Hacker CinemaThe Three-Body Problem
The Three-Body Problem
Film
Directed by Zhang Yimou
Hundreds of physicists died mysteriously. A Chinese nanomaterials expert, Wang Miao, sees a mysterious countdown in his eyes. Soon he finds out that the "disastrous planet" under three suns in a game really exists. The three-body civilization there will reach the Earth in 400 years. A future catastrophe is coming for humanity...
4 positive1 negative1 mixed4 neutralfrom 10 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
10 comments on Hacker News
I really hope they don't make it a movie or TV show, if only because I know deep down they will neuter out all the communism and Islam from it and make it somehow about a group of hot 20 somethings dealing with romance. cf. Netflix's Three Body Problem here.
The first season of The Expanse was great. Then it got progressively more meh with each season.
(obviously my personal opinion eh?)
For a really nerdy-oriented SF series try Three Body i.e. the 2023 Tencent version of The Three Body Problem. Again in my opinion the 2024 Netflix version, was one of the boringest things I've ever watched. I'm pretty sure if that had been my introduction to the Rememberance of Earth Past series I would have been left distinctly unimpressed.
For an example of what I mean by "nerdy-oriented", avoiding spoilers there's a scene where some of the characters are observing a certain celestial phenomenon. In the Netflix series they are sitting outside looking at something that should not be visible by naked eye. In the Tencent series they're sitting in a proper scientific station, i.e. a big room lined with PC workstations and side-rooms with bigger machines and printers, and they're starting endlessly at a single red line on a monitor while munching on junk food.
Another thing: a certain Chinese army base in the 1960's is decorated with picture-perfect, period hardware, big mainframes that a character is shown physically disassembling to service. In the Netflix series... honestly, I don't even remember. The attention to detail that only a proper nerd would notice is, to me, something genuinely new, like I've never see anyone go to all that trouble before to make sure a certain demographic won't scrunch up their face and go "that's not how computers looked in the '60s".
I should also say that there is certainly quite a bit of overacting (or over-directing) in the early episodes but they get over it later.
If you've read the three-body problem series (or the tv show) [spoiler incoming]
- - - -
the way to stop humanity from being able to fight back (against alien invasion) is not via weapons, but via disabling science. It's a long term strategy.
So the conspiracy theory that trump is a russian asset (or is influenced by them at the least), seems plausible, if you imagine that such removal of science and research funding is meant to disable american technological progress for decades to come. This would be a strategy that outlasts the tenure of the russian asset.
FYI the 30 episode chinese version is on youtube.
I really liked their version of the panama canal scene.
I don't want to spoil anything so I'll ust leave it alone.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tencent+three+body+problem
edit: only the first two, I think more get unlocked as you watch them.
I was bored and watched a few episodes. IMHO it was a sci-fi cliché. A context about my tastes in my IMDB rankings [1].
I don't watch many series but I think the sci-fi one Severance (2022) was really great. Also the Three Body Problem is very good (haven't read the books). Nowadays I am very entertained with Tokyo Vice and Shogun. I watched "The Fall of the House of Usher" completely but beyond the excellent production it is void (I am a Poe's fan). Ahhh, before I forget, I really enjoyed The Peripheral (2022). Older, but excellent: "The Main in the High Castle". The first chapters are a bit slow but you should pass them to truly appreciate the terrific acting of Rufus Sewell and the series.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/user/ur0601133/ratings
[2] https://www.primevideo.com/dp/0G0V91T4S396GV99H5BQ27PH5I
> “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” > We don’t know where these references originate.
Search for that phrase. It has a rather large number of hits, in filings from multiple streaming services. Wonder where that phrase was pirated from? And whether this indicates a degree of coordination which suggests the need for antitrust action.
Mainland China has good movies now. There's been progress since "Sky Hunter" (2017), produced by the film unit of the People's Liberation Army Air Force. (You can watch that for free. It's heavy-handed propaganda.) If you like period costume dramas, there are many from China, because the political levels don't care about those. The writers thus have more freedom. "Princess Agents" is probably the best of that genre.
Stuff set in the present day will have clear signs of being forced to follow the party line. There are lots of cop shows. They're about as good, or bad, as American cop shows. There's a good version of "The Three Body Problem", but it's rather slow-paced, following the books closely. There's also a genre we don't see much in the US - business drama.
The US film industry has been eaten by superhero sequels. Just not much worth watching. There's a Hunger Games prequel out, if anybody cares. If you're willing to look outside the heavily promoted stuff, there's plenty to watch.
Can you plot the picture of the phase space from The Three-Body Problem TV show which they had on the wall?
Or the computer in Children of Time, also comprised of ants. (Though I also came here to say: Three Body Problem. Pretty well done in the Chinese TV show.)
A Chinese production of 3Body has been "postponed": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(film)
Though personally I don't see how certain parts (like the VR sequences) would translate to screen.
> huge part of entertainment in movies, shows and games made/consumed in the US is about violence horror, and/or the end of society or even the world (oh and "heroes" of course - always coupled with violence). That is not a global phenomenon
It is a global phenomenon. Chinese 'Three-body problem' and wuxia/xanxia flicks. Japanese films and animes. Also numerous books and films from France, England, Russia, Australia...
> I can't imagine the same scenario in Europe, at least not on the same dystopian level.
Well, two most bloody wars in past century were in Europe... and they were pretty dystopian.