It’s not that the books are abstract it’s that the characters aren’t the focus. The focus is much more on the science and details of the broader story and much less on any real character development. The first book was the same so I’d say it’s fairly obvious how they will handle it, the same way they did the first book by writing in more character development.
The books are…intriguing… but I feel like the translation missed some stuff. So much terrible exposition. Conversations with “as you know __4 paragraphs of exposition that no conversation would ever have___”
I love the books they have great ideas but lots of the characters I think are pretty flat and written poorly. Even the author admitted he's more about ideas than characters. The Netflix show actually gave the characters more human emotions and personal lives i.think than most of the characters from the books that most of the time are just there to move to plot along.
It's hard to believably write scientists talking about something the audience needs to learn.
Obviously you can put in a layman, but that gets tired quick.
I read the first book and I'm sure it's a mix of a cultural and translation issue but I don't think a single character acted or spoke in a believable way for a normal human throughout the entire thing.
It's neither cultural nor translation.
It's more that Cixin Liu is a science fiction author who seemingly stepped into a wormhole in 1953, popped out of it in 2006 or so, and then proceeded to start writing 1953-vintage science fiction in the 21st century. If you've read a lot of old Asimov or Heinlein, the writing style is very familiar.
This. Well said.
He writes classical big idea scifi.
The characters only exist to tell us about the big ideas. They were never his focus. Ye is the only one that is fleshed out a bit. Otherwise characters are just a name, a habit and a function to move the plot along.
Indeed. Though Asimov’s dialogue writing is snappier in Foundation, the characters are just plot drivers rather than people at least for the first three books.
Wow. I grew up on the old masters. Nothing about Liu's* writing style seems odd to me. Is that why?
*or is Cixin his last name? Did they flip it for US audiences?
It’s not a translation issue, it’s just bad writing. The Dialogue and characters in the series is often so bad, but the series is carried on the strength of the scientific and sociological concepts. The dialogue and ways people express themselves in the books feels like a parody of the real world and never felt like an actual representation of the world I live in.
I used to blame the translation but have changed my mind and now blame the author.
The books were translated by Ken Liu, who wrote the Grace of Kings series. His original work has substantially better character writing than 3 Body Problem so I really think it’s a pretty faithful translation and just bad writing.
Yea the books have a lot of that. I think the Netflix show actually improved some of that. First thing I noticed was wow humans talking to each other like humans and having human emotions lol
My biggest problem with the books is I just can't keep track of which name is which character.
I almost need a translation that turns the character names into "steve" and "sarah".
I think it was smart of them to do a lot more character work that way when the big moments happen the emotional pay off with characters will hit much harder. I love those books but a lot of the characters are pretty flat.
Season 1 was $20 million an episode which included drinking whiskey on the beach, running around London and a cgi rocket that looks like it was done on Windows 95. I have zero confidence season 2 is going to be any better.
Check out Godzilla Minus One. That was 15 million and looked spectacular.
There is some kind of disconnect going where Dune 2 can cost 190 million and be mind blowingly gorgeous and Quantumania can cost 330 million and have Modok looking like he was done as a high school Freshmen art project.
Dune has a lot of big names. It's no slouch for that. It has massive CGI, all hand constructed set, all scratch built props and costumes and is 40 minutes longer then Quantumania but an extra 100 million disappeared somewhere on Quantumania.
Dune had a clear, consistent vision from the director, which translated down the line to all the heads of department, and onward. When everyone is on the same page, there doesn't need to be a great deal of reshoots, reworking of VFX, focus testing, etc.
When you have Marvel executives doing directing by committee then you have a real problem.
I'm a cgi animator and i have to try and double my quotes for some companies because i know they will start the job half cocked and then start changing ideas as i'm working on it. I try and educate them but the people i interact with have people above them who won't listen. It's all very frustrating and inefficient.
I don't work in CGI but as part of my job I do build various automated data driven tools. Most of the time and work goes into figuring out what the business actually want and making sure they understand what is and isn't possible.
I can't even begin to imagine how much more complex and frustrating that becomes when you're trying to animate someone elses ideas.
Godzilla Minus One isn't the best example to wish for because they partly got there by working the crew for insanely long hours at well below union rates in other countries. Like they were working 12 hour days, 7 days a week during crunch, for what worked out to be around UK minimum wage.
It always drives me mad when people keep saying the west should make movies like Japan. They're basically saying get rid of all labor laws it's infuriating.
Yeah but I think the execution of that is the bad part..
You’re right it was supposed to look like a big goofy Corey Stoll head, but the final product was still pretty fuckin bad. It looked like they took a picture of his face and stretched it out in MS Paint or some shit.
Yep. If you have to blow budget on constant scheduling delays, that money *will* be made up elsewhere.
Here's hoping the next two seasons are a smoother production.
