Netflix’s 3 Body Problem—an adaptation of the first book in Liu Cixin’s highly acclaimed sci-fi trilogy—asks a lot of big questions and puts its characters through some agonizing decisions. But at its core, the show grapples with one big dilemma: whether or not humanity is worth saving from a threat that feels both existential and all too real.
“Because if you think about if [humanity found out it might be doomed], is everyone going to suddenly, like, link arms and say, ‘We’re off to fight [against this]’? Or some people are going to say, ‘I don’t believe that. That’s a conspiracy. This is the U.S. government is doing this, or Elon Musk has been planning this’?,” Benioff continued. “There’s going to be a whole bunch of bizarre theories out there, and we probably won’t see humanity come together in any meaningful way. So yeah, the worth of humanity is a really good question.”
“At one point in the show, I think [Jovan Adepo’s character] Saul says, ‘If we stop having so many kids, the species will die out, and we don’t have to worry about this [impending doom] in 400 years.’ It seems like a fairly reasonable argument, like I kind of understood where he was coming from.”
3 Body Problem arrives March 21 on Netflix.
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