3 Body Problem has left us with all sorts of burning questions, not least of which is what the San-Ti alien threat might actually look like in their real form.
We’ve already dug in pretty deeply into that last one, but that didn’t stop us from putting it to showrunners David Benioff, D. B. Weiss and Alexander Woo when Mashable spoke to them about the show.
Did they all have an image of the aliens in their heads? Have they discussed it together? And are we going to see the true form of the San-Ti in future seasons?
“My guess is the three of us might have three very different images of what the aliens look like,” Benioff told Mashable. “The question of whether you see the aliens or not in future seasons is a big, big spoilery thing, so I won’t want to dive into that one, but as Wade says in one of the scenes, I think in episode 6 or 7, we don’t even know how big they are. It’s possible they’re the size of ladybugs.”
The idea of the aliens as tiny creatures could fit with the comparison to tardigrades, the microscopic real-life creatures that also have the ability to survive in a dehydrated state. Maybe Benioff’s mention of size, and the idea that they could be as small as ladybugs (which can range in length from about one to 10 millimetres), is no accident.
Meanwhile, Woo had his own hopes for what the San-Ti might be like.
“I particularly hope that the aliens all look like Stephen Fry,” he said, “because that would be a dream come true to be able to work with him.”
What’s really out there?
Credit: Netflix
Spoilers for Liu Cixin’s novels below, on which 3 Body Problem is based! Tread carefully.
Benioff did give one more tidbit, but it contains mild spoilers for Liu Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy.
“In the books you see more than one alien race,” Benioff told Mashable. “There’s a character called Singer in a future book, and hopefully a future season if we get that far, and that’s kind of one of our goal posts, because it’s a scene from the books that’s incredibly memorable, one of our favorite chapters, and we very much hope we get to show it, to create, and allow an audience to see it.”
We won’t go too far into book spoilers, but suffice it to say that Singer is a member of one of the different alien races that Benioff mentions. Intriguing!
How to watch: 3 Body Problem is now streaming on Netflix.
