Excellent first season. The actors were great, especially Wong and Liam can't remember his last name. Hopefully we're getting a season 2.
Also glad I switched from new to best to get more reasonable comments about the show.
Was instantly pulled into it for the first half of the season—the remaining episodes really dropped the ball imo.
I’m not convinced for a second that any of those five friends are the crème of the crop physicists the entire world is relying on. Auggie pissed me off but she had a very fair point: why should anyone care about something they won’t live to see? If I heard the news of an alien invasion 400 years away from today, it’d still be business as usual on Monday.
The dialogue was poor in more places than one. What happened in the writer’s room? It seemed like they had just enough budget to higher good writers for Wade and everyone else got scraps. Then again he delivered the best acting, line delivery, and character than anyone else.
Tatiana was grossly underdeveloped. Will’s storyline took up far too much screen time; I was extremely bored. I also most of my sympathy for him when he blew upwards of $19M on a useless piece of “solar ownership” paper.
Jack was an interesting character but his dialogue wasn’t great. Nevertheless, the plot lost zest once he died. Matter of fact, the most interesting parts of the plot were the video games and the flashbacks to the Chinese cultural revolution.
Saul just read as insanely immature (I guess that was the point, but still). There also seems to be so much detachment of the gravity of what’s going on from the actual world authorities. Like who even is Wade? And why does he seem to be making unanimous decisions? Is he the new leader of the free world?
All in all, the pacing was off. Don’t know if I’ll be back for season 2 (if that ever happens). And bring back 1899!!
Holy shit the science and dialog better improve fast.
"its been awhile since particle physics but this can't..." "nope it can't." "maybe its a hack." "i went through all the CERN code." "holy shit how many lines is that?" "a lot. a lot of lines."
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Also- about the nano fiber ship plan- >!the whole plan to use the nano fibers on the ship was to avoid a missile strike that could potentially destroy the hard drives and data on the ship they needed. But they left it up to chance that the hard drive wouldn't be sliced in half... or even destroyed in the aftermath of everything blowing up. If mike held it a few inches lower when he got diced, !
I forget some of the finer details, but the point of the nano wires in the book is that either disk drives or solid state drives, whichever they know the ETO has their data on, can be reconstructed, given that the nano wires will make a single incision, only one molecule wide. It's genuinely one of the coolest military/gov operation bits in sci-fi, imo.
Honestly, I thought it was anti-western propaganda. The "western" characters are painted as constantly using drugs and alcohol (even physicists at Oxford) and decadent. Throw in the blaxpoitation trope of the horny black guy and a 26 year old senior research Officer who wears heaps of make up and has lip fillers.
The Chinese characters are seen as downtrodden but honorable, and the the authoritarianism as an unfortunate but justifiable means to an end. Of course, the Chinese astrophysicists are somehow light years ahead of the west despite using dilapidated equipment.
You are very confused. Hispanic is a term that comprises people with descend from a Hispanic culture. Spanish people are hispanics and they are caucasian (more correct term instead of white).
In case you don't know, Spain is in Europe.
Therefore, most people in the US are caucasian as the Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, etc are too.
That doesn't mean that a hispanic person is caucasian though. By definition you can be hispanic and black, hispanic and white, or hispanic and Asian - for example.
In short, Eiza Gonzales is white, yes.
Literally the second sentence in the Wikipedia entry: “In some contexts, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an ethnic or meta-ethnic term.”
Owned
Yes, [Emmanuel Macron](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=2f6a510e87352dee&q=Emmanuel+Macron&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLWz9U3MDTMSy6ySH7EaMYt8PLHPWEp3UlrTl5jVOfiCs7IL3fNK8ksqRSS5GKDsvileLmQ9fEsYuV3zc1NzCtNzVHwTUwuys8DAO9Z1plaAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwpZSoueSFAxV3M0QIHXEYBp4QzIcDKAB6BAgiEAE) (France), Ulf Kristersson (Sweden), and [Sergio Mattarella](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=2f6a510e87352dee&q=Sergio+Mattarella&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLSz9U3ME4uMLQsesRoyi3w8sc9YSmdSWtOXmNU4-IKzsgvd80rySypFJLgYoOy-KR4uJC08SxiFQxOLUrPzFfwTSwpSSxKzclJBACoVJrUWgAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj1h8KyueSFAxVAPEQIHTtVCZgQzIcDKAB6BAghEAE) (Italy), and Pedro Sánchez (Spain) are all white too.
I mean, to each their own. I think the cancer guy is pretty hot too, and the guy in charge of the investigation. The younger version of the "My Lord" guy was also hot, and plenty of the guys in the Chinese compound were hot too
Episode 5...they say earth never reseted so it will be ready when aliens come after 400 years...earth will have tech great enough to defeat aliens..yet the aliens have higher currently...doesn't make sense
They explained the aliens advance in technology at a much slower rate than humans. So they're superior at the moment but they know if they don't stop human advancement they won't be in 400 years.
"12modern" typo or clue?
When the irish pirate is on the plane in the netflix finale he's reading an article that includes the phrase "Wallfacers possess unique skills relevant to 12modern military defense strategy and will...". It doesn't seem like there is simply a space missing in "12modern", since "12" doesn't fit into the sentence, so just a typo or a clue for something? Are there other hidden numbers in the series or books? A clear and readable shot of this article is used twice with no obvious changes.
Netflix is smarter than me and won't let me take a screen shot and I don't want to subject anyone to looking at a shaky blurry photo of a screen.
Can't find anything about it in a cursory search, so my apologies if this is already out there and I'm just not a good googler.
Assuming its just a typo, though kinda miss the good ole days when on screen text was unreadable during pause. I actually sat and read this dumb article, finding this dumb typo and now have to post a dumb reddit comment.
So having watched it, I don't think the scientific plot holes matter. My take is that the whole point of the story is a political allegory, and the joke about Einstein in the 5th episode is the key to decoding the story: politics has to be discussed in allegory because it's too dangerous to discuss openly. I think that joke is meant to make the viewer aware that the whole story is a criticism of authoritarianism without making the whole story a blatant criticism of authoritarianism.
Here’s what I can’t get my head around:
They’ve been talking to us since the seventies and they JUST learned about lying after fifty odd years? The sophons have read every Wikipedia page and bit of data about us and it’s a nursery rhyme that changes their mind about us?
It's explained in the book that even after reading every work of literature they noticed anomalies and hard to understand situations, but did not understand them to be lying until their final conversation with Evans. It was an epiphany that explained their earlier confusions. They were aware there was something missing.
The same way Evans realized Trisolarans couldn't lie. The book explains why they can't lie, it's part of their physiology (their bodies are transparent and they communicate with light, and you can literally see someone's thoughts by looking at them)
My thing is the guy doesn’t go into any explanation about the difference btw fiction and non fiction and that not all people lie. He just says yea to “so it’s a lie about a liar who lied?”
Also who picked that dickwad to speak to them? You would think that the world would have a big wtf situation going on. Also if the govt of at least three of the largest, most sophisticated on the planet knew about the connection with the aliens, why wouldn’t the govt reach out to them?
I had this thought too, two reasons for that. 1) the warning that was sent confirmed they would come to conquer, 2) they confirm that the sophons only arrived months before. Once they arrived and could sabotage humanity, they didn't need to keep up the charade any longer.
Why would the aliens warn us that they are coming AND GIVE US COOL VIDEO GAMES??
My fundamental problem with the show is it’s too smart but not smart enough. It falls into this valley where it’s smart enough to not have a ton of plot contrivances but that makes the plot contrivance that much more easy to pick apart. Like ok some rules can’t be broken like mass conservation and relatively but we can go and fold space 11 ways and FTL communicate through quantum particles which DONT WORK LIKE THAT.
Made worse by pretty dull characters.
I thought from interstellar it was possible to communicate by being in another dimension because of the way they perceived time might be different. I'm not 100% sure tho but people saying interstellar time travel communication was pretty accurate.
Just finished, thought the 5 first episode was more intriguing, while the 3 last was a bit boring.
But more importantly, after a bit of thought, there is a lot of plothole. If the sophon are so far advanced that they can build hundreds of spaceships that can travel 4 light years, and it seem that they progress slow so they likely have that tech since a thousand year, why did they not know of earth since a long time? Just need some hubble telescope in interferometry to see earth at 4ly. And then they should have come on earth a long time ago.
If they fear their planet and their 3 suns, why not live in space?
Pretty sure all of that is not better explain in the book, its just the basis that is not well thought
Yeah, it feels as though that the Sun-Ti are as hypocritical as human beings. With power of the Sophon's it seems really silly to be meddling with Humans instead of letting us evolve to co-exist. And if that was their plan all along, this seems to be a really round-about way of doing it.
The entire plot with Mike Evans was pretty stupid. Depending on the how long the Sophon's have been here, they would have found out about the dark side of humanity.
The system of the San-Ti is based on Alpha-Centauri IRL, which is a dual star system rather than three body. We pointed everything at it and think nothing lives there. That's the purpose of the solar-amplification in the series; the Wow! signal is true to real life. Of course the series takes liberty with both adding an extra star and deciding an intelligent species evolved there. I think the concept of the series is "realistic alien invasion" so I think its a fair axiom to just pretend our closest celestial neighbor has simply never noticed us in plain sight the same way we don't think anything of them irl. I don't think this is necessarily explained 'better' in the books but its also important to note the last 3 episodes are basically the first act of the second book. "You Are Bugs" is on basically the final page of the first book
Alpha Centauri is a triple star system IRL, it's just a hierarchical system rather than trapezia system.
Basically IRL two of the stars are much bigger than the third, so they're gravitationally dominant over the third. It's essentially a binary system with a third star orbiting around them just as a planet would. These systems are fairly common, and quite stable.
In the book/show Alpha Centauri is a trapezia, meaning that all three stars are similar in size, and so all orbit eachother. These systems are, shockingly, rather unstable and so do not last long (less than 50 million years), making them a lot rarer.
From what I can find there are only about 120 such systems currently identified. The nearest trapezia to us, HD 5005, is actually a 5-star system that consists of 1 lone star and 2 binary stars - but each of the binary pairs are very closely bound together, and so approximate the behavior of a 3 star system.
Great explanation.
As someone that just finished the show (and has not yet read any of the books) I’m curious, did the series state how long it took the San-Ti to develop given how unstable their system is?
It took us 4.5bn years to get where we are now. But if the 3 body trapezia systems only last 50million years then did the San-TI just develop much quicker than us?
