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I watched both series back to back. The Chinese version was I believe, deeper and more profound. More philosophical. And closer to the books. (Disclaimer I only read the first two). The actors were exceptional imho.

The American version irritated me (an American grandmother) because the changes in gender and race were unnecessary, and gratiuitous. It was also more entertaining than the Chinese version because Americans are good at pure entertainment.

The storyline was easier to follow in the netflix take.

Honestly, im so happy that we have two versions. They complemented my understanding.

Great books! And two solid series.

I just wish netflix hadn’t taken such broad liberties with the original.

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Chinese soft power…

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Yes. And its pretty effective! Certainly more than wolf warriors being aggressive and threatening. To me anyway.

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I liked both versions but preferred the Chinese one for reasons I explain here: https://vpostrel.substack.com/p/3-three-body-problems-and-the-appeal

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author

thanks so much for the comment virginia! I loved your textiles book

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I thought the American version was quite bad. The Chinese version obviously suffered from domestic censorship and the exclusion of the Cultural Revolution deleteriously affected the story, but it was on the whole a better product. The book was obviously better than each.

The American version had poor acting, bad writing, unnecessary deviations from the source material, and awful casting decisions. The choice to center the narrative of the story on the internal social dynamic of a millennial friend group was pure malpractice. It was anti-compelling.

The casting decisions and character development was also just inexplicably bad. There’s a good template for depicting genius on screen, whether fictional or a biopic. Good Will Hunting, Oppenheimer, A Beautiful Mind, Queen’s Gambit, etc. all succeeded at this. Three Body Problem failed miserably. You need to show me the characters are brilliant, not tell me. The characters in Three Body Problem were completely unremarkable. None felt remarkably intelligent. Their lives seemed to consist of drinking, smoking weed, and laying about. Does anyone actually do physics? There was not a single scene in which the level of brilliance and importance which was ascribed to them by the plot was shown to the audience. You were just meant to accept they were. It was severely distracting.

Also, I tend to have little patience for ham-handed, unnatural attempts at diversity in casting. The most brilliant physicists in the world also resemble instagram models? Please. If you wanted to accurately depict Oxford’s physics department on screen, half the cast would have been seriously awkward Indian guys wearing unfashionable clothing. They should have done that, unironically. It would have made for a better show. Instead what they gave us was silly, and—for a show that depicted the Chinese Cultural Revolution—somewhat ironically also reflected the values of America’s miniature homegrown variety.

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I mean. I’m not an Instagram model but I did model and I am also a social scientist. You know what I’d love to see depicted onscreen? An actual woman in my field holding a prime theory position. Maybe if we picture it, it’ll actually come true some distant day from now…

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So I think when an artist chooses to depict the world as they hope it will someday be, rather than the world as it is, they’re by definition doing something political, something ideological. Which is fine. I am not opposed to art with an ideological agenda.

I do however, have two feelings about this: (1) I get bored of seeing the same type of ideology over and over again, especially in an adaptation when it was not present in the source material; and (2) I dislike when that is done lazily, as it was in the three body problem.

And the real offense of this show, in my view, was really number two. It was simply not believable to me that any of these people were remarkable in any way. Whatever the race or gender of the characters, it made no sense that they were the greatest minds on planet earth. The show was just not interested in doing that kind of character development.

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I guess we will have to disagree, as I see nothing ideological about the ability of people of any gender/race/ethnicity to occupy any position — certainly not in a country of immigrants. After all, talent is distributed randomly across the human species. I have always found it bizarre how Hollywood has consistently insisted on depicting otherwise. But that’s not to defend bad acting or poor writing.

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You should also be aware that the notion of, say, a certain race or sex monopolizing talent is inherently a racist/sexist claim. These are the claims that support destructive political ideologies, such as that of a master race. Biologically, these are nonsense claims.

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yes, it is. Talent can come from anywhere. It does not originate in class, race, sex, nationality, etc. It can be cultivated in certain settings but those settings, those environmental factors, do not bestow talent.

An Italian engineer once insisted to me that the country with the most talent was the country that earned the most Nobel Prizes (as though the Nobel is some sort of unbiased recognition of merit. It is not remotely). Of course, that isn't the case. Talent is suppressed by poverty because poverty limits opportunities for its expression. Wealth facilities it, so GDP/education systems matter in terms of the achievements of talent. But talent, like intelligence and other human qualities, is distributed randomly across the human species. You cannot engineer it.

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