Netflix’s new sci-fi venture is already steeped in controversy – but could it still turn out good?

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Netflix’s new sci-fi venture is already steeped in controversy – but could it still turn out good?

If anyone knows me, you’d know I’m intense about the Game of Thrones TV show and its fiasco of a finale. You’d see that I was broken up about the character arcs unraveling and hyper-speed pacing. The general hubris that made the entire decade-long journey feel like a bad joke. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had at least a modicum of sense at that time, I could have been one of the million signatures on the petition to rewrite and reshoot the finale. Yes, there were that many people who also hated to see Game Of Thrones end like that.

It still stings upon reflection and what became of everyone involved, even after almost five years and a global pandemic. It’s almost like it was one of the events that kicked off the present-day nightmare we all find ourselves in now.

That’s only a joke.

But, what if I told you we could see another TV show phenomenon with an even more intense real-world fallout? What if I told you that the fallout would begin even before the show ends? And what if I told you the fallout started years before the show would ever hit the screen?

That show is Netflix’s “3 Body Problem.”

Before I start, I have to say that a lot of topics I’ll be covering aren’t in my area of expertise and have some sensitive information. Because it is disturbing and troublesome. If you have qualms about anything I mention, I have linked all the sources I could find on the subject and tried to do some research on these claims and stories. I do not know the real details of all these alleged stories, nor will I be explaining them at length. I’m just one person who is trying to also make sense of what I’m learning and keep my feelings and reactions in check. I won’t gloss over things that I don’t agree with and things I also find terrible and delicate.

My introduction to the world of 3 Body Problem

Personally, I like to lean into movies and TV show adaptations of famous book series or novels to see how they’re executed. What are the changes between the filmed versions and the source materials? If a new series or movie is coming out that seems promising, I usually look up the books they’re based on and read them to get a feel for the upcoming adaptation. This habit has gotten me into a lot of fandoms I wouldn’t otherwise care or know about. When I was young, I watched TV and read books in equal measure; I relished immersing myself in other worlds and characters, envisioning myself in fantastical situations and relationships. It made my imagination thrive and pushed me to create my own stories through writing.

Fantasy was my first love, but that shifted around into sci-fi, historical fiction, horror, and others. So when I found a new adaptation I could sink my teeth into, not aware that the source material was incomplete, I fell out of love with it and felt a small piece of my childhood imagination die.

3 Body Problem got on my radar partway through the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2021, mostly because of its ties to the Game of Thrones producers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Since May 2019, I have harbored a great disdain for these two men. So, I tuned out the information about their new work and forgot all about it. Until it came back up again in 2023 as Netflix was releasing a trailer for the first season coming out in 2024.

Then it all came back to me, and sure enough, even though I had tuned out this information, the book series did make it onto my TBR list. So I started the first book.

Man, was it good! And yeah, with that incredible ride of reading the book came the sinking feeling that this show coming out would also follow in Game of Thrones’ footsteps. That is, being a giant waste of time. I wasn’t sure I could stomach another disappointment on that scale. But then I started learning more about the books – since they seemed like a safe place for my fan heart – and looked into the author and other admirers of his work, a whole new world opened up to me and I couldn’t look away.

While my hang-ups with 3 Body remained in the area of adaptation and production, the more I learned about the author of the source material, Liu Cixin, the more complex everything got.

In 2023, I was outspoken about the WGA and SAG AFTRA strikes happening in California and other major cities. I stood in solidarity with them by canceling streaming service accounts, sharing on social media, and generally being annoying about it to all my friends and family. One of the enemies was Netflix, so seeing such a wonderful story in the hands of two writers I despised and the streaming behemoth put a bad taste in my mouth.

The story was so good, compelling, and intelligent, surely this story deserved to be in better hands than these hacks, right? The more I found out about the production journey and the more I learned about Cixin himself, the more I understood just how ambitious and messy this whole thing was. The niggling pangs of dread I felt while exploring the ideas of cosmic sociology, physical and scientific anomalies, and the encroaching annihilation presented in the Remembrance of Earths Past series flared while seeing some disquieting similarities in the production of its film adaptation.

But before I open that can of crazy, what even is the Three Body Problem?

What is the “Three Body Problem?”

The Three Body Problem isn’t only a novel, it’s a real-life physics problem that has stumped scientists, engineers, and physicists for years. I’ll explain it the best I can:

When two planets, or heavenly bodies, come close enough together and their gravitational fields connect, they orbit each other. Using math, their orbital patterns can be determined for infinite time if the pattern works on a loop. When three planets orbit each other, their patterns become so unpredictable that even current physics cannot say exactly when, where, and how they will change.