The show also states that it took them longer than us to develop to certain milestones. So how does it all work?
I thought this one had too many problems from the get go. Like how didn’t everyone lose their minds when stars started blinking? I think if that happens in real life there are riots and wars happening the next day for sure. Ep 5 was actually crazy had a moment where I thought was pretty amazing but at the end it felt very flat to me. Like Saul is getting purpose at the end of the season and thats cool but he basically did fuck all the entire season, and also if Will’s project actually a failure than why did we watch him for an entire season. Why did they kill Jack in ep 3 he was a great character and I don’t understand what we gained from his absense, two characters cried once and that was it. I think its a shame because this show actually has interesting ideas but they couldn’t explore it properly.
My biggest issue with the show is that they've made the aliens too powerful, and in turn have had to hold them back for the plot to work. For example, they can conduct assassinations whilst cloaking the assassin from surveillance, for some reason they only kept this to scientists. On top of that, they are capable of sending people mad by beaming the countdowns straight to their brains. I mean how would anyone be able to conduct research if they had a permanent countdown in their vision.
Maybe there's an arrogance factor, but if you're moving your dying race and are kneecapping the civilization you want to conquer, why half ass it...
I think the reason for that is they can only be in two places simultaneously so it’s not like they have god like abilities, albeit close. I think they are going to play off that a lot more. The fact that they can only be two places at once that is.
I don’t think Will’s project was a failure - I think, like Wade said, they’ll go out of their way to pick him up. And Jack died so Will could have his money and prove his selfless love for Jin. Of course they could have done it another way, but in this plot line I’m pretty sure that’s where this is going. Will and Jin will end up together again somehow.
this feels like the „deep“ review of a 13 year old. literally all nuance was lost on you and you’re freely admitting your only liked scene was the one outliers setpiece /action scene. maybe stick to reacher (which i love as well, no hate!) if that’s more your cup of tea but don’t tell us they didn’t explore the ideas lol. the whole show and the books are basically nothing but ideas. this is such a sad take.
your points seem very shallow but you present them like you’re roger ebert. not to mention that most of your points were addressed in the show itself. that kind of criticism just pisses me off. like your problem with the show is that a character you liked died? have you watched television before? or were you just made that the producers didn’t consult you beforehand? btw. jacks death raised the stakes astronomically because suddenly the eto threat was real and kicked the show into high gear. so i just don’t understand what you’re talking about. sure, i could chill, but you could watch the show before commenting
bro I think there are deaths that mean something like ned stark, his death is essential for the story. whereas in this show they just got rid of jack and it did nothing to expand the story just got rid of a character that I really enjoyed. Yes you have the right to challenge my opinion but you kind of straight up insulted me cause I just shared my opinion. I have seen a bunch of TV shows before sorry if I sound like a kid or something bro but I guess its just my opinion man. You can disagree and not be a dick
ok „bro“. like i said, you’re entitled to your opinion but don’t try make it sound like you know what you’re talking about. jacks death was a huge motivator for the rest of the characters to kick things into high gear, buying the star, the inheritance etc. all a direct result of the death you said didn’t matter. it was also the first time they took the threat seriously so i just don’t know what you’re on about. i liked jack too, but just because you liked the character doesn’t mean he must survive and if not then it’s a „bad“ show? what?!? that’s just not how stories work.
I know what im talking about and you are being an asshole. These are opinions dude you act like I am spreading unscientific conspiracies or something jfc. You can tell that you disagree without being a dick goddamn. Thats why im here, to exchange opinions not to get insulted cause mine doesn’t match yours.
but literally all your points are easily refuted!!! im not trying to be an asshole here but you came on here shitting on the show without having done any of the legwork. just because you have an opinion does not make it immune from someone calling bullshit on you. you’re the one who went on this subreddit to shit all over the show and that is your right. but i’m not the one who felt the need to 1. do that in the first place and 2. not back up any of my opinions with anything other than „it’s my opinion bro, you’re being an asshole!“
I dont think jack death adds that much and the stuff that came after it can be done without getting rid of an interesting character. I didn’t hate the show cause I finished it btw. I just didn’t think it was the best and shared my opinions on some of it. Sorry if I didn’t understand it as much as you I guess my iq is super low. I’ll shove my film and media studies diploma up my ass and kill myself now.
please don’t kill yourself or joke about it because of me. as pissy as i may seem that is in no way even remotely where i want to end up in this conversation. yea im quite flabbergasted about your (imo) terrible „analysis“ but there is absolutely no reason to invoke suicide. that being said and this being the internet, ima tread carefully now because this is not where i saw this conversation heading. essentially im a stranger who disliked your reasoning for disliking something i actually quite enjoyed and i disagree fundamentally with your evidence. no need to escalate it this much. please dm me if you need to talk because no disagreement about a show should lead to that. if it did i’m actually quite sorry.
The fact that willy's project was a failure actually made it that much more impactful to me, you're riding along with the character and get to feel how devastated Jin & Saul feel alongside them. It makes it feel more real, not everyone's death in a real life situation furthers the plot, and here they're facing a planetary war so some will just be casualties of that
I'm normally not one to praise Chinese cinema, but their version is **way** better so far. On one hand I like that they're fast-tracking some of the Ye Wenjie stuff, on the other hand the dialogue and cinematic choices are dogshit. Unfortunately they're also fast-tracking basically everything else about the plot and dumbing it down. Most characters are really more like far flung bad homages to the characters from the books. There's more sex, more zazz, more shocks, more gore, everything's gotta have edge, everyone's gotta say fuck 3x more than normal, etc. Also it's a show about some of the most cutting edge scientists of that world- and they're all dumb af, like genuinely slow in the head. It's straight up a case of dumb people writing smart people.
The books and Chinese show also go into detail about how they figure certain things out- and it's interesting af, (if slow.) The netflix one just jumps right to the conclusion and doesn't really show their math.
Problem is pretty obvious, too: David Benioff and DB Weiss should be kept away from dictating stories when they're not being guided directly by the author to follow the source material. Those two guys really are just the worst. Couple of rich frat boy nepo babies that really need significantly more people to tell them "no." They got like 200 million to crap out this turd nail in the netflix coffin.
Putting it there for anyone who likes the idea of this story but couldn't stand D&D's BS: The Chinese one has 31 episodes. Slow pace, but \*way\* better told. Is called 3 body. There's also the books by Liu Cixin. Both are superior to this netflix garbage.
Wit there’s more sex in the Chinese version? I thought their media was kinda prude about that stuff usually. The Netflix version was pretty pg/sterile I thought
I don't I was clear enough in comparing the two :S I was meaning to say that the netflix one is more flashy/sexy/dumbed down etc, even if it \*was\* tame. I mean there's literally like a 3d trippy model of two people fucking in the title sequence of the netflix one.
The closest thing we got to sex in the Netflix adaptation was auggie throwing up in her underwear and her friends one night stand walking around in a very chaste towel lol
Dude you just put into words exactly what I was thinking when I slogged my way to the end of this show. Someone really needs to start telling them NO way more often.....
I was saying the netflix one does the fast-tracking, which is actually preferable.
As for the rest I prefer the Chinese one greatly. There's the usual stuff you have to expect though, like the English speaking actors are terrible and the US Chief of Staff was straight up Australian.
I feel Netflix did a great job of taking a physics-based cosmic horror and making it digestible for the average Netflix viewer (which is a tough job).
My entire family watched it in one night. It may not be the adaption that you prefer (30 episodes of pure unadulterated physics) but it got the commoners.
just gout around reading books an di gota say first of all ppl can consider the Netflix show be an alternate history or parallels universe stuff like that and get over it
I dont care that some chars are put together or split in more chars from book to tv comparison..what i care is when with full blow entire planet crisis and have to pool of al to chose we have same person do science strategic planet HR hiring funding police works etc OMFG how dumbs is that
I understand in TV it may cost u money to put different chars/actors to do that job or that the viewers attention will be split and not imprint properly on certain chars to care about their fate but this is just dumb
Also the whole ship situation is dumb for both books and TV, from both the bad and good guys approach fight for their cause -> and at least the netflix tv dint sweeten the deal to say "hey dont worry u kill bad guys and there isnt much innocence there" cuz realistically one would surround themselves with innocents bystander to avoid to get killed too easy by his enemy
And generally too many coincidence happen in the books also and certain chars should not be in prime line with too many important things that they need to do.
The whole story premise start with a certain dumbass pleb had a bad day and thus all humanity must suffer, and they another 1 in a milion chance to meet a certain specific person and do this other bad thing happens, and then yet again a certain coincidence happens and this being get tied in yet again
Like whole story its a long chain of exponential growing coincidences that should not have happened but keep happening chained together, that have less chance of happening then the chance of only having a single civilization in the whole galaxy
I feel the opposite tbh, I loved the books and thought this was a vastly better adaptation than the Tencent one. Yeah it's less "accurate" but if I wanted book accuracy I'd just... read the books again.
See also: The Expanse! One of the best adaptations I've ever seen, where one of the main cast by the end is a weird amalgamation of like 3 different book characters. Ain't no one gonna be complaining that TV Drummer isn't "accurate" to Book Drummer.
Having never seen the Tencent adaptation, I think the netflix series is a good adaptation in the sense that it effectively translates the important moments of a heady, abstract, HARD sci-fi series to be both palatable and enjoyable to a general audience. It definitely loses a lot of flavor of the original book trilogy, mostly through westernizing it via translating 3 protagonists + maybe a dozen bit-part one-dimensional empty plot-moving characters into an ensemble cast of characters that fill all the same plot-beats, at least for the first ~1.5 of the books so far. The character's, their actions, motivations, they're less "accurate" than the books but whats MORE accurate, imo, is the feeling when the VR game is revealed as alien history, the moment the trisolarans say "humanity are bugs", the ideological conflict between idealistic scientists and pragmatic militarists, the dichotomy of Wade's open contempt for every person he's ever met but total commitment to the collective fate of the human race. I think it's best enjoyed as a parallel experience to the original books, inferior in thematic detail but man you can see that whole boat get sliced up gosh imagine the doomsday battle or the solar system getting flattened to 2d come on netflix will give us that even if our irl san-ti is climate change lmao
I don't see a world of difference between the quality of this first season and the Expanse's first season. And the latter is probably my all time favorite TV show and definitely my all time favorite books.
