Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-03-23 (Saturday)

On 3/26/2024 12:41 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

On 3/25/2024 8:50 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
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3 Body Problem (Netflix) I binged through the rest of the series about a
pending alien invasion of Earth.  SPOILERS!

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I powered through the entire Netflix series. I looked at the original
Chinese series on the Amazon prime, but there’s no English audio and it’s
way too much to read. I did read Ian‘s Wikipedia articles about all three
series (one unreleased), and the plots and history of the three books, the
first of which forms the basis for the various filmed projects.
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Also, it was recommended to me by our old friend Ob Veeus who is enamored
of the “stunning redhead“ who appears in a later episode. Sometimes I think
Ob Veeus and Ian are the same person.  Apologies to you both.
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Spoiler Space
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"Judgment Day"  Episode 5 - In the present day Jonathan Pryce is a
billionaire on Earth who has known about the alien invasion since the
70s and has been working to make to make it happen.  He is in direct
communication with them and reads them stories and answers their
questions.  Then one day during a story he explains to the aliens that
the stories are just made up, not real.  The aliens are confused at
first because they don't have that concept in their culture.  Once Pryce
explains the concept of fiction/deception to the aliens they say, "A
liar is someone who cannot be trusted.  We cannot coexist with liars.
We are afraid of you." Then they cut off communication. They also stop
protecting their human allies.

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Of course, they were already on their way to conquer us, so I’m not really
sure this makes a big difference.
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I think those humans were planning on cashing in on being the first to
welcome their new overlords.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lcUHQYhPTE
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Meanwhile Benedict Wong and his people are actually really good at what
they do, and now aware an alien invasion will arrive at Earth in 400
years, and are making plans to deal with it.  As his boss (Liam
Cunningham) says,  "We've got 400 years to come up
with a plan."

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In an earlier episode, when they first said that the star system was four
light years away (which makes it Alpha Centauri, although oddly, nobody
ever says that.) they also said the trip would be 100 years. Both of these
come from the original pilot for the 1964 LOST IN SPACE series. So does the
idea (in the book, at least) that the erratic orbit of their planet sends
it from blazing heat to freezing cold every couple of weeks and
unpredictably. Which is why they want to get the hell out of Dodge.
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There’s also a part in the book that I don’t know if they said in the show
which explains them abandoning their system more clearly. Although it’s
very definitely stated everywhere that you can’t solve the three body
problem ever and can’t make any long range predictions about what their
world will do they in fact have done so and know that sooner or later their
planet’s going to crash into one of the three suns (it doesn’t say if it
will be Chip or Ernie). Again why they have to get out of Dodge.
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There seems to be a lot of contradictions between what they say, and what
we see, along the lines of what you would expect from a dubbed translation.
For instance, one characters life is saved, because he’s wearing
bulletproof fatigues, although clearly, the bullet went right through the
fatigues (they point out the hole) and hit the body armor he was wearing
underneath it.
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There's a scene where the group trying to stop the alien invasion needs
to take out a tanker ship where Pryce and his followers are living.
They need to do it in a way that doesn't give them warning or time to
destroy any data they might have on board.  And the way they do it is
like nothing I've ever seen before.

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You need to read more Larry Niven. :-) It’s directly from his various known
space works.  In Niven’s RINGWORLD, the opponents use the weapon first,
neatly decapitating one of the protagonists leading to such dialogue as
“you tied a tourniquet around his neck?“ And “wait a minute! He’s got a
spare!“
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Our team then proceeds to take out the other sides entire city! And his
protagonist suffered the same guilt as the inventor here (who also turns
out to be the most beautiful woman in the world) does.  I would also like
to point out that Eiza Gonzalez has turned into a damn fine actress.
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 From my perspective it pretty much
destroyed the ship too, so I'm not sure why gas wouldn't have been
better.