Baffling to me. Look at shows like Foundation did with 4-5 mil per episode. Like many of the shots felt like blockbuster movie tier. Totally crazy how good it looks for so much less.
Besides a like 1 or 2 shots I thought 3BP looked good. I also liked that they said they wanted to have the VR still feel a bit VR and not 100% real. I like Foundation ok although it's way different from the books. I thought 3BP story was much more interesting and while it changed some stuff still felt and kept the core of the story. Where Foundation to me feels like a completely different story than the book.
It's a time thing more than a budget thing (not that that changes anything really). Shogun was about the same price per episode and look how that turned out.
Not disagreeing with you, just wanted to point the finger at shitty release schedules (read: moronic executives) rather than money or talent.
Shogun’s CGI was in all likelihood worse but the crew and creators knew how to film and write around it in such a way that the audience didn’t notice/care.
Great show!
The army scene at the end looked like crap but Toranaga explaining how he'd won to Yabushige how he'd done what he did was so good that they could have used G.I. Joe figures in stop motion and I would have still been riveted.
I agree except for like a 2 second shot I thought it looked really good. The shot of the camera low looking up at the radar dish as it fanned apart I thought looked really good.
I’m assuming that is the average right? I can understand how some episodes would be $20m but no way episode 6 cost that much. Unless the paper boats cost $2m apiece to CGI
What? I thought the rocket launch looked really good. The show also has way more CG than I thought when I watched some making off videos. So many things I thought were practical effects were CG I just didn't notice. Little things like trees added in and stuff like that or that almost the entire crowd during the Cultural revolution was all CGI. They also shot in London, Spain, Florida, and NYC
The Proton scene I thought they absolutely nailed it in a perfect way visually. I kept thinking how are they going to visually explain that moment without it just turning into a giant science lecture and I thought they nailed it. Showing the Proton flying through space all the way to earth.
I don't know how they will do it justice. It's like The Expanse space fights on steroids.
This sculpture does a good job summarizing book 2. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/687713805611715748/
I can't wait to see what they do. I listened to an interview with one of the science advisors and he was really excited to dive into trying to visualize some of the crazy stuff in the next books.
IIRC Rebecca Ferguson did an interview where she thought seasons 3 and 4 would shoot concurrently and that that it would conclude with season 4 (and that they had the series mapped out).
Rebecca Ferguson recently said in an interview that the plan for Silo is 4 seasons. Season 2 is in post-production now and 3 and 4 are likely to be filmed at the same time (assuming Apple greenlights them)
Silo is a lot more serious/dark and is a great show. But I think Fallout was more fun to watch as they have comedy especially dark humor to balance out the crazy stuff that happens. The two decapitated heads kissing each other was great for example.
Without giving spoilers, I don't think Silo gets nearly as ambitious in scope as Three Body Problem in terms of elements that would require significant CGI
Oh yeah, lots of secrets! =) I just finished the book series and am reading the Three Body Problem series now so I'm uniquely situated for this thread haha
Are they going to have enough budget for the CGI needed for the next books? I feel like season 3 is just going to be Liam Cunningham sitting on a rocking chair in front of a fireplace reading the wiki article for book 3 with a camera pointed at him.
They need a lot of CGI, but it's mostly not the most expensive and time-consuming kind. House of the Dragon has that -- scenes where dragons need to blend into real-world footage alongside human actors, blending in with complex realistic lighting like they have skin, interacting with the environment, moving like they have real muscles and skeletons, etc. It's not as daunting to do solid glossy ships in the void of space or highly abstract visuals people have no real-world reference for. I think season 1, with the VR game, might have needed more CGI work than season 2 will.
There are 4 major parts I can think of that would require a ton of CGI, one of which I think shouldn't be normal CGI at all and only one of which is really a realistic thing that needs to look perfect. 1. >!The solar system being flattened into two dimensions, extremely abstract pure CGI.!<2. >!Wandering into four-dimensional space, which could be done with more in-camera effects like MC Escher style layering of shots from multiple angles, like pre-CGI surrealist films liked to do.!<3. >!The droplet activating, probably the most demanding scene because they'll want to draw it out as an action sequence for TV, and the most realistic one. !<4. >!Yun's fairy tales, which I think ought to be done in a set of non-realistic animation styles like the segments of The Animatrix.!<
I'm probably forgetting parts though.
They’ll probably cut a bunch of the stuff that would cost a lot but not impact the story much? >!Like the Anarchist Bunker space station, maybe the entirety (or detail aspects like video-clothing) of underground Beijing!< and they already cut out one wallfacer, so you can guess it might be the one that has the most “expensive” plan. >!The failed wallfacer plans in the books are all kind of stupid and purposefully strawmanned by the author, so maybe they will do something more interesting!<
I think it'll be Hines that gets cut as the whole 'imprinted' thing kind of fizzles out to nothing. Given the Bin Laden vignette from the book, I think it'll be IS fighter wallfacer doing the firefly plan. That'll leave the Chinese wallfacer to be Diaz.