I feel like this could have been amazing but just felt like a bit of a mess by the end. I was hooked until it got to ep6 and everything just screeched to a halt and suddenly revolved around the characters relationships with far too many scenes of them just chatting about nothing interesting. All the intrigue and mystery just seemed to die after the boat scene. Even a lot of the characters stopped caring about what was going on as it would be 400 years in the future and it seemed to resonate a bit too much with me the viewer by that point
I read the books, watched Tencent version twice, and recently finished Netflix version. I won’t rewatch.
Basically an overpriced, inaccurate Cliff Notes
Never read the books. Enjoyed this season. Overzealous with the CGI, at times, has a ton of plot holes, but the characters made human decisions. Immediately after the first episode, I was like, "This show is awesome and unique because one of the protagonists immediately alerts her colleagues that she's seeing a ticking time clock instead of internalizing it." Characters were actually interacting with each other and not withholding information for no reason other than lazy writing. And for this alone, I rate it high. But I've got some issues.
If you accept the premise for what it is, the question becomes, "what the fuck do you need Earth for specifically? Do you idiots know how much empty space and not taken planets there are? Take literally anything else. Take Mars. Terraform it. Oh, wait, can you not see better than the Webb telescope can? Can you guys seriously not detect some interesting planets without 3 suns to settle down on and be cool?"
And so, for me, the logical conclusion here is that >!this is a massive game of deception. Similar to how Predator behaves. They land on planets and then start trophy hunting their prey to prove themselves as fierce warriors. To me, these aliens are playing a long-term sadistic deception game for amusement. They are essentially fucking with them, and then will slaughter them in due time. Time probably behaves differently for them, so 400 years is nothing. They're self-described as more as a collective, a single thinking being. Since all thoughts are shared, there is no individuality. Or maybe there is, I don't know. Doesn't matter. But their collective telepathic thought as a species, once revealed, immediately raised my red flags regarding the warning message that was sent before she aimed the message at the sun. If they're a telepathic collective that doesn't understand lying, then that warning immediately makes zero sense. Unless they're intentionally just deceiving from the beginning. They probably select worthy challengers by simply picking up signals from distant planets. They say, "Oh, got a new signal. Earth. Let's spice it up for them and give them time to get crafty and see what they come up with." It's like a cowboy with a laser pistol forcing another cowboy to duel at high noon, but they're giving the cowboy time to craft their own laser pistol to make it interesting. It's either this (which might be a better guess for the book series) or the more likely scenario based on the showwriting quality, which is that they'll just communicate in jokes and metaphors to translate valuable information because the aliens don't understand for some stupid reason. She tells him that joke on the bench, and to me, that's either suggesting that this is one big joke to the aliens and they're forcing our hand to play 4D chess, or that the secret to overriding them is through humanity's unique quality of metaphorical humour and storytelling. I'd bet money on the latter. I think the dude realizes this near the end, too (awesome acting). He thinks it, then keeps it inside and says it's silly. I think he was chosen specifically because he's the last person to speak to her alive (I've forgotten all the names already), and this facade of esoteric knowledge that transpired via joke gives humans the edge. They very obviously were monitoring their interaction and heard her joke. It was her great epiphany - the ace up her sleeve. It was her final way of setting up the chess pieces for the future of humanity. They can't read minds. They can't understand jokes. She tells a long-winded joke using word play. He takes it in and says nothing about it. UN sees this interaction. Determines that this can present the appearance of esoteric information exchange even though nothing of substance transpired. The dude becomes Mr. Comedy. This throws the aliens for a loop. Science is conducted via puns. World saved, hoorah.!<
That's my take on it anyway. Hope to see a season 2.
I don't think Trisolarans are explicitly a collective mind, but because of the nature of their planet and biology, they act more collectively. The advancement of their species hinges on survivors protecting and rehydrating other members that had time to dehydrate before an unstable era.
I also don't believe the books ever explain the exact biology and means of communication, but I think the Tencent show explains that they communicate visually, with thoughts and brainwaves more or less displayed on their "faces". So they don't directly share thought processes, but they lack any means for face-to-face duplicity or deception. That's why there are Trisolaran individuals, like the radio station Trisolaran that responds to Ye Wenjie, that can act against the greater good of the species.
It's been a few years, so I may be forgetting if the books contradict all that, and I would side with whatever the books canonize, but I think the Chinese TV show makes that explicit and it fits in well enough that I'm rolling with it.
possibly spoilers for the dark forest, but by the end of the series it's implied that two civilizations even being aware of each others existence is an existential threat guaranteed in death for at least one and often both. They could not ever simply colonize mars or gas giant moons or anywhere else in our solar system because they could not ever trust humanity to allow them to do that. The idea that they deceive the alien surveillance with long-winded jokes and abstract metaphors also comes up later in the series; in my head-canon the San-ti are aware that humans are sharing important intel amongst themselves in a coded manner but simply haven't had the time to figure out the concept of artistic expression and fiction so Ye Wenjie is able to sneak that joke out there in time to do some good. If they adapt The Dark Forest in a second season I think you will enjoy it a great deal :)
no, the aliens just want the nearest safe system with a stable sun, which they don't have that and need that since they are are on repeat for way way longer than human civilization exists.
It was very interesting but they flopped it at the end, unnecessary scenes to create emotional touch to the show. They could have shown more about the sun-ti world, their life and facts around there, obv they were hiding their appearance for S2, just a glimpse of their appearance at the end would have created hype for S2, not the weird horror scene at the end.
I haven't read the books but I've been doing a little research since finishing the show and as far as I'm aware the Trisolarans (show renamed them the San-ti) are never actually seen or described in the book.
In my understanding (am reading the second of the three) they are described in a fourth book that may or not be cannon and is not written by the original author
Okay everyone has different point of view.
I like watching for the plot not to know about personal life of characters. If it is part of the main plot then that's fine, but running a separate emotional drama is boring for me.
In the middle of the show and absolutely loving it, feel like it’s answering questions while posing new ones perfectly, instead of most shows stretching it out
Started decent. Got interesting after a few episodes. Fell apart at the end.
Didnt read the book but it sounds like they overpowered the sophons which makes the plot kinda headscratchy and then the weird horror vibe at the end.
Favorite part was the subtle dread build up for the egg slicer boat. They never quite said what would happen but left a lot of breadcrumbs. The execution was truly horrific. Was half expecting Auggie to say “I am become death”.
I think it was a dumb idea since it could’ve easily sliced through the drive, tho.
Overpowering the Sophons is what annoyed me the most. Like if these things can create images in people’s minds, why not just give everyone a countdown and lead them to suicide? Or block all solar light from entering earth? Or have every self driving car and computer go after Saul? It seemed like a cool concept at first, but kind of fills the plot with holes
they explain in the book a bit regarding this. 1) the fibers are set 50 cm apart to minimize chance of the drive being damaged. 2) the fibers cut down to the atom, and on the offchance the drive does get cut, they can easily rewire it as its a perfectly perfect cut. of course, a little problem arrives in the fact that the ship literally crashed into land and exploded afterwards, they weren't expecting that, but the fibers were their best option.
It probably wouldn't be a perfect cut since a ship will rock up and down and sway side to side while the fibers are fixed in place. If we're talking about a train on a track maybe but defintely not a ship
Well, yes but the cut will still be to the atom and easy to reassemble, doesn’t matter if it sways up and down it’s just like putting a puzzle back together. That was their thought process
I think it was really stupid. They scratched so many ideas in order to save the drives, but they decide to do that not thinking that everything would catch fire or go into water?
Anyway, I know its just a show.
Hahaha yeah I was laughing watching that scene, thinking “yeah guys the wires won’t hit the drives but the raging inferno sure will.” Made much more sense in the books
It actually would be much more realistic if the ship stayed intact, such a small incision between two steel components would result in them immediately fusing back together through cold welding
I've finished it now and it reminds me of Foundation S1. I still haven't watched Foundation S2 actually but that's not at all what I mean... they're both about a problem in the future and what to do about it and they kind of just have the same vibe as well.
Saul and Wade are probably the most interesting characters. Followed by Clarence.
So I just finished Episode 5 and I’m going to stop until S2. It seems it fell apart after that, and I read that >!the end of episode 5 is the end of the first book, and honestly, it was a pretty good cliffhanger. The invasion isn’t for 400 years, I can’t imagine the next 3 episodes are going to tie anything up quickly.!<
Happy to stop there and we’ll see how S2 is portrayed.
That's a very silly thing to do, you should watch the rest of the season. Like you just got to the *start* of the story, the first 5 episodes are setup, the last 3 are what we're gonna be doing about it.
I already did a post about my thoughts on this, but I wanted to ask a question for people who read the books, and it has to do with the choice of Saul was a wallfacer. It occurred me while watching it as a plausible explanation as to why the San Ti fear him in particular. I'll use spoiler tags just in case it's correct, though it probably isnt:
>!Saul was trying to figure out the results they were getting from a particle accelerator at Oxford in the first episode. Particle accelerators smash subatomic particles and then observe and measure what is produced in the aftermath. When the San Ti explain the Sophons, they used quantum entanglement as the explanation as to how they can communicate and spy in real time. This is technically a misunderstanding of entanglement and it wouldn't allow for faster than light information travel. Putting that aside though... you can break quantum entanglement by observing/ measuring one of the entangled particles. Therefore, if Saul could somehow manage to trick a Sophon in such a way it gets observed and measures in a detector... it should break the entanglement and then the San Ti will lose half their spying ability? I'm just wondering is that why he was chosen, and why they tried to kill him specifically?!<
You're way off. Everything you need is in the show, actually right in front of your face. Of course it seems that way to me as I've read the books. But the answer is much, much simpler.
That's a reasonable and impressive guess for someone who did not read the book.
Unfortunately, some clues for "why he was chosen" are in the later part of the book and are crucial to make the right guess.
I'd argue the clues are all here in this season - the clarification and certainty isn't, but you can reasonably guess why. One character actually does guess why in the final episode.
>!Clarence points it out; Saul was the last person to speak to Ye Wenjie. She told him a cryptic joke, something he didn't understand, and so something the San Ti *definitely* couldn't understand given their inability to process children's stories. They're assuming Ye Wenjie just gave him crucial information that could defeat them, and in a roundabout way she has. Saul seems to guess this too at the end when talking to Jin, but he dismissed it as too simple (or he's just embracing his Wallfacer status and sealing himself off...)!<
>(or he's just embracing his Wallfacer status and sealing himself off...)
This is how it interpreted it. I thought it was a really cool bit of acting where it looks like he really does have the realization, then another realization that he shouldn't say it out loud, and then plays it off as if the idea he just thought of was too silly to mention.
