Three Body Problem (Netflix)

[Blue Jam]

Ep 5. The carbon nanotubes bit was some startling effects and imagery. Brrrr.

[touchingcloth]

Lol at Phil Wang appearing silently in the background in e.3. Hoping I get to see his package before the end.

Ep 5. The carbon nanotubes bit was some startling effects and imagery. Brrrr.

I'm pretty sure I know which bit of the book this will be, and that there was something similar in

Spoiler alert

The Cube

[close]

[Blue Jam]

Ep 7:

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Gerard from Peep Show! In a scene where it's the other man who's ill!

[close]

[dr beat]

Why is Scotland coach Steve Clarke the boss in this?

[dr beat]

Why also is there a Mark Strong tribute act in this?

[dr beat]

Oh stop tossing off about Oxford pubs. I drank in them too when I was there.

[poloniusmonk]

Still got one more to watch of these tonight, but it feels like the dropoff from the pretty excellent start to episodes 5-7 has been steep.

It's gone from being weird and interesting to explaining things and being stupid. I'm enjoying how dumb it's got, in a way, but i couldn't recommend it.

[touchingcloth]

Still got one more to watch of these tonight, but it feels like the dropoff from the pretty excellent start to episodes 5-7 has been steep.

It's gone from being weird and interesting to explaining things and being stupid. I'm enjoying how dumb it's got, in a way, but i couldn't recommend it.

I'm halfway through episode 4, and it feels like the tipping point happens somewhere in this episode. Quite a dry explainer of what a three body problem is in the physics sense, and the bits with the people who were

Spoiler alert

working on behalf of and speaking with the aliens

[close]

were poor. This was also the episode that has diverged most from the book so far, I think.

[ersatz99]

Enjoyed Benedict Wong saying countdown a few times.

[touchingcloth]

Would have been fun if the Mike Evans character had been played by Matt Berry.

[Blue Jam]

About 20 mins into episode 7 that's the voice of

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(executive producer) Brad Pitt

[close]

on speakerphone. tbh I was more excited to by the appearance of

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Jim Howick

[close]

[Blue Jam]

Ep 8. I love the way this show pricks its own pomposity:

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'"Know your enemy." Didn't Sun Tzu say that?'

'I don't know. I'm from Manchester.'

[close]

Love ya Errol.

Is it standard practice to use a yellow camera filter for scenes set in Mexico or did that only become A Thing after Breaking Bad?

Loved the scenes of the launch, the nanosail deploying etc

Spoiler alert

poor Will tho 🧠

[close]

For all its faults I effing loved this. Moar pls.

[touchingcloth]

I haven't seen Breaking Bad, but the first thing I noticed when landing in Mexico City was the smog, so maybe it's just going to accuracy.

[Poobum]

Bit rude of Errol to use Cheng as a human shield, gun right next to her tab.

Spoiler alert

The ship slicing was horrifying, but how was that less risky than a missile? It's a nanotube filament that can absolutely definitely slice through a harddrive. The ship ends up burning wreckage in the river to a far worse extent than I imagine a missile would do.

[close]

Spoiler alert

The San-Ti as presented make no sense. They can't lie or understand story and metaphor, but the game they use is all lies, story, and metaphor. Even if you suppose they're lying about lying then that's not really interesting.

[close]

Main thing that annoyed me was the Goldfish in a bowl, horrible animal abuse on my screen presented as a little sweet thing. If you keep a goldfish in a bowl I will kill you and turn your corpse into a appropriately more voluminous environment.

[touchingcloth]

Bit rude of Errol to use Cheng as a human shield, gun right next to her tab.

Spoiler alert

The ship slicing was horrifying, but how was that less risky than a missile? It's a nanotube filament that can absolutely definitely slice through a harddrive. The ship ends up burning wreckage in the river to a far worse extent than I imagine a missile would do.

[close]

Spoiler alert

The San-Ti as presented make no sense. They can't lie or understand story and metaphor, but the game they use is all lies, story, and metaphor. Even if you suppose they're lying about lying then that's not really interesting.

[close]

Main thing that annoyed me was the Goldfish in a bowl, horrible animal abuse on my screen presented as a little sweet thing. If you keep a goldfish in a bowl I will kill you and turn your corpse into a appropriately more voluminous environment.

The book explains that it's ok for

Spoiler alert

the hard drives to be sliced because then you can find the small number of pieces close together and reassemble them. Blowing them up is more pieces and more dispersed.

[close]

Science.

