Television 3 Body Problem

Hugh Jass

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Yea this is pretty good like an 8 out of 10. If HBO had done it would be better though.

The amount of close ups with the background out of focus is so many. Amateur stuff.
 

Wing Attack Plan R

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Damp squib of a season ender. They tried their best to dumb it the feck down and I think they succeeded in completely neutering the source material. Saul is only matched in being awful by Auggie. Maybe the show runners can re-tool some shit and make season 2 better. Think I will go back and finish the Chinese version.
5/10
 

kaku06

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Started alright with the first few episodes now it’s boring me. The 5 geniuses are terrible especially the low self esteemed poundland George Russel. How and why the hell he got so much screen time? Someone tell me? He has basically no use, brings nothing to the table except for pondering like a teenager whether to tell her crush or not and then backing off and then being pushed again by other scientists cum teenagers and then backing off again. Reminds me of Lindelof.
Auggie is alright. As ill fitted as she is for this role atleast she’s worth looking at. The others are just. The worst is Lindelof by far.
 

Prophet_of_Doom

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I loved the books so was really looking forward to this. Watched the first episode when it first came out and thought it was so bad that I didn't bother watching any more. But then I sat on it for a few days thinking maybe I was being unfair and it was just because I'd read the books first meant I'd set the bar too high.

But no, having tried to watch it again, it is objectively awful. With the budget they had, why couldn't they find any half competent actors? Even the recognised 'names' seem to be off (either poorly cast, poorly directed or maybe the script is just too bad for them to do anything with it). In any case, the casting directors should be shot. And why do the UK scenes look like they've been directed by someone whose only other experience is directing Mrs Brown's Boys? Tonally it's all over the place and while I appreciate there's a lot of complex exposition (which is equally mind-blowing and fascinating in the books) here it just seems mundane. I'd give it a strong 4 out of 10 and three of those are for the original novels!

Have watched 5 episodes and not sure I can stomach the rest.
 

Hugh Jass

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I loved the books so was really looking forward to this. Watched the first episode when it first came out and thought it was so bad that I didn't bother watching any more. But then I sat on it for a few days thinking maybe I was being unfair and it was just because I'd read the books first meant I'd set the bar too high.

But no, having tried to watch it again, it is objectively awful. With the budget they had, why couldn't they find any half competent actors? Even the recognised 'names' seem to be off (either poorly cast, poorly directed or maybe the script is just too bad for them to do anything with it). In any case, the casting directors should be shot. And why do the UK scenes look like they've been directed by someone whose only other experience is directing Mrs Brown's Boys? Tonally it's all over the place and while I appreciate there's a lot of complex exposition (which is equally mind-blowing and fascinating in the books) here it just seems mundane. I'd give it a strong 4 out of 10 and three of those are for the original novels!

Have watched 5 episodes and not sure I can stomach the rest.
Yea i agree. The cinematography is horrible in the uk scenes. The camera work is poor also - all these close ups with the background out of focus.
 

Wing Attack Plan R

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I loved the books so was really looking forward to this. Watched the first episode when it first came out and thought it was so bad that I didn't bother watching any more. But then I sat on it for a few days thinking maybe I was being unfair and it was just because I'd read the books first meant I'd set the bar too high.

But no, having tried to watch it again, it is objectively awful. With the budget they had, why couldn't they find any half competent actors? Even the recognised 'names' seem to be off (either poorly cast, poorly directed or maybe the script is just too bad for them to do anything with it). In any case, the casting directors should be shot. And why do the UK scenes look like they've been directed by someone whose only other experience is directing Mrs Brown's Boys? Tonally it's all over the place and while I appreciate there's a lot of complex exposition (which is equally mind-blowing and fascinating in the books) here it just seems mundane. I'd give it a strong 4 out of 10 and three of those are for the original novels!

Have watched 5 episodes and not sure I can stomach the rest.
I had this exact reaction when I watched the first live action Cowboy Bebop. I went back twice to try and enjoy it but everything that’s wrong with 3 Body Problem is also wrong with Cowboy Bebop: mind boggling casting, terrible photography, abysmal/non-existent directing, and whatever the soul of the project was has been lost.