The novel, Three Body Problem doesn’t solve this problem, but it poses a different issue: what if you lived within this chaotic system?

In the novel, a nanotechnology engineer is tasked with uncovering the reason behind several suicides in the scientific community. He’s given access to a virtual reality game where the seasons, day-to-night cycle, and all other manner of elements are inconsistent. As we follow a handful of characters, we conclude that, perhaps, we aren’t the only ones in the universe, and others are trying to contact us for help.

Not only does this affect the world politics and scientific progress of humanity, but it also touches on some deep insecurities, moral quandaries, and cultural biases that hold us back from embracing others and ourselves.

The Netflix adaptation

The book… is great. And it’s scope is immense. Seeing it on the screen would be a marvel, but how possible is it to even create the same effect as the prose and then translated for a wider audience?

Yes, this book wasn’t written in English, nor is the author a native English speaker or from the Western world. Cixin is Chinese. His cast of characters is predominately Chinese and only branches off into Western and international characters as the series continues.

It seemed obvious when I saw Netflix’s trailer for the first time, as there were only two Chinese people and the rest were English-speaking or white. There was no mention of the nanotech engineer, nor the other characters that make up the Chinese scientific community..

White-washing the cast for the TV show felt gross, and wasn’t where the changes stopped. From looking at the synopsis and character names on IMDb, they looked like completely new characters in the roles of the Chinese cast of the book. I wondered, how many changes were they made for this show? Would it be anything like the book series, and how many warranted creative liberties would there be? Seeing Benioff and Weiss being the main writers and producers for this show, I dreaded to think of what was coming.

The thing about those two is that, on the surface, they seem competent and have some huge wins in the TV writing sphere. When you peel back that surface layer, you can see nepotism, privilege, and a great amount of hand-holding in the initial writing department. When left to their own devices, Weiss and Benioff tend to flounder or make some strange and poorly executed decisions for their films. Hollywood sees their backlist and thinks they’ll make them a ton of money by having them helm an ambitious project. But in the end, it’s all hype. What happens is the other writers and production crews and seasoned professionals surrounding them pad them out. At least, this is my opinion on the matter.

I’m not saying that their job isn’t hard or that the pressure doesn’t also play a role in these missteps; I’m also a writer who struggles with writing competent and engaging characters while balancing plot needs. Benioff and Weiss have jobs that most other showrunners and writers only dream of and could easily fail if not taken on with great humility and discretion.

Alexander Woo

So who else is there to help these two? One top-billing name is Alexander Woo. When I searched him, I was a little relieved to find a handful of talents that he could bring to mitigate the damage that Benioff and Weiss.

Woo has few writing credits, but one that stood out to me was the second season of the AMC limited anthology, The Terror: Infamy. Why did I narrow in on that? It was a historical fiction horror show focused on the plight of Japanese Americans during World War 2. I watched the season and saw that there was care put into the depictions of Asian Americans and their struggles in a time that is overlooked a ton by the American Education system. I learned a lot, and I’m a little ashamed of not knowing more about the internment camps and the racism Americans inflicted on their own citizens. By far the coolest thing about the season was the integral role that actor, George Takei, played in the storylines, details, and conflicts depicted since he spent time in a California internment camp as a child. Something like this would help the production of a foreign story with cultural sympathies and ties. Woo represented this.

When it comes to the rest: the characters, the plot, and the writing, it left a lot to be desired. Woo was interviewed after the show released on AMC and talked about how important it was for him to portray the situations and people accurately. He’s been active in Hollywood in writing and production for 20 years, but his credits still seem short. He gave off the same vibe as Benioff and Weiss when I realized they also didn’t have an extensive portfolio before beginning Martin’s Game of Thrones series.

The author of the books

Other than Woo, the major name that popped up on 3 Body’s writing credits was Liu Cixin himself. This didn’t surprise me since Martin played a major producer’s role in the HBO series of his own work. While it was relieving to hear about Cixin’s involvement at least a little in the writing department, I was also learning about Cixin, his personality, and most importantly, his political leanings.

This is where things will get sticky and might make some people upset, so you don’t have to read on if you don’t want to hear about the Chinese government’s involvement in a certain area known as East Turkistan. But at the same time, I urge you to read more about it yourself and come to your own conclusions on these matters. I do not condone the actions and policies that Cixin sympathizes with and I still enjoy his books nonetheless. If that makes me look bad to you, then you can think that. It’s your life and opinion.