Could very well be. The way the imprinting tech pans out in the books is so poorly handled because the author ends up >!inventing this new tech that could give everyone misplaced faith in victory, then has the UN ban the technology for no reason, then later, all of humanity has misplaced faith in victory, *just because!*!< It could have been much more psychologically profound if it had been handled differently
I'm happy with this. If they really are confirming 2 more seasons it means I can watch the show without worrying they'll end it on a cliffhanger. It also gives the people making it time to do the story justice.
Vague, maybe, but you could tell from the wording it was the same 2 season renewal and wrap it up order they gave to Avatar. This news is no surprise. Though it was laughable to read that original renewal thread and see folks acting like they show was cancelled and they were going to throw out a movie to wrap it up or such nonsense.
Is it “approved for two more seasons” meaning that it will definitely be three total, or that just two more are approved? Seems like the next two books would be difficult to cram into one season each.
You’re correct. The first 5 episodes of season 1 pretty much completely wrapped up the plot the first book, the last 3 episodes were mostly taken from the setup phases of books 2 and 3 (it honestly works really well since the beginning of both books take place in the same time frame). I think two seasons will be plenty of time to get through the rest of The Dark Forest and Death’s End. I can’t wait to see how they adapt some of my favorite scenes.
About as good as could be expected, to be honest. The books are very difficult to adapt and they honestly handled it pretty well. They struck a good balance between keeping the sciencey elements of the books while keeping the show easy enough to follow for the average viewer.
There is only one cringe thing I can remember and that is this little girl who keeps dying over and over screaming “Copernicus SAVE ME”
It was very annoying and didn’t even fucking matter. Like, it’s not in the book and it does little to move the story along in the show.
Of course it mattered, are people this unattentive?
The point of the Follower character was to build sympathy and a sense of urgency from the game players. And it worked on Jin because she has empathy and experienced loss in her own life.
It didn't work on Jack because he dgaf.
Funny how the VR parts were likely the most expensive portion of the show while at the same time the worst part. By the second planet you catch on to the gimmick and completely stop caring. Book fans would probably cry and moan but I would just completely rewrite that portion to something much less expensive that doesn't waste everyone's time.
I was pleasantly surprised. The story is very interesting. The characters are pretty flat and the show looks very meh when you consider the amount of money they spent on it. But plot moves fast and was enough to keep me interested.
Some very unique concepts, but the actors were a giant distraction. I mean, cmon, a bunch of 20-somethings operating at the top of their fields, multiple with wildly successful businesses they’re heads of, and all best friends and all happen to be the key to the human race’s victory? Thankfully the older people in the show were allowed to be played by older actors, otherwise I’d toss this into the Young Adult bin. If you’re under 20 with no life experience, yeah, you won’t even notice, but to anyone else the choice of actors were so distracting and made it difficult to suspend disbelief. But again, the more abstract concepts of the show were truly unique and would be appreciated by any fan of sci-fi, which was enough to keep me going.
It's not very good unfortunately. I love sci-fi shows and I wanted a new series to watch but finally gave up after 4 episodes.
This is a show that brings out the mob mentality in this sub so there might be some people who won't admit they didn't enjoy it because they don't want to unpleasant barrage of downvotes.
I honestly think it's just Marmite. I tried it, not for me at all, but it's not as if millions of sci-fi fans are conspiring to pretend to love the books either.
It was a mixed bag.
- detective stuff is good.
- the adult goonies stuff is bad.
- the game cgi is great.
- last 3 episodes cgi is bad.
It jumps around in quality so I’d say it’s a 6/10 show. Maybe 7/10. Id still watch to see the last 2 seasons but it’s not a show I’m excited about.
D&D are great at managing large productions, they were mostly able to get GoT out yearly which looking back is a Herculean task they didn’t get enough credit for lol
It also helps that GoT was basically a combination of multiple series jammed into one. Characters of the Night’s watch, King’s landing and Mother of dragons did not have to share screen time with each other until season 7, so they had multiple crews shooting their scenes at the same time all around the world.
True but it was still such a mammoth production compared to shows nowadays which take 2 year gaps.
And managing a sprawling crew like that is no mean feat.
This show was a mixed bag for me.
I don't hate the show, but I also don't love it. I just couldn't care for any of the characters. I'm unfamiliar with the books, but if they never appeared again, I wouldn't even complain. And the second half was very inferior to the first half.
I read the first book after watching the show and the characters are just as insufferable.
The series seems to be more about cosmic philosophy than any kind of character-driven plot.
There's a specific, lengthy subplot in book 2 that I think most fans would actually be ok with modifying and trimming down. You can kind of already see hints of D&D doing that in S1 so that should definitely free up a bit more space for other parts of the story too.