I love that we humans
sent the incel loser into space to meet the San-Ti, and that instead of doing something useful with his windfall of cash inherited from Jack, he does the modern equivalent of having Jin made a Scottish Laird. Only some out of touch rich cnuts would write that and expect people to accept it as some grand romantic gesture.
Maybe that happens in the book too, I forget, but here it played all the wrong notes. I think Jack’s
early exit is also crippling this show. His character was an annoying man-child but you kind of liked him anyway
. Not only would none of the 5 geniuses be romantically involved in real life, but also it’s hard to believe they’d even be friends. Jack was good for some laughs, and Jin is the only one who can portray human emotions.

Real talk on Liam Cunningham, too. I loved him in GoT. Here, he’s directed to be a baffling character. In one scene he addresses a roomful of Navy engineers. He says, “all right you fecks” because he’s not your daddy’s maverick. He drops f-bombs the way Mr. Pigeon drops birdshits everywhere, because he’s supposed to be a wild card. Tonality is a fecking mess. It’s not Cunningham’s fault because no actor on earth could elevate these shitty scripts.

Utterly criminal what they did to this project. $160 million on what? They didn’t even use real animals (horses, chimpanzee) and used CGI animals that would be embarrassed by the more lifelike animals in Sharknado.
 
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glazed

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The reason this show works is because it channels the pre-World War vibe that the world is currently experiencing. Nobody quite knows who or what the enemy is, or even if there is one. And then it becomes obvious.
 

Scorpy

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The best bit was in the Chinese station when they received the alien pacifist message. Gave me the chills.

Then any intrigue instantly evaporated when they revealed the aliens would only arrive in 400 years.
 

Ubik

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How the feck did this cost $160m to make?
I've not watched this but it seems to be a common thread of so much mega-budget TV now, I don't understand where the money goes.
 

Prophet_of_Doom

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Binged the last three episodes and yup, was as disappointing as I'd anticipated. Just feels so cheap. There are already a lot of deviations from the books (which I don't have a problem with per se) but the majority of those deviations are the most dull characters created for the TV series. I never read GoT ... did Weiss and Benioff take a lot of liberties creating characters for GoT (who were then the worst characters?!) or is it just 3BP?!
 
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Wing Attack Plan R

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Binged the last three episodes and yup, was as disappointing as I'd anticipated. Just feels so cheap. There are already a lot of deviations from the books (which I don't have a problem with per se) but the majority of those deviations are the most dull characters created for the TV series. I never read GoT ... did Weiss and Benioff take a lot of liberties creating characters for GoT (who were then the worst characters?!) or is it just 3BP?!
I seem to recall that in Game of Thrones they stuck to the books pretty closely, until they caught up to the published stuff and had to freestyle. That resulted in David Benioff and D. B. Weiss just rubbing their dicks together like they were trying to start a fire. On the one hand, those books needed to have some things shorthanded or changed for storytelling speed and clarity, but on the other hand, these two guys are singularly ill-equipped to make those changes. It's even worse that they wrote several of the episodes themselves, especially after it was clear that they were 1.) good at visualizing someone else's writing, and 2.) utterly fecking shit when it came to creating something themselves.
 

Beachryan

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Honestly thought it was fine. It hugely diverges in major ways from the books in order to try and appeal to a much broader audience and again, I think that's okay given the material is so dense.

That said, the first book makes some sense to make into a tv show. I do not understand how you make a capitivating version of the second book and to do so with the third is impossible imo. The amount of exposition they'll need...it only works as a book.

For me the biggest mistakes were:
Saul is way to sympathetic. The arc of the character in the books is just isn't going to work with someone that has actually shown to be a good friend etc.
Thank God they cleared up the 'he gave you the star' bit, because for smart people not to immediately get there was infuriating.
We don't need a terminator character imo. Also her smile is terrifying.
I can see what they were trying by having them all be friends, but they're too young and it's too ridiculous for the best in their field to all know each other from school. Dumb.
I don't get the point of the ex-boyfriend.
I hate how they simplified the crap out of th stages of scientific discovery in the game.

What I found clever:
Loved having the 5 questions bit from the books for him to kill himself
Seeing Ye standing over the cliff where she killed her husband and the general was a nice touch, wish they'd let her jump
They tried to include the ant crawling over the gravestone. Bold.
The nanofibre bit on the ship was awesome, and pretty much exactly how it looked in my mind.
Similarly, I liked the expanding sophon bit, and the way they dealt with that 'quickly' in the show.
 

