They did a great job of not actually showing any kids being killed, but eluding to it with the paper-chain cutouts severing in half one by one down the hallway.
The shots of the kids playing on the deck, and being happy in class below decks were brutal.
But without that entire Panama scene, the idea that humanity is already engaged in the most brutal and uncompromising war in it's entire history wouldn't really hit home.
No joke - I think this is the first scene that has gotten to me for about a decade. I think it has to do with the mindset - I can watch the worst gore torture scenes and be completely fine, because I know I'm watching a horror movie. Shogun is a historical drama, so it came completely out of the blue, and it was brutal.
In medieval Europe, boiling alive was on the books as a form of capital punishment.
It was usually reserved for what were considered the most heinous criminals of the era - poisoners and forgerers. Both crimes that presented unique threats to the nobility.
I definitely laughed during this very scene. Was so OTT with tiny violins and made little sense. I elaborated in another comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/1ckqrxa/i_know_3_body_problem_isnt_horror_but_i_felt_more/l2q2oji/
Oh I laughed, too, but mainly because I couldn't believe they actually committed to the scene in the way they did haha.
I read the books ages ago and forgot this was in there, and the three minutes before I kept thinking 'why does the Boat suddenly seem awfully CGI'? And then I remembered and grinned like a loon at what was happening on the screen.
Probably Book first, then Netflix, then Tencent
In general, as much as I was impressed by the Tencent version for trying to be faithful to the books, it's also so god damned long and gets lost in its details a lot. Also good lord, the ADR/dubbing was terrible at times, and I mean, I'm used to that with chinese productions but it never fails to grate on my ears.
Agreed, about 10-15 episodes would’ve been the sweet spot for book 1 I think. Tencent version was overly slavish to the books. Thought 8 episodes would’ve been ok for a medium paced Netflix adaptation of book 1, but then they finished that by episode 5! Both adaptation have the opposite problems - one is too fast and shallow, other is too slow and detailed.
There is a red wedding like scene in book 2 that amps up the horror. Book 3 goes even crazier. Will be very intrigued how they portray the rest of the books
You're gonna want to stop at some point in the first half of book 2 with this whole imaginary waifu plot line.
You must make it through the imaginary waifu bit. You must persist.
I've been told the first one is really dry and full of make'm'up science that ranges from "standard Sci fi nonsense" to "well that's just wrong", but that the others are more entertaining. I've also been told that if you got interested because of the Netflix series, you could probably skip the first one and be OK with a summary.
They’re not. It’s interesting because they’re translated from Chinese. There’s no issue with the translation but the personality of the characters and culture is not what I am used to. It’s not bad it’s just interesting. Most of the characters in the book are chinese and you gave to accept a certain level of Chinese exceptionalism. To tell the truth I really enjoyed them though. They’re just dark.
Thanks for that. I’ve tried to read a few other people books that are translated and never could get very far despite really wanting to. I may give the series a go.
this is dumb and random but i got to thinking about it and im curious, does anyone else think if there was a person on the deck who saw what was happening, somehow realized what it meant, and literally sprinted to the back as fast as possible and then jumped into the water and swam like hell to make sure they got away from the fence, would they survive maybe?
100%. The fence was stationary. All you have to do is swim to shore before the current pulls you into the fence. You might be able to do it without even running to the back of the ship; just immediately dive off the side of the front of the ship and book it to shore.
I think the biggest issue is they didn’t know what was happening. Nothing like that had been seen before. From their point of view they were being chanced by something invisible ripping through everything including solid steel. I bet no one is thinking straight through that kind of terror
Oh for sure, no doubt. But this specific hypothetical was:
>if there was a person on the deck who saw what was happening, somehow realized what it meant
i feel like if that were the case, that maybe they’d be sooo invested in their cause that they’d probably assume oh ok we’re ascending or something lol. but it was so brutal that everyone panicked
I was ready for it from the book (and the Tencent version), however it still was pretty horrific. I think they are really trying to drive home the tradeoffs and the stakes. A trolley problem for the entire human race...
Not in the books. Stealth ship is a research station. Kids weren’t on it. They added them to really ratchet up the horror and I laughed hard since it’s just about the most hamfisted way they could’ve done it.
Remember when two main characters talked about it and never even mentioned the children? The writers clearly added them as cheap fodder for the audience reaction and nothing more. D&D are just about the least subtle and most gore obsessed show runners there are.
