Vol. 10: The Problem with '3 Body Problem'; Confessions of a Poetry Plebeian
Jack reviews the first season of Netflix's sci-fi hit; Mark discusses the importance of poetry for even the lowbrow.
Review
Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’ Sacrifices Depth for Plot
By Jack Carter Benjamin
Liam Cunningham and Jess Hong in ‘3 Body Problem’. Credit: Netflix
This article contains spoilers for the first season of 3 Body Problem.
I have a long leash for science fiction.
Thanks to its unique capacity to creatively explore The Big Problems about humanity’s place in the vast universe, I am often willing to overlook common shortcomings, issues like flat characters, the overuse of unnecessary jargon, and narratives that too often emphasize plot more than story.
Sci-fi lovers have been spoilt for choice over the last few months. Dune: Part Two was a remarkable execution of an epic, in league with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not only was the action fierce, the cinematography inventive, the performances exceptional, and the score immediately iconic, but the adaptation’s ability to capture the core themes of Frank Herbert’s novel – the horrors of colonialism, the dangers of religious zealotry, and the importance of ecology – was remarkable.
If Dune was too grand in scale, you could turn instead to Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, another great adaptation of the excellent Alasdair Gray novel, inspired by Shelley’s Frankenstein, which proves sci-fi need not lack humor to advance plot and develop character.
Last month, looking to capitalize on renewed popular interest in sci-fi, Netflix debuted 3 Body Problem, a TV adaptation of the award-winning book trilogy by Chinese author Liu Cixin, Remembrance of Earth’s Past. While far from the blowout success of Squid Game, 3 Body Problem nevertheless racked up more than twenty-six million views in its first two weeks to become the biggest TV show on Netflix. It is an impressive performance for a sci-fi title, let alone one so ambitious in scale.
Created by ex-Game of Thrones (2011-2019) showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss alongside Alexander Woo, 3 Body Problem explores the concept of making alien contact through a Hobbesian lens. Criss-crossing between two timelines, the series initially follows a Chinese scientist, disillusioned by the cruelty of the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party regime amid the 1970s Cultural Revolution, who makes first contact with an alien race and beckons them to Earth to save humanity from itself. In the present day, a mysterious series of suicides among the world’s most esteemed scientists draws the attention of both a secret intelligence service and a gang of former Oxford physics students.
For all its impressive set-piece moments (there are multiple wow moments, with surprisingly good visual effects for a contemporary TV program), 3 Body Problem suffers from many of the aforementioned genre fiction pitfalls, namely an overfocus on plot and a cast of two-dimensional characters. And while its Big Ideas are interesting to ponder, the series lacks thematic coherence.
The story attempts to juggle themes and core concepts as various as: David versus Goliath; fears of mass surveillance; existentialism; authoritarianism; the cold logic of capitalism; the failure of twentieth century communism; environmentalism; the state and laws of nature; what makes a human human; the realness of virtual reality; the Fermi paradox; the power of propaganda; the nature and success of cults; the concept of God; and the danger of religion.
Science fiction is known for trying to take on many Big Problems at once, but even by those standards 3 Body Problem offers a lot to take in. Too much, in fact. With just eight episodes – many lasting well under an hour – the show hardly has time to balance thoughtfulness about even half of its most interesting ideas with the apparent need to move the plot along at what at times feels like a breakneck pace.
It is doubly concerning, then, that much is being lost in translation not just in the story’s adaptation from the page to the screen, but also from its adaptation from China to the West.
The original novel is clearly written from the Chinese point of view. The hostile alien race, known variously as the San-Ti (“Three Body” in Mandarin) or the Trisolarans (for their home planet orbits three stars, giving the series its name), offer a stand-in for Western imperial power. Their technology is considerably more advanced than humanity’s. They eventually reveal that their intentions are not peaceful. But the plucky human underdogs, rapidly advancing in their own technological capacity, still have a chance.
As Joel Martinsen, the translator of The Dark Forest, the second volume in Liu’s trilogy, told New Yorker staff writer Jiayang Fan in 2019, “It’s not hard to read parallels between the Trisolarans and imperialist designs on China, driven by hunger for resources and fear of being wiped out.” Liu himself told Fan: “The relationship between politics and science fiction cannot be underestimated.”
Liu at least publicly toes the CCP line. In an interview with Fan, he unequivocally supported China’s one-child policy, funeral-reform law, and mass internment of Muslim Uighurs, parroting arguments made by Chinese state media.
“I know what you are thinking,” he told Fan. “What about individual liberty and freedom of governance? But that’s not what Chinese people care about. For ordinary folks, it’s the cost of health care, real-estate prices, their children’s education. Not democracy.”
