The Netflix adaptation of author Liu Cixin’s science-fiction series, Remembrance of Earth’s Past — titled 3 Body Problem, after the first novel — is a gripping thriller with a compelling and original premise. It is also a cautionary tale of what happens when communist radicals are given any semblance of power.
In an opening scene that peeved the Chinese government, the first episode sets the backdrop for the series, depicting a moment from Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in 1966, wherein a group of young Marxists publicly beat a physics professor to death over his reluctance to denounce Einstein’s theory of relativity (American propaganda). It is here that his daughter, Ye Wenjie (Rosalind Chao), witness to the brutality, becomes radicalized herself, but not against communism or Mao’s regime.
Instead, Wenjie, a brilliant physicist, becomes disenfranchised with human beings more broadly, believing that a greater power is the only way to “fix” humanity. But that greater power is not God or any religion, as those were deemed discrepant with the interests of the state.
Furthering her spiral into hedonistic radicalism, Wenjie befriends Mike Evans (Jonathan Pryce), an American leftist and the son of a billionaire oil tycoon, a pattern all too common among revolutionary cosplayers. A fanatic environmentalist, he similarly despises humanity, but for its treatment of animals and nature, dubbing his dogma “Pan-Species Communism” and preaching that animals are equal to humans.
Convinced that humanity needs saving from itself and consumed by her communist delusions, Wenjie decides to send a radio signal to a distant alien civilization, inviting them to come and conquer Earth. There is much maligning of religion by ascribing it as the impetus for wars and terrorism, but the degree of devastation and mass murder caused by nations that worshipped the state cannot be contended with on these metrics.
What sets 3 Body Problem aside from most such sci-fi films is its timeline. Whereas such classics as Independence Day (1996) or War of the Worlds (2005) take place during alien invasions, this series takes place in the ominous buildup to the aliens’ arrival. Upon discovering their predicament after a series of supernatural events, humans learn they have 400 years to prepare for the incoming incursion. The battle that forms the bulk of the series becomes humanity’s race to develop sufficient technology to fight off the interstellar conquistadors as the aliens leverage a series of science-fiction gimmicks to influence the humans and prevent them from advancing their technology.
Created by the producers of Game of Thrones, this adaptation is as sleek and polished of a suspense thriller as you’d expect, packing enough twists and turns to keep you bingeing through the season. But despite these triumphs, the series noticeably falters in its dialogue and casting. With few exceptions, characters are insufferable cliches of scientists, delivering such insipid lines as, “We’re not believers in this house; we’re scientists.” It’s as if it was written by a teenage atheist who had just skimmed a Richard Dawkins book for the first time.
There is another scene in a later episode in which Will Downing (Alex Sharp), a physics teacher, recounts a time he rejected a Christian girl by telling her that C.S. Lewis was a “s***ty writer.”
Acrimony toward Christianity and religion more broadly is prominent throughout the adaptation. As news of the impending alien invasion spreads, various groups begin to congregate and sympathize with the aliens, referring to them reverently as “Lord.” Defending their newly established creed, one of the acolytes insists, “It makes us sound like religious loons. Except our Lord is real.”
In this dystopian portrayal, these characters, overwhelmed by the arrival of a technologically superior alien civilization, begin to view the aliens as saviors. This faux religion, born from fear and awe of an advanced power expected to rule and better their lives, mirrors the communist veneration for the state as an omnipotent caretaker.
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As 3 Body Problem’s ostensibly genius-scientist protagonists condescendingly sneer at Christianity and traditional theology, they overlook that blind idolatry of the state or, in this instance, interstellar overlords has historically been its alternative.
Though Netflix’s adaption presents an interesting premise, much of the latter half relies on the viewer suspending both belief and logic. The more you think about it, the less things make sense. But despite such shortcomings, at its core, 3 Body Problem is a worthy reminder that communism inherently distrusts humanity’s individual capacity to better the collective. Its only logical end is handing the reins to a perceived superior being to control the masses.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a computer engineer in Toronto pursuing his MBA.