PepG

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I dont understand some of the replays here. In my mind the best bit of the Netflix adaptation was the "humanisation" of the characters. The story itself is mind boggling but mixed with a bit of a human drama is what makes it great. Benioff and Weiss did a good job here because in the chinese version although faithful to the book the characters felt very flat and unrealistic. Of course a lot of the pure science moments got swept for the faster tempo of the series but the flow was ok and everything major was presented and even more.. i cant wait for the second season already.
 

Desert Eagle

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Started alright with the first few episodes now it’s boring me. The 5 geniuses are terrible especially the low self esteemed poundland George Russel. How and why the hell he got so much screen time? Someone tell me? He has basically no use, brings nothing to the table except for pondering like a teenager whether to tell her crush or not and then backing off and then being pushed again by other scientists cum teenagers and then backing off again. Reminds me of Lindelof.
Auggie is alright. As ill fitted as she is for this role atleast she’s worth looking at. The others are just. The worst is Lindelof by far.
:lol::lol:

Just have the last episode left but it's been decent so far. The premise is interesting enough to carry the show although i think they could have done better with the source material. The cast is meh except for the asian looking actors
 

Hugh Jass

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:lol::lol:

Just have the last episode left but it's been decent so far. The premise is interesting enough to carry the show although i think they could have done better with the source material. The cast is meh except for the asian looking actors
Yea the casting is poor.

I think as well the cinematography is poor although it gets better as the episodes progress. Poor camera angles as well - all these close ups with the background out of focus.
 

Desert Eagle

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Yea the casting is poor.

I think as well the cinematography is poor although it gets better as the episodes progress. Poor camera angles as well - all these close ups with the background out of focus.
It's the kind of show Lance Reddick would have been perfect for. They really should have got some charismatic actors to play the Sophon and Tatiana.
 

Conor

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I enjoyed it, but it's just trope after trope after trope. The overall idea is good though.
 

Simbo

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Benedict Wong is the Asian cop: he’s great. He grew up in Salford, he had better be a Red.
He is iirc
Yeah he was wearing a United jacket in one of the show's interviews. Random titbit; My sister lives next to his brother, much to my BIL's delight as he's a bit of a Marvel nerd and he apparently has a bunch movie props from Endgame, etc in his house.
 

Wing Attack Plan R

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Yeah he was wearing a United jacket in one of the show's interviews. Random titbit; My sister lives next to his brother, much to my BIL's delight as he's a bit of a Marvel nerd and he apparently has a bunch movie props from Endgame, etc in his house.
I’m sure an actor like him is totally down to earth and cool. The ones who aren’t pretty boys are generally super cool.
 

Wing Attack Plan R

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Netflix is insane if they green light a season 2. This turkey was reported as $160 million (so you can assume it’s closer to $200 million), and all the actors’ and crew’s salaries will increase. They would be way better off - in terms of both quality and viewership - if they took the $250 million for season 2 and instead made 50 movies for $5 million each.
 

Simbo

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I quite enjoyed it on the whole, though I can see why many won't. The characters didn't turn out so bad in the end, just takes 4 episodes for them to get semi-interesting, they each have their purpose. Auggie getting too much hate, miscast sure but seems fine as an actress.

Did anyone notice Jin's accent slip on the plane in the final episode? "He's a livin brehhhn" Sounded so out of place :lol: Like she's been spendin too much time with Wong or Ser Davos.
 

Wing Attack Plan R

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I quite enjoyed it on the whole, though I can see why many won't. The characters didn't turn out so bad in the end, just takes 4 episodes for them to get semi-interesting, they each have their purpose. Auggie getting too much hate, miscast sure but seems fine as an actress.

Did anyone notice Jin's accent slip on the plane in the final episode? "He's a livin brehhhn" Sounded so out of place :lol: Like she's been spendin too much time with Wong or Ser Davos.
She sounds like she's an aussie KIWI in disguise.
 
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mitChley

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Just caught up with this. Found the scientist characters completely unlikeable, glad to open this and see I wasn't alone. They all speak like they know they are in a movie.