From 2006, when the first part was serialized in Science Fiction World magazine, to the completion of the third part of the series in 2008, the "Three-Body Problem" series of novels has not only become a well-known science fiction literary work in China, but also won many heavyweight science fiction literary awards internationally.
To put it bluntly, Liu Cixin single-handedly brought the originally unaccomplished Chinese science fiction literature to an unprecedented peak.
Since the advent of "The Three-Body Problem", the film and television adaptation of this work has been unabated, but there has never been a "Three-Body Problem" film and television drama work.
Whether it is the "Three-Body Problem" film that has not been released for various reasons many years ago, or the "Three-Body Problem" animated series that was launched by Station B not long ago, it has disappointed countless long-awaited audiences - can't Chinese really make a decent "Three-Body Problem" film and television work?
I believe that this question is not only me, but many viewers who have seen or understood the original work of "The Three-Body Problem" may have similar questions.
It was not until the "Three-Body Problem" live-action series adapted from the first novel in the series came out that countless people saw that the world depicted in the original book could really be put on the screen.
At the same time, "The Wandering Earth 2", which has been produced for several years, has finally met the audience, plus the animated series launched on station B before, and three film and television works adapted from Liu Cixin's works have been broadcast, such a grand situation is estimated to be unimaginable even Liu Cixin himself.
If the success of "The Wandering Earth 2" is due to the divergent re-creation of the original story by the main creative team, then the success of the live-action series "The Three-Body Problem" largely stems from the series' faithful restoration of the original work.
From several previous attempts at film and television adaptation, we can see that the adaptation of the "Three-Body Problem" series is so difficult and the complexity of the story is so deep that it is completely undesirable to rashly adapt it or present it comprehensively through a two- to three-hour movie. Presenting the series in the form of a TV series was undoubtedly the best choice.
The reason why science fiction works can be called science fiction is that the storyline of such works is not only fantastical and detached from actual fantasy, but also has predictions of future scientific development, realistic reflections on certain real problems, and even reflections on human nature.
The story of "The Three-Body Problem" is no exception, it tells that mankind will face an unprecedented disaster, but unlike the alien invasion of Earth in Hollywood blockbusters, the story of the first part of the series assumes for the audience that there is an alien civilization facing an existential crisis and preparing to invade Earth in a galaxy 4 light years away from Earth, but due to the distance, it will still take four hundred years for the Trisolaran fleet that has already set off to reach Earth.
As a result, the three-body organization of the earth, which secretly contacted the three-body civilization, the government departments that secretly conducted the investigation, and the three-body artificial intelligence "Chiko" who first infiltrated the earth, formed a strange picture with most of the people of the earth who did not yet know - on the one hand, the crisis of life and death, on the other hand, the ordinary life day after day. Will humanity be able to escape this catastrophe in the end? It became the biggest suspense of the whole story.
How to make the "Three-Body Problem" episode more interesting?
At the beginning of creation, the main creative team found many scientific consultants, including the original author Liu Cixin, and repeatedly discussed the film and television adaptation of "The Three-Body Problem".
Compared with the more imaginative and unbounded series of the last two works, the first part of "The Three-Body Problem" is closer to the era we live in on the basis of the background and reality of the story era, and the sci-fi elements of the story are more based on the re-exploration of our inherent cognition, or even subversion.
The reinterpretation of basic science and the deep reflection on human activities in the story ultimately return to the perspective of civilization, which makes this work not only have popular science significance, stimulate the imagination of readers, but also have profound ideological value.
It is precisely based on this that the main creative team finally chose to be faithful to the original and adopt a realistic style to create the "Three-Body Problem" live-action TV series.
As in the original book, the trisolarans in the play never appear in the story, but they are everywhere. At the beginning of the series, along with the broadcast of the news about the Olympic Games in the narration, a shot from a height looked down kept getting closer, and finally the whole perspective gathered in an inconspicuous ordinary residential building, and young scientist Yang Dong wrote his suicide note in the darkness...
The constantly searching and flickering images seem to reveal some information to the audience intentionally or unintentionally, and this camera setting is definitely not unintentional, but intended to show that someone seems to be secretly searching and monitoring everything that is happening on Earth. So the question then becomes, who exactly has the ability to do this?
Audiences who have seen the original book know that the monitoring perspectives that appear in large numbers in the series are actually derived from the super artificial intelligence "Chiko" launched to Earth by the three-body people.
In order to prevent the level of human science and technology from achieving breakthroughs beyond the three-body civilization in the four hundred years before the arrival of the three-body people, the three-body people first sent "Chiko" to the earth, and its main task is to monitor the target people with potential threats, take actions to secretly obstruct the development of basic science on the earth, and maintain contact with the three-body organization.
