Originally published at: Watch the first trailer for 3 Body Problem on Netflix | Boing Boing
…
2 Likes
I should get around to reading that sooner rather than later…
5 Likes
the largely-Muslim Uighur ethnic minority group, who have (legitimately) been systematically interned and oppressed by the Chinese government.
Is this some new double-speak usage of the word ‘legitimately’ with which I am unfamiliar?
(Or … WTF!?!)
6 Likes
It’s probably meant to be illegitimately, I’m guessing?
3 Likes
I was just trying to make clear that I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic or make light of what’s been happening to the Uighurs. In case the juxtaposition from “American Republicans tried to cancel the show” made it seem like Liu’s comments were not racist (they were), or that the plight of the Uighurs is not a real thing (it is).
ETA: ahhhh, I’m realizing now that that comes off as me saying that the genocide of the Uighurs is “legitimate.” Which was NOT my intention! My intention was to say that they are legitimately (as in “actually” or “truly” or “genuinely”) being interned and oppressed.
9 Likes
I personally liked the idea of the book more than I enjoyed the book itself. It’s too hard sci-fi for me — more focused on math and science than on characters. I can understand why other people LOVED it, though, and I still enjoyed it well enough. I think the TV show might be able to bring the characters to a life in a way that better fits my aesthetic.
7 Likes
Please Netflix, for the love of god, do NOT drop this all at once. No one is going to binge watch for 24 hours. The binge streaming model is over.
3 Likes
Fans of Star Trek and other classic space opera lore might take warning that the Three Body Problem series takes a decidedly less optimistic view of interspecies relations in the galactic community.
7 Likes
Yeah, my better half is a big hard sci-fi fan, and liked the books… I’m less of a hard sci-fi fan, like you… Still, I like to read books before watching the shows!
But yeah, often a tv/film adaption of hard sci-fi can do wonders for bringing it a story to life!
Okay… that’s true of lots of sci-fi, though?
6 Likes
1 Like
He should be careful, look what happened to him last time.
3 Likes
The Klingons had far too much honor to wipe out entire civilizations at first sight from light-years away without even giving them a chance to fight back.
5 Likes
i thought the first book was dense, interesting, and unusual enough to make it worthwhile - and i’m definitely not a fan of most hard sci-fi
then i tried reading the second book, and had to stop. i found it to be poorly edited and translated, and not enjoyable to read at all
( the whole first chapter was about an ant musing to itself about the meaning of life, and went downhill from there. the book, not the ant. i forget where the ant went. )
7 Likes
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who felt this way! I usually like hard sci-fi, but I felt like these books were a couple of cool ideas wrapped in an incredibly dull plot with extremely boring characters. All the ensuing acclaim has been a bit baffling for me, but to each one’s own.
1 Like
I enjoyed them, even though due to Calibre cover processing issues and me being slow to catch on (durrrr), I read them out of sequence, reading them in the order:
1: The Three Body Problem
3: Death’s End
2: The Dark Forest
They still worked though. I think each reads well as a standalone book.
The first book surprised me with how critical it was of the cultural revolution, but at the same time it was very nationalistic and isolationist. But it also made me look at Western sci-fi from a different angle, realising that a lot of it must appear the same way to non-Western readers.
Some of the later theoretical stuff in the series I thought went a bit too far into mumbo-jumbo, like the eventual reduction of the entire universe to two dimensions (that being the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, and the idea that the “Dark Forest” theory centers around, like an intergalactic cold war)
Overall, I found it quite cynical, but at the same time, appreciated reading something sci-fi that was genuinely fresh and new to me thanks to a different cultural perspective.
7 Likes
I read them and liked them well enough for the interesting ideas and plot points, but I got no clue how you film this.
I think it refers back to the “legitimately” modifying the horrible comments by the author. It awkward phrasing, but I think that’s it.
1 Like
Unfortunately (to my view, anyway), the phrasing is too close to Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment
ETA: context for non-USAns or those that didn’t hear about this the first time back in 2012:
2 Likes
Perhaps “genuinely”?
2 Likes
Umm … nobody HAS to watch it all at once, even if they do drop it thusly. No matter whether all episodes are there or not at launch, I typically wait until most of them are and then watch maybe a couple per evening - i.e. set my own pace.
2 Likes
