Full trailer for 3 Body Problem captures epic scope of Liu Cixin’s novel

Netflix debuted the official full trailer for 3 Body Problem at CES in Las Vegas today, an eight-episode sci-fi series adapted from the award-winning novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, the first book in his Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. The series was created by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss (Game of Thrones), and Alexander Woo (True Blood). CES attendees also had the opportunity to participate in a 3 Body Problem "immersive experience," intended to transport them "into the mysterious world of the series in a fun and experimental way." (Some spoilers for the novel below.) The novel began as serialized fiction in Science Fiction World in 2006 and received the Galaxy (Yinhe) Award for Chinese science fiction that same year. Liu published it as a standalone book in 2008. But it was Ken Liu's 2014 English translation for Tor Books—complete with informative footnotes to acquaint Western readers with the many references to Chinese history, particularly the Cultural Revolution—that rocketed The Three-Body Problem to international acclaim. Liu is also the author of two follow-up novels to complete the trilogy (The Dark Forest and Death's End), as well as The Wandering Earth—adapted into film in 2019—and Ball Lightning. The Three-Body Problem's narrative is told in a nonlinear fashion, jumping between a young astrophysicist, Ye Wenjie, who witnesses her father being beaten to death by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and Ye's return to Tsinghua University as an established professor many years later. During the earlier timeline, Ye figures out a means of sending an interstellar message to possible extraterrestrial civilizations and receives a response from a planet called Trisolaris. (As its name implies, the planet has three suns, which wreak havoc on Trilosolaris via unpredictable "chaotic periods"—hence the novel's title, which refers to a classic problem in celestial mechanics.) Despite being warned that the aliens intend to invade and conquer Earth, Ye responds to the message and invites them to do so, disillusioned by the state of the world. The Trisolarians depart on their 450-year journey. Meanwhile, there have been complicated developments on Earth as people learn of the pending arrival of aliens. There is a secret society of scientists, political leaders, and other scholars who share Ye's sentiment about the state of humanity, which, over time, splits into three competing factions. Some members continue to support the full destruction of humanity; others plan to help the aliens in exchange for the survival of themselves and their descendants; and still, others regularly play a VR game called Three-Body and attempt to find a computational solution to the actual three-body problem that plagues Trisolaris. That's a recipe for tension and conflict, which play out in various ways throughout the novel. The Netflix series is the first large-scale project by Benioff and Weiss since they signed a major deal with the streaming platform in 2019. Those still bitter about how the pair botched the final season of Game of Thrones might understandably feel some concern about their involvement. I'm more optimistic. With the earlier seasons of GoT in particular, Benioff and Weiss were masterful at adapting the sweeping, epic saga; they only ran into trouble when they caught up with the source material and had to flesh out rough story outlines on their own. That won't be an issue with the Liu trilogy. Plus, they have Alexander Woo as a co-creator. What's less clear is how the trio handled the complicated nonlinear narrative structure of the novel and what changes they made to translate Liu's novel to television. Woo hints that there will be some significant departures, and the casting suggests a more international cast rather than an exclusively Chinese one. "What we are hoping to do is to convey the experience—if not necessarily the exact details—of the novel onto the screen," Woo told Tudum.com. "What stayed, we hope, is the sense of wonderment and the sense of scope, of scale, where the problems are no longer just the problems of an individual or even a nation, but of an entire species." I'm also curious about how well they will handle the exotic science-fiction aspects, most notably the aliens' 11-dimensional supercomputers ("sophons"). Per the official premise:

A young woman’s fateful decision in 1960s China reverberates across space and time into the present day. When the laws of nature inexplicably unravel before their eyes, a close-knit group of brilliant scientists join forces with an unorthodox detective to confront the greatest threat in humanity’s history.

Zine Tseng stars as the young Ye Wenjie, with Rosalind Chao playing the older version. The cast also includes Benedict Wong as Da Shi, an intelligence officer who is investigating the mysterious deaths of scientists; Liam Cunningham as Thomas Wade, the charismatic leader of a global intelligence operation; Saamer Usmani as Raj Varma, a naval officer and Jin's boyfriend; and Jonathan Pryce as a wealthy eccentric named Mike Evans who helps set up a secret society. Ben Schnetzer plays the younger version of Mike Evans, while Marlo Kelly plays Tatiana, who was raised in Evans' organization. The "Oxford Five" are John Bradley as Jack Rooney; Alex Sharp as Will Downing, a sixth-form physics teacher; Jess Hong as Jin Cheng, a brilliant theoretical physicist whose curiosity is both a strength and a weakness; Jovan Adepo as Saul Durand, another physicist; and Eiza Gonzalez as Auggie Salazar, a pioneer in nanotechnology (comparable to the character of Wang Miao in the novel). Sea Shimooka plays Sophon, an avatar in the show's mysterious VR game. The first teaser was released last June, followed in November by an exclusive clip showing Jack Rooney trying on a mysterious VR headset—only to learn from the avatar Sophon that he wasn't "invited." This latest trailer opens with a voiceover commenting on the 30 dead scientists that have accumulated in just one month, as Wong's Da Chi explores mysterious markings on a wall representing "another countdown" and the words "I still see." We then see Auggie Salazar seeing numbers representing a countdown in front of her eyes while on a plane. It's suggested that the dead scientists had also seen those numbers. Conclusion: "Someone or something is targeting scientists. Whatever it is, it's watching and listening." The trailer doesn't give much else away, but the production values are impressive, particularly the scenes in the VR game. 3 Body Problem drops on Netflix on March 21, 2024.