The ability to emit artificial intelligence from four light-years away to the earth where humans are located is imperceptible to the naked eye shows the technological level of the three-body star. As the degree of secret competition continues to intensify, global scientists continue to have a series of "suicides", which have begun to attract the attention of governments, but they have never been able to find who is behind the scenes.
General Chang Weisi, who is in charge of the investigation of the Chinese war zone, and his subordinate Dashi, after investigating the suicide of scientists, found that an organization called "Scientific Boundary" was linked to the suicides of many scientists, and Wang Miao, who studied the "nano flying blade", was also unexpectedly involved in the current mysterious turmoil...
It can be said that science fiction works like "The Three-Body Problem" that integrate most of the scientific theoretical knowledge and historical background actually have a certain audience threshold, but Liu Cixin uses easy-to-understand language and appropriate metaphors to make many readers who did not know physics before feel the mystery and charm of science.
The main creators of the series have gone a step further, and they have brought the unimaginable plots of the novel to the screen through various presentation methods, thereby attracting more audiences into this fascinating science fiction work.
For example, in the second episode of Wang Miao and Ding Yi's billiard test, the two conducted a total of five crash tests, no matter how the pool table moved, the final result was the same, that is, the black ball was hit into the bag. In Ding Yi's words, this reveals that "the laws of physics are uniform in time and space."
But what if the experimental results are skewed?
Like what
For the first time, the black ball went into the bag.
The second time, the black ball went off-track.
The third time, the black ball flew directly into the sky.
For the fourth time, the black ball flew around the room like a frightened sparrow.
For the fifth time, the black ball flew out of the table at nearly the speed of light, pierced the wall, escaped gravity, and flew out of the solar system.
It's hard to imagine right, but the reality is that in the particle collision experiment led by Yang Dong, these results appeared, and what is even more frightening is that these almost impossible results were accurately predicted before the end of the experiment. And this eventually made Yang Dong begin to wonder: Does physics really exist?
The envisaged part of this billiard ball experiment can actually be explained through the dialogue between the characters, but in order to present a better perception to the audience, the crew used special effects to simulate the irregular activities of the black ball from beginning to end, so that the audience can intuitively understand the meaning of this experiment, and better understand why scientists commit suicide one after another.
Then to the hypothesis of "farmer and turkey" told by Shen Yufei at the scientific boundary party, if it is only told through the mouths of characters, this fable-like story may not let the audience really feel the reality and cruelty in it.
But the series carefully animates this fable, and the brutal and bloody ending contrasts sharply with the childlike animated scenes, which in a way also foreshadows the human beings in the story who know nothing about the crisis of destruction.
Cosmic flickering can be said to be the most anticipated storyline for many fans of the original work, and the series has also put a lot of effort into this. After Wang Miao put on the observation glasses, the picture appeared like a burning red light that kept flashing like a fire, completely wrapping Wang Miao.
And these are just the effects shown in the first few episodes of the series, as the story continues to develop, the "three-body game" in which the protagonists freely explore and think about the development of civilization and planetary catastrophe is gradually presented to the audience.
The original book has a lot of background settings and detailed descriptions of the "three-body game", and this is an important reason why Wang Miao was able to solve the mystery behind the "master".
The series is almost perfect in the presentation of the "three-body game", whether it is the VR equipment worn by Wang Miao and Dashi, or the modeling and rendering of the game world, it is created according to the background of the era in 2007. And the relevant plots of the game world also make extensive use of dynamic capture and CG technology in the production process.
In addition to the polishing of the script and the care of special effects, the reason why the live-action drama "The Three-Body Problem" can be widely praised after it is broadcast is largely inseparable from the actors' careful interpretation, whether it is Wang Miao played by Zhang Luyi, Shi Qiang played by Yu Hewei, or Ye Wenjie played by Chen Jin, all of which left a deep impression on the audience.
In particular, the young version of Ye Wenjie, played by Wang Ziwen, interprets a "betrayer" who has experienced hardships in the context of a special era, witnessed the evil of human nature, and then began to dislike human beings and reflect on the development of civilization.
Ye Wenjie made her first contact with the three-body civilization by chance, hoping to use the power of other civilizations to achieve the salvation of mankind, and her choice was seen by many as proof of the betrayal of all mankind, but it was also because of her that human civilization had a glimmer of life in the face of doom.
The in-depth portrayal of the characters is one of the important reasons why the "Three-Body Problem" series has been widely praised after its broadcast, whether it is the original novel or the series presented to people now, they try to avoid making characters facetious, because whether based on a realistic tone or from the perspective of civilizational reflection, good and evil are never absolute.
![Tencent's version of "The Three-Body Problem", another solution to the Chinese science fiction "Heng Era"[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)