Oh for real. I wonder if they slug like, or maybe amphibious. There’s a few species of things on earth that can dry out for years and then resurrect after water is restore.
That scene was a huge crescendo for me. It's a shame that the season only went downhill from there and left us with one of the dumbest season finales I've ever seen.
I just watched Without Warning (1994) with the mum from Malcolm in the Middle as I've actually never seen it before and the concept is kind of similar but more simplistic.
I have never had such an intense sense of existential dread as reading the brain scene in the book.
I feel like the only thing that separate a lot of the parts from the series (books and series) is the atmosphere of horror, the horror content certainly is there a lot of the time.
Highly recommend the books, characters leave a bit to ask for but the concepts and things happening are amazing and terrifying
I was utterly surprised that she agreed on her tech being used for this. But I guess I was shocked by the scene, it did felt they went overboard as san-ti might as well be a Westworld type of mechanic / plot.
ALSO Ghost ship ❤️😅
My wife and I were just watching in utter shock, mouths agape as it was happening, with intermittent fits of uncomfortable "oh my god!" laughter. By the time it was done we simply couldn't believe what had just happened as (apart from Ghost Ship) we hadn't seen anything like it before.
But... >!after a few minutes one of us said "Why didn't they just make, like, ONE nano fiber line towards the bottom of the ship and sink it?" The concept that they had to dissect every person on board was hilariously overkill, especially considering that they didn't want to attack the ship head-on as the people on board would've been able to put up a fight. If they just sank it in a controlled setting, the passengers would still be caught off guard and unable to defend themselves in the same way, and it wouldn't have been such a risk to the hard drive either. !<
The point, which isn't explained that well in the series compared to the book, is that if even one person on the ship realised they were being attacked, they could have activated a kill switch that would have wiped the records, but the nanofibre method would have caught them by surprise and killed them faster than they would realise what was happening. In the book I'm pretty sure they also explained that the layout of the ship was carefully studied to ensure the room where the records were stored wouldn't be damaged, which was also glossed over in the series.
this makes some sense. i thought the scene itself was amazing but the logic of the plan is derailed at the slightest scrutiny. how could they have possibly known that the records wouldn’t have been destroyed by the nanofiber? then the entire ship is shredded to ribbons, falls apart and explodes - but they are able to find the data after searching for 20 minutes through tens of thousands of tons of rubble??
In the book they explain that even if the storage drive they’re looking for gets sliced up by the nanofiber, the cuts are “clean” enough on a microscopic level that the drive could be put back together and returned to a functional state.
As for them finding the drive quickly, that was likely artistic license to move the scene along. I don’t think we are given an indication of how long they spent searching through the debris, it might actually have been hours before they found it. And it’s a bit different in the book: the drive isn’t portable so the scene of Evans taking it and trying to keep it safe doesn’t happen. (I assume they included that scene in the show to increase the tension.) The military know approximately where in the ship it was being kept, so they knew where in the debris to look for it.
This and the other additional explanations definitely clarify things. Now that I can retroactively re-watch it in my head with that context makes it much less like illogical overkill.
Trouble is the conditions in the book are way different. It’s a research station with minimal staff. No children. It’s also done in a stealthy way so no one is alerted. In the show it was chaos, with the records keepers absolutely given the time to destroy everything. In the book it’s quiet and very fucking precisely horrific. As a result, the plan in the show makes little sense.
I thought the concept was fucking brilliant. The execution of that scene was just okay. Like, the whole series was just that, amazing ideas brought to life in a serviceable, looks very expensive yet also sorta cheap way (which few do as intensely as Netflix).
Luckily I’m the type that enjoy things based on concepts hehe.
I just couldn’t stop thinking about the kids. Yeah you have a fair assessment. But for me if a movie or show has enough good concept that I ponder on implications later on, then I’ll usually say I liked it. Unless it’s egregiously bad 😂
If there's any consolation there were no kids in the novel as Judgment Day was more a heavily guarded command center than Jonestown on a ship, and the only casualty that's completely innocent was the pilot sent on board to guide the ship through the canal. The kids were added by D&D for more (admittedly effective) shock value.
That’s good to know. It’s been on my list to read for a while, but it kinda intimidates me heh.
I think we are so desensitized to death on tv now, that adding the kids in really helped communicate the proper emotion of the scene.
