The ‘3 Body Problem’ ship scene, explained

The hit Netflix show 3 Body Problem has come out of nowhere to become one of the most buzzy shows of the year. It’s frightening, exciting, and ominous all at the same time and now that the first season is over, we’re left with more questions than answers. For example, what the heck was going on with that boat scene?

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for the 3 Body Problem on Netflix.

For those who don’t know, 3 Body Problem is a science fiction show about an alien civilization coming to attack earth. It’s based on a trilogy of books called Remembrance of Earth’s Past, written by Liu Cixin, an engineer turned superstar author.

The aliens, known as the San-ti, are from a Trisolaran planet in the Alpha Centauri system. Because their planet revolves around three suns their climates change rapidly, ultimately making their planet unlivable (hence the 3 Body Problem). Once they learn about Earth, they decide to come and conquer it. Fortunately for us they’re around 4 light years away and won’t arrive for another 400 years. Unfortunately for us they can manipulate circumstances on earth using supercomputers called the Sophon.

These advanced supercomputers are way beyond currently existing tech and can see and hear all human activities and allow for the San-Ti to communicate with certain humans, like Ye Wenjie (Rosalind Chao). Wenjie doomed Earth when she sent back a message to the San-Ti after she was warned not to do so by a “pacifist” in that solar system. Wenjie, along with Mike Evans, founded a cult to worship the aliens and help them prepare for the eventual invasion.

Evans (portrayed with a slimy, desperate subservience Jonathan Pryce) communicates directly with the aliens, whom he calls “My Lord,” and has started a civilization on his ship, the Judgement Day. It’s full of men, women, and children who all dedicate themselves to the San-Ti. They have classrooms to teach the children and jobs for all the people on board. It’s basically a whole floating society.

Thomas Wade (Liam Cunningham) Along with Clarence “Da” Shi (played by a perfectly grizzled and weathered Benedict Wong), are the humans trying to get to the bottom of why scientists keep killing themselves or stop working. In the process, they uncover the invasion, and Wade is in charge of defending humanity. He will do anything, and we mean anything, to give humanity the upper hand, even if it means a high body count that includes children.

What Happens During the Boat Scene in 3 Body Problem?

There’s no shying away from the fact that the “boat scene” in 3 Body Problem is probably one of the most disturbing scenes we’ve seen in a TV show since the legendary “Red Wedding” in Game of Thrones. Considering it’s the same show runners (David Benioff and D.B. Weiss), this shouldn’t be all that surprising.

Wade learns about the cult communicating with the San-ti, and also learns that it all happens on a boat called “Judgement Day.” The resistance wants a drive containing information about all of Evans’ convos with the San-Ti, but they need to figure out how to do it in a way that won’t give Evans time to destroy the evidence. They spitball a lot of ideas: a bomb, an invasion, a spy, but none of the solutions are deemed viable enough to ensure the success of the mission.

Finally, they come to a solution. Remember in episode 1 how Auggie Salazar (Eiza Gonzalez), had her own nanotech company called “The Nanotechnology Research Centre?” She was forced to stop her work after seeing a countdown in her field of vision that would lead to something terrible if she didn’t listen to it. While she created the technology to help humanity, it doesn’t work out that way. The technology involves polymer nanofibers 10x stronger than steel but thinner than a strand of hair. Wade comes up with a novel use for the tech to tip the scales in humanity’s favor.

They set up a grid of nanofiber in the Panama Canal that will essentially slice the ship into cross sections when it passes through it. The solution is ridiculously effective. We see things just start to ominously slice in half, including people and backpacks. It’s bloody and terrifying and it kills everyone on board, allowing Wade and his crew to retrieve the drive. So how did they pull it off?

One of the hardest things about the boat scene was that there wasn’t any equivalent moment to pull from in the real world, though the novel beautifully (and horridly) describes the scene. Also, the book doesn’t really focus on the people on the boat. In the show, we get to spend time on Judgement Day and get a feel for everyday life.

Benioff told Polygon that he didn’t want to shy away from the people and children aspect of the scene. “We wanted to show it, we didn’t want to evade it,” Benioff said. “I think when you actually see something on a screen, it is going to be more horrific than in the book. You’re reading these descriptions, but you’re not seeing blood, you’re not seeing a bunch of kids running away, you’re not seeing children’s backpacks getting split in half.”

Showrunner Alexander Woo said the real challenge was exceeding the imaginations of people who read the book. “Give them everything that sequence implies. And so the logistical side of it took up probably more hours of blood and sweat per frame than any other sequence in the show.”

For the sake of visualization, the wires are spaced out every three feet and easily slice the ship into layers. VFX supervisor Stefen Fangmeier, who also worked on Game of Thrones, said he got inspired by thinking about cake.

“Imagine you have a big cake that’s been sliced into all these layers on a cart and you push it. When it hits the wall, that’s when everything starts sliding off it,” Fangmeier said. “The point of resistance, stopping the momentum forward, makes all the pieces suddenly think, Oh, I’m still moving forward, because I’m not really connected to anything anymore.”

That’s how the team looked at it. The top would slide off first and take “some of the pressure off the bottom layers, and so everything started sliding.” They also didn’t film in the real Panama Canal after they were denied access, but lawyers realized that the Panama Canal wasn’t trademarked so it didn’t matter. It was filmed in an Olympic rowing facility near London.

When it came to gore, Fangmeier said it was “gruesome but not overly so.” They didn’t want a Kill Bill 2 situation where blood was spurting everywhere, but they wanted it to feel realistic. As for whether the scene is up to realistic scientific standards of what would actually happen, Fangmeier wouldn’t say, but he did imply that he was waiting to see what other scientists said about it.