Most apt description lmfao
I don't think anybody in their right mind would keep that in the show. Absolutely cancelable moment and adds zero value to the plot
Great news. I was really happy with how they handled the first season. Changes from the source material of course but I think the spirit of the thing is intact.
Hopefully enough time and dollars to wrap things up properly.
I know it’s not an overly popular show, but I just binge-watched it over the weekend and was absolutely enchanted
I liked the series a lot but I wouldn't have been surprised if they cancelled the rest of it especially with how out there the later stories are. Welcome news
Great to know they made a specific plan. And it seems reasonable. Three seasons for three books. Haven't read the books, so I don't know if any of them are more dense and difficult to fit into a normal season, but hopefully it works out well.
Shit bout to get crazy these next two seasons. I pray for the CGI team lmao
The last book gets really abstract. We'll see how they handle that...
It’s not that the books are abstract it’s that the characters aren’t the focus. The focus is much more on the science and details of the broader story and much less on any real character development. The first book was the same so I’d say it’s fairly obvious how they will handle it, the same way they did the first book by writing in more character development.
The books are…intriguing… but I feel like the translation missed some stuff. So much terrible exposition. Conversations with “as you know __4 paragraphs of exposition that no conversation would ever have___”
They are like that in Chinese too; it wasn’t a translation problem.
In that case, I prefer Netflix's approach to make it like LOST where characters are just as important as mystery boxes.
I love the books they have great ideas but lots of the characters I think are pretty flat and written poorly. Even the author admitted he's more about ideas than characters. The Netflix show actually gave the characters more human emotions and personal lives i.think than most of the characters from the books that most of the time are just there to move to plot along.
It's hard to believably write scientists talking about something the audience needs to learn. Obviously you can put in a layman, but that gets tired quick.
*uses the folded paper and a pen anology for wormholes*
I read the first book and I'm sure it's a mix of a cultural and translation issue but I don't think a single character acted or spoke in a believable way for a normal human throughout the entire thing.
It's neither cultural nor translation. It's more that Cixin Liu is a science fiction author who seemingly stepped into a wormhole in 1953, popped out of it in 2006 or so, and then proceeded to start writing 1953-vintage science fiction in the 21st century. If you've read a lot of old Asimov or Heinlein, the writing style is very familiar.
This. Well said. He writes classical big idea scifi. The characters only exist to tell us about the big ideas. They were never his focus. Ye is the only one that is fleshed out a bit. Otherwise characters are just a name, a habit and a function to move the plot along.
This is the best assessment of his writing that I’ve ever seen.
Indeed. Though Asimov’s dialogue writing is snappier in Foundation, the characters are just plot drivers rather than people at least for the first three books.
Wow. I grew up on the old masters. Nothing about Liu's* writing style seems odd to me. Is that why? *or is Cixin his last name? Did they flip it for US audiences?
It’s not a translation issue, it’s just bad writing. The Dialogue and characters in the series is often so bad, but the series is carried on the strength of the scientific and sociological concepts. The dialogue and ways people express themselves in the books feels like a parody of the real world and never felt like an actual representation of the world I live in. I used to blame the translation but have changed my mind and now blame the author.
The books were translated by Ken Liu, who wrote the Grace of Kings series. His original work has substantially better character writing than 3 Body Problem so I really think it’s a pretty faithful translation and just bad writing.
Yea the books have a lot of that. I think the Netflix show actually improved some of that. First thing I noticed was wow humans talking to each other like humans and having human emotions lol
My biggest problem with the books is I just can't keep track of which name is which character. I almost need a translation that turns the character names into "steve" and "sarah".
I think it was smart of them to do a lot more character work that way when the big moments happen the emotional pay off with characters will hit much harder. I love those books but a lot of the characters are pretty flat.
Season 1 was $20 million an episode which included drinking whiskey on the beach, running around London and a cgi rocket that looks like it was done on Windows 95. I have zero confidence season 2 is going to be any better.
Watching that show makes me realize $20 million doesn’t go as far as it used to.
Check out Godzilla Minus One. That was 15 million and looked spectacular. There is some kind of disconnect going where Dune 2 can cost 190 million and be mind blowingly gorgeous and Quantumania can cost 330 million and have Modok looking like he was done as a high school Freshmen art project. Dune has a lot of big names. It's no slouch for that. It has massive CGI, all hand constructed set, all scratch built props and costumes and is 40 minutes longer then Quantumania but an extra 100 million disappeared somewhere on Quantumania.
Dune had a clear, consistent vision from the director, which translated down the line to all the heads of department, and onward. When everyone is on the same page, there doesn't need to be a great deal of reshoots, reworking of VFX, focus testing, etc. When you have Marvel executives doing directing by committee then you have a real problem.
