Dive into the world of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem – The Verge

Netflix renews 3 Body Problem for second season

2024-05-15T15:15:06-04:00

3 Body Problem is getting a second season. Netflix announced the news that its adaptation of Cixin Liu's award-winning sci-fi trilogy is getting more episodes, with David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo returning as executive producers and writers.

3 Body Problem follows a group of scientists as they struggle with the realization that humanity isn't the only species in the universe and that its nearest neighbors are far more technologically advanced and very mean. It stars an ensemble cast featuring Liam Cunningham, Rosalind Chao, Zine Tseng, and Benedict Wong. Though the 3 Body Problem book trilogy spans several centuries, through c …

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3 Body Problem stars on the show’s big question: would you push the button?

2024-04-04T10:00:00-04:00

One thing that confounds me after reading Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem and watching its Netflix adaptation is a simple button.

Spoilers for 3 Body Problem to follow.

I still haven't been able to wrap my head around why Ye Wenjie, when faced with the choice to respond to or ignore transmissions from the San-Ti, an alien race, chose to respond. Throughout human history, first contact events rarely go well and go even worse when the two sides are technologically imbalanced. So, why would an ostensibly hyperintelligent woman pin her hopes on a race of beings that have already made their hostile designs on Earth clear?

In an interview w …

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The creators of 3 Body Problem want to have ‘a back and forth’ with the book

2024-03-25T17:00:00-04:00

3 Body Problem executive producers Alexander Woo, David Benioff, and D.B. Weiss. | Image: Ed Miller / Netflix

Between its expanded, more ethnically diverse cast and its more advanced take on virtual reality gaming, Netflix's new 3 Body Problem series unfolds in a very different way than the book it's adapting. Cixin Liu's novel is so dense and internal dialogue-driven that it was widely thought to be unadaptable for the screen. Changes are almost always necessary when translating stories as complex as 3 Body Problem's across mediums (and in this case, languages as well). But when I recently spoke with executive producers David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo ahead of 3 Body Problem's premiere, they said that, while they always knew their stor …

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3 Body Problem VR headset review: magical tech in need of more apps

2024-03-23T11:00:00-04:00

Arthur C. Clarke famously said that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," and that's never been more true than with the 3 Body Problem VR headset. It's so far ahead of everything else on the market that it doesn't seem possible. There's really no doubt: this is the best way to experience virtual reality. Sadly, there's far too little software to take advantage of all of that advanced tech; at launch, there's only a single app available. And even though that one app is a game that could alter the fate of mankind forever, that doesn't quite nudge the headset into "must buy" territory.

But let's start with tha …

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Netflix’s 3 Body Problem adaptation channels the book’s spirit but not its brilliance

2024-03-21T09:30:00-04:00

Sea Shimooka as Sophon in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem. | Image: Netflix

In his 2008 sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu created a fascinating world where cutting-edge particle physics, VR gaming, and Chinese history played crucial roles in shaping humanity's response to an imminent planet-wide threat. It also seemed unfilmable. The depth of the book's ideas about cultural memory and the complexity of its central mystery made The Three-Body Problem feel like a story that could only work on the page.

That hasn't stopped streamers from trying, and last year, Tencent debuted its own live-action, episodic take on Liu's book. Netflix spent a fortune putting 3 Body Problem in the hands of executive producer …

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Peacock will stream the Chinese adaptation of The Three-Body Problem

2024-02-09T15:11:27-05:00

Another adaptation of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem will be streaming for English audiences. While Netflix's 3 Body Problem is set to premiere on March 21st, today, Peacock announced that it has acquired rights to the original Chinese adaptation, dubbed simply Three-Body. And it's coming very soon - the series premieres on February 10th.

Three-Body was produced by Tencent and originally premiered in China last year, and the Peacock version will be available in the original Chinese with English subtitles. Given that they're adaptations, 3 Body Problem and Three-Body will follow the same story, but the Chinese adaptation appears to be mu …

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The Three-Body Problem is getting a new audiobook release just in time for Netflix’s show

2024-02-07T10:30:00-05:00

In Netflix's new adaptation of Cixin Liu's novel The Three-Body Problem, actress Rosalind Chao portrays one of the brilliant minds mobilized into action by the presence of a threat with the potential to wipe out humanity. But in Macmillan's forthcoming The Three-Body Problem audiobook recording, Chao will bring the entire world of Liu's novel to life with the sound of her voice.

Ahead of the March 21st debut of Netflix's 3 Body Problem, Macmillan Audio has tapped Chao to narrate its new recording of The Three-Body Problem - the first book in Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy chronicling the story of how humanity responds after makin …

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Netflix’s new 3 Body Problem trailer is all about the mystery

2024-01-09T15:00:29-05:00

We're inching ever closer to 3 Body Problem's premiere on Netflix, and today, that means another glimpse at the sci-fi adaptation. Whereas the previous trailer focused on the incredibly immersive virtual reality game at the core of the story, the latest clip focuses on something different: the mystery. Basically, a whole bunch of scientists have gone missing, and Benedict Wong's character is trying to figure out what it all means.

The show, of course, is based on the novel by Liu Cixin (which was just the first part of a trilogy), and Netflix describes the premise thusly:

The story begins in 1960s China when a young woman makes a fateful d …

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New teaser for Netflix’s 3 Body Problem series will make you want to play the game

2023-11-10T17:09:18-05:00

It remains to be seen just how much of the fascinating, winding complexity of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem ends up making it into Netflix's upcoming adaptation of the novel from co-creators Alexander Woo, D.B. Weiss, and David Benioff. But in a new clip from the show that's just dropped as part of Netflix's Geeked Week showcase, it looks like 3 Body Problem (that's how Netflix is spelling it) is going to get one of its most important worldbuilding elements very right in a way that makes the story's deeper mystery interesting to watch unfold.

While the new teaser clip debuted during Geeked Week doesn't really broach the way 3 Body Prob …

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Netflix’s 3 Body Problem starts streaming in January — check out the first trailer

2023-06-17T17:39:47-04:00

As promised, one of big highlights of Netflix's Tudum event was our first look at the streamer's much-anticipated adaptation of author Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem. The teaser trailer provides just a brief - but still incredibly impressive - glimpse at the sci-fi epic, based on the trilogy of books. It also includes an important tidbit of info: the series will start streaming in January 2024.

The adaptation was first announced in 2020, with Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss leading the project. (Glass Onion and Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, meanwhile, is among the team of producers.) If you're new to Liu's wo …

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