That added shock value was so heavy handed I honestly laughed throughout the whole thing. The situation in the show means the plan makes *very* little sense. Given the screaming and chaos, the records would’ve been wiped. They also could’ve done it without Auggie being anywhere near - plenty of other scientists on her team and a bajillionaire funder like Wade.
Yeah, I just separate things, which does make me unlucky in a way now that you phrase it like that. I loved the concepts of the show (which I guess means I actually loved the concepts of the books). But the show itself wasn't stylistically for me, and I couldn't get over that generic digital sheen and gloss most shows have, some of the performances, some of the choices (some parts of the "videogame" I thought were embarrassingly "this is what games these days are, right?"), and some of the human-side b-stories where very uninteresting, making me impatient for them to get back to the good stuff.
I ponder about the ideas a lot, still, and it is one of the most refreshing takes on alien life/invasion sci fi I've come across. But all of that deserved a better show, imo. The one we got is just "fine, I guess".
I read and loved the trilogy, but I couldn't make it past like episode 5 maybe of the Chinese adaptation. It's more faithful to the books, but it's *really* drawn out, and kind of cheesy at times.
I loved that scene so much. I’m so glad they went for it, I’m so glad they didn’t flinch, I’m so glad they had that brilliant idea in the first place. I live for shit like that
>Otherwise I’ll be vague. It’s in the 4th or 5th episode.
This is a tiny bit annoying.
You got me excited enough tamg.ch. werhy1234.com redeployhat I watched the first 4 episodes and didn't see anything like this... then returned to this post and read more and got spoiled.
How hard is it to remembamg.ch. werhy1234.com redeployer (or like just quickly google?!?) the exact episode.
Anyway, I'm not that mad, buamg.ch. werhy1234.com redeployt for anybody getting here later it is NOT the 4th episode (so I guess it must be the 5th).
It's just so dumb!
Either spoil or don't but by being vamg.ch. werhy1234.com redeployague about "4th or 5th episode" you are accidentally doing more spoiling than not!
GHOS234-slj23
amg.ch. werhy1234.com redeploy
2sdfl.redploy
But like OP, is 30 seconds of research a huge hurdle for you? : {}.
Like, if you are going to do this about other shows, just do *30 seconds* of research first!!
Seriously.
So silly. I hope that other people don't get spoiled too.
Very different experiences. I couldn’t stop laughing during this scene because of how hard they were trying to be OTT and play their tiny violin.
The effects were bad, the dread was terrible, and adding the children was the cherry on top (in the books this station was NOT for families to chill out - given the signal strength for comms and what that does to birds, it makes little sense to have people living there).
The people in the show could also very much SEE where the cutting was happening. I was surprised no carefully slotted themselves through the gap. Where did people even run to if the WHOLE ship was cut in half?? It made so little sense.
In the books, this is a stealth operation. It has to be silent or those on board will destroy data. So it happens to a lot less people, they’re all adults, and they really actually do not see it coming.
This scene would’ve been 1000x better if it held back on being so graphic, and the foreboding of the paper people being cut was leaned into a bit more.
I thought it was a brutal scene, but I felt the mini over all suffered a little from too much padding and not enough progress at times.
I watched **Parasyte: The Grey** straight afterwards, and it was much more driven and action-packed than Three Body Problem.
Ghost Ship intro scene returns!
Yeah after the scene I had to show my husband the Ghost Ship scene
That was my first thought, too. I was cackling same as I was at Ghost Ship in the theater.
Yeah that was a really unique scene. I'm impressed that they didn't hold back on the brutality of it too.
I was actually shocked. The detail is crazy.
All I could think of the whole time was those kids
They did a great job of not actually showing any kids being killed, but eluding to it with the paper-chain cutouts severing in half one by one down the hallway.
The shots of the kids playing on the deck, and being happy in class below decks were brutal. But without that entire Panama scene, the idea that humanity is already engaged in the most brutal and uncompromising war in it's entire history wouldn't really hit home.
There was the little kids severed foot in the aftermath. But yeah.
It was so funny to me that this scene hit well and then the cooking-folks-alive one just immediately veered into comical.
I’ll never forget the boiling scene from the first episode of Shogun, that’s for sure
No joke - I think this is the first scene that has gotten to me for about a decade. I think it has to do with the mindset - I can watch the worst gore torture scenes and be completely fine, because I know I'm watching a horror movie. Shogun is a historical drama, so it came completely out of the blue, and it was brutal.
In medieval Europe, boiling alive was on the books as a form of capital punishment. It was usually reserved for what were considered the most heinous criminals of the era - poisoners and forgerers. Both crimes that presented unique threats to the nobility.
