Summary
3 Body Problemshowrunners David Benioff and Alexander Woo discuss two scenes and cameos cut from season 1 of the Netflix series. D.B. Weiss also served as a showrunner alongside Benioff and Woo in their ambitious adaptation of Liu Cixin’sRemembrance of Earth’s Pasttrilogy, the first intallment of which isThe Three-Body Problem. The series received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series, with this positive reception and high streaming numbers leading to a renewal for3 Body Problemseasons 2and 3 that will complete the adaptation of the source material’s story.
While speaking withThe Hollywood Reporter, Woo, Benioff, and Weiss provided insight into the behind-the-scenes process of bringing3 Body Problemto life.Benioff broke down a scene in the script that was never filmed, but that he and his fellow showrunners were reluctant to cut despite knowing that it would be logistically impractical to include. Woo also teased a cameo featuring a star from a major science-fiction franchise. Check out Benioff and Woo’s comments below:
Benioff:There’s one that we never shot, but it was in script at some point that we didn’t do because of budgeting and time considerations. There’s a scene in the book when Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng) leaves Red Coast base for the first time to look for a site for the new base and she goes to a village and meets an old woman. It’s a nighttime scene and the old woman is looking at the stars and she grabs her and says, “I hear you study the stars. Tell me because I’ve always wanted to know: Why don’t they fall out of the sky? What keeps them up there?” It’s a beautiful moment from the books that all three of us loved and we thought it would be a good moment for the character. But it meant building a whole other exterior village set in period rural China. It was one of those early casualties because you’re able to’t have everything.
Woo:There was another sequence that was really fun and played really well and would have been a fantastic cameo appearance for an actor that I don’t want to name —because I don’t want to make someone feel bad for being cut out of the show. However, it is a former Doctor Who, I’ll say that much. Fans of that would probably would have found it delightful. But for the sake of the rest of the episode, we had to set it aside.
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Cut scenes can sometimes weaken a story, as their exclusion can leave out crucial character development or plot details.The cut scene that Benioff describes does sound intriguing because it fits thematically with the series, its philosophical questions about the universe, and would have further fleshed out Ye Wenjie’s backstory. Its exclusion did not negatively impact3 Body Problemoverall, though, as it still proved to be one of the most compelling new series in recent years.
With a cast of nuanced characters portrayed by a stellar cast, the ambitious story was grounded by these individuals and how their humanity is challenged by the looming threat and promises of the extraterrestrial San-Ti.
3 Body Problemhas a vast scopewith a narrative that already spans numerous decades and that will span multiple centuries by the time it concludes. With a cast of nuanced characters portrayed by a stellar cast, the ambitious story was grounded by these individuals and how their humanity is challenged by the looming threat and promises of the extraterrestrial San-Ti.The drama is on par with the best seasons in Benioff and Weiss' previous collaboration,Game of Thrones, and contains invaluable commentary about the human condition.
As for the cameo that Woo teases, it would have been fun to feature a formerDoctor Wholead in a different science-fiction world, but the cameo may have proven to be distracting from the deeplyimmersive3 Body Problem.Woo, Benioff, and Weiss are focusing on telling the story as best they canwhile also being practical about how to achieve this. Such an approach worked exceedingly well in3 Body Problemseason 1, and that will hopefully continue to be the case in seasons 2 and 3.
3 Body Problem
Cast
3 Body Problem is a Netflix original series from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, along with Alexander Woo. Based on the novel of the same name by Liu Cixin, 3 Body Problem centers on a detective who joins forces with a group of scientists after an unknown force begins killing scientists around the world.