Cixin’s influences and past

It’s hard to know even where to begin talking about Cixin. I’ll just cover some basics.

Liu was born in Beijing and moved around a lot in his childhood due to his father’s work. He began a love for sci-fi when he secretly discovered and read books like Journey to the Center of the Earth, Moby Dick, and Silent Spring. He developed a personal philosophy of curiosity and wonder about the vastness of the universe and what the future might look like. He saw humanity as an entity onto itself.

Sounds harmless, right? Even charming in some capacity. Unity, curiosity, and a drive to shape a future all seem like incredible ideals for a bright young person and we would usually foster this kind of thinking. But people are complex and are often hypocritical. Cixin is no exception. And remember, he grew up in the 70s and 80s in China under the CCP (China’s Communist Party).

To say that Cixin is loyal to his country and its international interests would be as correct as saying he’s interested in the cutting edge of science. From the beginning of the Three Body Problem, it’s discernable that Cixin thinks poorly of the past Chinese Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong and that scientific progress for its own sake should remain unsuppressed.

One character, Ye, embodies such a festering hate for the supporters and apologists of the Maoist regime that she makes a rash decision that fundamentally changes the course of Earth’s history.

So it comes as no surprise that Cixin himself sympathizes with the party that overthrew the Maoist regime and stands for what the CCP does. There would be a low chance that Cixin would think otherwise since China’s censorship policies make it almost dangerous to not support the CCP.

The Uyghurs in East Turkistan

One of the current atrocities in the world today is being enacted and enforced by the CCP, and that is the internment, suppression, and genocide of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, the northwestern wing of China. To sum up, Uyghurs are forced into labor camps and re-education centers that monitor, enforce communist ideals, and strip them of their identities and religious beliefs. They are racially profiled and punished when perceived to be out of line or even by peacefully practicing Islam. Some comments and propaganda that’s against the Uyghurs by the CCP and its sympathizers paint the Muslim people as violent terrorists who should be kept apart from Chinese society unless they convert.

Cixin has voiced his support for these actions, and most regrettably, has taken active steps in their oppression. You see, Cixin is the current Science Fiction Planet Research Center director under the company SenseTime. SenseTime boasts of being one of the main AI research and technology companies that provides devices and support to the CCP’s surveillance of the Uyghur population. Through their tech, SenseTime learns and grows its artificial intelligence through facial scanners and recognition software to profile and track Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. These cameras are everywhere and see everything, and they’re working to make the tech even better through AI.

SenseTime

Between the years 2017 and 2018 alone, SenseTime obtained more than a billion dollars to fund their programs. They have expanded to Singapore and Japan, and aim to become a dominant global force in AI as a “platform company.”

From this alone, we can see that Cixin puts his money where his mouth is. He said that his main goal with SenseTime and his Sci-Fi Planet Research Center is to create new immersive worlds where users “experience the vastness of the universe and the infinite possibilities of the future. This means in virtual reality gaming and other tech. Cixin is making his childhood dream a reality, expanding on the real practical science that opens up the cosmos, exploring and analyzing for future generations. His books theorized about this in-depth, to much critical and international acclaim, and now, he’s making it real. But at what cost?

Reception of Three Body Problem and Chinese Adaptations

To most in the States, this is enough to have people protest Three Body Problem and return their copies of the book to the booksellers. Others continue to praise the book as an accomplishment that we haven’t seen in science fiction in years. Among the major endorsements of the Three Body Problem are Mark Zuckerberg, George R.R. Martin, and former U.S. president, Barack Obama.

When Cixin released his Remembrance of Earth’s Past series in 2008, it received a great ovation from the Chinese people and government. After translation by Ken Liu and other languages, it gained a wider audience and earned Cixin the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Three Body Problem was a big deal, and the upper crust of the world seemed to know that it would make big waves in the sci-fi genre for generations to come. One of those bigwigs and a long-time fan of the books was “billionaire millennial,” Lin Qi.

Yoozoo and Lin Qi

Back in the 2010s, Qi came out as a Three Body Problem superfan and started buying up the licenses and rights to a film adaptation of the books. He pushed for movies, TV shows, and video games of the story and even worked with a massive Chinese production house, Yoozoo, to create a high-budget screen adaptation. It’s known that Qi was making it one of his life’s goals to see Three Body Problem on the screen, though many of these unsuccessful attempts were widely criticized by Chinese audiences.

