3 Body Problem: The Main Differences Between the Novel and The TV Series
3 Body Problem has recently arrived on Netflix, the highly anticipated TV series created by Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, together with Alexander Woo (The Terror: Infamy). The show adapts the first novel of Liu Cixin’s science fiction trilogy but, as we explained in our review, presents some obvious changes in the transition from the printed page to the small screen. So, let’s discover together all the main differences between the novel and the TV series. The following article will contain spoilers, so start reading at your own risk! The 3 Body Problem is the new Netflix sci-fi series from the same creators of Game of Thrones, David Benioff and DB Weiss.
A highly anticipated title, inspired by the science fiction trilogy of the same name by the acclaimed Chinese author Liu Cixin, which arrives on the streaming platform presenting itself as the new great serial “masterpiece” that winks at legendary titles such as Lost by JJAbrams. Consisting of 8 episodes and with a complex and fascinating plot, The 3 Body Problem aims to tell a story of science, psychology, philosophy but above all of humanity and the supernatural. The 3-Body Problem is a series of moments that obsess everyone to the point of entering our lives as happened with the hacking of the monitors of the Rome and Milan stations where the famous phrase suddenly appeared: “You are insects “, just like in the series. But after having seen the entire The 3-Body Problem, which takes its name from one of the most difficult and fascinating puzzles in physics, can we say with certainty that it is a masterpiece? And why are we all hypnotized by this TV series?
The Characters and the Setting: From China to England
In the novel 3 Body Problem most of the characters are Chinese, with the action mainly taking place in China. The first book begins with Ye Wenjie watching Red Guards beat her father to death, before being sentenced to work at a secret military base. Unfortunately for humanity, Ye’s disenchantment with the human race drives her to transmit a message into space inviting an alien civilization to Earth. But aside from Ye Wenjie’s chapters, readers mostly see the story through the eyes of Wang Miao, a nanotechnology researcher who teams up with police detective Da Shi (in the series he becomes Clarence and is played by Benedict Wong) to unravel the mystery of the aliens arriving from Trisolaris.
While Ye’s story remains mostly unchanged in the series, Benioff, Weiss, and Woo moved the rest of the settings from Beijing to London and Oxford. The three showrunners also changed the gender of Wang Miao’s character, who is now called Auggie Salazar and is played by Mexican actress Eiza González. It is Auggie who first sees the countdown in her eyes, and it is she who is warned by the San-Ti to stop working on her important research in nanotechnology. Auggie is part of a group of young scientists who met at university: it would seem that the creators of 3 Bthe ody Problem series have invented completely new characters to internationalize the cast and make the series more appealing to the public western. In addition to Auggie in the series, we find the physicist of New Zealand origin Jin Cheng (Jess Hong), the research assistant Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo), the high school teacher Will Downing (Alex Sharp), and the millionaire Jack Rooney (John Bradley), who abandoned his science studies to build a snack empire after graduation.
As the series progresses, however, it becomes increasingly clear that the five Oxford friends are based on characters featured in the second and third books of the trilogy. This indicates that the showrunners, now working on the second season, already have a very broad and long-term plan in mind for adapting the novel series. Jin, in our opinion, replaces the character Cheng for Cheng, with whom he has long been in love. In 3 Body Problem, Will inherits money from Jack and buys the star concession for Jin. And, just like Yun, cancer patient Will volunteers to donate his brain for Jin’s spy probe. It is, both in the series and in the novel, a final act of unrequited love for her, despite the man knowing that the San-Ti could resurrect him for their dark purposes.
The Aliens: San-Ti or Trisolarians?
In the book trilogy, the invading aliens are always called Trisolarians, as the star system their planet is located in contains three suns. In the Netflix series, their name is changed to San-Ti, which means “three-body person” in Chinese. The sophons, the all-seeing supercomputers created by aliens to counteract the human race, are also introduced much earlier in the Netflix adaptation they are only mentioned in the books during the third novel.
Earthlings Supporting Aliens
Liu Cixin’s book describes in detail the internal conflict in the Terra-Trisolaris Organization (ETO), the group of humans working to undermine society and prepare the way for the invasion of the Trisolarians. Mike Evans leads a splinter cell called the Adventists, who are extremists who believe humanity deserves to be destroyed, while another faction called the Redemptorists worship the Trisolarians as a superior civilization. A third faction, the Survivors, intends to betray humanity to ensure the survival of their descendants on Earth. In 3the Body Prothe blem TV series, the ETO is simplified into a single religious sect, with Evans acting as an emissary of the San-Tis and fanatics such as Tatiana Haas (Marlo Kelly) carrying out the group’s orders.
The Videogame
In Liu’s book, readers follow Wang Miao as he tries to solve a hyper-realistic video game that is crucial to understanding what the aliens want from Earth. Benioff, Weiss, and Woo changed the game’s parameters so that two people can play together, which allows Jin and Jack to progress much faster and get an invitation to a secret ETO summit. While Jin accepts, Jack rejects the invitation and calls it a scam, which later leads to him being killed at the hands of Tatiana.
The Aliens’ Point of View
There are some pages of the 3 Body Problem novel told from the point of view of the Trisolarians, including that of an unnamed alien at a listening post set up to detect signs of intelligent life in the universe. When she receives Ye Wenjie’s message from the military base, the alien warns her that her world will try to conquer Earth—a threat she ignores by sending an open invitation to the Trisolarians. Liu Cixin in the novel describes the consequences of Ye’s invitation to the Trisolarian ruling class, including their decision to launch their fleet towards Earth and create the sophones. It is a courageous change of point of view that helps readers penetrate deeper into the social and political reality of the Trisolarians. The series omits this important perspective from the first season.
The Wallfacer Project
At the end of this first season, readers will realize that the character of Saul is based on Luo Ji, the protagonist of Liu’s second book, The Matter of the Cosmos. While Saul doesn’t take up as much screen time as Jin in the adaptation, it’s clear that Benioff, Weiss, and Woo are grooming him to become key characters in the coming seasons. In the eighth episode of 3 Body Problem (which we talked about in detail in our explanation of the series finale), the San-Tis try to assassinate Saul shortly before he is assigned the position of Wallfacer, a project of the Nations Unite which provides unlimited resources to three people tasked with devising a plan to defeat the San-Ti. Since the sophones are capable of intercepting all terrestrial communications, the Wallfacers must work on their plans in complete secrecy, exclusively in their minds and without ever telling anyone about it.
The only clue Saul can rely on to understand why he was chosen to be a Wallfacer is what Ye Wenjie tells him right before he dies: a confusing and not very funny joke about Einstein going to Heaven. In The Matter of the Cosmos, Ye’s clue to Luo is equally dark, though in a different way: He tells him that he will have to investigate a mysterious new field called “cosmic sociology.” What does Einstein have to do with defeating aliens? Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until season two to find out.
The End of Ye Wenjie
One aspect of the television series that remains faithful to the book as we were saying partly concerns Ye Wenjie: in the scenes set in the 1960s, the Netflix show follows the book almost to the letter but changes the ending of its narrative arc. Ye, in fact, despite returning to the Chinese base where she contacted the Trisolarians for the first time, will not be killed by Tatiana, but rather we find her in the second novel.