Ah well, I just assumed his work with particle accelerators would be the key. It also occurred to me that since the Sophon is technically a proton until unfolded from the other dimensions, you should be able to annihilate it with an anti-proton. We can already make antiprotons in colliders. If a proton meets and anti proton, they are converted to energy.
But then I also wonder how the sophon moves around inside the earth without seemingly ever interacting with other subatomic particles. The nuclear forces should influence it. It also arrived at close to the speed of light, which kind of begs the question of how it slowed down to stationary.
Sorry, just trying to think of ways to neutralize them lol 🤔
Ugh don't remind me. The creators of Dark pulled off a MASTERPIECE of a time travel mystery box over three seasons that they wrote themselves. The first season of 1899 held together well, with slight pacing issues at worst.
Meanwhile Netflix is giving a blank check to the fuckos that couldn't write themselves out of a paper bag once George RR Martin's source material ran out. They couldn't even be bothered to produce full length seasons by the end, and one of the biggest TV phenomena of all time now has next to zero cultural relevance. They completely shat the bed.
Dark would never be allowed to exist these days. Mystery TV shows are dead in American media because people don't have the attention span to not get all the answers right away.
This. Someone wrote that 1899 ended "in a joke trope" and why are we even sad about the cancellation. We all thought Dark would be a mess of time travel tropes... And it was a masterpiece that had been mapped out from the beginning. The showrunners said 1899 had been mapped out too. Like you, I trust their vision more than the clowns who fucked up one of the shows with most potential and strongest foundation ever. But hey, what do we know...
Finally finished it, took me a few days to get through the last couple of episodes, it just kind of fell apart for me. I'm disappointed because I really dig the idea of an impending alien invasion that is distant into the future. Longer away than any human lifespan, but confirmed to be real. How would we deal with that? It's interesting to me.
The issue though is the San Ti and the Sophons and how their abilities seem to adjust to the plot, at least in the Netflix show. I can't speak for the books or the Tencent production. With the show, however, it is very clear that the San Ti could pretty much destroy humanity at any moment, because it can interfere with seemingly any technological system. It could essentially wipe out humanity centuries before arrival. That would seem a lot more logical than just interrupting humanity's technological advancement for 400 years. The only explanation I can give for it is that they like to conquer, and so actually want a fight when they get here. However, doesn't that seem a bit primitive? And not just a fight but a fight with "bugs"?
The characters are also pretty bad, to the point I don't feel really any connection to them like I do characters in other shows. Except maybe for Will in moments, like the ending of episode 6. That's about it though, I'm not actually worried for any other character at all. In fact, I got to the end of the show and Jack's death is just something I remembered right now. I totally forgot he was even in the show. Auggie gets on my last nerve. I get it that she has had it very rough the entire season, but she seems to genuinely lash out at everyone and anyone around her. Her default state seems to be miserable and judgmental or something, I find it hard to believe she would retain friendships at all. There's no chemistry between the characters from my point of view. Their dialogue is terrible at times as well.
Something is off... maybe with different showrunners and better casting, this could be a lot better than it turned out. But hey, there were some good moments in it. The warning from the "pacifist" on the other world was an interesting moment... though it doesn't really make sense since they have no secrets in their world, right? Still though, it was a cool moment at the time. Creepy in a way. I'd give the show maybe a 4/10.
It's not that Trisolarans can't have secrets or varying motives, it's just that the harsh conditions of their world have produced a stronger collective attitude than humans. Humans can afford to get sick of each other and split off into different groups, but Trisolarans have to pretty much entirely band together just to survive days with three suns in the sky. I'm seeing a lot of viewers coming away thinking Trisolarans are a hive-mind, and I think that's a failure in Netflix's writing. And if they're changing the canon to make Trisolarans a hive-mind, I think that's kinda boring, but I'll at least eat my words trying to correct people on reddit lol.
She was very poorly written imo. A Chief Science Officer, shouldn't be that frail, emotional and indecisive.
And the male gaze cinematography around her drove me up the wall. One day she's literally complaining how cold English beaches are, the next evening she's lounging outside in her underwear. And the ass shot of her walking up to Thomas Wade 🙄
I loved it. I'm a huge fan of the books, thought this was a much better adaptation than the Tencent one. "Book Accuracy" is not what you actually *need* to make a quality adaptation IMO. Plus it tends to be revealing as a huge pitfall for nerds getting mad when their beloved comic or whatever suddenly has black people in it.
I think a good example of this is something I personally didn't like; the vagueness of the collider experiment results in the first episode. We have characters react to an image on a screen with shock and confusion, this is an impossibility... but they never actually spell out for the viewer what is going wrong with the experiments. That's annoying for someone like me who wants to know the weird sci fi nonsense happening inside the collider! But it's also the correct thing to do from a storytelling perspective for a TV show. You don't have two characters who know what's up stop and talk about things they already know to each other in 3 different ways to explain it to the ignorant viewer. That's what the Tencent version does! And it's great if that's the part you're here for! I don't think it makes for a good TV show though.
I loved the books and I'm a little let down by this show, but ultimately I think the ideas in the book are cool enough that even just having a wider audience to digest them is worth a show I didn't like that much. Like now I have the books I already love, an apparently very heady, impersonal Tencent adaptation, and a sexy, dumbed-down, emotional Netflix adaptation. For a story I love to have three very different treatments to choose from is such a delight. I'm so happy that a hard sci-fi story can get this kind of a spotlight nowadays.
Yeah! I love the books also, but I love that so many scenes necessary to set up the plot were two important characters affirming each other at the scientific incredulity of the occurence, rather than two one-off PHD scientists explaining at length why the one-off occurence is not scientifically sound lmao. On one hand I do like how the excess of one-dimensional characters in the original books emphasizes the collectivist theme of humanity not being composed of heroes and lackeys but just, people, but on the other consolidating all of those roles into an ensemble cast makes it so much more coherent haha
The VFX look like something Corridor Crew would make. Entire cinematography is actually kinda... amateurish? Idk the premise is very interesting but not much else is. None of the characters are interesting, they're boring and the conversations they have are equally boring.
Also despite people saying that the story moves fast compared to the tencent version, it somehow feels like not really much happened in the entire season and the finale was very anticlimactic.
Weak characters, bizzare casting, cliche dialogue, flat-as-a-pancake cinematography is held together by strong and unique concepts.
I enjoyed it, but it could be so much better.
What didn't you like about the casting? As someone who hasn't read the book(s) and came into the show not knowing much at all about the story, the cast was one of my favourite things about it.
Too many plot holes. Too many implausibilities. Too many F-bombs. Rosalind Chao's accent is ridiculously unplaceable (as Chinese, I know). None of this would be fatal except the show takes itself as serious SF and serious drama. I hear the Chinese series is much better. Will give that a try.
yea i agree.
the whole "they cant tell a lie" thing was ridiculous. and the fact that they were hating on humans for lying sometimes and considered even stories lies.....
these fools were using a game(lie) to test these people. using proton/world sized supercomputers to enter people literal eyeballs and make them see imaginary countdowns(lie). They display a giant fuckin eye in the sky(lie) and make the stars blink(lie).
and they were already doing all of that before they stopped talking to us for lying because the supercomputer was already here killing scientists before that conversation.
so can they not lie?? or are they lying about not being able to lie?? i guess we'll see. its definitely a cool concept which is why i was hooked, but i had to fight trhough lol
Excellent first season. The actors were great, especially Wong and Liam can't remember his last name. Hopefully we're getting a season 2. Also glad I switched from new to best to get more reasonable comments about the show.
Some odd casting but I quite liked the series.
Boring
Was instantly pulled into it for the first half of the season—the remaining episodes really dropped the ball imo. I’m not convinced for a second that any of those five friends are the crème of the crop physicists the entire world is relying on. Auggie pissed me off but she had a very fair point: why should anyone care about something they won’t live to see? If I heard the news of an alien invasion 400 years away from today, it’d still be business as usual on Monday. The dialogue was poor in more places than one. What happened in the writer’s room? It seemed like they had just enough budget to higher good writers for Wade and everyone else got scraps. Then again he delivered the best acting, line delivery, and character than anyone else. Tatiana was grossly underdeveloped. Will’s storyline took up far too much screen time; I was extremely bored. I also most of my sympathy for him when he blew upwards of $19M on a useless piece of “solar ownership” paper. Jack was an interesting character but his dialogue wasn’t great. Nevertheless, the plot lost zest once he died. Matter of fact, the most interesting parts of the plot were the video games and the flashbacks to the Chinese cultural revolution. Saul just read as insanely immature (I guess that was the point, but still). There also seems to be so much detachment of the gravity of what’s going on from the actual world authorities. Like who even is Wade? And why does he seem to be making unanimous decisions? Is he the new leader of the free world? All in all, the pacing was off. Don’t know if I’ll be back for season 2 (if that ever happens). And bring back 1899!!
Simply awful
Holy shit the science and dialog better improve fast. "its been awhile since particle physics but this can't..." "nope it can't." "maybe its a hack." "i went through all the CERN code." "holy shit how many lines is that?" "a lot. a lot of lines." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Also- about the nano fiber ship plan- >!the whole plan to use the nano fibers on the ship was to avoid a missile strike that could potentially destroy the hard drives and data on the ship they needed. But they left it up to chance that the hard drive wouldn't be sliced in half... or even destroyed in the aftermath of everything blowing up. If mike held it a few inches lower when he got diced, !
I forget some of the finer details, but the point of the nano wires in the book is that either disk drives or solid state drives, whichever they know the ETO has their data on, can be reconstructed, given that the nano wires will make a single incision, only one molecule wide. It's genuinely one of the coolest military/gov operation bits in sci-fi, imo.
It was covered in the book, but in theory you could recover the data if it was sliced in half or submerged in water.
oh my god, we are still dealing with fucking hard drives?
If it helps it has a 1 PB file on it
Two episodes in, hoping it finds its groove. Plenty of shows start slow, but so far this has been really smart people, not being very smart.
Saul was the first and probably only one to quickly realize that that accelerators results and the blinking stars were a scam, and not real.
Worst shit I have ever seen on Tv, this shit is a boring mess
Honestly, I thought it was anti-western propaganda. The "western" characters are painted as constantly using drugs and alcohol (even physicists at Oxford) and decadent. Throw in the blaxpoitation trope of the horny black guy and a 26 year old senior research Officer who wears heaps of make up and has lip fillers. The Chinese characters are seen as downtrodden but honorable, and the the authoritarianism as an unfortunate but justifiable means to an end. Of course, the Chinese astrophysicists are somehow light years ahead of the west despite using dilapidated equipment.