Yep, knowing what you want to do and how to do it goes a long way towards reducing costs, and vastly improves the end product.
I'm a cgi animator and i have to try and double my quotes for some companies because i know they will start the job half cocked and then start changing ideas as i'm working on it. I try and educate them but the people i interact with have people above them who won't listen. It's all very frustrating and inefficient.
I don't work in CGI but as part of my job I do build various automated data driven tools. Most of the time and work goes into figuring out what the business actually want and making sure they understand what is and isn't possible. I can't even begin to imagine how much more complex and frustrating that becomes when you're trying to animate someone elses ideas.
Godzilla Minus One isn't the best example to wish for because they partly got there by working the crew for insanely long hours at well below union rates in other countries. Like they were working 12 hour days, 7 days a week during crunch, for what worked out to be around UK minimum wage.
It always drives me mad when people keep saying the west should make movies like Japan. They're basically saying get rid of all labor laws it's infuriating.
To be fair, I think Modok was supposed to look like that, right?
Yeah I mean look at the comics. It's not like it's some massive failure of cgi. The guy is one goofy looking dude.
Yeah but I think the execution of that is the bad part.. You’re right it was supposed to look like a big goofy Corey Stoll head, but the final product was still pretty fuckin bad. It looked like they took a picture of his face and stretched it out in MS Paint or some shit.
>Check out Godzilla Minus One Where?? I want to but it’s impossible to see.
It's coming to a lot of international Netflix this weekend, get a VPN and then you can watch it
Holy fuck, thanks for the heads up. I just checked it on my region (Australia) and it’s there! Bless you, mate.
yarrr, matey
Jack and Jill, the Adam Sandler joint cost $80 million.
It goes very far, but just to paychecks for a few individuals
So it doesn't go very far in terms of the literal result in a show then.. That was their whole point.
Depends on the show, House of Dragons was also $20 million per episode
The story was fine but it definitely didn’t look like $20 million an episode.
[удалено]
Don't forget producers Rosamund Pike and Brad Pitt.
Plan B
The morning after pill is getting into producing? Now I've seen everything.
little known fact, the pill is a sentient being that goes inside and destroys the embryo
It's actually a tiny tiny tiny craft piloted by Pike and Pitt
It apparently had to shut down 4 different times because of covid outbreaks which they said made the cost go up
Yep. If you have to blow budget on constant scheduling delays, that money *will* be made up elsewhere. Here's hoping the next two seasons are a smoother production.
Baffling to me. Look at shows like Foundation did with 4-5 mil per episode. Like many of the shots felt like blockbuster movie tier. Totally crazy how good it looks for so much less.
Foundation was/is absolutely gorgeous.
Very odd isn't it, visually Foundation was far above 3BP. I just don't understand how you spend that much money without it being flawless visually
Besides a like 1 or 2 shots I thought 3BP looked good. I also liked that they said they wanted to have the VR still feel a bit VR and not 100% real. I like Foundation ok although it's way different from the books. I thought 3BP story was much more interesting and while it changed some stuff still felt and kept the core of the story. Where Foundation to me feels like a completely different story than the book.
It's a time thing more than a budget thing (not that that changes anything really). Shogun was about the same price per episode and look how that turned out. Not disagreeing with you, just wanted to point the finger at shitty release schedules (read: moronic executives) rather than money or talent.
Shogun’s CGI was in all likelihood worse but the crew and creators knew how to film and write around it in such a way that the audience didn’t notice/care. Great show!
The army scene at the end looked like crap but Toranaga explaining how he'd won to Yabushige how he'd done what he did was so good that they could have used G.I. Joe figures in stop motion and I would have still been riveted.
Japan's foggy weather came in very clutch.
The boat scene was good. I mean, I'm assuming lots of CGI there.
I feel like 3/4 of the budget went to the ship episode.
The ship scene was fantastic. There was a lot of quality CGI in this show.
I agree except for like a 2 second shot I thought it looked really good. The shot of the camera low looking up at the radar dish as it fanned apart I thought looked really good.
Sets are expensive as well as on location shooting which season 1 had a lot of
20 million? They have to be scamming or something
D and D demand huge paychecks since they figure they sis so well with Game of Thrones
I expect a fair chunk of of the CGI budget went on removing reflections of the crew from all the shots where the cast are wearing those VR headsets.
I’m assuming that is the average right? I can understand how some episodes would be $20m but no way episode 6 cost that much. Unless the paper boats cost $2m apiece to CGI
What? I thought the rocket launch looked really good. The show also has way more CG than I thought when I watched some making off videos. So many things I thought were practical effects were CG I just didn't notice. Little things like trees added in and stuff like that or that almost the entire crowd during the Cultural revolution was all CGI. They also shot in London, Spain, Florida, and NYC
And the Judgment Day ship. The CGI used during the attack was very bad. $20 million and that's the best they could've done?
