Altered Carbon (Netflix 2018)

[surreal]

new trailer drop for hopefully something very cool in the new year:

Altered Carbon first trailer

Based on the book by Richard Morgan, seems something between Blade Runner and Westworld is most likely.  Apparently Netflix has spent an absolute ton of money on this 10-parter, so fingers crossed.

Anyone read the book?  It's been on my list for a while now.

[mothman]

Ooh. Trailer doesn't tell you much. Apart from it's aiming for the HBO "Look! Nude ladies!" audience. And, seriously? The trailer featuring an advert for a key technology that features in the narrative? Hasn't that been done to death st this point?

[Alberon]

The book was a good action thriller with a neat SF concept. Done well it would make a cracking show.

[surreal]

Another teaser, explaining the plot this time:

https://youtu.be/M8PsZki6NGU

[Small Man Big Horse]

This is now available, I've only watched the first episode so far but it intrigued me enough to keep watching. It certainly looks beautiful, and the plot is interesting, but I do have concerns about some of the dialogue, it's a tad cheesy in places, and your leading man fella isn't that interesting a character, to me at least.

[Sin Agog]

Just remembered I've read a few of these Takashi Kovacs books.  They veer from being like The Long Goodbye set in a world where the rich can just co-opt your body if they feel like it, to a Forever War/Starship Troopers style sci-fi military bloodfest.  Will give it a punt now, but if the dialogue really is naff that might end up being a turn-off as good writing will always be more important to me than a gigantic effects budget.

[Sin Agog]

Has a bit of that second-tier scy-fy feel, but i quite like it so far.  Surprisingly accurate to the book, though I wish they'd diverted on one point and had an Asian lead.  I seem to recall Takashi waking up in a caucasian sleeve in the book, but it does kinda suck how there are literally no Asian actors starring in anything in the English language world.

[BlodwynPig]

Has a bit of that second-tier scy-fy feel, but i quite like it so far.  Surprisingly accurate to the book, though I wish they'd diverted on one point and had an Asian lead.  I seem to recall Takashi waking up in a caucasian sleeve in the book, but it does kinda suck how there are literally no Asian actors starring in anything in the English language world.

or vice versa.

[mothman]

I know I've read this book twice. I can recall the basic world-building elements (Stacks, sleeving, Envoys, needlecasting) and the set-up (convicted ex-Envoy gets re-sleeved in a cop's body to solve a murder). After that, nothing, not the events or resolution.

[Sin Agog]

or vice versa.

That is patently false.  The bad guys in every '80s/early '90s anime were always black dudes.

But proportionally, there are far more Asians in Western countries.

By the way, if you want to be weirded out, watch that movie about judo Kurosawa shot in the '40s.  It features some truly haggard and downtrodden American prisoners of war shanghaied into being the bad guys.

[Chairman Yang]

I don't know if it's the casting, or the direction or what but nobody seems to deliver their lines as if they have any clue what they're talking about (I'm looking at you, Solomon Kane). Also, Joel Kinnaman is perhaps not ideally cast as a hyper-intuitive, body swapping, warrior monk. He's decided to perform 'drowning inside his own body on an alien world' as 'kinda sleepy'.

Is Kovacs even the main character of this series? It seems like we're supposed to be Spunky Cop.

OK/Kind of pointless.

[Dex Sawash]

I don't know if it's the casting, or the direction or what but nobody seems to deliver their lines as if they have any clue what they're talking about (I'm looking at you, Solomon Kane). Also, Joel Kinnaman is perhaps not ideally cast as a hyper-intuitive, body swapping, warrior monk. He's decided to perform 'drowning inside his own body on an alien world' as 'kinda sleepy'.

Is Kovacs even the main character of this series? It seems like we're supposed to be Spunky Cop.

OK/Kind of pointless.

Just popped in to say my impression was sort of matter of fact Altered Carbon.

Can a scifi be made that doesnt look like Bladerunner.

Will watch the second one though.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I don't know if it's the casting, or the direction or what but nobody seems to deliver their lines as if they have any clue what they're talking about (I'm looking at you, Solomon Kane). Also, Joel Kinnaman is perhaps not ideally cast as a hyper-intuitive, body swapping, warrior monk. He's decided to perform 'drowning inside his own body on an alien world' as 'kinda sleepy'.

Is Kovacs even the main character of this series? It seems like we're supposed to be Spunky Cop.

OK/Kind of pointless.

I'm glad it's not just me who has got issues with some of the acting going on, it's bizarre how odd some of the choices are. I'm two episodes in now and enjoy aspects of it, and like the world they've created in general, it's just a shame they didn't cast it better.

