"The world can be divided into two types of people, those who have seen "The Three-Body Problem" and those who have not seen "The Three-Body Problem"."
Once, Liu Cixin's loyal readership circulated such a sentence.
And now, you can add another category of people: those who have seen the "Three-Body Problem" TV series and are chasing the "Three-Body Problem" novel.
For many ordinary audiences, film and television is the primary threshold for contacting science fiction.
In 2019, the first part of "The Wandering Earth" landed on the big screen, making Chinese science fiction movies enter a new chapter. In January 2023, the TV series "Three-Body Problem" that has been in preparation for 7 years will be broadcast, which undoubtedly opens a new era of Chinese science fiction dramas.
| pattern opens
| out of Truman's world
"After watching "The Three-Body Problem", when you look up at the starry sky, you will feel that this starry sky is no longer the same."
This is the impression of "Three-Body Problem" released by many users on social platforms. The value of long-form video platforms, in addition to the supply of high-quality content, seems to open up new values for viewers.
In the past, the audience's concept of science fiction themes mostly came from the influence of popular science fiction, such as superheroes, time travel, imaginary disasters, etc., such works are easy to understand, and the success of the first part of "The Wandering Earth" also lies in this. But "The Three-Body Problem" is a TV series with a bit of a "threshold", and many viewers who have not seen the original work still feel a little confused when they watch it for the first time. At a time when speed and fast forward have become the pain points of long video platforms, a work that requires basic scientific knowledge, patience and understanding, is actually a test of the stamina of the story of "The Three-Body Problem" itself.
Many people watch stories and chase the plot, but some stories have a return after watching them. The stamina of "The Three-Body Problem" is the shock it brings to people when it unfolds its magnificent cosmology and world view. When theories such as "Dark Forest Law", "dimensionality reduction strike", "shooter and farmer theory", and the unevenness of physical laws in time and space appear; When Wang Miao's eyes are presented with countdown images, visual effects such as "cosmic flickering", "dehydration" and "immersion", and three-day volleys; This stamina instantly attracted high-frequency interaction from many users.
The visual effect of "three-day volley" in the play
On Tencent Video, the barrage of "The Three-Body Problem" exceeded 10 million, and the number of ratings on the site reached 1.5 million.
Since its launch, the TV series "Three-Body Problem" has been read more than 1,400 times on the hot search list on the whole network, nearly 700 hot searches on Weibo, and more than 1.5 billion views on Weibo #Three-Body TV Series#; 8 terms on Douyin received the top 1 hot spots in the double list; The Douban score also rose from 8.1 to 8.2. Such "staying power" is also destined to become the pinnacle work of Chinese science fiction dramas without accident.
Such a result is unexpected and reasonable for the producer Tencent Video.
But in any case, firmly laying out the sci-fi theme is an innovative card played by Tencent Video in the homogeneous competition of the long video platform. As a company with technological genes, Tencent Video's choice is not difficult to understand.
Some users have commented that "The Three-Body Problem" is a TV series suitable for continuous second brushing, and every time I watch it, I will have a feeling of "so it is". For a work with a return, the premiere is only the first show, but the second brush and multiple brushes just prove its value. For users, these years have lived under the industrial saccharin created by film and television industrialization, which has affected the public's aesthetics and evaluation in stages. For the film and television industry, platforms, and users, perhaps everyone should get out of the "Truman world" early.
Chinese audiences have higher level and diversified film and television consumption demand.
Content platforms also need the courage to innovate.
Zhang Luyi plays Wang Miao
Yu Hewei plays Shi Qiang
Both of these main characters received positive reviews
| took a big stride
| be the first to eat crabs
"A play has been in preparation for 7 years, and the main creators are all science fiction fans."
It is not surprising that "The Three-Body Problem" can become the first crab eater in the sci-fi drama market. As a hard bone in the film and television industry, science fiction has three difficult problems to solve: how to be faithful to the original? How is it visually presented? How to express obscure science fiction principles?
This is the core of solving the storytelling of science fiction dramas.
I believe that many viewers who have watched the TV series "The Three-Body Problem" include the word "real" in their evaluation keywords for the series. The real sci-fi drama, seemingly contradictory perception, is actually the tone set by the main creator for "The Three-Body Problem": shooting sci-fi with realistic techniques. "The first thing in filming "The Three-Body Problem" is not to think about the genre and special effects, but to make the Chinese audience believe, and the basis of belief is that we must first substitute the feelings of the Chinese." Chief director Yang Lei said.
Turning "fantasy" into "real" fundamentally establishes the basis for viewing TV series: resonance.
Without emotional resonance, the science fiction genre can easily fall into a huge visual experience and lose its soul. But the TV series adaptation of "The Three-Body Problem", the first step is to win in "real". Including the panic of the protagonist facing the countdown, it is the reaction of normal people. Let the audience watch it, and the sci-fi adaptation is half successful. The other half, on the other hand, is based on whether it can be understood.
In the "Three-Body Problem" episode, various obscure physics knowledge and some abstract science fiction concepts are deconstructed, and guided by the suspenseful plot, they become the background for serving the story. For example, after Wang Miao and Shi Qiang experienced the "three-body game", the "physics white" Shi Qiang's questions were like you and me in front of the screen, and in the question and answer between the two, many obscure physical problems became very easy to understand.
"Physics White" Shi Qiang asked Wang Miao a question clip
Should the TV series be a drastic adaptation based on the original work? In fact, at first, the jury was not conclusive. After launching the "Three-Body Problem" project in 2015, after 4 years of script creation, the main creative team of "The Three-Body Problem" finally decided to use the narrative method of "returning to the original" to operate.