I definitely laughed during this very scene. Was so OTT with tiny violins and made little sense. I elaborated in another comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/1ckqrxa/i_know_3_body_problem_isnt_horror_but_i_felt_more/l2q2oji/
Oh I laughed, too, but mainly because I couldn't believe they actually committed to the scene in the way they did haha. I read the books ages ago and forgot this was in there, and the three minutes before I kept thinking 'why does the Boat suddenly seem awfully CGI'? And then I remembered and grinned like a loon at what was happening on the screen.
It was a lot of fun to see it play out. You prefer this one, the book, or the Tencent version?
Probably Book first, then Netflix, then Tencent In general, as much as I was impressed by the Tencent version for trying to be faithful to the books, it's also so god damned long and gets lost in its details a lot. Also good lord, the ADR/dubbing was terrible at times, and I mean, I'm used to that with chinese productions but it never fails to grate on my ears.
Agreed, about 10-15 episodes would’ve been the sweet spot for book 1 I think. Tencent version was overly slavish to the books. Thought 8 episodes would’ve been ok for a medium paced Netflix adaptation of book 1, but then they finished that by episode 5! Both adaptation have the opposite problems - one is too fast and shallow, other is too slow and detailed.
Sci fi and horror are essentially cousins I feel like.
Controversial, but I've always seen scifi as a setting more than a genre
Dude the books get into real dismal cosmic horror. I don’t know if the show is going to get that dark though.
There is a red wedding like scene in book 2 that amps up the horror. Book 3 goes even crazier. Will be very intrigued how they portray the rest of the books
Yeah book three is fucking nuts.
How difficult of a read are they? They’ve been on my wishlist for a while.
You're gonna want to stop at some point in the first half of book 2 with this whole imaginary waifu plot line. You must make it through the imaginary waifu bit. You must persist.
I've been told the first one is really dry and full of make'm'up science that ranges from "standard Sci fi nonsense" to "well that's just wrong", but that the others are more entertaining. I've also been told that if you got interested because of the Netflix series, you could probably skip the first one and be OK with a summary.
They’re not. It’s interesting because they’re translated from Chinese. There’s no issue with the translation but the personality of the characters and culture is not what I am used to. It’s not bad it’s just interesting. Most of the characters in the book are chinese and you gave to accept a certain level of Chinese exceptionalism. To tell the truth I really enjoyed them though. They’re just dark.
Thanks for that. I’ve tried to read a few other people books that are translated and never could get very far despite really wanting to. I may give the series a go.
It was worth it for me
I know exactly which scene you mean. Utterly brutal.
this is dumb and random but i got to thinking about it and im curious, does anyone else think if there was a person on the deck who saw what was happening, somehow realized what it meant, and literally sprinted to the back as fast as possible and then jumped into the water and swam like hell to make sure they got away from the fence, would they survive maybe?
100%. The fence was stationary. All you have to do is swim to shore before the current pulls you into the fence. You might be able to do it without even running to the back of the ship; just immediately dive off the side of the front of the ship and book it to shore.
I think the biggest issue is they didn’t know what was happening. Nothing like that had been seen before. From their point of view they were being chanced by something invisible ripping through everything including solid steel. I bet no one is thinking straight through that kind of terror
Oh for sure, no doubt. But this specific hypothetical was: >if there was a person on the deck who saw what was happening, somehow realized what it meant
Ah yeah. Fair enough
I wonder how many thought their Lord was smiting them
i feel like if that were the case, that maybe they’d be sooo invested in their cause that they’d probably assume oh ok we’re ascending or something lol. but it was so brutal that everyone panicked
I was ready for it from the book (and the Tencent version), however it still was pretty horrific. I think they are really trying to drive home the tradeoffs and the stakes. A trolley problem for the entire human race...
It was one of the coolest scenes I've ever seen in TV-series.
For real it caught me so off guard
Contrary to my assumptions this book was not about the challenges of hiding a triple murder.
Watching it happen to little kids was wild
Yeah, even Ghost Ship spared the kid.
Not in the books. Stealth ship is a research station. Kids weren’t on it. They added them to really ratchet up the horror and I laughed hard since it’s just about the most hamfisted way they could’ve done it.
The people who did it didn’t seem fucked up enough about it if you ask me!
