3 Body Problem - Netflix

[Lucas Ayde]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

coldel said:

I guess with sci-fi you have to stretch the boundaries of sillyness to a degree, but I agree with you it was just so rankly unbelievable that it became a farcical programme which a 10 year old could have written.

Well, yes and no. As someone once said, the science part of Sci-Fi should be science and the fiction should be fiction. And once the science becomes fiction then you have Fi-Fi not Sci-Fi.

Obviously it's more complex than that as some of the Sci-Fi masters invented whole areas of science. But they did so in a consistent way that was at least believable and self-consistent.

But as a general concept the point stands.

edit: I am essentially agreeing with you, BTW

Yeah, the 'Science' part should be somewhat consistent even if it's made-up by the author (most Scifi) or extrapolated from current science (like 'hard' Scifi).

When the sciency stuff goes waaaaay off on weird tangents, it doesn't work that well IMO. The later books in the 'Dune' series suffered from that. The earlier ones, you could somewhat believe that the technology presented might be possible but as the series went on, it seemed like the author had been taking large volumes of mind altering drugs.

The '3 Body Problem' book though was pretty hard scifi. Everything in there was based off what known science might be like if taken the to the extreme and the theoretical limits pushed. I guess they didn't get that across well enough in the show.

[Lucas Ayde]

The OG Jester said:

Got to Episode 5 last night out of morbid curiosity. The nanofibre / ship scene was pretty decent if pretty much unbelievable.

I'm still going to watch the rest to see how it goes from here. I mean aliens that are friendly but suddenly don't like us because of a children's story is up there with the best of the bat st crazy stories.

The Aliens aren't friendly. They were just playing along with the enviro-mentalists to help them achieve their aims. Just useful idiots, as they generally are in real life too ironically.

[budgie smuggler]

coldel said:

Im not entirely sure creating those basic VR scenes is a big deal nowadays? Happy to be proven wrong!

I would have thought the semaphore computer must have taken some effort to render

[Silverage]

I think, like The Crown, it's surprising how much of the show is actually CGI

[LivLL]

If the $20 million per episode is correct, it'll be the 2nd most expensive Netflix series ever after Stranger Things.

I've no idea how that budget breaks down but Forbes are predicting half a billion if they manage to squeeze it into 3 series or over $640 million if it takes 4 series to finish.

I wonder how much of the budget is wages and advertising?

[rider73]

certainly they didnt film in the locations they said, China Radioscope/transmitter looked to me like spanish, as did the "panama" cancel, with a few cgi'd palm trees, then a few days in NYC

not sure if they have filmed any of s2 yet as part of s1 when on location and will edit it in later, of its just all shut up shop until new deals and contracts are signed......
knowing netflix - the latter.

[MandySpeeds]

For those who liked 3BP - I can recommend "Station Eleven" on HBO.

[Lucas Ayde]

MandySpeeds said:

For those who liked 3BP - I can recommend "Station Eleven" on HBO.

OK, not the greatest fan of 3BP but 'Station 11' was a huge letdown for me. I went to some considerable effort to get it over p2p when I read about it on a forum somewhere but it's more of an arty-farty 'emotions' show with a vague sci-fi-ish theme.

Yes, it's set in a post-apocalyptic World but that's where the sci-fi element ends.

[The OG Jester]

Lucas Ayde said:

The Aliens aren't friendly. They were just playing along with the enviro-mentalists to help them achieve their aims. Just useful idiots, as they generally are in real life too ironically.

I interpreted that they had a change of heart about us during the Little Red Riding Hood story with The Lord? Why else would they suddenly stop talking to him?

[rider73]

The OG Jester said:

Lucas Ayde said:

The Aliens aren't friendly. They were just playing along with the enviro-mentalists to help them achieve their aims. Just useful idiots, as they generally are in real life too ironically.

