning: the first scenes present the brutal public execution, by beating, of a scientist at the time of the Cultural Revolution. That period is briefly portrayed but in all its cruelty, about which today's Chinese know little. The series is not broadcast in China, there is not even Netflix there, but its young people are skilled at piracy.
Third problem of
The Problem:
for the fans of the novels, who are legion throughout the world, the adaptation is very unfaithful. The original trilogy gives more weight to the conceptual, scientific and philosophical reflection, while the series prefers action, as series usually do. Many demand instead a Chinese production (30 episodes) based on the same novels:
Three Bodies,
available on Rakuten Viki. But it may be that what angers readers of the novels and so many Chinese is what makes the series attractive to the general public. There's more focus on character development here: these scientists are initially threatened by a series of crimes and see the laws of physics being violated on a grand scale, forcing them to think big. It is not the most common thing, not even in science fiction, for researchers to take center stage. Among them are an interesting intelligence agent, the icy head of a secret state organization, and the daughter of the Chinese man initially executed as a cult leader.
The series is convoluted, difficult to follow if you are easily distracted: you better put it on pause if you go to the kitchen. Maybe everything happens too quickly, maybe some characters needed more space, maybe the viewer would appreciate a break. But the plot is surprising, its interest is growing and it gives a twist to the current debate about where technology is taking us. In this case, since the aliens are going to attack us, it does not matter at all that the advances have unwanted effects, even the ethical dilemmas that involve many deaths are resolved in a few minutes. It's war. But that of our descendants. And there is much more: nanotechnology for military use, different dimensions, a virtual reality system more credible than the metaverse, a cult that worships aliens, quantum physics at the service of interstellar espionage. And there is talk of the sewers of States, of the war on terrorism, of geopolitics, of the role of the UN. All in eight chapters of frenzy, instead of the 30 they did in China.
Science fiction, even the most apocalyptic, always talks about the present. This drama connects well with the warlike climate that distresses the world today, with an escalation between Israel and Iran that could get out of control, with Netanyahu's army using sophisticated artificial intelligence systems to target targets among the outcasts of Gaza, and with the West preparing a great war in Europe in the face of Putin's explicit threats. And this fiction includes a thinly disguised moral: if humanity is doing little to stop climate change, as European justice has established in its condemnation of Switzerland, and that is a threat to those who already live, let's imagine that the apocalypse has a date. fixed, but when it happens about 15 generations will have passed. Our grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren and children will not suffer from it. But it will be our genes, the only thing that remains of us, what remains of the human species. That's if we don't screw it up first. We are able.
_