Hard sci-fi is a nightmare to film. Seriously. When Liu Cixin’s 3 body problem series—officially known as Remembrance of Earth’s Past—blew up globally after Ken Liu translated it, everyone knew a movie or show was coming. But how do you film higher-dimensional physics? How do you show a "dual-vector foil" flattening a solar system into a 2D painting? You basically can’t. Or at least, you can't do it without making it look like a screensaver from 1998.
The trilogy is a massive, sprawling epic that starts in the Chinese Cultural Revolution and ends... well, at the literal heat death of the universe. It’s ambitious. It’s also incredibly dense. Most people who pick up The Three-Body Problem (the first book) get stuck in the first fifty pages because they aren't expecting a history lesson on Ye Wenjie’s trauma. But that trauma is the engine for the entire plot. She loses faith in humanity. She sends a signal. The San-Ti (or Trisolarans) hear it. And then, we're all in trouble.
The struggle of adapting the 3 body problem series
Netflix spent a fortune on their version. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the guys behind Game of Thrones, took the lead. People were nervous. Fans remembered the final season of Thrones and worried the nuanced, cold philosophy of Liu Cixin would be traded for cheap explosions. Honestly, the result was a bit of a mixed bag. They moved the setting to London. They split the character of Wang Miao into five different people—the "Oxford Five." It makes sense for TV—you need people to talk to each other—but it changes the vibe.
In the original books, the protagonist is often just an observer. A vessel for the reader to understand the terrifying scale of the universe.
China’s Tencent also did a version. It’s thirty episodes long. It covers just the first book. It is slow. Like, really slow. But it’s incredibly faithful. If you want to see the "flicker" in the cosmic microwave background radiation exactly as described, Tencent is your go-to. If you want a fast-paced thriller where people drink tequila and have existential crises in trendy bars, Netflix is the one. Both versions highlight the same problem: the 3 body problem series isn't really about people. It’s about the sociology of the universe.
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What is the Dark Forest theory anyway?
This is the core of the second book, The Dark Forest. It’s the part that actually keeps people awake at night. The theory basically says the universe is a dark forest full of armed hunters. Every civilization is a hunter. They tread softly. If they find another life form, they have one choice: eliminate it before it eliminates them.
Why? Because of "chains of suspicion" and "technological explosions."
You don't know if the aliens you just met are friendly. Even if they are friendly now, they might have a technological explosion in a hundred years and surpass you. So, you fire. It’s grim. It’s the most logical, terrifying answer to the Fermi Paradox—the question of why we haven't heard from anyone else yet. They're all hiding. We’re the only ones screaming into the void like idiots.
Why the science actually matters
Liu Cixin is a former power plant engineer. He likes his math. When he writes about the 3 body problem series, he’s playing with real concepts, even if he stretches them into "speculative" territory.
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Take the Sophons. In the show, they're these magical AI particles that can make people see things. In the books, they're protons unfolded into higher dimensions, etched with circuits, and folded back down. The explanation takes chapters. It’s brilliant. It explains why humanity can’t progress in physics—the San-Ti are literally "jamming" our particle accelerators. They've locked our science. We’re stuck with what we have, while they have four centuries to travel to Earth and wipe us out.
- The "Human Computer" scene: In the books and both shows, 30 million soldiers are used to create a binary computer. It’s a visual masterpiece. It shows how logic gates work using flags and people.
- The Panama Canal: The "Judgment Day" ship scene. Using nanofiber wires to slice a ship like a boiled egg. It’s one of the few times the series feels like a traditional action thriller, and it’s horrifying.
- The Droplet: This comes later. A single, perfectly smooth probe that destroys the entire human space fleet in minutes. It doesn't use lasers. It just hits things. Hard.
The characters vs. the concepts
The biggest criticism of the 3 body problem series is usually the characters. They can feel a bit wooden. Luo Ji, the "Wallfacer" from the second book, starts as a total loser. He’s a hedonist who wants to use his unlimited power to find a "dream girl" and live in a mansion. But he becomes the only man who can save Earth. He’s the ultimate underdog.
Then there’s Cheng Xin in the third book, Death’s End. Fans hate her. Or they love her. There’s no middle ground. She represents the "feminine" virtues of mercy and life, but in a "Dark Forest" universe, those virtues are death sentences. The series asks a hard question: do we deserve to survive if we have to become monsters to do it?
How to actually get into the series
If you're just starting, don't watch the shows first. Or do. It doesn't really matter, but the books offer a sense of dread that the screen can't capture. The scale is just too big.
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Start with the first book, but realize it's a detective story mixed with a history lesson. The second book is where the "war" really starts. The third book is where your brain will melt. It’s one of the few series that actually pays off the "epic" promise.
Most sci-fi ends with a big battle. This ends with the literal rewriting of the laws of physics.
To get the most out of the experience, keep a few things in mind. The translation matters. Ken Liu (who translated books 1 and 3) did an amazing job capturing the specific cultural nuances of the Chinese characters while making the science accessible. Joel Martinsen translated book 2, and while the style is slightly different, the tension is just as high.
Actionable ways to engage with the series
- Watch the Tencent version (available on YouTube/Viki) if you want the "hard sci-fi" experience where the physics is explained in detail.
- Watch the Netflix version if you want to see the "Oxford Five" and a more westernized, character-driven take on the apocalypse.
- Read the "Dark Forest" theory papers online. There are actually serious astronomers who discuss this in the context of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
- Listen to the audiobooks if the physics jargon gets too heavy for your eyes; the narrators do a great job of keeping the momentum going during the technical bits.
The 3 body problem series isn't just a story about aliens. It’s a mirror. It asks what we’d do if we knew, for a fact, that we were the weakest things in the neighborhood. It’s about the end of the world, but it’s also about why the world was worth saving in the first place. Whether you like the Netflix changes or the slow burn of the books, the core idea—that the universe is vast, cold, and dangerous—remains the most haunting thing in modern fiction.