These are the biggest differences between Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’ and the original book

The Three-Body Problem is a story by Chinese science fiction author Cixin Liu, the first novel in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy which includes The Dark Forest (2008) and Death’s End (2010). Critically acclaimed and the recipient of almost a dozen international awards, Liu’s book has been translated into 29 languages and adapted for both film and television in China and the United States.

It was precisely Ken Liu’s English language translation that provided the basis for the new Netflix series - the television adaptation was co-created by Game of Thrones’ writers David Benioff, D.B.Weiss and True Blood writer Alexander Woo.

Some things have been lost or omitted along the way. The first three chapters of the translated book are dedicated to the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s - it’s only touched on in the Chinese version even though it is an event which is central to the main theme. The Netflix series also opens with the struggle session, in which Teenager Ye Wenjie (played by Zine Tseng) witnesses her physics professor father (Ye Zhetai) being brutally mocked then publicly lynched and beaten to death by members of the Red Guard in front of a jeering crowd and jury.

Locations changed from China to the UK

Another difference between the English translation of the books and the TV series is that new locations have been added - while the book is set exclusively in past and present China, the Netflix adaptation, the scenes set in Beijing have been switched to London and Oxford.

New characters

Some of the original characters have also been modified by the screenwriters - Wang Miao, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has become Mexican academic Auggie Salazar, a member of the so-called Oxford Five. None of the group of young scientists, all of whom are western, appear in Liu’s book although it appears that Benioff, Weiss and Woo based their characters in other books of the trilogy. Saul Durand for instance, is based on the character of Luo Ji from the Dark Forest - one of four wallfacers assigned by the United Nations to protect Earth from the Trisolaran invasion.

Sophon, an AI robot developed by the Trisolarans to communicate with humans on Earth, is described as a video game avatar in the series. Naval officer Raj Varma is another new character - played by Saamer Usmani, he is the boyfriend of Jin Cheng, another member of the Oxford Five.

Which brings us to the aliens themselves. Lui named them San-Ti (三 体) which in Mandarin Chinese translates as Three-Body. However, in the Netflix adaptation, the extraterrestrials are called Trisolarans, an alien civilization struggling to survive on Trisolaris - the only planet in the Alpha Centauri system.