Liu Cixin’s adaptation of the sci-fi IP drama received unanimous praise “The Three-Body Problem”: Respecting the original is only the first step
The TV series “Three-Body Problem”, adapted from the science fiction novel of the same name by writer Liu Cixin, is currently being broadcast on CCTV 8 and Tencent Video. This IP adaptation, which the audience has been looking forward to, received unanimous praise following it was broadcast because of its extremely high degree of restoration of the original work. With the development of the series, Chinese film and television dramas have also made gratifying breakthroughs in the field of science fiction. grades.
The drama version of “The Three-Body Problem” strictly follows the sequence of the original work, starting with the suicide of a scientist in 2007, and introducing the “Scientific Frontier” organization and the “Three-Body Problem” game with the bizarre experience of nano-scientist Wang Miao. With the assistance of Shi Qiang from the Joint Operations Center, Wang Miao gradually approached the truth. The secret of the “Three-Body Problem” game is that the two civilizations are fighting each other desperately for survival.
The adaptation of sci-fi literary IP into film and television dramas has always been rewritten to a certain extent, or disrupted the narrative structure, or introduced new characters. But in the first five episodes of the “Three-Body Problem” series that have been aired, fans of the original book were surprised to find that the content of the entire series is almost strictly in accordance with the original narrative, only in some lines that need to be adjusted, or the way of telling fine-tuned on. According to the main creator of the play, how to adapt “Three-Body Problem” into film and television, following many discussions, finally decided to “close to the original work as much as possible” creation method, “Most readers of the original work have already believed in the structure provided by the novel itself. and content, it is superfluous to do more embellishments.”
The main creative team invited Liu Cixin, the author of the original work, to participate in the adaptation. In the adaptation, some fine-tuning was done in a way that conforms to the language of film and television, and the details of the characters were added to make the narration more conducive to the expression of the image. “At the same time, we must consider how to make the audience have a sense of substitution, be able to believe the story, understand the core of the story, and experience more the shock that the original work brings to readers.” According to reports, almost the entire production team are loyal readers of the original work , so when creating, everyone has a common goal and tries to restore it as much as possible.
On the rating website, many book fans bluntly said that the casting of this drama is also very close to the face. The image of a scientist presented by the actor Zhang Luyi is very consistent with the setting of the original book. He is cautious but passionate; although Shi Qiang played by Yu Hewei is different in body shape, he relies entirely on his acting skills to present Shi Qiang’s thick and fine details. Praise for “acting skills with a weight gain of 200 catties”; the elderly Ye Wenjie is played by the well-known actor Chen Jin, and the indifference and calmness of this key role is played; Ren Shen Yufei and others have also been well received by the audience.
Different from literary works, in science fiction adaptations, how to allocate the proportion of boring scientific explanations and take into account the audience’s acceptance often affects the achievement of science fiction works. This time the drama version did not reduce the proportion of scientific content in order to deliberately take care of the TV audience, but almost followed the content in the original work, spending more space to present complex scientific principles. At the same time, the main creator has adopted certain technical means to present boring scientific knowledge. For example, with regard to the basic law of “physical laws are uniform in time and space”, the play uses visual means to classically restore the original story of Ding Yi explaining particle collisions through the movement of billiard balls and leading Wang Miao to draw conclusions. plot. There are many similar plots. It can be seen that the series is trying to narrow the distance between the audience and the characters and scientific knowledge through visual and sensible creative language.
With the support of technical means, those scenes that were originally changing and beautiful in the original book can be concretized, such as the countdown image in Wang Miao’s eyes, and the most amazing “cosmic flickering” in the first five episodes, all restore the famous scenes in the original book, and also It provides the audience with a more qualified sci-fi scene. In the follow-up plot, the series will also use motion capture technology and CG means to restore and show the “Three-Body” game, as well as classic scenes such as the “Guzheng Action” that will appear later. (Reporter Li Xiazhi)