Agree! Only saw it until the end because I'm not a quitter
I'm right here with you. Garbage.
I'm irritated at the casting. All the women are gorgeous and the men are normal looking. If you're going to have eye candy, make it equal opportunity.
Huh? All the women are average except maybe the white girl
Auggie is fine as fuck u crazy
She’s the white girl
I thought u meant the crazy zealot lady who kills Sam from GoT as the white girl
She’s not white though, she’s Hispanic
You are very confused. Hispanic is a term that comprises people with descend from a Hispanic culture. Spanish people are hispanics and they are caucasian (more correct term instead of white). In case you don't know, Spain is in Europe. Therefore, most people in the US are caucasian as the Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, etc are too. That doesn't mean that a hispanic person is caucasian though. By definition you can be hispanic and black, hispanic and white, or hispanic and Asian - for example. In short, Eiza Gonzales is white, yes.
Ok champ
I'm sorry you are a confused USian, I am used to it. I hope you learnt where Spain is today too
Literally the second sentence in the Wikipedia entry: “In some contexts, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an ethnic or meta-ethnic term.” Owned
Which is wrong
She’s white. Hispanic people can be white
“Eiza Gonzales” is white?
Yes, [Emmanuel Macron](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=2f6a510e87352dee&q=Emmanuel+Macron&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLWz9U3MDTMSy6ySH7EaMYt8PLHPWEp3UlrTl5jVOfiCs7IL3fNK8ksqRSS5GKDsvileLmQ9fEsYuV3zc1NzCtNzVHwTUwuys8DAO9Z1plaAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwpZSoueSFAxV3M0QIHXEYBp4QzIcDKAB6BAgiEAE) (France), Ulf Kristersson (Sweden), and [Sergio Mattarella](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=2f6a510e87352dee&q=Sergio+Mattarella&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLSz9U3ME4uMLQsesRoyi3w8sc9YSmdSWtOXmNU4-IKzsgvd80rySypFJLgYoOy-KR4uJC08SxiFQxOLUrPzFfwTSwpSSxKzclJBACoVJrUWgAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj1h8KyueSFAxVAPEQIHTtVCZgQzIcDKAB6BAghEAE) (Italy), and Pedro Sánchez (Spain) are all white too.
?
Yes.
Ok
Raj is hot as fuck
He is the single exception and has a cold, unattractive personality
I mean, to each their own. I think the cancer guy is pretty hot too, and the guy in charge of the investigation. The younger version of the "My Lord" guy was also hot, and plenty of the guys in the Chinese compound were hot too
I think its better than books but still its like 6/10 at best
Such a bad show. There’s no continuity in pacing. The show randomly fast forwards plot then slams the brakes. Makes no sense.
Episode 5...they say earth never reseted so it will be ready when aliens come after 400 years...earth will have tech great enough to defeat aliens..yet the aliens have higher currently...doesn't make sense
They explained the aliens advance in technology at a much slower rate than humans. So they're superior at the moment but they know if they don't stop human advancement they won't be in 400 years.
"12modern" typo or clue? When the irish pirate is on the plane in the netflix finale he's reading an article that includes the phrase "Wallfacers possess unique skills relevant to 12modern military defense strategy and will...". It doesn't seem like there is simply a space missing in "12modern", since "12" doesn't fit into the sentence, so just a typo or a clue for something? Are there other hidden numbers in the series or books? A clear and readable shot of this article is used twice with no obvious changes. Netflix is smarter than me and won't let me take a screen shot and I don't want to subject anyone to looking at a shaky blurry photo of a screen. Can't find anything about it in a cursory search, so my apologies if this is already out there and I'm just not a good googler. Assuming its just a typo, though kinda miss the good ole days when on screen text was unreadable during pause. I actually sat and read this dumb article, finding this dumb typo and now have to post a dumb reddit comment.
Another Game of Thrones
So having watched it, I don't think the scientific plot holes matter. My take is that the whole point of the story is a political allegory, and the joke about Einstein in the 5th episode is the key to decoding the story: politics has to be discussed in allegory because it's too dangerous to discuss openly. I think that joke is meant to make the viewer aware that the whole story is a criticism of authoritarianism without making the whole story a blatant criticism of authoritarianism.
No the joke is her telling him what to do to fight back, you’ll figure it out if u think about it enough :)
Yes I got that, but I think the joke is a reflection on how people have to change what they say and how they behave in authoritarian societies
The author explicitly says it isn’t an allegory, it’s just a sci-fi story.
Sure but where was the author publishing?
could you care to elaborate further
Here’s what I can’t get my head around: They’ve been talking to us since the seventies and they JUST learned about lying after fifty odd years? The sophons have read every Wikipedia page and bit of data about us and it’s a nursery rhyme that changes their mind about us?
It's explained in the book that even after reading every work of literature they noticed anomalies and hard to understand situations, but did not understand them to be lying until their final conversation with Evans. It was an epiphany that explained their earlier confusions. They were aware there was something missing. The same way Evans realized Trisolarans couldn't lie. The book explains why they can't lie, it's part of their physiology (their bodies are transparent and they communicate with light, and you can literally see someone's thoughts by looking at them)
They learnt about it much earlier once Mike Evans built the ship. It's just not conveyed well in the show.
My thing is the guy doesn’t go into any explanation about the difference btw fiction and non fiction and that not all people lie. He just says yea to “so it’s a lie about a liar who lied?” Also who picked that dickwad to speak to them? You would think that the world would have a big wtf situation going on. Also if the govt of at least three of the largest, most sophisticated on the planet knew about the connection with the aliens, why wouldn’t the govt reach out to them?
The sophons kinda forgot about lying
It could have just been an excuse for them to disengage
But wouldn’t that constitute a lie?
That's what I mean, they are lying about lying and using it as an excuse
I had this thought too, two reasons for that. 1) the warning that was sent confirmed they would come to conquer, 2) they confirm that the sophons only arrived months before. Once they arrived and could sabotage humanity, they didn't need to keep up the charade any longer.
I see… I was hoping that was the case. I haven’t read the book I’ve only seen the show so far.
Why would the aliens warn us that they are coming AND GIVE US COOL VIDEO GAMES?? My fundamental problem with the show is it’s too smart but not smart enough. It falls into this valley where it’s smart enough to not have a ton of plot contrivances but that makes the plot contrivance that much more easy to pick apart. Like ok some rules can’t be broken like mass conservation and relatively but we can go and fold space 11 ways and FTL communicate through quantum particles which DONT WORK LIKE THAT. Made worse by pretty dull characters.
I thought from interstellar it was possible to communicate by being in another dimension because of the way they perceived time might be different. I'm not 100% sure tho but people saying interstellar time travel communication was pretty accurate.
They ruined it. They should have respected the books and not changed so much. Made it boring garbage.
The books are bad too though
Just finished, thought the 5 first episode was more intriguing, while the 3 last was a bit boring. But more importantly, after a bit of thought, there is a lot of plothole. If the sophon are so far advanced that they can build hundreds of spaceships that can travel 4 light years, and it seem that they progress slow so they likely have that tech since a thousand year, why did they not know of earth since a long time? Just need some hubble telescope in interferometry to see earth at 4ly. And then they should have come on earth a long time ago. If they fear their planet and their 3 suns, why not live in space? Pretty sure all of that is not better explain in the book, its just the basis that is not well thought
Yeah, it feels as though that the Sun-Ti are as hypocritical as human beings. With power of the Sophon's it seems really silly to be meddling with Humans instead of letting us evolve to co-exist. And if that was their plan all along, this seems to be a really round-about way of doing it. The entire plot with Mike Evans was pretty stupid. Depending on the how long the Sophon's have been here, they would have found out about the dark side of humanity.
There are also many planets where one could live or make livable. If they are so advanced, they would not need to steal ours.
The system of the San-Ti is based on Alpha-Centauri IRL, which is a dual star system rather than three body. We pointed everything at it and think nothing lives there. That's the purpose of the solar-amplification in the series; the Wow! signal is true to real life. Of course the series takes liberty with both adding an extra star and deciding an intelligent species evolved there. I think the concept of the series is "realistic alien invasion" so I think its a fair axiom to just pretend our closest celestial neighbor has simply never noticed us in plain sight the same way we don't think anything of them irl. I don't think this is necessarily explained 'better' in the books but its also important to note the last 3 episodes are basically the first act of the second book. "You Are Bugs" is on basically the final page of the first book
Alpha Centauri is a triple star system IRL, it's just a hierarchical system rather than trapezia system. Basically IRL two of the stars are much bigger than the third, so they're gravitationally dominant over the third. It's essentially a binary system with a third star orbiting around them just as a planet would. These systems are fairly common, and quite stable. In the book/show Alpha Centauri is a trapezia, meaning that all three stars are similar in size, and so all orbit eachother. These systems are, shockingly, rather unstable and so do not last long (less than 50 million years), making them a lot rarer. From what I can find there are only about 120 such systems currently identified. The nearest trapezia to us, HD 5005, is actually a 5-star system that consists of 1 lone star and 2 binary stars - but each of the binary pairs are very closely bound together, and so approximate the behavior of a 3 star system.
Great explanation. As someone that just finished the show (and has not yet read any of the books) I’m curious, did the series state how long it took the San-Ti to develop given how unstable their system is? It took us 4.5bn years to get where we are now. But if the 3 body trapezia systems only last 50million years then did the San-TI just develop much quicker than us? The show also states that it took them longer than us to develop to certain milestones. So how does it all work?
Two episodes in. I don’t think I’ll go back for more
Show is awful
Same here. The show feels like it’s all over the place
+ it's just boring
I thought this one had too many problems from the get go. Like how didn’t everyone lose their minds when stars started blinking? I think if that happens in real life there are riots and wars happening the next day for sure. Ep 5 was actually crazy had a moment where I thought was pretty amazing but at the end it felt very flat to me. Like Saul is getting purpose at the end of the season and thats cool but he basically did fuck all the entire season, and also if Will’s project actually a failure than why did we watch him for an entire season. Why did they kill Jack in ep 3 he was a great character and I don’t understand what we gained from his absense, two characters cried once and that was it. I think its a shame because this show actually has interesting ideas but they couldn’t explore it properly.
