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sevsnapey t1_j8jegll wrote

30 episodes? jesus

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snicmtl OP t1_j8jez7m wrote

Yeah I'll admit that's a big draw to me; I love when writers have lots of runtime to work with. It (in the right hands) does the subject matter better justice and they seem to really have splurged on this.

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sevsnapey t1_j8jfib8 wrote

i probably should've expanded but i'm surprised. it's hopefully a good thing because from what i've heard about the three body problem is that it would be hard to adapt to film but i don't know if that's a runtime issue or a "this show gets weird and would be hard to translate" but either way it's good the writers were given enough room to move. so long as it isn't bloat

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godisanelectricolive t1_j8k1uw1 wrote

That's the average length for Chinese tv shows. It's because one season runs are common instead of telling a story over multiple seasons.

There's are benefits and drawbacks to this. One drawback being there's often more filler.

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Paulofthedesert t1_j8jraql wrote

> i don't know if that's a runtime issue or a "this show gets weird and would be hard to translate"

It's the latter. There's an entire sequence at the end involving a proton that is one of the coolest sci-fi things I've ever read but seems impossible to film. It'll be a lot of exposition over some hopefully cool cgi but like, I wouldnt want to be the graphic artists in charge of that.

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bjtrdff t1_j8kdbav wrote

There are a ton of things in the book that I honestly can’t imagine them translating - the crazy 2d things, the proton stuff at the end, all kinds of stuff. I’m not one for subtitles, and am very curious about the Netflix version, but this may have sold me on giving this a go.

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Roook36 t1_j8mw54i wrote

I can't wait for that. That's when the book went from "wtf?' to "holy crap that is insane". There are so many moments like that where something will happen and I think "well you can't explain that scientifically" and then it does haha

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snicmtl OP t1_j8jgk3z wrote

Yeah so far so good, no bloat but for sure they are not rushed. The conversion of this book into a shorter film form is the big reason many including myself are quite worried about the upcoming Netflix version, though I do hope it can also be fun to watch, I can't imagine it reaching the depths of the Tencent version.

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Roook36 t1_j8mwibv wrote

Honestly, the first book is a straight up mystery story that doesn't get really crazy and takes place in current times. That one seems like the easiest to film as it's almost just a buddy cop story with a scientist and hot headed detective

The 2nd and 3rd book though are just full of huge scifi set pieces and theoretical concepts that I had a hard time fully visualizing. They're just chock full of stuff that would need to be CGI to show.

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anonyfool t1_j8p3bk5 wrote

There are some extremely long series (30-50 episodes) in both China and Korea for one season, sometimes with 70-90 minute episode run time in Korean TV where they can't show commercials so the episodes incorporate a lot of product placement versus 44 minutes in American broadcast TV with about 15 minutes for commercial breaks. The upside is one knows in advance that the series will usually end with one season.

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