When Netflix announced they would be spearheading the project, Qi was overjoyed and immediately wanted in on the project. From the beginning of talks about the project, it would look like the show would be a dual effort between America and China, Netflix and Yoozoo. All the better for Qi, since his main drive was to get his favorite sci-fi series out to more than only China. It’s known that Qi had a very strong entrepreneurial spirit and philosophy in life, so working with one of the biggest streaming giants in Hollywood wouldn’t cause him to lose sleep at night.

At the time, the two production houses were on good terms, the rights secured, and early production and writing had begun. Benioff and Weiss were signed on to run the show, and everything seemed like it was ready to go. Then two things happened:

September 2020, Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer at Netflix received a letter from Washington, DC. It was signed by 5 Republican senators, detailing their protest of 3 Body Problem, and more pointedly, its association with Cixin. They voiced their concern about Netflix working so closely with Chinese IP, production houses, and a Chinese Communist Party supporter while the humanitarian crisis of the Uyghur people was still ongoing. They demanded a statement from Netflix, asking them to confirm or deny their tacit support for China’s alleged violations or to admit their complicacy in their decision. Disney faced almost identical backlash from their live-action Mulan remake, as a majority of filming that movie happened in Xinjiang near the internment camps. Netflix responded shortly with a statement saying that their TV show was only concerned with the books written by Cixin and not the man himself. They don’t support China’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslims and didn’t see it as connected to the project.

After this, in December of 2020, Lin Qi was poisoned. He later died on Christmas Day in the hospital from what looked to be 5 different poisons. Chinese news outlets reported that tetrodotoxin and mercury were found in his system. This wasn’t sudden either, but took ten days for Qi to succumb to the effects. It was also reported by Caixin Global that the vice president of Yoozoo was also poisoned with mercury as well as one other employee.

Yao Xu, the eventual suspect tracked down by Shanghai police, was the 2017 CEO of Yoozoo and Qi’s close colleague. It was also reported that Qi and Xu had a falling out over the competition on getting the deal with Netflix. Xu reportedly built a lab in which to test and make poisons on his own. The suspected and alleged assassination of Lin Qi remains unresolved as it’s unclear if Xu was convicted, but Yoozoo stated that they grieved the loss of Qi but would continue with the project.

Despite all this drama, the U.S. senators appealing to Netflix to reconsider working on the show, and Lin’s death during production, the show went on as planned.

Now here we are in 2024, and the release of the Netflix show is just around the corner.

Final Thoughts – will we let this turn into the next “Game of Thrones?”

As of this article posting, the Netflix show is set to begin streaming this coming Thursday. From what we’ve seen of all this intense controversy, the show could very well flounder on arrival.

Tons of Millennials and Gen Zs are taking to social media to condemn crimes against humanity worldwide and on domestic soil alike. I can expect that the more people learn about Cixin and his real-life work with SenseTime, the alleged assassination of Qi, they won’t want anything to do with the show at all, let alone the real widespread disdain for Benioff and Weiss.

That said, I can also see this show becoming the exact opposite, a welcome and effective distraction from these very issues around the world and the powers inflicting them.

Could that happen? Yes. It could also just be Netflix’s newest attempt at coming out with a worldwide phenomenon like Stranger Things and Squid Game. Who better to get them back on top of the world than the two who helped bring the sensation of Game of Thrones to life.

You have all the right ingredients to make a TV show stand out: controversy, an insane storyline and concept, a carefully-curated cast, and producers with problematic pasts.

Will I be watching this series? In a word, yes. Like a trainwreck I can’t look away from, but will I be watching the entire show? That remains to be seen. All I’ll say is this is the most I will be remarking on this series at this time, and I don’t want to engage in more conversation surrounding this series unless that conversation leads to more growth for the medium or a greater implied change to viewership and writing.

In essence, I hope that entertainment doesn’t shut us off from the wider world and the terrible things happening in it, and not just that it creates community and relatability for fandoms, but that entertainment can keep doing what good art is supposed to: make us reflect on ourselves and our world to inspire us to improve.

Despite all the harm and good that Cixin has done with his writing and work, I think he wants the same. That can be the one greatest takeaway from this whole story – if we can’t see our human experience validated and challenged in our entertainment, then we miss the point.

Thank you for reading!

If you want to hear my silly thoughts and ranting about the actual story of Three Body Problem, check out my podcast with Jess here!

Check out my Twitch streams if you like that kind of thing!

Thanks to Sean R. Arnold for helping me edit this beast!