Any new Netflix output, The Three Body Problem is a double event. Not only does he adapt the immense literary success eponymous of the author Liu Cixin, but it is mainly the new big project of the creators of Game of Thrones Hey! So it's gone for a journey through the (well-kept) secrets of the Universe...
Bad time for science
An unprecedented wave of suicide shakes the world's scientific body: day after day, the number of physicists who died in troubles and circumstances is only increasing. At the same time, all global particle accelerators, from Beijing to Geneva, seem to be completely unlocked: their measurements no longer show any consistency with the scientific laws known so far... It is in this context that a group of friends, all young researchers, will try to tackle the problem as rationally as possible.
But they won't be spared... One of the young women in the group, Auggie (Eiza González), brilliant nanoparticle researcher, sees a threatening countdown sprinting above her field of vision, while one of their teachers also suicides. Even more strange, mysterious virtual reality helmets offering a breathtaking gaming experience (which seems to go far beyond current technical capabilities) appear at home. They will understand at their expense that they are part of a much larger machination than they could imagine, whose roots spread across the globe (and perhaps even beyond).
Science-tension
Let's say it straight away, The Three Body Problem There will be little difficulty in taking its spectator to the collet: mysterious atmosphere at will, concept of hard-SF quite brilliantly introduced, search for a constant ludism, everything is set up so that the universe deployed in this new series is captivating... The superimposition of these SF proposals to a more conventional police investigation conducted by a bougon cop interpreted by Benedict Wong (a regular of the Marveleries, who also passed heads in Annihilation, Prometheus or Sunshine to quote only) makes it possible to offer a rather convincing multiplicity of points of view.
The Three Body ProblemA perfect series? No, not really... Because if its effectiveness is not questionable, level staged Netflix's new proposal will remain far too long at the pâquerettes. Indeed, his first episodes set up his intrigue at once/again enough chatter, very little visually stimulating. It will then be necessary to wait until a question of virtual reality emerges (led by these mysterious helmets we discussed above) so that The Three Body Problem Finally offers some formal frascs!
Ready Player One with Wachowski Sauce
And for the moment, the series makes a surprising choice... Indeed, all the sequences of "game-video" will be mostly shot with the technique of StageCraft (an evolution of the good old "rear projection", old technique like the cinema which is for example well known in Death with Kits d的Hitchcock, see video below). A technology that has already been damaged and not convincing in another recent Netflix series, Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Becoming recurring in the current shooting and allowing actors to see directly the environment around them unlike the green background, its application in The Three Body Problem Disturb... In fact, every plane where the technique appears is obvious, the lighting of the scenes in question is more than doubtful and the notion of depth always crushed. One guesses, given the big means deployed by the series, that it is probably a conscious choice of showrunners – probably to distinguish this register of images of "virtual reality" from tangible reality. However, their bills remain rather doubtful...
However, these not always visually convincing segments offer real good ideas. Between the construction of a rather imaginative human computer, games with gravity or well-sounding sequences of dehydration of people (the series allows itself to straddle the edges of the gore quite amazing), the "game-video" parts of the Three-body problem manage to interest by their inventiveness. The work of the Wachowskis, who, in addition to the topics discussed, offered Sense 8 a choral sci-fi series whose influence transpires in this new Netflix production.
Game of space
The series has great moments to offer us and will be able to go up in an episode series (this first season has eight, about an hour each). Hard to elaborate on the details of the plot without going through inevitable spoilers, but let's just say that Problem has three bodies will explore several theoretical concepts of SF quite exciting while allowing for real pieces of pure and convincing action. Even better, the series will not lock itself in an auction of mystery to the Dark, building in thousandsheets of intrigues to complement one another in an attempt to hold a coherence soon indigestible. Indeed, The Three Body Problem will be able to spread its mysteries while supporting them in a rather convincing way and responding rationally to the many questions raised during the narrative. Another good point, the series makes a salutary use of the out-of-field while it could easily have broken its teeth to want to show too much...
In a few words: imperfect but intriguing. And if all this suffers from the problems inherent in the current serial format (too many lengths, overbidding of cliffhangers, will stretch the plot, standard plane based on a field/counter-field too repetitive to be attractive), The Three Body Problem has the merit of adapting its basic material brilliantly and making it a stimulating and catchy series, in all respects different from the previous success of its creators, Game of Thrones. Case to follow!
I'm afraid of this series as much as it is. He's a good actor John Bradley but his role in the series Games of Thrones had given him a hard-on. I may be tempted! Thanks for coming back!
Oh yes, so I find him much more irritating in the three-body problem ^^ but it's his character who wants it I felt here...
Oh, shit then? ^^^