Originally published at: Watch the trailer for the upcoming animated adaptation of The Three-Body Problem | Boing Boing
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No joke, I finished reading The Three-Body Problem last night. I enjoyed it and am still thinking about several of the ideas in the book.
More than anything, I wonder how it got released at all, as the criticisms it levelled against the Chinese government were far less than subtle in my reading, but I am no expert in the field.
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Yeah, the section with the ‘struggle sessions’ of the Cultural Revolution where Ye Wenjie watches her dad get bludgeoned to death was pretty grim. It was a great character foundation on which to base her later choices to send the second broadcast and become the heart of the ETO. If those choices were viewed through any other lens they could come off as hopeful or mercy-based, but knowing her background gives them a definite sting of justified misanthropy.
From what I gather the general feeling is that the Cultural Revolution is viewed as an embarrassing mistake and it’s not really defended (although I’m no expert either and Chinese censorship is extremely complex). The Chinese version of the novel has that whole struggle session section show up later in the book but it’s still in there.
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It’s been awhile since I read this book and its sequels and I’ve mostly forgotten the small details but do remember the basic premise. I’m sort of baffled how this is going to work as an animated movie, but presumably it has enough going on in the action/suspense department to justify the decision to produce it. I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.
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Yeah, I think it’s been ok to admit that a lot of the Cultural Revolution was a mistake since Deng Xiaoping came to power. He himself was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution so it’s not like the current government is claiming that no mistakes were made. And a lot of the excesses took place during a time of extreme and violent factionalism so the government can always claim that “oh yeah, those examples weren’t official policy of the central government, it was just some crazy faction that took things too far.”
On the other hand Lou Cixin seems to support some other government policies in his writings, including population control measures in several of his stories even when they make no logical sense as a reaction to the threats that earth faces.
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This sounds wonderful. I love the idea of people using animation for serious science fiction.
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