"It's really taken according to the book", many original fans brushed the novel while watching the play, and they said that they were really "conscientious crews". Many viewers read novels while watching popular science forums, which also refreshed the new mode of audience watching dramas.
It can be seen that the threshold of science fiction really exists. But from another point of view, this also increases the popularity and acceptance of the sci-fi genre.
After the characters in the play entered the "Three-Body Problem" game for the first time through VR glasses, the "Main" world in the mouth of the Scientific Boundary Organization began to appear, and the audience was amazed by the chaotic era and the Heng era world presented in front of them, and even the original fans said that this is the three-body world they imagined.
The moment the characters in the play enter the three-body world
This is the value of visual effects, and Lu Beike, the visual director of "The Three-Body Problem", is also a proper "three-body" fan. When he learned that he was going to shoot "The Three-Body Problem", he wrote a letter of more than 20,000 words to Yang Lei, persuading him to shoot "The Three-Body Problem".
When the protagonist wears VR equipment and enters the three-body world for the first time, the realistic environment and character image make the audience applaud unanimously. In traditional Chinese TV dramas, 3D game visual effects are rarely used. A fresh look and feel is an important reason to maintain a good reputation.
The visual effects of the "three-body game" adopt the method of "motion capture + face capture + CG animation", and many gamers communicate their perceptions in the barrage, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the protagonist's modeling, and the barrage style is full of proper technical flow. Professional players enter the scene, which is rare in previous film and television dramas.
Being the first to eat a crab is risky.
But risks are sometimes opportunities.
Wang Ziwen plays Ye Wenjie
| throw stones and ask for directions
| science fiction drama has had a background since then
"The Three-Body Problem" is a science fiction story that has attracted global attention, and its film and television must be difficult.
The stone throwing of the "Three-Body Problem" TV series is also an iterative upgrade for the entire film and television industry. It has not only opened up a new sci-fi track in the field of TV dramas, but even cultivated a group of new users.
Before the preparation of "The Three-Body Problem", the main creator believed that the core audience was the original fans. But after the broadcast of "The Three-Body Problem", in addition to the original fans, passers-by fans and young fans also showed an upward trend. As of February 5, the Weibo hot search topic #Three-Body Win Ma#has exceeded 420 million views and 23,000 discussions. Douban has more than 220,000 reviews, and 21,000 people have scored and rated 8.4. Many passers-by fans left comments in the community, saying that through the play, they became readers of the "Three-Body Problem" novel, and even wanted to read more science fiction novels.
This also means that the sci-fi genre attracts non-core audiences. The generation of new users is undoubtedly new blood for the future science fiction market.
In fact, science fiction dramas are a "thankless" genre, 7 years of preparation, 4 years of grinding scripts, pre-shooting grinding industry experts, grinding actors, and post-grinding visual effects. In terms of production cycle and production cost, it is not a cost-effective deal. But such works are undoubtedly scarce for the film and television market.
According to relevant data from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, from January to October 2022, the number of filming and production TV dramas nationwide was 398, of which only 8 were filed with contemporary science fiction themes, accounting for about 2%; In the fourth quarter of 2022, there was only 1 contemporary sci-fi drama with 8 episodes that received the release license, accounting for only 0.65% and 0.15% of the number of TV series and episodes approved for distribution in the fourth quarter.
The core theme of The Three-Body Problem is the earth, human beings and the universe, which is a story that transcends national, racial, and national boundaries. In addition to popularizing a large amount of theoretical knowledge of physics, Newton, Einstein, Copernicus, Bruno and many other world-famous scientists also appeared in the "three-body game", which are all familiar elements for international audiences.
Wang Miao meets Newton in the three-body world
On the official channel of Tencent Video on the YouTube platform, the first episode of "The Three-Body Problem" was launched and received 780,000 views, and almost all users gave positive comments to the show. On the WeTV platform of Tencent Video's overseas station, "The Three-Body Problem" is the most watched drama on the station in recent times. On the American audio and video platform Viki, the score reached 9.6 points, and on Twitter, "The Three-Body Problem" also received praise from netizens in many countries such as Britain, the United States, Japan and South Korea; On the mainstream film and television rating website IMDB in the United States, the rating of the TV series "Three-Body Problem" is 7.9, and the last 6 episodes are almost close to full scores.
This shows that science has no borders, and science fiction dramas have an innate international communication advantage. For "The Three-Body Problem", this time has undoubtedly gained a wave of international audiences, and it has made a good start for Chinese science fiction film and television works to go global.
In the current more entertaining film and television industry environment, "The Three-Body Problem" has unlocked a new viewing experience for the audience, and even attracted many audiences to read the original novel of "The Three-Body Problem" and contact the science fiction world. This is of cutting-edge value for the adaptation of science fiction IP in the future. The collective expectations of new users will also promote the benign development of the film and television industry.
It is understood that Tencent Video has taken sci-fi dramas as its core category, and is gradually developing sci-fi dramas such as "Stars" and "Time Abyss", and taking "sci-fi +" as an important breakthrough direction.
"The Three-Body Problem, with its own unique influence, lights up a ray of hope moving forward. Let us see the expectations and enthusiasm of the Chinese people themselves for science fiction works. CCTV TV drama official Weibo quoted People's Daily as saying this about "The Three-Body Problem".
There is no road in the world, and the more people throw stones, a road of innovation can be paved.
And these stones are the background of innovation.
Written by | Mo Guan the world
Curated | Editorial Department of Entertainment Spring and Autumn