Review by shawnyu64

I have read both trilogy books and watch Chinese version of the show so suffice to say I'm a fan of the source material. I had high hope because Chinese ver had very limited budgeted (1/20th of Netflix ver). But overall the Netflix adaptation left some mixed feelings in my mouth.

THE GOODS

• Relatively faithful adaptation event-wise. That is to say, everything happens in the book happens in the show.

• Mostly excellent casting lineup and performance.

• Captures overall vibes of the book very well.

THE BADS

• Way too rushed. First episodes covered more than half of first book so nothing is earned. This left many plot holes which you will notice the moment you start ponder what happened.

• Terrible CGI especially in latter episodes. Like, no spoilers but one of finale had worse CGI than Chinese ver which is like again 1/20th of budget. How?

• Dumb down of some key scenes and scientific concepts. This made them less scary and impactful, like the final scene in the first episode. In the book and Chinese ver, there's science (sure, sci-fi science but still) behind everything. In Netflix of the show, a lot of things are in pure fantasy territory.

THE UGLYS

• Relationship between character is forced. In the original book, all major characters in the first book have different backgrounds but came together because of the plot. They don't know each other and of course there was no love relationship between them. In the show, most are from Oxford alumni and they were couples and love interests. Also, everyone just know each other without any explanation. This completely broke character dynamics between some characters. Also, it doesn't have the grand scale feeling the book has because you know, everyone knows and sleeps with each other and are all in London.

• Adding new plot to characters (eg., Evans) without changing their motivations and bring characters from different book (eg., Wade, Luoji/Saul, etc) for no reason. This completely breaks their motivational and as a result, a lot of things felt forced.

• Ye Wenjie's casting and some key plot choice writer forced on her are beyond terrible. She is one of, if not the most, important character in the book so she has complex motivations and character arc, which is required especially toward the reveal in end of 2nd book's finale. In the show, she is very one dimension character and that only dimension is hatred and it makes no sense.

Overall, Netflix's 3 Body adaptation is watchable, but a huge waste of source material's potential because producer/writer had to force their incompatible idea on it. It's remind me of Apple's adaptation of Asimov's Foundation - a decent watchable show, but disappointment for what it could have been.