[bgmnts]

Didn't they do a tv show that centred on the idea of body swapping with Eliza Dushku 10-15 years ago?

[mothman]

Dollhouse, but that was personality implantation.

[olliebean]

And so much more interesting than this.

[Dex Sawash]

Abuela's sleeve for dia de los muertos made me do a laugh (ep4)

[Dex Sawash]

Last 2 eps it got a bit worse with plot twist and fucksake events. I'm in this deep, suppose I would watch more if they made more.


Edit- forgot to mention that Poe the Hotel was best performance

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

For a good while, I was sure that Poe was played by Alistair MacGowan.

I watched the first few of these last weekend. It looked nice (a hell of a lot more visually interesting than Blade Runner 2049) but I wasn't really gripped by it. It mostly just made me wish I was watching The Expanse. Someone told me it gets really good around episode 5, so perhaps I'll give it another go but, if it hasn't wowed me by then, I think I'll give the rest a miss.

One thing that seemed weird to me: Kovacs has been imprisoned on a flash drive for 250 years, but the world doesn't appear to have changed much in all that time. Did I just misinterpret that point?

it does kinda suck how there are literally no Asian actors starring in anything in the English language world.

There's Enter the Badlands on AMC, although the actor there is something of a lump of cardboard, unfortunately.

[Mobius]

Found this a bit shit, sadly. Some terrible acting and so much exposition. I really like James Purefoy but who gives a shit why his character was murdered really. For all the money they spent the dialogue is piss poor, and there's not really anyone likeable. The cop lady is awful. The Poe stuff was good in the first episode then that awful scene where they're playing cards.

[mothman]

One thing that seemed weird to me: Kovacs has been imprisoned on a flash drive for 250 years, but the world doesn't appear to have changed much in all that time. Did I just misinterpret that point?

There's a school of thought that says the introduction of extended lifetimes and potential immortality could lead to an element of plateauing in the march of human progress. Just picture a world where Michael MacIntyre and Coldplay are still around in 200 years - and so are all their kegions of fans. Or, with human expansion beyond the solar system, it could be the poor & dispossessed get moved to colonies, leaving the rich & entitled to remain - and they have a vested interest  in things chaanging as little as possible.

As for any culture - or rather future - shock Kovacs could experience, his Envoy training is meant to enable him to counter it.

[kidsick5000]

I reckon I need to watch this again.
I can't be coming away from the first episode thinking a hotel is the best character.

[Spiteface]

Dollhouse, but that was personality implantation.

Also featured Dichen Lachman, although she was less naked in Dollhouse.

[Inspector Norse]

Trailer for series two of this is out now.
Like most here, it seems, I thought the first one was handsome and enjoyable but stuffed with dumb dialogue and worse acting. I suspect it's more of the same this time round - laughed at the "rapid healing, enhanced reaction time... among other bells and whistles" as we get a close-up of a pencil moustache.
The sentient hotel is back, which can only be a good thing. Unless of course he suddenly thinks he's the star and scatters ham everywhere.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I was considering finishing the first series in advance of the new one, but it turned out I'd entirely forgotten watching a bunch of episodes, which doesn't seem like a good sign. I could have sworn I'd only watched the first episode.

[Gamma Ray]

Not surprising, it's total dogshit. I'm not sure how they managed that, because the books are great. Richard Morgan thinks that TERF is a bad insult though so can go fuck himself and take this abomination with him.

[Dex Sawash]

Started S2
The Hotel is back

[Inspector Norse]

I watched the first episode last night and thought it started pretty strongly. The dialogue dared multisyllabism occasionally (though still clunked a bit) and Mackie is a more convincing lead. The production design seems more promising too, rather than just being yet another Blade Runner knock-off. The city in a crater reminded me of something, not sure what though.
Remains to be seen whether they can strike a better balance between intelligent concept sci-fi and guns 'n muscles action, as the first series seemed not to trust its audience enough to follow the former without too many side-servings of exposition.

[Zero Gravitas]

Needlecast 2:Electric boogaloo?

I don't have a perfect recollection of Morgan's novels but if I recall they were very much balls to the wall shootie-shootie, at least in the later books.

Equally I don't recall any of the mythos about the elder race or the founding crimes of Harlan's world from season 2 being in the novels and I'm quite enjoying that particular bit of worldbuiding.

[Camp Tramp]

Looks like they have skipped to book 3, with a few elements from 2 thrown in.

I'm afraid the books are much better, the envoys are not revolutionaries, they are government oppressors.