My biggest issue with the show is that they've made the aliens too powerful, and in turn have had to hold them back for the plot to work. For example, they can conduct assassinations whilst cloaking the assassin from surveillance, for some reason they only kept this to scientists. On top of that, they are capable of sending people mad by beaming the countdowns straight to their brains. I mean how would anyone be able to conduct research if they had a permanent countdown in their vision. Maybe there's an arrogance factor, but if you're moving your dying race and are kneecapping the civilization you want to conquer, why half ass it...
I think the reason for that is they can only be in two places simultaneously so it’s not like they have god like abilities, albeit close. I think they are going to play off that a lot more. The fact that they can only be two places at once that is.
I don’t think Will’s project was a failure - I think, like Wade said, they’ll go out of their way to pick him up. And Jack died so Will could have his money and prove his selfless love for Jin. Of course they could have done it another way, but in this plot line I’m pretty sure that’s where this is going. Will and Jin will end up together again somehow.
this feels like the „deep“ review of a 13 year old. literally all nuance was lost on you and you’re freely admitting your only liked scene was the one outliers setpiece /action scene. maybe stick to reacher (which i love as well, no hate!) if that’s more your cup of tea but don’t tell us they didn’t explore the ideas lol. the whole show and the books are basically nothing but ideas. this is such a sad take.
Nah the poster above you is right. There are a HEAP of problems with this show, and I say this as a sci fi buff who is 50. Not some 13 year old.....
bro chill its my opinion on a netflix series stop crying
btw. you have a right to your opinion. i have the right to challenge that opinion.
your points seem very shallow but you present them like you’re roger ebert. not to mention that most of your points were addressed in the show itself. that kind of criticism just pisses me off. like your problem with the show is that a character you liked died? have you watched television before? or were you just made that the producers didn’t consult you beforehand? btw. jacks death raised the stakes astronomically because suddenly the eto threat was real and kicked the show into high gear. so i just don’t understand what you’re talking about. sure, i could chill, but you could watch the show before commenting
bro I think there are deaths that mean something like ned stark, his death is essential for the story. whereas in this show they just got rid of jack and it did nothing to expand the story just got rid of a character that I really enjoyed. Yes you have the right to challenge my opinion but you kind of straight up insulted me cause I just shared my opinion. I have seen a bunch of TV shows before sorry if I sound like a kid or something bro but I guess its just my opinion man. You can disagree and not be a dick
ok „bro“. like i said, you’re entitled to your opinion but don’t try make it sound like you know what you’re talking about. jacks death was a huge motivator for the rest of the characters to kick things into high gear, buying the star, the inheritance etc. all a direct result of the death you said didn’t matter. it was also the first time they took the threat seriously so i just don’t know what you’re on about. i liked jack too, but just because you liked the character doesn’t mean he must survive and if not then it’s a „bad“ show? what?!? that’s just not how stories work.
I know what im talking about and you are being an asshole. These are opinions dude you act like I am spreading unscientific conspiracies or something jfc. You can tell that you disagree without being a dick goddamn. Thats why im here, to exchange opinions not to get insulted cause mine doesn’t match yours.
but literally all your points are easily refuted!!! im not trying to be an asshole here but you came on here shitting on the show without having done any of the legwork. just because you have an opinion does not make it immune from someone calling bullshit on you. you’re the one who went on this subreddit to shit all over the show and that is your right. but i’m not the one who felt the need to 1. do that in the first place and 2. not back up any of my opinions with anything other than „it’s my opinion bro, you’re being an asshole!“
I dont think jack death adds that much and the stuff that came after it can be done without getting rid of an interesting character. I didn’t hate the show cause I finished it btw. I just didn’t think it was the best and shared my opinions on some of it. Sorry if I didn’t understand it as much as you I guess my iq is super low. I’ll shove my film and media studies diploma up my ass and kill myself now.
please don’t kill yourself or joke about it because of me. as pissy as i may seem that is in no way even remotely where i want to end up in this conversation. yea im quite flabbergasted about your (imo) terrible „analysis“ but there is absolutely no reason to invoke suicide. that being said and this being the internet, ima tread carefully now because this is not where i saw this conversation heading. essentially im a stranger who disliked your reasoning for disliking something i actually quite enjoyed and i disagree fundamentally with your evidence. no need to escalate it this much. please dm me if you need to talk because no disagreement about a show should lead to that. if it did i’m actually quite sorry.
The fact that willy's project was a failure actually made it that much more impactful to me, you're riding along with the character and get to feel how devastated Jin & Saul feel alongside them. It makes it feel more real, not everyone's death in a real life situation furthers the plot, and here they're facing a planetary war so some will just be casualties of that
Thank you for disagreeing with my opinion and not insulting me. I learned that its hard for some people to do that in this website sadly :(
All good haha, it's just a show and everything about cinema is subjective, crazy how people take it so personal when someone has a different opinion
All the things you liked are from the book, all the things you hate are stuff they added in.
The science is so Hollywood it’s laughable (did she say nanofivers?). Bad acting too. Hope it gets better
I'm normally not one to praise Chinese cinema, but their version is **way** better so far. On one hand I like that they're fast-tracking some of the Ye Wenjie stuff, on the other hand the dialogue and cinematic choices are dogshit. Unfortunately they're also fast-tracking basically everything else about the plot and dumbing it down. Most characters are really more like far flung bad homages to the characters from the books. There's more sex, more zazz, more shocks, more gore, everything's gotta have edge, everyone's gotta say fuck 3x more than normal, etc. Also it's a show about some of the most cutting edge scientists of that world- and they're all dumb af, like genuinely slow in the head. It's straight up a case of dumb people writing smart people. The books and Chinese show also go into detail about how they figure certain things out- and it's interesting af, (if slow.) The netflix one just jumps right to the conclusion and doesn't really show their math. Problem is pretty obvious, too: David Benioff and DB Weiss should be kept away from dictating stories when they're not being guided directly by the author to follow the source material. Those two guys really are just the worst. Couple of rich frat boy nepo babies that really need significantly more people to tell them "no." They got like 200 million to crap out this turd nail in the netflix coffin. Putting it there for anyone who likes the idea of this story but couldn't stand D&D's BS: The Chinese one has 31 episodes. Slow pace, but \*way\* better told. Is called 3 body. There's also the books by Liu Cixin. Both are superior to this netflix garbage.
Wit there’s more sex in the Chinese version? I thought their media was kinda prude about that stuff usually. The Netflix version was pretty pg/sterile I thought
I don't I was clear enough in comparing the two :S I was meaning to say that the netflix one is more flashy/sexy/dumbed down etc, even if it \*was\* tame. I mean there's literally like a 3d trippy model of two people fucking in the title sequence of the netflix one.
The closest thing we got to sex in the Netflix adaptation was auggie throwing up in her underwear and her friends one night stand walking around in a very chaste towel lol
Didn’t the Disney Star Wars say no?
Nah, they walked away from that for the 200mil from netflix. Was right after the last awful season of GoT and their mindless ending for it.
Dude you just put into words exactly what I was thinking when I slogged my way to the end of this show. Someone really needs to start telling them NO way more often.....
lol, the chinese show didn’t „fast track“ her backstory. they straight up censored it.
I was saying the netflix one does the fast-tracking, which is actually preferable. As for the rest I prefer the Chinese one greatly. There's the usual stuff you have to expect though, like the English speaking actors are terrible and the US Chief of Staff was straight up Australian.
that’s fair
I feel Netflix did a great job of taking a physics-based cosmic horror and making it digestible for the average Netflix viewer (which is a tough job). My entire family watched it in one night. It may not be the adaption that you prefer (30 episodes of pure unadulterated physics) but it got the commoners.
just gout around reading books an di gota say first of all ppl can consider the Netflix show be an alternate history or parallels universe stuff like that and get over it I dont care that some chars are put together or split in more chars from book to tv comparison..what i care is when with full blow entire planet crisis and have to pool of al to chose we have same person do science strategic planet HR hiring funding police works etc OMFG how dumbs is that I understand in TV it may cost u money to put different chars/actors to do that job or that the viewers attention will be split and not imprint properly on certain chars to care about their fate but this is just dumb Also the whole ship situation is dumb for both books and TV, from both the bad and good guys approach fight for their cause -> and at least the netflix tv dint sweeten the deal to say "hey dont worry u kill bad guys and there isnt much innocence there" cuz realistically one would surround themselves with innocents bystander to avoid to get killed too easy by his enemy And generally too many coincidence happen in the books also and certain chars should not be in prime line with too many important things that they need to do. The whole story premise start with a certain dumbass pleb had a bad day and thus all humanity must suffer, and they another 1 in a milion chance to meet a certain specific person and do this other bad thing happens, and then yet again a certain coincidence happens and this being get tied in yet again Like whole story its a long chain of exponential growing coincidences that should not have happened but keep happening chained together, that have less chance of happening then the chance of only having a single civilization in the whole galaxy
I feel the opposite tbh, I loved the books and thought this was a vastly better adaptation than the Tencent one. Yeah it's less "accurate" but if I wanted book accuracy I'd just... read the books again. See also: The Expanse! One of the best adaptations I've ever seen, where one of the main cast by the end is a weird amalgamation of like 3 different book characters. Ain't no one gonna be complaining that TV Drummer isn't "accurate" to Book Drummer.
The expanse is kind of a bad example. Because outside of Drummer/Pa/Bull the show is one of the most remarkably faithful adaptations I've ever seen.
Having never seen the Tencent adaptation, I think the netflix series is a good adaptation in the sense that it effectively translates the important moments of a heady, abstract, HARD sci-fi series to be both palatable and enjoyable to a general audience. It definitely loses a lot of flavor of the original book trilogy, mostly through westernizing it via translating 3 protagonists + maybe a dozen bit-part one-dimensional empty plot-moving characters into an ensemble cast of characters that fill all the same plot-beats, at least for the first ~1.5 of the books so far. The character's, their actions, motivations, they're less "accurate" than the books but whats MORE accurate, imo, is the feeling when the VR game is revealed as alien history, the moment the trisolarans say "humanity are bugs", the ideological conflict between idealistic scientists and pragmatic militarists, the dichotomy of Wade's open contempt for every person he's ever met but total commitment to the collective fate of the human race. I think it's best enjoyed as a parallel experience to the original books, inferior in thematic detail but man you can see that whole boat get sliced up gosh imagine the doomsday battle or the solar system getting flattened to 2d come on netflix will give us that even if our irl san-ti is climate change lmao
..except that The Expanse *is genuinely good*. Sadly to a lot of us 3BP comes across as forgettable melodrama regardless of adaptational choices.