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This is apparently how they did it in the book as well, and it doesn’t make
any sense in either case. Somehow this destructive method leaves the
computers so that they can be saved. I have no idea why.
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They seem to be afraid that the ship had guards who would push
self-destruct buttons on their computers, with their literal last breaths.
But I don’t know why they wouldn’t do that in the case of any kind of
attack.
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That being said, it was a sight to witness as everyone on board
started to brutally die having no idea why or how.

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This is definitely the visual Highpoint of the series.
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However, humanity's
win is brief.  At the end of the episode, the aliens initiate direct
communication with Cunningham's character.  And explain to him that in
400 yeas time humanity will be more advance than the aliens and would
easily be able to defeat them.  Therefore, they then inform him they
have the ability to monitor everything everywhere and they will kneecap
humanity and prevent any future development.  They then proceed to
broadcast a world wide message on every screen that humans are "bugs"
and appear to engulf the planet in a shield.  Roll credits.

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Yikes!
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I know!
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"The Stars Our Destination" Episode 6.  News breaks of an alien invasion
fleet coming to conquer Earth and the general populace doesn't take it
very well.  Although the aliens had a lot of secret human followers, and
now they have humans who are publicly willing to help.  Things weren't
*as* bad as they looked at the end of episode 5.  The aliens ability to
directly impact Earth (outside of messing with communications or making
people see things) is minimal.  Nevertheless, the governments bring
together all the best minds to develop a plan to fight back.  They know
the aliens have the ability to see and hear everything they do so
they'll be no element of surprise.  "Let them listen."  First up how to
achieve 1% light speed so they can send a probe to intercept the alien
fleet.  And beginning development of a base on the moon as well as a
fleet of human ships.  Some of the scientists insist the technologies
needed are impossible to and given they have 400 years why not wait a
few decades to develop them.  But Liam Cunningham's character has no
intention of dying without making a contribution to the now planet wide
war effort.

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Although later events make his stance puzzling at best.
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"Only Advance" - Episode 7 and "Wallfacer" Episode 8 (the season
finale).  I binged and the final two episodes blurred together.
Humanity begins to make preparations for a generational war against the
aliens.  There are 3 main plans put into place.  One is construction of
the moon base and space fleet.  The second plan is to send a human brain
in cryogenic freeze to make personal contact with the
aliens .

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Niven did this. Twice.
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The hope
is the aliens will pick up the ship carrying the brain and reconstruct
the body.  And also not torture the person for eternity or > worse .

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Which is what Rosalind Chow has coming to her. Her character is even more
evil in the book!  Eternal tortures of the damned for her!
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This
may not be the best plan, but options are limited.  And the third plan
gives three individuals the power to develop any method to fight the
aliens they wish but never divulge any details.

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Hey, it’s Mrs. Fredericks!

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Google says this is a reference to "Diary of a Wimpy Kid."  It took me a
moment before I figured it it's not.  :-)
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I really wanted our Wallfacer to ask her who the

hell did the picking.
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He did!  Repeatedly.  Read between the lines.  The aliens want him dead.
  No one knows *why* the aliens want him dead, but if the aliens want
him dead then he must be a threat.
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These people will be
known as "wallfacers."  Since the aliens can monitor anything everywhere
on the planet (although there are some practical limitations to this)
The wallfacer's plans will be kept strictly in their minds, but their
orders to execute their plans must be obeyed.  I *really* liked that
concept.

