Why has Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’ angered some Chinese viewers?

Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, a television adaption of science fiction author Liu Cixin’s 2006 novel hit screens on Thursday but drew a mixed response from viewers - and particularly Chinese ones. The US series, co-created by Game of Thrones’ writers David Benioff, D.B.Weiss and True Blood writer Alexander Woo follows on from the widely acclaimed Chinese production, Three-Body, produced by state broadcaster CCTV which aired last year.

The Chinese series was subtitled in English and broadcast on Peacock in February. But it appears that something has been lost in making the English language version. For a start, it’s much shorter. Each episode of Three-Body was approximately 40-45 minutes long and the season ran for 30 episodes while the US series, 3 Body Problem, has condensed the storyline into eight, one-hour episodes.

Complex storyline

In compressing a highly-complex, multi-layered, interwoven plot which features a lot of different characters coming and going. It also flits between the present day and 1960s China. All of that left some viewers confused. Some felt the storyline is too cerebral - or ambiguous, to grasp. Watching 3 Body Problem requires concentration, it’s not for the casual viewer who wants something light and easily digestible. Basically, it forces you to think and that’s not so easy after a long, stressful day at work.

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution and a mysterious alien invasion, Liu Cixin’s 2006 novel explores the complexities of human nature, scientific discovery, and the potential existence of civilizations in other galaxies.

The story begins during the Cultural Revolution in China during the mid-1960s. Teenager Ye Wenjie (played by Zine Tseng) witnesses her physics professor father (Ye Zhetai) being beaten to death by the Red Guards. She is subsequently imprisoned and forced into hard labor. Fast forward a few years, after graduating with a degree in Astrophysics from Tsinghua University, Wenjie finds herself working as a physicist at a secret military base called Red Coast when she stumbles up a secretive state project (Red Union) which centers around an attempt by the Chinese military to make contact with an alien civilization living on Trisolaris - the only planet in the Alpha Centauri system.

The stars of the Trisolaris system are subject to the “three-body problem” - their orbits around each other are completely erratic, follow no predictable, mathematically pattern which means that time - days, weeks and years, cannot be accurately measured.

Extraterrestrials in search of a new planet

Due to the extreme, hostile conditions on their own planet which is fast becoming uninhabitable, the Trisolarans are plotting to invade the universe. They intend to inhabit Earth but without modifying either its atmosphere or biosphere. In spite of their struggle to find somewhere suitable to live, the Trisolarans are a highly intelligent and adaptable bunch, and their technology is far more advanced than that of humans on planet Earth.

As screenplay writer Alexander Woo explains, “This is a story of what happens when laws of the universe start to break and what it means for all humanity, but particularly for a tight-knit group of friends and colleagues solving the mystery before time runs out”.

Objections to the Netflix adaptation went viral on Chinese social media. Some were not happy with the cultural hijacking of a predominately Chinese story, originally set in China, although Benioff has defended that decision by arguing that his adaptation focuses on what is a global problem which affects the whole of the planet, not just China.

The way that the struggle session in which Wenjie’s father was killed was also handled differently in both versions - it was played down in the politically-sensitive Chinese series. Other complaints were that the new series is hard to follow and shallow with some viewers feeling let down that the intellectual side of the story was cheapened in favor of an array of visual effects.