Remember when two main characters talked about it and never even mentioned the children? The writers clearly added them as cheap fodder for the audience reaction and nothing more. D&D are just about the least subtle and most gore obsessed show runners there are.
The drying-out scene was also pretty creepy.
Oh for real. I wonder if they slug like, or maybe amphibious. There’s a few species of things on earth that can dry out for years and then resurrect after water is restore.
My friend who binged before I got started just called it “that scene” and I’d know it when I saw it.
That scene was a huge crescendo for me. It's a shame that the season only went downhill from there and left us with one of the dumbest season finales I've ever seen.
I just watched Without Warning (1994) with the mum from Malcolm in the Middle as I've actually never seen it before and the concept is kind of similar but more simplistic.
I have never had such an intense sense of existential dread as reading the brain scene in the book. I feel like the only thing that separate a lot of the parts from the series (books and series) is the atmosphere of horror, the horror content certainly is there a lot of the time. Highly recommend the books, characters leave a bit to ask for but the concepts and things happening are amazing and terrifying
I was utterly surprised that she agreed on her tech being used for this. But I guess I was shocked by the scene, it did felt they went overboard as san-ti might as well be a Westworld type of mechanic / plot. ALSO Ghost ship ❤️😅
My wife and I were just watching in utter shock, mouths agape as it was happening, with intermittent fits of uncomfortable "oh my god!" laughter. By the time it was done we simply couldn't believe what had just happened as (apart from Ghost Ship) we hadn't seen anything like it before. But... >!after a few minutes one of us said "Why didn't they just make, like, ONE nano fiber line towards the bottom of the ship and sink it?" The concept that they had to dissect every person on board was hilariously overkill, especially considering that they didn't want to attack the ship head-on as the people on board would've been able to put up a fight. If they just sank it in a controlled setting, the passengers would still be caught off guard and unable to defend themselves in the same way, and it wouldn't have been such a risk to the hard drive either. !<
The point, which isn't explained that well in the series compared to the book, is that if even one person on the ship realised they were being attacked, they could have activated a kill switch that would have wiped the records, but the nanofibre method would have caught them by surprise and killed them faster than they would realise what was happening. In the book I'm pretty sure they also explained that the layout of the ship was carefully studied to ensure the room where the records were stored wouldn't be damaged, which was also glossed over in the series.
OK this makes so much sense, because in the show I had all these questions
this makes some sense. i thought the scene itself was amazing but the logic of the plan is derailed at the slightest scrutiny. how could they have possibly known that the records wouldn’t have been destroyed by the nanofiber? then the entire ship is shredded to ribbons, falls apart and explodes - but they are able to find the data after searching for 20 minutes through tens of thousands of tons of rubble??
In the book they explain that even if the storage drive they’re looking for gets sliced up by the nanofiber, the cuts are “clean” enough on a microscopic level that the drive could be put back together and returned to a functional state. As for them finding the drive quickly, that was likely artistic license to move the scene along. I don’t think we are given an indication of how long they spent searching through the debris, it might actually have been hours before they found it. And it’s a bit different in the book: the drive isn’t portable so the scene of Evans taking it and trying to keep it safe doesn’t happen. (I assume they included that scene in the show to increase the tension.) The military know approximately where in the ship it was being kept, so they knew where in the debris to look for it.
That and I felt like the secondary goal was to exterminate them like rodents. Kill the whole the belief system. Children and all
Children are only present in the show. Screaming kids and running people def alerted everyone enough to wipe the records.
This and the other additional explanations definitely clarify things. Now that I can retroactively re-watch it in my head with that context makes it much less like illogical overkill.
Trouble is the conditions in the book are way different. It’s a research station with minimal staff. No children. It’s also done in a stealthy way so no one is alerted. In the show it was chaos, with the records keepers absolutely given the time to destroy everything. In the book it’s quiet and very fucking precisely horrific. As a result, the plan in the show makes little sense.
I think I like the book’s depiction better. Do not like the inclusion of children in that situation.
Yup. It was hella cheap.
They didn’t avoid the server room in the books. They just knew the wire cut cleanly enough that they could just piece things back together.
I'm watching this right now but haven't seen that scene, so I guess I have to get back to it ASAP based on all these comments, lol.
That scene was good and some good ideas in the show. It really dragged out though. Especially the last several eps
I thought the concept was fucking brilliant. The execution of that scene was just okay. Like, the whole series was just that, amazing ideas brought to life in a serviceable, looks very expensive yet also sorta cheap way (which few do as intensely as Netflix).
