“The 3 Body Problem”: Why Netflix did not respect the nationality of the characters in the book?

“3 Body Problem” premiered on Netflix on March 21 and quickly became one of the most popular series on the platform. The story is based on a trilogy of books by Cixin Liu, whose first installment has the same title, although he made some major changes to the plot, chronology, and even characters from the original work. The creators behind the adaptation explain the reasons for their creative decisions.

Netflix’s ‘The 3 Body Problem’ disrespected its characters’ origins

Without a doubt, one of the most significant changes between the books and the show has to do with the characters.

First of all, all of Cixin Liu’s works are set entirely in China and all of her characters are from that country. Both the events and actors in the books reflect the cultural and political context of the nation, particularly during the Cultural Revolution.

In the Netflix adaptation, this was not fully preserved. On the one hand, Ye Wenjie’s story is the one that stayed truest to the original source, but on the other hand, many of the new characters introduced (the Oxford 5) have different nationalities.

The creators of the Netflix series “The Three Body Problem” explain why they changed the nationalities of the characters

According to series director Derek Tsang, the decision to vary the nationalities of the characters was based on the intention to make a story more accessible and that would resonate with the streaming platform’s international audience:

“It makes sense that because we’re adapting the story for our global audience, we’ve expanded the scope and have more characters from around the world,” he told “Tudum.”

He added that because they consider “The 3-Body Problem” “to be a story about humanity and humanity’s struggle with a seemingly unsolved mystery that turns into an all-out existential crisis.” […] we wanted to represent, as much as possible, all of humanity”: “We tried to make this a very diverse international cast to represent the idea that this is not just one country’s struggle. It’s a global fight for survival.”

It should be noted that series creators David Benioff, DB Weiss and Alexander Woo (who have also worked on other book adaptations) received Cixin Liu’s “blessing” to make the changes they felt were necessary to bring their story to television. : “He encouraged them to make the necessary narrative changes,” reveals “Tudum.”

What did you think of the character change in ‘The Three Body Problem’? Let us know in the comments if you enjoyed the Netflix series.