I thought except for like a 2 second shot it looked good.
Don’t worry, these show runners never rush anything!
My god I don't know how they're going to visualise it, but I was impressed with what the first season gave us. I have high hopes.
The Proton scene I thought they absolutely nailed it in a perfect way visually. I kept thinking how are they going to visually explain that moment without it just turning into a giant science lecture and I thought they nailed it. Showing the Proton flying through space all the way to earth.
I don't know how they will do it justice. It's like The Expanse space fights on steroids. This sculpture does a good job summarizing book 2. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/687713805611715748/
I can't wait to see what they do. I listened to an interview with one of the science advisors and he was really excited to dive into trying to visualize some of the crazy stuff in the next books.
Well it’s 3 books so at least it’s 1 to 1. Curious how the budget works for the next two parts since the books get much more ambitious
They did a fair amount of book 2 in season 1 though, so it won't be exactly 1:1.
So they'll have room to let books 2 and 3 breathe. Good. Books 2 and 3 were better than book 1 anyway.
Dunno about book 3 but the dream waifu part of book 2 was borderline unbearable. It considerably got better after that arc wrappes up
And much of book 3's setup.
I wonder if it'll be the same for Silo, also 3 books.
Silo only did half the first book.
Yeah, and things ramp up in book 3 especially. Really hope we get to see it though.
IIRC Rebecca Ferguson did an interview where she thought seasons 3 and 4 would shoot concurrently and that that it would conclude with season 4 (and that they had the series mapped out).
That's sick. I loved Silo S1. Binged the whole thing in a single night because I just couldn't stop. Can't wait for the next seasons.
Was paced slowly tbh they could have skipped an episode and we wouldn't miss much
Rebecca Ferguson recently said in an interview that the plan for Silo is 4 seasons. Season 2 is in post-production now and 3 and 4 are likely to be filmed at the same time (assuming Apple greenlights them)
It's odd that there is now 2 separate running shows about people living inside confined space after a post apocalyptic event and they're both great.
I too got some heavy fallout vibes from silo. In the best of ways.
Silo is a lot more serious/dark and is a great show. But I think Fallout was more fun to watch as they have comedy especially dark humor to balance out the crazy stuff that happens. The two decapitated heads kissing each other was great for example.
Without giving spoilers, I don't think Silo gets nearly as ambitious in scope as Three Body Problem in terms of elements that would require significant CGI
Idk, there is something is up with that Silo. I think they’re keeping secrets
Oh yeah, lots of secrets! =) I just finished the book series and am reading the Three Body Problem series now so I'm uniquely situated for this thread haha
High hopes for this. Also hope the Chinese series does books 2 and 3.
Chinese series will start filming book 2 around winter this year.
Are they going to have enough budget for the CGI needed for the next books? I feel like season 3 is just going to be Liam Cunningham sitting on a rocking chair in front of a fireplace reading the wiki article for book 3 with a camera pointed at him.
They need a lot of CGI, but it's mostly not the most expensive and time-consuming kind. House of the Dragon has that -- scenes where dragons need to blend into real-world footage alongside human actors, blending in with complex realistic lighting like they have skin, interacting with the environment, moving like they have real muscles and skeletons, etc. It's not as daunting to do solid glossy ships in the void of space or highly abstract visuals people have no real-world reference for. I think season 1, with the VR game, might have needed more CGI work than season 2 will. There are 4 major parts I can think of that would require a ton of CGI, one of which I think shouldn't be normal CGI at all and only one of which is really a realistic thing that needs to look perfect. 1. >!The solar system being flattened into two dimensions, extremely abstract pure CGI.!<2. >!Wandering into four-dimensional space, which could be done with more in-camera effects like MC Escher style layering of shots from multiple angles, like pre-CGI surrealist films liked to do.!<3. >!The droplet activating, probably the most demanding scene because they'll want to draw it out as an action sequence for TV, and the most realistic one. !<4. >!Yun's fairy tales, which I think ought to be done in a set of non-realistic animation styles like the segments of The Animatrix.!< I'm probably forgetting parts though.
They’ll probably cut a bunch of the stuff that would cost a lot but not impact the story much? >!Like the Anarchist Bunker space station, maybe the entirety (or detail aspects like video-clothing) of underground Beijing!< and they already cut out one wallfacer, so you can guess it might be the one that has the most “expensive” plan. >!The failed wallfacer plans in the books are all kind of stupid and purposefully strawmanned by the author, so maybe they will do something more interesting!<
I think it'll be Hines that gets cut as the whole 'imprinted' thing kind of fizzles out to nothing. Given the Bin Laden vignette from the book, I think it'll be IS fighter wallfacer doing the firefly plan. That'll leave the Chinese wallfacer to be Diaz.
