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The villain of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem is existential instead of literal. The first season is about the human race discovering that a potentially hostile alien race is coming to invade in a few centuries, and the world’s brightest minds have to figure out how to address the incoming threat, or whether to address it all.
“It’s a choice between optimism or action to right wrongs, so a passive optimism or the choice to go in and get your hands dirty,” series star Rosalind Chao explained to GameSpot in a recent interview. “[The creators] really made it so that people from every corner of the world can identify. It’s certainly not sci-fi. It’s about humans interacting in periods of great stress and possible elimination.”
3 Body Problem is adapted from Liu Cixin’s sci-fi trilogy by Game of Thrones bosses David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and The Terror: Infamy creator Alexander Woo. In a January profile in The Hollywood Reporter, they explained how the TV series, and the novels, are more about how humanity addresses the possible threat than about “fighting tentacle monsters.” During a roundtable interview with the executive producers attended by GameSpot, Benioff elaborated that plotting the adaptation during COVID gave the three executive producers a first-hand look at how humanity would respond to a global crisis.
“We spent so much time talking about the show during the pandemic. The books represent a fairly optimistic view of how humanity might come together in the face of an existential threat. COVID didn’t turn out to be existential, but it was certainly a threat and I wouldn’t say it showed humanity coming together in any meaningful way,” Benioff said. “In fact, it probably showed us splitting apart even more.”
Benioff added that the apparent schism in beliefs as the world tried to address the virus painted a startling picture of how people would turn on each other in the face of an alien invasion. “It definitely informed our writing because if aliens announced their intention to invade, is everyone suddenly going to link arms and say we’re off to fight the aliens? Or are some people going to say, ‘I don’t believe that. That’s a conspiracy. This is the U.S. government doing this or this is what Elon Musk has been planning,'” he said. “There’s going to be a whole bunch of bizarre theories out there. We probably won’t see humanity come together in any meaningful way.”
John Bradley, who plays snack titan Jack Rooney in 3 Body Problem, is hopeful that the series will encourage people to refocus on what brings us together as a people.
“We’re obsessed with highlighting the difference between people based on absolutely nothing, based on the chunk of rock that you were born on or what color your skin is, or who you fall in love with, or how you see yourself or identify yourself. But humanity is one group,” the actor told GameSpot. “In terms of the wider universe, we should all stick together and work out what makes us similar as opposed to what makes us different.”
Bradley’s co-star, Jess Hong, who plays scientist Jin Cheng in the show, agreed with his sentiment that 3 Body Problem hopefully brings people together. Jin is one of the main characters who wants to come up with a solution to save humanity from the impending alien visitors, and Hong explained that she wants viewers to find hope in her character’s optimism.
“There’s a better way that we can all live,” Hong said. “I hope that even though there’s all this existential dread and…darkness that looms over the season, people can also feel a slight glimmer of hope and see that if we fight together, we can achieve something.”
Will humans and viewers rise to the occasion? 3 Body Problem is out now on Netflix; be sure to also read our 3 Body Problem review for an idea of what to expect.