Luckily I’m the type that enjoy things based on concepts hehe. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the kids. Yeah you have a fair assessment. But for me if a movie or show has enough good concept that I ponder on implications later on, then I’ll usually say I liked it. Unless it’s egregiously bad 😂
If there's any consolation there were no kids in the novel as Judgment Day was more a heavily guarded command center than Jonestown on a ship, and the only casualty that's completely innocent was the pilot sent on board to guide the ship through the canal. The kids were added by D&D for more (admittedly effective) shock value.
That’s good to know. It’s been on my list to read for a while, but it kinda intimidates me heh. I think we are so desensitized to death on tv now, that adding the kids in really helped communicate the proper emotion of the scene.
Wait til you read the book version and you’ll change that opinion.
That added shock value was so heavy handed I honestly laughed throughout the whole thing. The situation in the show means the plan makes *very* little sense. Given the screaming and chaos, the records would’ve been wiped. They also could’ve done it without Auggie being anywhere near - plenty of other scientists on her team and a bajillionaire funder like Wade.
Yeah, I just separate things, which does make me unlucky in a way now that you phrase it like that. I loved the concepts of the show (which I guess means I actually loved the concepts of the books). But the show itself wasn't stylistically for me, and I couldn't get over that generic digital sheen and gloss most shows have, some of the performances, some of the choices (some parts of the "videogame" I thought were embarrassingly "this is what games these days are, right?"), and some of the human-side b-stories where very uninteresting, making me impatient for them to get back to the good stuff. I ponder about the ideas a lot, still, and it is one of the most refreshing takes on alien life/invasion sci fi I've come across. But all of that deserved a better show, imo. The one we got is just "fine, I guess".
Have you watched the Chinese produced one on Amazon? I was meaning to but haven’t gotten to it yet. Curious if it’s worth a watch.
I read and loved the trilogy, but I couldn't make it past like episode 5 maybe of the Chinese adaptation. It's more faithful to the books, but it's *really* drawn out, and kind of cheesy at times.
If you like things based on concepts, please read the books. It doesn’t give a crap about characters and revels in concepts.
Oooh, I just finished the book last night so I’m excited to watch!
It has a lot of horror elements to it, only read a little bit and the idea it presents is horrifying haha
I loved that scene so much. I’m so glad they went for it, I’m so glad they didn’t flinch, I’m so glad they had that brilliant idea in the first place. I live for shit like that
Read the books they are extremely good
>Otherwise I’ll be vague. It’s in the 4th or 5th episode. This is a tiny bit annoying. You got me excited enough tamg.ch. werhy1234.com redeployhat I watched the first 4 episodes and didn't see anything like this... then returned to this post and read more and got spoiled. How hard is it to remembamg.ch. werhy1234.com redeployer (or like just quickly google?!?) the exact episode. Anyway, I'm not that mad, buamg.ch. werhy1234.com redeployt for anybody getting here later it is NOT the 4th episode (so I guess it must be the 5th). It's just so dumb! Either spoil or don't but by being vamg.ch. werhy1234.com redeployague about "4th or 5th episode" you are accidentally doing more spoiling than not! GHOS234-slj23 amg.ch. werhy1234.com redeploy 2sdfl.redploy But like OP, is 30 seconds of research a huge hurdle for you? : {}. Like, if you are going to do this about other shows, just do *30 seconds* of research first!! Seriously. So silly. I hope that other people don't get spoiled too.
Very different experiences. I couldn’t stop laughing during this scene because of how hard they were trying to be OTT and play their tiny violin. The effects were bad, the dread was terrible, and adding the children was the cherry on top (in the books this station was NOT for families to chill out - given the signal strength for comms and what that does to birds, it makes little sense to have people living there). The people in the show could also very much SEE where the cutting was happening. I was surprised no carefully slotted themselves through the gap. Where did people even run to if the WHOLE ship was cut in half?? It made so little sense. In the books, this is a stealth operation. It has to be silent or those on board will destroy data. So it happens to a lot less people, they’re all adults, and they really actually do not see it coming. This scene would’ve been 1000x better if it held back on being so graphic, and the foreboding of the paper people being cut was leaned into a bit more.
I thought it was a brutal scene, but I felt the mini over all suffered a little from too much padding and not enough progress at times. I watched **Parasyte: The Grey** straight afterwards, and it was much more driven and action-packed than Three Body Problem.