Not long ago, the classic Chinese science fiction novel "The Three-Body Problem" was released on Netflix. It was originally good news that attracted much attention , but it unexpectedly caused a lot of controversy after it was aired. What happened? What kind of work is "The Three-Body Problem"? Let’s talk about the “Three-Body Problem” today! Hiho~ Hello everyone, I am Zhiqi! The work "The Three-Body Problem" by Chinese novelist Liu Cixin has been hailed by many as one of "China's most important science fiction classics." Even Obama, Zuckerberg and even the Vice President of China are his fans . However, unexpectedly, the adaptation of "The Body" was released on Netflix and ranked first among the most watched series in the world that week. Some people thought that this series, which was originally supposed to be "Light of China" , aroused very polarized reactions . However, some Chinese viewers criticized the Cultural Revolution scenes in the album as another example of the West's malicious vilification of China. Later, even the author Liu Cixin's past support for "Xinjiang Concentration Camps" was dug out again, causing more controversy . What is this work about? Why is it so red? Why is it causing controversy this time? Let’s talk about the “Three-Body Problem” today! But before we start today’s discussion, let’s go into some business service time! [Three-body author, was he a victim of the Cultural Revolution? 】 To understand the work "The Three-Body Problem", we can start with its author "Liu Cixin". It is no exaggeration to say that Liu Cixin can be said to be one of the most important figures in contemporary Chinese science fiction, and his life experience itself is It has something to do with the three-body controversy. According to interviews, Liu Cixin’s grandfather was born during the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party . He himself had no special political leanings , but in order to preserve the family lineage, he sent one of his two sons to the Communist Army and one to the Communist Army. Being sent to the National Army was like hedging his bets. Later, Liu Cixin's father also succeeded in becoming a company commander in the Communist Army. I thought everything was going well , but unexpectedly, when the Cultural Revolution broke out, Liu Cixin's father was questioned politically because he had a younger brother in the National Army. Due to his status, he was sent to the countryside to work as a miner. At that time, Liu Cixin was only three years old. Later, when Liu Cixin grew up, he was very interested in astronomy. He once wanted to be an astronaut , but because of his family's political background, he knew that this dream was impossible to achieve , so he later Like many people, he studied honestly and eventually became a water conservancy engineer . According to him, he was too bored at work, so he decided to start writing science fiction novels intermittently. Liu Cixin quickly relied on his science and engineering background and rich imagination. He won many important science fiction awards in China and became famous in the Chinese literary circle. However, it was not until he wrote "The Three-Body Problem" in 2006 that Liu Cixin became a writer in the Chinese literary world and even the world's literary world! [What is "The Three-Body Problem" about? ] There are three books in the "Three-Body" series, so what is this book about? Here we quickly introduce that if the audience is worried about thunderstorms, they can press [How red is the Three-Body Problem? 】This chapter continues to look at the story background of the serial version of "Three-Body", which started in 1967 during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The protagonist Ye Wenjie's father was a physicist , but he was persecuted to death by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. The entire family was destroyed. Later, Ye Wenjie entered a secret Chinese military base. While conducting research and experiments , she unexpectedly received a signal from the distant planet "Trisolaran Civilization". The Trisolaran Civilization discovered that its planet was uninhabitable and decided to invade the Earth. Ye Wenjie, who was completely disappointed with human civilization, decided to betray the Earth and help the Trisolarans. But because the fleet of the Trisolarans is too far away, it will take four hundred years to reach the earth. In order to prevent human technology from continuing to develop and surpass the Trisolaris, they deliberately disrupt the scientific research of the earth and even kill important scientists everywhere. The humans in the book face this powerful The enemy will have to spend four hundred years to find a way to win this asymmetric war. The very, very brief background of the whole story is roughly like this. The reason why this book is wonderful is because Liu Cixin is very good at quoting scientific theories and making very detailed details in the novel. Talking about the deduction here may be too confusing, so we will just give you a "Dark Forest" law to share with you! [Law of the Dark Forest: Don’t answer! 】 Some people may have been curious. The universe is theoretically infinite, so there should be many civilizations like the earth. So why can't we find traces of other life? "Three-Body" quotes a concept called "Dark Forest Law", which tells us that there may really be many alien civilizations in the universe , but everyone is trying very hard to hide themselves. Why? The book explains that because the resources of the universe are limited, civilizations must always be in a state of mutual suspicion in order to survive . Then, the technological development of civilizations is not gradual, but suddenly and explosively, and the speed will get faster and faster. A civilization that is weaker than you today is very likely to suddenly overtake and become stronger than you tomorrow. Therefore, the book proposes that if you find another civilization in the universe, the best way to avoid being destroyed is to destroy the other civilization first . Because of this, the universe will It's like a huge dark forest with many hunters with guns. Everyone is trying to hide their traces. Once they discover the presence of others, they will immediately shoot and attack. This is why the universe always seems silent. Liu Cixin uses this theory in " "Three Body" developed a set of "sociological theories" about interstellar intrigues. In addition, the concepts of dimensionality reduction strikes, wall-facers and wall-breakers are also very exciting, and they also make the novel very realistic and successfully written. My own stratosphere becomes a phenomenal classic [How red is the Three-Body Problem? 