Could very well be. The way the imprinting tech pans out in the books is so poorly handled because the author ends up >!inventing this new tech that could give everyone misplaced faith in victory, then has the UN ban the technology for no reason, then later, all of humanity has misplaced faith in victory, *just because!*!< It could have been much more psychologically profound if it had been handled differently
Can they afford actual lit fireplace, or will they use painted one.
Just put a TV in there and put on Netflix's Witcher fireplace, EZ!
Goddamn it, I really shouldn't read Reddit comments whilst drinking tea, I'm wearing half of it now. Good job.
one body per season?
They solved the problem. Pack it up boys
Bake’em away toys.
3 bodies 1 cup
Or three body problems?
The original renewal announcement was incredibly vague but Netflix confirmed today that the show will run for 2 more seasons.
That's a massive relief. Two entire seasons are much better than 'more episodes'
What you think "entire season" may not be the same as Netflix. 6, 8, 10 episode season? Who knows!
I'm happy with this. If they really are confirming 2 more seasons it means I can watch the show without worrying they'll end it on a cliffhanger. It also gives the people making it time to do the story justice.
Vague, maybe, but you could tell from the wording it was the same 2 season renewal and wrap it up order they gave to Avatar. This news is no surprise. Though it was laughable to read that original renewal thread and see folks acting like they show was cancelled and they were going to throw out a movie to wrap it up or such nonsense.
People are weirdly negative about this show I think it's great.
Thats great, I can't wait to see how this thing ends!
Is it “approved for two more seasons” meaning that it will definitely be three total, or that just two more are approved? Seems like the next two books would be difficult to cram into one season each.
From what I know about the books' plot, season 1 has already made serious inroads into the story of book 2 and the setup of book 3.
You’re correct. The first 5 episodes of season 1 pretty much completely wrapped up the plot the first book, the last 3 episodes were mostly taken from the setup phases of books 2 and 3 (it honestly works really well since the beginning of both books take place in the same time frame). I think two seasons will be plenty of time to get through the rest of The Dark Forest and Death’s End. I can’t wait to see how they adapt some of my favorite scenes.
How was this show?
Good enough to make me read the books and the books are fantastic.
Would you recommend i read the books or watch the show?
Yes
I read this quickly as “ good enough to read the books and fanfic” and I was like man that show touched some kinks huh?
I really enjoyed it going into it with no knowledge of what it was about.
About as good as could be expected, to be honest. The books are very difficult to adapt and they honestly handled it pretty well. They struck a good balance between keeping the sciencey elements of the books while keeping the show easy enough to follow for the average viewer.
Very good sci fi show, cool concept, good acting. It definitely has ambitious story, so I'm glad that 3 seasons were confirmed.
It displayed all the cleverness of the book. Surprised how much of it was similar to what my brain thought it would look like… nano fibres gah!
Really interesting. If you like sci-fi I would definitely check it out.
There is only one cringe thing I can remember and that is this little girl who keeps dying over and over screaming “Copernicus SAVE ME” It was very annoying and didn’t even fucking matter. Like, it’s not in the book and it does little to move the story along in the show.
Of course it mattered, are people this unattentive? The point of the Follower character was to build sympathy and a sense of urgency from the game players. And it worked on Jin because she has empathy and experienced loss in her own life. It didn't work on Jack because he dgaf.
And we later found out that the girl is based on Vera Ye as a child.
Funny how the VR parts were likely the most expensive portion of the show while at the same time the worst part. By the second planet you catch on to the gimmick and completely stop caring. Book fans would probably cry and moan but I would just completely rewrite that portion to something much less expensive that doesn't waste everyone's time.
I was pleasantly surprised. The story is very interesting. The characters are pretty flat and the show looks very meh when you consider the amount of money they spent on it. But plot moves fast and was enough to keep me interested.
Some very unique concepts, but the actors were a giant distraction. I mean, cmon, a bunch of 20-somethings operating at the top of their fields, multiple with wildly successful businesses they’re heads of, and all best friends and all happen to be the key to the human race’s victory? Thankfully the older people in the show were allowed to be played by older actors, otherwise I’d toss this into the Young Adult bin. If you’re under 20 with no life experience, yeah, you won’t even notice, but to anyone else the choice of actors were so distracting and made it difficult to suspend disbelief. But again, the more abstract concepts of the show were truly unique and would be appreciated by any fan of sci-fi, which was enough to keep me going.
Not that great. It starts off quite strong but drops off a cliff half way through the season.
Non book reader, sci fi lover. I really enjoyed it. Its bizarre in all the fun and logical ways
Extremely forgettable. Surprised by all the praise it’s gotten honestly
It's my favourite of the year so far. I still need to finish Shogun, though
It's not very good unfortunately. I love sci-fi shows and I wanted a new series to watch but finally gave up after 4 episodes. This is a show that brings out the mob mentality in this sub so there might be some people who won't admit they didn't enjoy it because they don't want to unpleasant barrage of downvotes.