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I find it an interesting concept, although it’s not completely clear to me
why the hell you announce it much less announce their identities.  I mean,
I suppose, governmental agencies need to know about these guys, so they can
obey them but your average guy on the street doesn’t need to know. It’s not
like they’re gonna walk up and demand your snowcone to save the universe.
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I can pretty easily fankwank this.
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First, the aliens already know.  It was never going to be a secret to
them.
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Second, you tell the public so the public knows not only has the world
come together to do something, but they are doing something that takes
into account the aliens are always watching.
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Third, one guy publicly declined.  Mrs. Frederic explained this works to
humanity's advantage since it was a very public decline with the whole
world now hopefully believing it, perhaps the aliens will believe it too
and not monitor him so closely.  Having it all play out publicly on a
global scale helps with the deceit.  And it's probably the sort of thing
they thought about as they put the Wallflower plan together but other
than a few knowing glances or nods, never said out loud either.  Again,
they can't hide the fact he's a wallflower from the aliens, but they
don't need him to *do* anything just think.  And maybe now he can think
in peace without all the humans on the alien's side trying to kill him,
while the aliens mostly ignore him.  He can spend the next 30 years
thinking up some ingenious way to defeat them while publicly living a
normal life.
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Fourth, whose to day there aren't others...Wade for example seems to
still be the one pulling strings behind the scenes.
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I wouldn’t say how many of these guys there were either. Nor do I think I’d
limit it to only three. I’d have a mess of them and they’d have a card like
the Avengers priority card that says you do whatever they tell you to
whenever they tell you to.
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Unfortunately the series ends without a resolution.  It's not
a cliffhanger, but the story ends in present day and the aliens are
still 400 years away.  I *really* hope for a season 2.

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It’s a trilogy of books. This covered book one. The first filming of it was
never released because it was apparently so horrid. The second is available
on prime, but not in English. This is the third version. All of them only
cover the first book in the trilogy.
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I've watched a couple of break down videos and what I've heard from
someone who I'm pretty sure did read the books is this actually covers
all of the first book, about half of the second and includes a few
tidbits are setup from the third.  Although I haven't read the books
myself.  So I can't speak to how accurate that information is.  When I
heard that my guess was the space base on the moon was from the third
book.  The person was doing a comparison of the books, the Chinese
series and the Netflix series.  They were saying the Netflix series is
better than the Chinese series because the Chinese series is way too
bloated and censored the bits about Ye Wenjie's father being executed
for being a counter revolutionary.  That's the whole motivation for her
character selling out the human race.  In one of the videos they said
the Chinese series stuck in this famous Chinese comic as a character who
wasn't in the books but was just there because he's famous.  They
acknowledge the Netflix version changes things from the book, but the
Netflix changes make a lot more sense.
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I forget which video said what, but here's a link to the main break down
video I watched (18 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zsNCbFD5_Y
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This one I have *not* watched, and probably never will, but he has a 4
and half hour break down of the entire book series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrCxmDl2o84

 Here’s a good article about the series and the differences from the book
 https://mashable.com/article/3-body-problem-book-vs-show
 

Thanks.  I've been doing lots of spoiler free deep dives into the show. It's really surprising how much of the season is based on the later books, but since the books are all nonlinear it's easy for them to stick in characters and ideas introduced in later books.
I also have some greater insight into a couple of things that were a little unclear at first.
Mild spoilers
The attack on the boat is a little more clear now.  In the show Jonathan Pryce reads the little red riding hood story and the San-Ti learn about deception.  That was probably one thing that didn't feel right to me. In the books it plays out a little different.  He's communicating with them and they casually reference something they assumed humanity already knew (I don't know what it is they reveal but I think I have a pretty good guess).  Once they realize humanity is unaware of this fact, they decide it's best to keep it secret and that's why they allow the attack on the boat to happen, to cut lose ends.  The reason for the string attack during the day was so everyone would be awake and standing for maximum effect and even if the string slice a hard drive it would be much easier to repair than a bomb exploding it.
It's also a little bit more clear why Saul was made a Wallfacer.  In the series we see Rosalind Chao's character meeting with him and telling him something along with giving him two books.  After that she's killed and seems to know exactly why the San-Ti offed her.  Clearly whatever it is she told Saul can significantly help in defeating them even if he doesn't know it yet.
Given all the online chatter I'm assuming the show must be a massive hit.  I'm looking forward to seeing the "Wallbreakers" go toe to toe with the wallfacers next season.