I interpreted that they had a change of heart about us during the Little Red Riding Hood story with The Lord? Why else would they suddenly stop talking to him?

but they had already disrupted out science, sent the photon computers to earth and put in strange "eye countdowns" and killed lots of scientists who didnt want to join the cause by then............ didnt quite add up to me...... you would only do those things if they were already scared of us? if they thought they could cohabit with us, wouldnt that not really go down well if we found out (and we did) thats what they were doing? ........hmmm again doesnt add up........
and finally - wouldnt it have all come out about 20mins into any first conversations 40 years before that we lie .........................?

[Clockwork Cupcake]

Well in the book, the aliens are incapable of lying, and one of their human allies accidentally explains the whole concept to them, and the aliens are like "what, and you can all do that?" and the ally is "yes, but I never lie to you" and then the aliens decide that humanity as a whole cannot be trusted, not even their allies although it's been a while since I read it and this is from memory (as apparently people are annoyed that I always fact-check myself).

[HRL]

Think I must be in the minority as I really enjoyed it and binged it in two extended sessions.

Panama was gruesome but done well I thought. I’m hoping Amazon stump up the cash for the next two seasons.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

HRL said:

I’m hoping Amazon stump up the cash for the next two seasons.

I'm sure Netflix would be delighted if they did!

[HRL]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

HRL said:

I’m hoping Amazon stump up the cash for the next two seasons.

I'm sure Netflix would be delighted if they did!

Hahaha. Indeed, forgot it was on Netflix.

Personally, I find that Sci-Fi has to be a little bit beyond conventional science or else what’s the point?

[Jimmy No Hands]

6 episodes in. First four I thought were absolutely fantastic. Story moved at a perfect pace, the throwback scenes to the revelution and the build-up to first contact a highlight. After the 'reveal' I think things took a little turn for me and I can't say I enjoyed the ship episode that much. Weren't they trying to preserve potential communication equipment and logs as evidence? Instead they murdered civilians and effectively destroyed absolutely everything just to showcase their new 'technology' - that was the best solution, really?

It's gone a bit pseudo science reachy (technical term) for me and the last episodes have felt a bit like filler so I am hoping it ends strong. Overall worth a watch.

[coldel]

HRL said:

Hahaha. Indeed, forgot it was on Netflix.

Personally, I find that Sci-Fi has to be a little bit beyond conventional science or else what’s the point?

It wasnt really that though, it was the gaping plot holes, wooden acting by half the cast, and rather non-sensical things that were going on.

[juliussneezer]

LivLL said:

If the $20 million per episode is correct, it'll be the 2nd most expensive Netflix series ever after Stranger Things.

I've no idea how that budget breaks down but Forbes are predicting half a billion if they manage to squeeze it into 3 series or over $640 million if it takes 4 series to finish.

I wonder how much of the budget is wages and advertising?

I have no idea what they're spending £20m per episode on because it certainly isn't the graphics which are shocking in some scenes.

[popeyewhite]

Finished it last night. Very good storytelling though the series seemed a bit slow towards the last couple of episodes. Foundation still the benchmark in Sci-Fi for me.

[dxg]

popeyewhite said:

Finished it last night. Very good storytelling though the series seemed a bit slow towards the last couple of episodes. Foundation still the benchmark in Sci-Fi for me.

Absolutely. Nothing has surpassed Foundation. Even though it apparently takes similar liberties with it's source books as 3BP does, it's underlying logic is sound and the characters are and both flawed and compelling.

Really looking forward to the next series of Foundation (mainly to see what Dezmerel does) but couldn't care less about this one, sadly.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

dxg said:

Absolutely. Nothing has surpassed Foundation. Even though it apparently takes similar liberties with it's source books as 3BP does, it's underlying logic is sound and the characters are and both flawed and compelling.

That's all you can really ask for really

I have read (and own, on paperback) all the Foundation books actually written by Asimov (but not the continuation books after his death) and all the Robots books he penned too.

Sadly not been able to watch the Foundation TV show as it is not on a service that I have access to. I think it was Apple?

Edited to add: I didn't deliberately eschew the non-Asimov books. I read the post-Herbert Dune books. Just that I never got round to buying them and I moved away from the town where I had an amazing secondhand bookshop.

(Moss Books in Cheltenham if anyone is interested)

Edited by Clockwork Cupcake on Saturday 6th April 22:10