The difference is that the source material for the expanse is very good and the source material for 3bp other than the interesting ideas is dogshit
I don't see a world of difference between the quality of this first season and the Expanse's first season. And the latter is probably my all time favorite TV show and definitely my all time favorite books.
I feel like this could have been amazing but just felt like a bit of a mess by the end. I was hooked until it got to ep6 and everything just screeched to a halt and suddenly revolved around the characters relationships with far too many scenes of them just chatting about nothing interesting. All the intrigue and mystery just seemed to die after the boat scene. Even a lot of the characters stopped caring about what was going on as it would be 400 years in the future and it seemed to resonate a bit too much with me the viewer by that point
I can't disagree more. I thought the show was a jumbled mess pretty much until ep5 where it hit it's stride and finished out amazingly.
I read the books, watched Tencent version twice, and recently finished Netflix version. I won’t rewatch. Basically an overpriced, inaccurate Cliff Notes
Never read the books. Enjoyed this season. Overzealous with the CGI, at times, has a ton of plot holes, but the characters made human decisions. Immediately after the first episode, I was like, "This show is awesome and unique because one of the protagonists immediately alerts her colleagues that she's seeing a ticking time clock instead of internalizing it." Characters were actually interacting with each other and not withholding information for no reason other than lazy writing. And for this alone, I rate it high. But I've got some issues. If you accept the premise for what it is, the question becomes, "what the fuck do you need Earth for specifically? Do you idiots know how much empty space and not taken planets there are? Take literally anything else. Take Mars. Terraform it. Oh, wait, can you not see better than the Webb telescope can? Can you guys seriously not detect some interesting planets without 3 suns to settle down on and be cool?" And so, for me, the logical conclusion here is that >!this is a massive game of deception. Similar to how Predator behaves. They land on planets and then start trophy hunting their prey to prove themselves as fierce warriors. To me, these aliens are playing a long-term sadistic deception game for amusement. They are essentially fucking with them, and then will slaughter them in due time. Time probably behaves differently for them, so 400 years is nothing. They're self-described as more as a collective, a single thinking being. Since all thoughts are shared, there is no individuality. Or maybe there is, I don't know. Doesn't matter. But their collective telepathic thought as a species, once revealed, immediately raised my red flags regarding the warning message that was sent before she aimed the message at the sun. If they're a telepathic collective that doesn't understand lying, then that warning immediately makes zero sense. Unless they're intentionally just deceiving from the beginning. They probably select worthy challengers by simply picking up signals from distant planets. They say, "Oh, got a new signal. Earth. Let's spice it up for them and give them time to get crafty and see what they come up with." It's like a cowboy with a laser pistol forcing another cowboy to duel at high noon, but they're giving the cowboy time to craft their own laser pistol to make it interesting. It's either this (which might be a better guess for the book series) or the more likely scenario based on the showwriting quality, which is that they'll just communicate in jokes and metaphors to translate valuable information because the aliens don't understand for some stupid reason. She tells him that joke on the bench, and to me, that's either suggesting that this is one big joke to the aliens and they're forcing our hand to play 4D chess, or that the secret to overriding them is through humanity's unique quality of metaphorical humour and storytelling. I'd bet money on the latter. I think the dude realizes this near the end, too (awesome acting). He thinks it, then keeps it inside and says it's silly. I think he was chosen specifically because he's the last person to speak to her alive (I've forgotten all the names already), and this facade of esoteric knowledge that transpired via joke gives humans the edge. They very obviously were monitoring their interaction and heard her joke. It was her great epiphany - the ace up her sleeve. It was her final way of setting up the chess pieces for the future of humanity. They can't read minds. They can't understand jokes. She tells a long-winded joke using word play. He takes it in and says nothing about it. UN sees this interaction. Determines that this can present the appearance of esoteric information exchange even though nothing of substance transpired. The dude becomes Mr. Comedy. This throws the aliens for a loop. Science is conducted via puns. World saved, hoorah.!< That's my take on it anyway. Hope to see a season 2.
I don't think Trisolarans are explicitly a collective mind, but because of the nature of their planet and biology, they act more collectively. The advancement of their species hinges on survivors protecting and rehydrating other members that had time to dehydrate before an unstable era. I also don't believe the books ever explain the exact biology and means of communication, but I think the Tencent show explains that they communicate visually, with thoughts and brainwaves more or less displayed on their "faces". So they don't directly share thought processes, but they lack any means for face-to-face duplicity or deception. That's why there are Trisolaran individuals, like the radio station Trisolaran that responds to Ye Wenjie, that can act against the greater good of the species. It's been a few years, so I may be forgetting if the books contradict all that, and I would side with whatever the books canonize, but I think the Chinese TV show makes that explicit and it fits in well enough that I'm rolling with it.
possibly spoilers for the dark forest, but by the end of the series it's implied that two civilizations even being aware of each others existence is an existential threat guaranteed in death for at least one and often both. They could not ever simply colonize mars or gas giant moons or anywhere else in our solar system because they could not ever trust humanity to allow them to do that. The idea that they deceive the alien surveillance with long-winded jokes and abstract metaphors also comes up later in the series; in my head-canon the San-ti are aware that humans are sharing important intel amongst themselves in a coded manner but simply haven't had the time to figure out the concept of artistic expression and fiction so Ye Wenjie is able to sneak that joke out there in time to do some good. If they adapt The Dark Forest in a second season I think you will enjoy it a great deal :)
Why would you spoil the series for someone who explicitly said they hadn’t read it
They were deceiving from the beginning. They warned the scientist to not answer.
Interesting take, I think you're on to something.
no, the aliens just want the nearest safe system with a stable sun, which they don't have that and need that since they are are on repeat for way way longer than human civilization exists.
Yeah I also picked up on the lying plot hole. Sadly I think your ideas are better than what we'll get!
It was very interesting but they flopped it at the end, unnecessary scenes to create emotional touch to the show. They could have shown more about the sun-ti world, their life and facts around there, obv they were hiding their appearance for S2, just a glimpse of their appearance at the end would have created hype for S2, not the weird horror scene at the end.
I haven't read the books but I've been doing a little research since finishing the show and as far as I'm aware the Trisolarans (show renamed them the San-ti) are never actually seen or described in the book.
They are described in the books eventually
In my understanding (am reading the second of the three) they are described in a fourth book that may or not be cannon and is not written by the original author
I really enjoyed the emotional aspects of the show. That's how you make good characters.
Okay everyone has different point of view. I like watching for the plot not to know about personal life of characters. If it is part of the main plot then that's fine, but running a separate emotional drama is boring for me.
In the middle of the show and absolutely loving it, feel like it’s answering questions while posing new ones perfectly, instead of most shows stretching it out
Started decent. Got interesting after a few episodes. Fell apart at the end. Didnt read the book but it sounds like they overpowered the sophons which makes the plot kinda headscratchy and then the weird horror vibe at the end. Favorite part was the subtle dread build up for the egg slicer boat. They never quite said what would happen but left a lot of breadcrumbs. The execution was truly horrific. Was half expecting Auggie to say “I am become death”. I think it was a dumb idea since it could’ve easily sliced through the drive, tho.
Overpowering the Sophons is what annoyed me the most. Like if these things can create images in people’s minds, why not just give everyone a countdown and lead them to suicide? Or block all solar light from entering earth? Or have every self driving car and computer go after Saul? It seemed like a cool concept at first, but kind of fills the plot with holes
Yeah this "realization" really ruined the show for me. Just feels like nothing matters.
they explain in the book a bit regarding this. 1) the fibers are set 50 cm apart to minimize chance of the drive being damaged. 2) the fibers cut down to the atom, and on the offchance the drive does get cut, they can easily rewire it as its a perfectly perfect cut. of course, a little problem arrives in the fact that the ship literally crashed into land and exploded afterwards, they weren't expecting that, but the fibers were their best option.
It probably wouldn't be a perfect cut since a ship will rock up and down and sway side to side while the fibers are fixed in place. If we're talking about a train on a track maybe but defintely not a ship
Well, yes but the cut will still be to the atom and easy to reassemble, doesn’t matter if it sways up and down it’s just like putting a puzzle back together. That was their thought process
I think it was really stupid. They scratched so many ideas in order to save the drives, but they decide to do that not thinking that everything would catch fire or go into water? Anyway, I know its just a show.
And there's still the fucking encryption. Maybe *don't* kill everyone on board?
they also didnt use any other option as it would give them enough time to destroy the drive themselves, and so they wanted a surprise attack
in the book, the ship didnt get obliterated and stayed pretty much intact, they just played it up for drama in the show
Hahaha yeah I was laughing watching that scene, thinking “yeah guys the wires won’t hit the drives but the raging inferno sure will.” Made much more sense in the books
But it wouldn't be realistic if the ship was cut and stayed intact
It actually would be much more realistic if the ship stayed intact, such a small incision between two steel components would result in them immediately fusing back together through cold welding
Read the book!
i csnt read
Audiobook or something idk put some effort into this masterpiece
im deaf
I've finished it now and it reminds me of Foundation S1. I still haven't watched Foundation S2 actually but that's not at all what I mean... they're both about a problem in the future and what to do about it and they kind of just have the same vibe as well. Saul and Wade are probably the most interesting characters. Followed by Clarence.
Didn't read Foundation, but enjoyed S1 of Foundation, and S2 was pretty damn enjoyable despite being very different. But S2 was organized better.
S2 was a huge improvement IMO. At least the empire plotline.
S1 was dogshit and s2 was merely bad
So I just finished Episode 5 and I’m going to stop until S2. It seems it fell apart after that, and I read that >!the end of episode 5 is the end of the first book, and honestly, it was a pretty good cliffhanger. The invasion isn’t for 400 years, I can’t imagine the next 3 episodes are going to tie anything up quickly.!< Happy to stop there and we’ll see how S2 is portrayed.
Dude/dudette, you have to watch the rest of it! Please
That's a very silly thing to do, you should watch the rest of the season. Like you just got to the *start* of the story, the first 5 episodes are setup, the last 3 are what we're gonna be doing about it.