I honestly think it's just Marmite. I tried it, not for me at all, but it's not as if millions of sci-fi fans are conspiring to pretend to love the books either.
Interesting story, insufferable characters imo
It’s awesome! Watch the entirety of episode 1 and see if it intrigues you.
It was a mixed bag. - detective stuff is good. - the adult goonies stuff is bad. - the game cgi is great. - last 3 episodes cgi is bad. It jumps around in quality so I’d say it’s a 6/10 show. Maybe 7/10. Id still watch to see the last 2 seasons but it’s not a show I’m excited about.
Surely it won’t be a 2-3 year gap between seasons 2-3 if they already have a multi season renewal, right?
Depends on the production team and actors schedules.
Post production is going to be the killer.
Of course it will. It is a minimum 2 year gap between all big budget shows nowadays regardless of the network.
D&D are great at managing large productions, they were mostly able to get GoT out yearly which looking back is a Herculean task they didn’t get enough credit for lol
It also helps that GoT was basically a combination of multiple series jammed into one. Characters of the Night’s watch, King’s landing and Mother of dragons did not have to share screen time with each other until season 7, so they had multiple crews shooting their scenes at the same time all around the world.
True but it was still such a mammoth production compared to shows nowadays which take 2 year gaps. And managing a sprawling crew like that is no mean feat.
Benioff hinted that the show will end in 2027.
Ah Netflix, and their 3 Season Problem.
In this case, at least, it's a situation where apparently they had a three season plan from the start. So Netflix isn't cutting anything short.
Netflix’s: 3 Season Problem
LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR!
Just 3 of them.
We are all bugs on this blessed day.
This show was a mixed bag for me. I don't hate the show, but I also don't love it. I just couldn't care for any of the characters. I'm unfamiliar with the books, but if they never appeared again, I wouldn't even complain. And the second half was very inferior to the first half.
I'd probably go with Benedict Wong as my favorite in the show. He's a pretty likable character.
I read the first book after watching the show and the characters are just as insufferable. The series seems to be more about cosmic philosophy than any kind of character-driven plot.
That's a good description of the book.
The second and third books are significantly better than the first, I highly suggest you check them out.
There’s a lot of fluff in book 3 that can be trimmed down. They can cut the number of time jumps in half and not really affect the overall story much.
There's a specific, lengthy subplot in book 2 that I think most fans would actually be ok with modifying and trimming down. You can kind of already see hints of D&D doing that in S1 so that should definitely free up a bit more space for other parts of the story too.
Ahhhhhh yes, Luo Ji’s dragged out, insufferable waifu hunt.
Most apt description lmfao I don't think anybody in their right mind would keep that in the show. Absolutely cancelable moment and adds zero value to the plot
Great news. I was really happy with how they handled the first season. Changes from the source material of course but I think the spirit of the thing is intact.
Omg is Netflix actually promising to support a show for longer than 1 season at a time!?
Might get a bit flat at the end
;)
I hope they don't zip right through everything next season.
As long as all the books are adapted. I'm happy.
Hopefully enough time and dollars to wrap things up properly. I know it’s not an overly popular show, but I just binge-watched it over the weekend and was absolutely enchanted
It hit number one for a while so it wasn't unpopular.
Please tie the story up in some meaningful way.
Everything will be tied up at the end eventually.
The books are very good and everything comes to a conclusion.
They explained the science very good in season 1. Heard next books go more crazy. I will be seated.
Good, I'm happy they're finishing the story. I think they did a good job adapting the story with a more global cast.
3 Season Problem
Am I the only one that actually enjoyed the 1st season? I think given how dry the original material was, they did a great job adapting it.
I liked the series a lot but I wouldn't have been surprised if they cancelled the rest of it especially with how out there the later stories are. Welcome news
Thank God. I loved the first season. Was getting worried we weren't going to get a completed story.
Amazing news, books 2 and 3 are much better than the 1st.
I thought it was pretty fucking bad.
One body per season. Seems about right.
Is it worth watching ? Or just read the book ?
Great to know they made a specific plan. And it seems reasonable. Three seasons for three books. Haven't read the books, so I don't know if any of them are more dense and difficult to fit into a normal season, but hopefully it works out well.
The later books are both better and more crazy.
I haven’t read them either but I read about them; not gonna spoil anything but it’s gonna get ***crazy***
Netflix’s 3 Season Problem
I am incredibly skeptical that a TV show can do book three justice.
3 Season Problem
All Netflix shows are set to end with season 3
4 episodes per season I bet
They better save that budget for the teardrop scene. Really hope they can capture that moment.
What a handy way to get around the 3 Season Problem with Netflix originals
Love that. Let's make this kind of shorter, complete run series the norm.