Much of the original story’s subtext is thus undermined by transferring the setting from China to London and Westernizing its characters, most of whom are forced to make extraordinarily harsh sacrifices for the survival of the greater species – a concept that is often at odds with Western ideals of individuality and entrepreneurship, but more at home in a country that once required its citizens to only have one child for the sake of the greater good.
The result could be compelling if it called into question both Chinese state logic and Western idealism. Instead, 3 Body Problem pleases neither the Chinese (who have been notably offended by its, by all accounts honest, depiction of the horrors of the Cultural Revolution) nor the Western sensibility, because it lacks coherent thematic focus. Apart from juggling too many ideas all at once, it also declines to wholeheartedly sympathize with Liu’s cultural messaging by supplanting it with Western militarist ideals that are at odds with the original narrative.
Given the messiness with which it explores its most compelling concepts, the series’ other shortfalls stand out. 3 Body Problem rushes from plot point to plot point, failing to take a moment to let things simmer and develop. The show begins by hooking viewers on mysteries – the scientists’ suicides, a futuristic virtual reality headset, the motivations of the pro-Trisolaran cult – that are disappointingly resolved within just five episodes.
But what is most galling about 3 Body Problem is that it fails to make me care about any of its characters with any real sense of depth, especially given Benioff and Weiss’ prior effort on Game of Thrones was so capable. Perhaps 3 Body Problem lacks its own Sean Bean to carry its first season with such a weighty performance, but the broader issue is the source material just doesn’t care so much for character. As Liu admitted in his conversation with Fan, “I did not begin writing for love of literature. I did so for love of science.”
If 3 Body Problem was as good as the early seasons of Game of Thrones, we would have, for instance, spent considerably more time getting to know and empathize with the pro-Trisolaran cult, learning to understand their motivations, dreams, and desires throughout many episodes, if not seasons, before they met their demise.
Comparing 3 Body Problem to another heady HBO drama, The Leftovers (2014-2017) shows how much the former lacks narrative weight. Both shows offer high-concept speculative fiction (in The Leftovers, three percent of humanity suddenly disappears; in 3 Body Problem, aliens are 400 years from invading the planet after a Chinese scientist beckons them to Earth), but the former is much better than the latter at exploring the human implications of such far-fetched events. The Leftovers feels grounded despite its high concept. It takes time to explore in depth the implications such an event would have on society, religion, and, most importantly, on its cast of characters.
Rather than shuffling them around like pawns to fit the plot and having a few deliver snide Marvel-esque lines about preferring to get high rather than consider the implications of a forthcoming alien invasion, The Leftovers – like Game of Thrones – allowed characters the space to dwell on grief and go a little mad.
For all its wonderful ambition, 3 Body Problem is a middling effort, tamped down both by its source material’s apparent lack of care toward character development and by the challenge of Westernizing a more coherent work in its native context. ♦
Arts and Culture
Confessions of a Poetry Plebeian
By Mark McKibbin
Poet Walt Whitman (top left), singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (top right), poet Seamus Heaney (bottom left), poet Amanda Gorman (bottom right). Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
April is National Poetry Month in the United States. If you did not know this, don’t feel bad. Poetry Month is the lesser-known sibling of its two preceding months, Black History Month (February) and Women's History Month (March).
Poetry is often associated with romance and wooing attempts, with the smitten male reading verses of romance while looking up at the fair maiden eyeing him (either suspiciously or fondly) from her white terrace, flower in her hair and flowing dress to boot.
I first remember encountering poetry when Spider-Man 2 came out in 2004. I was six years old. In what is perhaps the most cringeworthy scene in the original Spider-man trilogy, Peter Parker unsuccessfully attempts to use “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to woo Mary Jane back into his arms after spending months failing to attend her debut on Broadway. Alas, Yeats’s poetry faced a steep uphill climb when its competition was Captain John James, the hunky astronaut who we learn is the first man to play football on the moon and to whom Mary Jane is engaged.
Fortunately for Peter, where Yeats’s poetry fell short, the combination of Peter revealing his identity as Spider-man and saving Mary Jane from Doctor Octopus's earth-sucking ball of sun did the trick. Mary Jane leaves Captain James at the altar to confess her enduring love for Peter in the doorway of his rat-infested Central Queens apartment. They kiss. The credits roll.
Despite this fond early memory of poetry, I must confess that I am not a lifelong poetry lover. In grade school, the lack of complete sentences in the poetic form drove me crazy. I had trouble interpreting the meaning of poems and effectively analyzing poetic devices. Consequently, poetry was my Achilles heel in English class. Even Robin Williams's zealous monologues about poetry in Dead Poets Society could not shake me from my grudge.