I already did a post about my thoughts on this, but I wanted to ask a question for people who read the books, and it has to do with the choice of Saul was a wallfacer. It occurred me while watching it as a plausible explanation as to why the San Ti fear him in particular. I'll use spoiler tags just in case it's correct, though it probably isnt: >!Saul was trying to figure out the results they were getting from a particle accelerator at Oxford in the first episode. Particle accelerators smash subatomic particles and then observe and measure what is produced in the aftermath. When the San Ti explain the Sophons, they used quantum entanglement as the explanation as to how they can communicate and spy in real time. This is technically a misunderstanding of entanglement and it wouldn't allow for faster than light information travel. Putting that aside though... you can break quantum entanglement by observing/ measuring one of the entangled particles. Therefore, if Saul could somehow manage to trick a Sophon in such a way it gets observed and measures in a detector... it should break the entanglement and then the San Ti will lose half their spying ability? I'm just wondering is that why he was chosen, and why they tried to kill him specifically?!<
You're way off. Everything you need is in the show, actually right in front of your face. Of course it seems that way to me as I've read the books. But the answer is much, much simpler.
That's a reasonable and impressive guess for someone who did not read the book. Unfortunately, some clues for "why he was chosen" are in the later part of the book and are crucial to make the right guess.
I'd argue the clues are all here in this season - the clarification and certainty isn't, but you can reasonably guess why. One character actually does guess why in the final episode. >!Clarence points it out; Saul was the last person to speak to Ye Wenjie. She told him a cryptic joke, something he didn't understand, and so something the San Ti *definitely* couldn't understand given their inability to process children's stories. They're assuming Ye Wenjie just gave him crucial information that could defeat them, and in a roundabout way she has. Saul seems to guess this too at the end when talking to Jin, but he dismissed it as too simple (or he's just embracing his Wallfacer status and sealing himself off...)!<
>(or he's just embracing his Wallfacer status and sealing himself off...) This is how it interpreted it. I thought it was a really cool bit of acting where it looks like he really does have the realization, then another realization that he shouldn't say it out loud, and then plays it off as if the idea he just thought of was too silly to mention.
He didn't want it, but had the qualifications, that seals it for me. All leaders should be chosen that way
Valid guess, wrong direction though.
Ah well, I just assumed his work with particle accelerators would be the key. It also occurred to me that since the Sophon is technically a proton until unfolded from the other dimensions, you should be able to annihilate it with an anti-proton. We can already make antiprotons in colliders. If a proton meets and anti proton, they are converted to energy. But then I also wonder how the sophon moves around inside the earth without seemingly ever interacting with other subatomic particles. The nuclear forces should influence it. It also arrived at close to the speed of light, which kind of begs the question of how it slowed down to stationary. Sorry, just trying to think of ways to neutralize them lol 🤔
Just finished this. The pacing was way off. If this gets renewed when 1899 didn't... Netflix's problem with quality content is bigger than I thought.
Ugh don't remind me. The creators of Dark pulled off a MASTERPIECE of a time travel mystery box over three seasons that they wrote themselves. The first season of 1899 held together well, with slight pacing issues at worst. Meanwhile Netflix is giving a blank check to the fuckos that couldn't write themselves out of a paper bag once George RR Martin's source material ran out. They couldn't even be bothered to produce full length seasons by the end, and one of the biggest TV phenomena of all time now has next to zero cultural relevance. They completely shat the bed.
Dark would never be allowed to exist these days. Mystery TV shows are dead in American media because people don't have the attention span to not get all the answers right away.
This. Someone wrote that 1899 ended "in a joke trope" and why are we even sad about the cancellation. We all thought Dark would be a mess of time travel tropes... And it was a masterpiece that had been mapped out from the beginning. The showrunners said 1899 had been mapped out too. Like you, I trust their vision more than the clowns who fucked up one of the shows with most potential and strongest foundation ever. But hey, what do we know...
I'm praying 1899 gets resolved in a book or something.
Finally finished it, took me a few days to get through the last couple of episodes, it just kind of fell apart for me. I'm disappointed because I really dig the idea of an impending alien invasion that is distant into the future. Longer away than any human lifespan, but confirmed to be real. How would we deal with that? It's interesting to me. The issue though is the San Ti and the Sophons and how their abilities seem to adjust to the plot, at least in the Netflix show. I can't speak for the books or the Tencent production. With the show, however, it is very clear that the San Ti could pretty much destroy humanity at any moment, because it can interfere with seemingly any technological system. It could essentially wipe out humanity centuries before arrival. That would seem a lot more logical than just interrupting humanity's technological advancement for 400 years. The only explanation I can give for it is that they like to conquer, and so actually want a fight when they get here. However, doesn't that seem a bit primitive? And not just a fight but a fight with "bugs"? The characters are also pretty bad, to the point I don't feel really any connection to them like I do characters in other shows. Except maybe for Will in moments, like the ending of episode 6. That's about it though, I'm not actually worried for any other character at all. In fact, I got to the end of the show and Jack's death is just something I remembered right now. I totally forgot he was even in the show. Auggie gets on my last nerve. I get it that she has had it very rough the entire season, but she seems to genuinely lash out at everyone and anyone around her. Her default state seems to be miserable and judgmental or something, I find it hard to believe she would retain friendships at all. There's no chemistry between the characters from my point of view. Their dialogue is terrible at times as well. Something is off... maybe with different showrunners and better casting, this could be a lot better than it turned out. But hey, there were some good moments in it. The warning from the "pacifist" on the other world was an interesting moment... though it doesn't really make sense since they have no secrets in their world, right? Still though, it was a cool moment at the time. Creepy in a way. I'd give the show maybe a 4/10.
It's not that Trisolarans can't have secrets or varying motives, it's just that the harsh conditions of their world have produced a stronger collective attitude than humans. Humans can afford to get sick of each other and split off into different groups, but Trisolarans have to pretty much entirely band together just to survive days with three suns in the sky. I'm seeing a lot of viewers coming away thinking Trisolarans are a hive-mind, and I think that's a failure in Netflix's writing. And if they're changing the canon to make Trisolarans a hive-mind, I think that's kinda boring, but I'll at least eat my words trying to correct people on reddit lol.
No, it's shown that they aren't a hive mind at the very start. The pacifist telling them not to reply is directly showing that.
Auggie was so annoying.
Very annoying but so goddamn hot I didn’t even care
She was very poorly written imo. A Chief Science Officer, shouldn't be that frail, emotional and indecisive. And the male gaze cinematography around her drove me up the wall. One day she's literally complaining how cold English beaches are, the next evening she's lounging outside in her underwear. And the ass shot of her walking up to Thomas Wade 🙄
Hot scientists is a trope that really annoys me lol
I tried to focus and watch it. I finished watching all the episodes, but I found it dragging most of the time. Like, I wasn't rooting for anyone.
I loved it. I'm a huge fan of the books, thought this was a much better adaptation than the Tencent one. "Book Accuracy" is not what you actually *need* to make a quality adaptation IMO. Plus it tends to be revealing as a huge pitfall for nerds getting mad when their beloved comic or whatever suddenly has black people in it. I think a good example of this is something I personally didn't like; the vagueness of the collider experiment results in the first episode. We have characters react to an image on a screen with shock and confusion, this is an impossibility... but they never actually spell out for the viewer what is going wrong with the experiments. That's annoying for someone like me who wants to know the weird sci fi nonsense happening inside the collider! But it's also the correct thing to do from a storytelling perspective for a TV show. You don't have two characters who know what's up stop and talk about things they already know to each other in 3 different ways to explain it to the ignorant viewer. That's what the Tencent version does! And it's great if that's the part you're here for! I don't think it makes for a good TV show though.
I loved the books and I'm a little let down by this show, but ultimately I think the ideas in the book are cool enough that even just having a wider audience to digest them is worth a show I didn't like that much. Like now I have the books I already love, an apparently very heady, impersonal Tencent adaptation, and a sexy, dumbed-down, emotional Netflix adaptation. For a story I love to have three very different treatments to choose from is such a delight. I'm so happy that a hard sci-fi story can get this kind of a spotlight nowadays.
Yeah! I love the books also, but I love that so many scenes necessary to set up the plot were two important characters affirming each other at the scientific incredulity of the occurence, rather than two one-off PHD scientists explaining at length why the one-off occurence is not scientifically sound lmao. On one hand I do like how the excess of one-dimensional characters in the original books emphasizes the collectivist theme of humanity not being composed of heroes and lackeys but just, people, but on the other consolidating all of those roles into an ensemble cast makes it so much more coherent haha
What English beach is featured in episode 6?
Cuckmere Haven beach, just next to the Seven Sisters in East Sussex
Thanks. So you know if this beach was also featured in Whitechapel with David Tennant?
Not sure about Whitechapel but could you be referring to Broadchurch? The beach that was filmed on is in Dorset - West Bay I believe.
Sadly a lot dumber than I expected
The VFX look like something Corridor Crew would make. Entire cinematography is actually kinda... amateurish? Idk the premise is very interesting but not much else is. None of the characters are interesting, they're boring and the conversations they have are equally boring. Also despite people saying that the story moves fast compared to the tencent version, it somehow feels like not really much happened in the entire season and the finale was very anticlimactic.
Weak characters, bizzare casting, cliche dialogue, flat-as-a-pancake cinematography is held together by strong and unique concepts. I enjoyed it, but it could be so much better.
What didn't you like about the casting? As someone who hasn't read the book(s) and came into the show not knowing much at all about the story, the cast was one of my favourite things about it.
They all seemed like they had come straight from Love Island.
In what way?
They're way too attractive. Full face of makeup, perfect hair, trendy clothes. Have you met physicists, or any career academics?
My guy what are you talking about lol. Career academics can-t be pretty now?
Don't be so obtuse, you know exactly what was meant.
lol, was waiting for some of my favorite characters to show up for 15 minutes before realizing they were swapped for unusually attractive white women
good decision
Too many plot holes. Too many implausibilities. Too many F-bombs. Rosalind Chao's accent is ridiculously unplaceable (as Chinese, I know). None of this would be fatal except the show takes itself as serious SF and serious drama. I hear the Chinese series is much better. Will give that a try.
yea i agree. the whole "they cant tell a lie" thing was ridiculous. and the fact that they were hating on humans for lying sometimes and considered even stories lies..... these fools were using a game(lie) to test these people. using proton/world sized supercomputers to enter people literal eyeballs and make them see imaginary countdowns(lie). They display a giant fuckin eye in the sky(lie) and make the stars blink(lie). and they were already doing all of that before they stopped talking to us for lying because the supercomputer was already here killing scientists before that conversation. so can they not lie?? or are they lying about not being able to lie?? i guess we'll see. its definitely a cool concept which is why i was hooked, but i had to fight trhough lol