Alien invasion movies vary enormously in terms of technical
quality and intellectual content. The new Netflix series
3 Body Problem scores quite highly on both axes. It explores the possibility
of contact with an extraterrestrial civilization that is so sophisticated that
it knows how to communicate using quantum entanglement and create designer
matter from the subatomic level, something we humans have barely begun developing.
When I first heard about quantum entanglement, "spooky action at a
distance" it seemed obvious to me that if you could somehow capture the
two entangled particles you could build a wonderful communications device.
Unlike with electromagnetic waves, you wouldn't be constrained by the speed of
light, saying hello to a distant star cluster and waiting 50,000 years for a response
greeting, see:
https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2017/12/ben-emlyn-jones-at-awakecon-2017.html.
You could literally have a normal phone conversation with somebody in the farthest
galaxy. In the series it is therefore particle physicists, not astronomers, who
hear the first messages from the stars. The title refers to the problems a
hypothetical planet would have if it were gravitationally influenced by two
other heavenly bodies; for example, what would tides be like if the earth had
two moons? The aliens live on a planet with three suns about four light-years
away; therefore it is probably the Alpha Centauri system, the closest stars to
the solar system. Their own three body problem has rendered their planet
uninhabitable so they are heading for the earth in a fleet of ark spacecraft.
They expect to arrive in about four hundred years. They also send a series of
chilling messages to the people of earth demonstrating their awesome technical
supremacy and declaring their contempt for humanity. When they arrive it will obviously
not be with goodwill. An organization on the earth is set up to counter this
threat and it recruits scientists to build weapons. Anything can be justified
to protect the earth from the evil aliens, although this ethical equation is
pushed to its limits. In one scene a weapon is built to destroy a ship run by human
allies of the alien conquerors. A torpedo etc wouldn't be good enough because
it would supposedly allow the crew an opportunity to destroy vital evidence, so
the attackers create a mesh of microscopically thin, but extremely strong
nanofibres which slice the ship into strips like very powerful cheese wire; including
everybody inside it. This is one of the most grisly things I've ever seen on TV.
The programme has a 15 certificate and a warning for violence, but why not an
18? So the programme does appeal to the side of the viewer that enjoys sadistic
entertainment.
3 Body Problem is
very woke; and this gives it a slightly retro feel. Wokery is something that
seems to be going out of fashion a bit, and in my opinion that's a good job. Of
course the box office has been demanding its departure for a very long time,
but finally cinema and TV studios appear to be responding. Therefore the level of
political correctness in the series would be better suited to something from
the late 20-teens. As I've often noticed, the worst excesses of wokeism in a TV
programme or film tend to be at the very beginning, for example see:
https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/07/messiah.html.
All the heroic characters are either female and/or non-white. Auggie, played by
the Mexican actress Eliza González, is a cardboard cut-out "Strong!"
"Independent!" "Woman!" The other female leads are very similar.
The one exception being Ye Wenjie, a scientist working as a slave to the ChiComs
in the '60's as they make an attempt to contact the aliens. Later on in the
story she moves to
Oxford with her
daughter to work at the Harwell laboratory. She is a far deeper, more mature
and more colourful character, more like a traditional heroine. She is played by
Zine Tseng and by Rosalind Chao as her older self. (Chao was also in
What Dreams May Come, the subject of a
HPANWO TV watch-read party, see:
https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2023/06/what-dreams-may-come-watchread-party.html.
I have also been to the Harwell laboratory, see:
https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2013/12/peasemore-2-harwell-laboratories.html.)
The first white male we are introduced to is a drunken karaoke singer... and
not a very good one... who tries to flirt with Jin and Auggie in a pub. When he
asks them what their jobs are they sneer at him and describe their scientific
professions in very technical terms. He frowns with incomprehension and walks
away. Another white man is called Jack and he is an immature foul-mouthed
overweight neckbeard addicted to computer games. He would live in his mother's
basement except she was very rich and has died; so he has inherited her
fortune. His whole giant house is his mother's basement. He dies early on in
the series, killed by a woman of course. The only white male character
approaching a respectful portrayal is Will, and his reverence comes only from his
courage in the face of a tragic Cyrano de Bergerac kind of back-story and fate.
I suspect the reason the producers have exhumed wokery from its shallow grave
is because making this series was quite controversial. It is based on a book by
Liu Cixin which won a Hugo Award, one the highest accolades in science fiction
literature.
China
does not export a lot of its contemporary art and so this was a very remarkable
achievement. There is an indigenous TV adaptation from last year called
三体(I don't know how that is pronounced) and it is far more faithful
to the original story; not least because it is set in China and all the main
characters are Chinese, like in the novel. To change those characters'
nationalities and the setting is risking a charge of "cultural
appropriation" and so the casting and portrayals were probably done to virtue-signal
against that. They also make an attempt to maintain a link to the Chinese
origin of the story through some of the characters and locations.One thing
that really surprised me about
3 Body
Problem is that I can't help wondering if the producers have had some
contact with the Conspirasphere. The reason is that Auggie looks and sounds very
similar to Sarah Rachel Adams, see:
https://www.sarahradams.com.
Another character is called Thomas Wade and he is the leader of the earth
defence programme. He is played by Liam Cunningham of
Game of Thrones fame, but he is made to look, sound and act very
like Miles Johnston, see:
https://thebasesproject.org.
I immediately went on the lookout for my own counterpart, but luckily they
never included him. The eight part series is rather anticlimactic and has a
very open-ended conclusion. This leads me to think there is a plan to adapt the
novel's two sequels, what is known collectively as the
地球往事, "Remembrance of Earth's Past" trilogy. I was rather
disappointed that the plot was not more complicated. Nobody in the story doubts
the validity of the government's commentary about the alien threat, even to the
point where they're willing to slice a ship and its passengers into strips like
a loaf of bread. What if this is all a big hoax, a fake alien invasion
false-flag; see here for details:
https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/08/space-force-reply-to-steve-mumbling.html?
The alien interventions could be simulated with Project Blue Beam technology. This
element would have been a welcome addition to the storyline, but it is not even
considered. This is despite the fact that the programme does include runaway
climate change, sky quakes and bird deaths, see:
https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/02/bird-death-update.html.
There are some good performances by some old and semi-retired actors including
a rare non-comedic role by Adrian Edmondson and also Jonathan Pryce who was
made famous by
Brazil, see:
https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/12/hanged-hangman.html.
I have mixed feelings about
3 Body
Problem. The first three or four episodes are very well done. The mystery
is handed and delivered very skilfully and the characters are generally more
amiable. From about episode five the energy slackens a bit and the story
atrophies. As I said, a very obvious and fertile opportunity to enliven the
narrative is not taken; which is even stranger if the creators did indeed study
the Conspirasphere. This series is better than some alien invasion movies I
could mention, and compared to
Independence
Day it is Shakespeare. However, it is definitely inferior to
Arrival, see:
https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/11/arrival.html.
(Ironically that is also written by a Chinaman, Ted Chiang.) I will
nevertheless look out for any sequels with moderate interest.