In college, I became a poetry convert out of necessity. During my sophomore year, I started volunteering at Miriam's Kitchen, a charitable organization in Washington, D.C., that provides community, meals, and housing assistance for people experiencing homelessness. As a volunteer, I led a weekly writing group, where the guests and I would sit together, read a piece of writing, and share our thoughts on that writing with the group. When I began volunteering, I marched in with long prose passages from some of my favorite classic novels. After a few weeks, my group members politely told me they wanted more variety. I would have to overcome my tense relationship with verse, rhyme, and stanza.
Through my group, I learned the power of poetry as a lever for human connection. As a politics student, I began to ponder the relationship between poetry and democracy. In 2019, I wrote the following musing in my journal:
A thriving democracy not only requires individuals to trust their government. They also need to trust each other. We need to facilitate trust in the hubs of our community as well as in the halls of power. Trust leads to solidarity: when people trust each other, they start to care about each other. Eventually, individuals feel motivated to vote not only to protect and further their own interests but also the interests and needs of those they trust and care about as well.
Upon further research, I learned I was far from alone in seeing the political dimension of poetry.
Nineteenth-century poet extraordinaire Walt Whitman saw poetry as a political tool and a radicalizing force. In Leaves of Grass, his most famous poetry collection, Whitman asserted that "the profoundest service that poems or any other writings can do for their reader" is to "give him good heart as a radical possession and habit." Whitman lamented that "the educated world seems to have been growing more and more ennuyed for ages.” He hoped Leaves of Grass would help facilitate "spiritual and heroic" in the United States. “To help start and favor that growth—or even to call attention to it, or the need of it—is the beginning, middle and final purpose of the poems,” wrote Whitman.
The poetic form found a political home in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, both through the work of Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde and the songwriting of figures like Bob Dylan. Dylan’s song "Blowin' in the Wind" was first recorded by the musical trio Peter, Paul and Mary, who sung the tune at the 1963 March on Washington. "Blowin' in the Wind" later helped inspire Sam Cooke's soulful tune, "A Change is Gonna Come."
Someone in our era who especially reveres the political potency of poetry is President Joe Biden. Biden is fond of quoting Irish poets, especially Seamus Heaney and William Butler Yeats. In his 2020 Democratic National Convention speech, Biden remarked that "the Irish poet Seamus Heaney once wrote, 'history says don't hope on this side of the grave, but then once in a lifetime, the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.’”
Biden’s love of poetry has not failed to catch the attention of the Irish. Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins gifted Biden an album of poetry from Irish Poet Patrick Kavanagh in April 2023. A writer for the Irish Times provided an in-depth analysis of a time when Biden confused two Irish poets. Thankfully, this writer was at the ready to tell us in great detail what a grave sin this was.
Of course, because poetry is so susceptible to becoming political, it also can underscore political divisions within a society. At Biden's Inauguration in 2021, youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman recited her poem, "The Hill We Climb,” to much acclaim. We later learned that Gorman had rewritten this poem after the Trump-incited January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to reflect the events of that day. The part of the poem that refers to the January 6 events is unmistakable, even if Trump is not mentioned by name:
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation Rather than share it Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed It can never be permanently defeated
In the spirit of Langston Hughes's "Let America Be America Again," “The Hill We Climb” calls on America to bring its practices in line with its values. Gorman's sentiment echoes Whitman's "By Blue Ontario's Shore," where Whitman remarks, "America is only you and me/Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me/Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me."
In 2023, Gorman's poem came back into the headlines when a Florida school district removed the poem from its K-5 libraries in response to a parent complaint that cited "hate messages" and "CRT" (that is, "Critical Race Theory") in the poem.
Of course, anyone who takes the time to read Gorman's poem will see how incredibly patriotic it is. The poem does not, however, attempt to whitewash America's checkered past. If one believes “The Hill We Climb” is trying to teach people to "hate" our country, that individual has probably built their patriotism on a foundation of willful ignorance. But if we want to be a people continuously challenged to embrace our better selves and our better hopes, we need the words of Gorman and her fellow poets.
Though poetry has become an acquired taste, I still consider myself a poetry plebeian. My somewhat utilitarian analysis of poetry as a political device will be a grave disappointment for anyone looking for a high-level analysis of poetry as an art form. But if poetry is available to plebeians like me, it is also available to others who may be hesitant to immerse themselves in poetry’s rich legacy. I would especially encourage poetic immersion for those involved in politics. Poetry can give us politicos a concise breath of encouragement when cynicism permeates our thoughts.
2024 is going to be an exhausting political year wherever the chips fall. Poetry can serve as a fountain of renewal. ♦