Altered Carbon - Netflix, cyberpunk

Very interested, setting looks very much my thing.

And only a few weeks!

The trailer looks pretty cool but I’m still not sure on the series yet. Those of you really excited for it, did you also read the book/books?

No, cyberpunk settings are just something I’m generally into is all, and this looks like an interesting take on it.

Ah gotcha. Not always my thing but I’ll definitely tune in for some big-budget high-concept series if it reviews well.

I love Altered Carbon the book (enough that I re-read it every few years). Was excited about the series until seeing the trailer, but at least what they’re showing so far just isn’t doing anything for me. I’ll definitely watch the series, but with pretty low expectations.

The follow up books are very different in tone (the kind of shift that you just don’t see in TV series), and would also require some pretty ambitious production. And I don’t think they can stretch just Altered Carbon across multiple seasons. So if it’s not a one-off, it’d probably have to diverge totally from the source material.

I read the books, and see enoug here to really excite me. We don’t get enough of this kind of well-done shows based on books. It just remains to be seen how much will be changed for the wider audiences - thats always a concern, especially with hardcore scifi and or harsh books, like these are. As mentioned here earlier, the books are rather full of extreme violence and sex, which makes sense, given the topics, but - Its not normally something we see on Netflix. At least not on the level of the books.

Not to mention the whole tone was so demeaning toward women. Rather disliked the book because of that.

Really? Thats the first I heard about that? I didn’t pick that up at all. I found the female cop, whose name escapes me right now, to be rather effective and good at her job? Also, his long-lost love that he starts out with, is an equal partner it seems. And not to divulge too much here, but some of the brilliant people are also women here?

On the sex front, at least, they did do Sense8, which involved multiple gender-indiscriminate psychic orgies on screen. I’m actually hoping they tone down the sex in Altered Carbon because I don’t think it contributed much in the book. But they don’t seem to have any mandatory rules re: explicit content.

I was determined not to watch this, since I didn’t like the book, but I hadn’t realized Will Yun Lee was playing Kovacs. Crap.

Well Empire only gave it 2 stars in their review, so perhaps that will help you lose interest in the show again?

This had the ingredients to be an effective commentary on people and technology, but throwing the murder mystery into the mix overcomplicates things. Although the set-up is intriguing, writer Laeta Kalogridis struggles to balance the two threads alongside several other sub-plots, including historical uprisings, underground tech modification and a painfully predictable romance. There’s just too much going on.

IGN gave it a good score.

Since Bright I have decided to not listen to critics when it comes to Netflix stuff.

Well it sure looks pretty. After one episode, I’m not entirely sold on the story, but it looks nice enough to keep me watching. CG still looks pretty CG though, and it is certainly milking the blade Runner aesthetic for all it’s worth, but I imagine that’s a function of the source material.

An interesting first episode. Dumps the viewer pretty fast in the world with allot of tech lingo tossed around. Of course does have that Blade Runner aesthetic all over. Even has the certain characters switch between two languages while talking schtick like BR did. Does have good production values for a TV show so far. Interested enough to keep watching.

Lots of changes to the book, but surely that is to keep it from becoming too difficult to follow. Even like this, merging of a few characters, its still pretty complex after the first episode.
Cinematiclt (Is that a word?) it looks gorgeous! very very pretty. The acting is…not that great, unfortunately, and the sound was uneven at times, but I like it so far.

I am not sure though, that its any kind of plus to have read the books, which are rather complex.

I was going to say the exact same thing. Production values are very good. Only 1.5 episodes in.

Joel Kinnaman is playing the role well, imho.

First episode showed potential, but some strange changes from the book. Looking forward to seeing how it develops. Good casting overall, Joel Kinnaman is a good fit for the lead.

He certainly excelled at playing an unlikable jackass on The Killing

I kind of hated the book, but I’m still dying to check out the show because I’m a sucker for anything science fiction. Unfortunately, I’ll probably bounce right off of it, too. Noir and I have never gotten along.