[Blue Jam]

Main thing that annoyed me was the Goldfish in a bowl

Go and watch Better Call Saul instead then ;)

[Poobum]

Better Call Saul fish tank far too small for a fish that size. You could say poor fish care is a pet hate of mine... 👀

[mjwilson]

Shouldn't it be called

Spoiler alert

The 4-body problem? One planet and 3 suns? (Yes I know this doesn't matter)

[close]

[Theoretical Dentist]

Is it standard practice to use a yellow camera filter for scenes set in Mexico or did that only become A Thing after Breaking Bad?

It was used in Traffic (2000, so before Breaking Bad). There are three story strands all filmed or processed in different ways, and the one set in Mexico uses a yellow filter. There's a Wikipedia article where it's called a 'Mexican filter', it only gives four examples of which Traffic is the earliest, I don't know if there are any other or anything earlier.

[hermitical]

We've bailed after four episodes. Awful dialogue, ridiculous plot holes/decisions.

[Blue Jam]

It was used in Traffic (2000, so before Breaking Bad). There are three story strands all filmed or processed in different ways, and the one set in Mexico uses a yellow filter. There's a Wikipedia article where it's called a 'Mexican filter', it only gives four examples of which Traffic is the earliest, I don't know if there are any other or anything earlier.

Fascinating, thanks!

[touchingcloth]

The Wade character is fucking ridiculous.

[Urinal Cake]

This is very pulpy. Yet watching (skimming) this and Oppenheimer I feel when faced with a 'world threat' real life scientists today would act like how they did in 3 body problem.

[Minami Minegishi]

I've tried watching this three times but the acting and dialogue and tone of this is so utterly fucking dogshit.

[touchingcloth]

"I want to work for your space team."

"How did you know about that? It's top secret."

"I found out."

"When did you find out?"

"Two weeks ago."

"Well you're two fucking weeks late."

Magnificent.

[touchingcloth]

I liked the monkey. The book didn't have a monkey.

[SteveDave]

I've been half-watching this whilst going on my phone at the same time and was almost out until the Ee-Ba-Gum Northern Kevin Smith millionaire

Spoiler alert

was violently killed.

[close]

Then I carried on.

[Poobum]

Can't stand Will. Cringe little creep.

[pandadeath]

Watched through it over the last two nights and wasn't entirely won over by it. I've read the books and definitely had issues with the writing and characters but I was pretty captivated by them, definitely page turners, so I was curious to see how they would go about adapting them. First impressions were pretty poor, didn't like the dialogue in the present day sections, it felt quite clunky and surprisingly lacking in production values for a flagship show, but it did eventually grow on me.

I think some of the changes were necessary but I wasn't a fan of quite how Westernised it has become, seems particularly weird that it's all so UK-centric. It also moves too quickly for my liking, I would have preferred a slower burn, the first season just covering the first book, but they cram in quite a lot from books 2 & 3 so it is a bit jarring. The cast is mixed too, Errol is the best thing about it and the woman playing Xin is decent too, but I absolutely hated Jack and didn't really buy the bond between the central friendship group - comes off as very forced.

I do hope it does well enough for them to adapt the whole series though, it definitely has potential, it's just not as impressive an adaptation as I'd hoped.

[touchingcloth]

I would have preferred a slower burn, the first season just covering the first book, but they cram in quite a lot from books 2 & 3 so it is a bit jarring.

I think they've just adapted it to a more TV-friendly - I think the only flashbacks are to Ye Wenjie's younger life. It is a bit jarring that they've put things from the later books in this first series, but I think in the books we end up skipping over chunks of time before coming back to find things out about the Staircase project or being introduced to Wade, so I can see why they've rejigged things to be a little less non-linear and to include some of the bigger characters in the first series.

I think some of the changes were necessary but I wasn't a fan of quite how Westernised it has become, seems particularly weird that it's all so UK-centric.
...
The cast is mixed too, Errol is the best thing about it and the woman playing Xin is decent too, but I absolutely hated Jack and didn't really buy the bond between the central friendship group - comes off as very forced.

Errol is hands down the best thing. They've written him poorly because he skips between being a hard-bitten, cynical, film noir style cop, and wacky comic relief. Benedict pulls it off and rescues it, but few others could.

I really didn't buy the friendship group either, and apart from the Saul and Jin characters I can't see why anyone would be friends with them as written, or why the five of them would be mates with each other. In the books, weren't the Jin and Will characters essentially strangers? And they went the opposite way with the antagonists and collapsed a whole bunch of them into the Tatiana character, and I'm not sure it worked.