】 "The Three-Body Problem" actually won the most important "China Science Fiction Galaxy Award" for Chinese science fiction works when it was still being serialized. It is definitely very popular in China , but the key to making this work popular in China is related to its translation into English. Liu Yukun, the translator of the English version of "The Three-Body Problem", is himself a novelist who has won numerous awards . After "The Three-Body Problem" was published in the English-speaking world in 2014, he was nominated for the "Nebula Award", the most important award in the fantasy and science fiction category in the United States, and won it the following year. The "Hugo Award", known as the "Nobel Prize for Science Fiction", broke the record and became the first Asian writer to win the "Hugo Award". After winning the Hugo Award, Liu Cixin's fame began to explode. Even Obama, Zu Kerber and later Hideo Kojima also publicly expressed their love for the work "The Three-Body Problem". Even the former Vice President of China was a fan of Liu Cixin. He once invited Liu Cixin to Zhongnanhai for a visit and took out a lot of notes. "The Three-Body Problem" for Liu Cixin is currently published in 19 language versions around the world, with sales exceeding 29 million copies, including other Liu Cixin peripherals and film and television IP, etc. The valuation is as high as 2 billion yuan , forming the so-called "Liu Cixin Industry Chain". Therefore, some people He once said that Liu Cixin's "The Three-Body Problem" single-handedly raised Chinese science fiction literature to a world-class level . This Netflix adaptation also treated it with caution. It not only hired the production team of A Song of Ice and Fire, but also cost as much as 2,000 per episode. Ten thousand US dollars is known as one of the most expensive investments in Netflix! But I didn’t expect that after it was broadcast, it would cause a lot of controversy [Why did Netflix’s version of The Three-Body Problem cause controversy? 】 There are roughly three battlefields that have emerged after the release of The Three-Body Problem on Netflix. The first is about the issue of the adaptation itself. Before the Netlfix version was broadcast, there was actually a Chinese Tencent version of The Three-Body Problem that was considered to be a very faithful presentation of The Three-Body Problem. The film and television adaptation of the original work , but this time the Netflix version basically just took some of the main plots and concepts from the book and reorganized and broke up the main characters into five people. The plot has also been greatly compressed and combined , so many fans feel that Netflix It’s basically a magic change! It’s too much of a departure from the original work! However, some people think that this is actually just a difference in adaptation techniques to adapt to the habits of foreign audiences , and Liu Cixin’s approval was obtained during the process. There is no problem. They think that what is more problematic is the presentation of the "Cultural Revolution" plot in the Netlfix version. There is a scene at the beginning where the protagonist's father is persecuted and beaten by the Red Guards . This scene is even called a "Cultural Revolution scene depiction" that is rare in recent years. Although the Tencent version of The Three-Body Problem also mentions the Cultural Revolution , it is more obscure and is also suspected. This difference caused dissatisfaction among some Chinese people because they believed that Western countries were deliberately distorting and vilifying China, which triggered an upsurge of bad reviews. However, some people countered that these plots were already in Liu Cixin's book. Instead, Netflix faithfully presented the original work. But there is another side story here. Some people have begun to question Liu Cixin’s own ideology. [Is Liu Cixin an accomplice of the CCP? 】 Because the Three-Body Problem became popular again, some people also began to discuss some of Liu Cixin’s early speeches. Liu Cixin’s works were considered to contain content that seemed to allude to politics in the past. In addition to the criticism of the Cultural Revolution in The Three-Body Problem, one of his earliest works was "China 2185". " is a story about imagining the political struggle triggered by Mao Zedong's resurrection. However, in 2019, a reporter from The New Yorker asked him about "political criticism." Liu Cixin strongly emphasized that he had no such intention and was just telling a story. He even went a step further. He stated that "Xinjiang education camps are necessary" and "Chinese people don't care about democracy." These remarks at the time also aroused opposition from US Republican congressmen and asked Netlfix to seriously consider the adaptation of The Three-Body Problem. In addition, some people criticized Liu Cixin's works for often being misogynistic. , anti-democracy, and totalitarian elements believe that he is very close to the CCP’s position. However, regarding these doubts, some supporters believe that Liu Cixin is in this situation, and many times have to say so. There are also many criticisms of China in his works. Because of the criticism , he himself may not necessarily fully agree with the CCP. [Our point of view] In fact, some of our team members like "The Three-Body Problem" very much. We feel that the grand narrative and imagination of this work, coupled with the confrontation with interstellar politics, The description is really fascinating , and Liu Cixin is really good at making ultra-detailed settings and sand table deductions. To exaggerate, sometimes it makes people think that if one day aliens want to invade the earth, this book might actually be used as a teacher. Use the battle rules! Of course, when we were reading, we did feel some of the issues mentioned in the comments, such as misogyny, flat characters, totalitarian tendencies, etc. As for Liu Cixin’s own position , we also felt that there were some contradictions when collecting information because we ourselves read " The criticism of the Cultural Revolution and the CCP in the original work "Three-Body" sometimes really makes us all sweat and wonder if this can really be written! ? But the author's own public statements seem to be completely opposite. So how should we view this work? Regarding this point, we have seen a preferred way of interpretation is that the author and the work should be viewed separately. The novel and the author's own point of view are not completely equivalent. Although we cannot really know what Liu Cixin himself is thinking, but for "The Three-Body Problem" The evaluation itself can still go back to the work to interpret it. From our own point of view, even if there are some problems, the influence of this work is genuine, and it is still a work worth watching. Of course, this is just our idea. What we want to say in the end Let me ask you, would you like to see the Three-Body Problem? Finally, if you like today's video , please share it to let more people know about "Three Body"! In addition, you can also click here to read the discussion of "Cyberpunk" and "1984". So today's Zhiqi Qiqi comes to an end here. See you tomorrow night!
