In the distant future, human consciousness can be digitized and downloaded into different bodies. Brought back to life after 250 years by Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy) the richest man on Earth, ex-Envoy soldier Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman / Will Yun Lee) must solve Bancroft's attempted murder for the chance to live again in a world he doesn't recognize.
Altered Carbon debuts exclusively on Netflix February 2nd, 2018.
Visuals look amazing, especially on a 4k OLED TV. Looking forward to this one in two days.
I was disappointed by the series. The script is utterly 08/15, philosophical themes or ethics regarding immortality are hardly touched, of course there is a totally redundant love story, the fighting scenes are often choreographed poorly.
I agree with the dude above, there are some clever plot twists but overall it is just not good enough. Series have the advantage of long running time and I just expect that philosophical themes get touched if it takes such a big page out of a move like Blade Runner.
In the end you get an average crime story placed in a futuristic dystopian world that doesn't bring anything unique to the table. Uninspired.
I am four episodes in and am enjoying the series quite a bit. The setting is interesting, and Kovacs and Poe are good enough characters to carry the show. I'm a little confused by this Envoy business and why Quell Falconer and her uprising matter, but I suppose more questions will be answered by the end of the season. The only significant shortcoming so far is Ortega, whose character I really don't understand, but it looks like Episode 5 will fill in some gaps there.
This show ultimately felt aggressively average to me. I wonder how much of this is trying to adapt the books (which I've never read) but add some differences to make the story their own.
Unfortunately, some of these changes made things way more predictable than I hoped, and eventually the show twists drown out the more interesting ones from the book(s). Still a fine watch, maybe slightly worse than Stranger Things S2 but not by much.
On February 06 2018 06:06 xDaunt wrote: I am four episodes in and am enjoying the series quite a bit. The setting is interesting, and Kovacs and Poe are good enough characters to carry the show. I'm a little confused by this Envoy business and why Quell Falconer and her uprising matter, but I suppose more questions will be answered by the end of the season. The only significant shortcoming so far is Ortega, whose character I really don't understand, but it looks like Episode 5 will fill in some gaps there.
I have no idea where they are going with the Envoy stuff. It was less pounced in the books and wasn’t about a revolution. They were just very effective troops, but never became terrorists.
One part that seems to be missing in the little bit I have seen is that there are no long range space ships in this world. All space travel is done through downloading.
So far I like it, been looking into watching another Sci-Fi series. Going to keep my hopes up while watching it, the interesting thing is my wife likes it too.
Absolutely loved the book and totally hated the series. I have no idea why they made the changes they did. All it did was ending up way more convoluted and contrived that it had any right to be considering its source material. Plus the acting made me cringe. Sadly not a fan of any of the cast so thumbs down to who did the casting for this gig.
Haven't read the books but meh, I actually kind of liked it. It just didn't really tickle that sci-fi itch as much as I wanted it to and it sort of trailed off towards the end. First half of the series was pretty great but it fell apart a bit after that.
I'm pretty sure that the flashback sequence where we find out about Tak's past is the turning point in the series where it goes from sick scifi dystopia to some moral grandstanding bullshit with bad acting and unlikable characters.I hated pretty much all of the Envoy characters, and Quell was the worst of the bunch. Her acting was terrible, her face was ugly, and her character's dumbass philosophy and Marie Sue powers made me despise her. I enjoyed Tak when he was an amoral badass with a huge chip on his shoulder, but unfortunately he turned into a lovey dovey crybaby at the end who somehow fell in love with the spanish lady after knowing her for all of 1 week. As for the other characters, Poe was awesome, the black guy was okay but really dull, the two main Meths were great, and the Spanish lady was alright. So I guess the cast is average overall.
It really is a shame that everyone turned into a complete idiot at the halfway point just to drive the plot forward and spoiled the otherwise great series. Oh well.
On February 16 2018 19:25 Nyovne wrote: Absolutely loved the book and totally hated the series. I have no idea why they made the changes they did. All it did was ending up way more convoluted and contrived that it had any right to be considering its source material. Plus the acting made me cringe. Sadly not a fan of any of the cast so thumbs down to who did the casting for this gig.
I have not gotten through the series yet, but I was worried they changed the ending. Because the book’s ending made sense and didn’t have this overarching narrative to it. It was just a good mystery.
I finished the series last week. I think it is quite good and the comparisons to Blade Runner are unfair. It's not trying to be Blade Runner. It's fundamentally a character-driven (Sherlock Holmes-style) murder mystery that just happens to have a sci-fi setting. Most of the characters work -- and the lead (Kovacs) is particularly good and easily carries the show. However, I do agree that Quell doesn't really work.
Binged the show. I liked it a lot and would give it like a 9/10. The original murder mystery gets a little buried by all the other stuff going on, but that's my only real quibble. Really looking forward to season 2. I want Evil Space Marine Man to come back.
I agree comparisons to Blade Runner are lazy. The similarity ends at futuristic dystopian sci fi plus some themes about what is identity.
After watching the trailer, what was the significance of him seeing his "real" sleeve, the asian one? Why did they have to point that out in the trailer as if thats something special, since that was already done in season 1. And in any case with the cloning technology etc they can just create whatever sleeve the want?
On March 03 2020 04:06 Warri wrote: After watching the trailer, what was the significance of him seeing his "real" sleeve, the asian one? Why did they have to point that out in the trailer as if thats something special, since that was already done in season 1. And in any case with the cloning technology etc they can just create whatever sleeve the want?
Wouldn't you be surprised if you saw your original body ?
On March 03 2020 04:06 Warri wrote: After watching the trailer, what was the significance of him seeing his "real" sleeve, the asian one? Why did they have to point that out in the trailer as if thats something special, since that was already done in season 1. And in any case with the cloning technology etc they can just create whatever sleeve the want?
I don't want to spoil it for anyone but this is actually pretty significant for the second season.
Only 2 episodes into season 2, but I'm really surprised at how they ditched the books. I'm not saying Broken Angels is a great work. Furthermore, it and Woken Fury do the same jolting non-sequitur to follow in the series (probably purposefully to make the reader feel decanted into a new sleeve, world and story). But Broken Angels does do a good job of exploring Kovacs' weirdly fucked up sense of morality (and lack thereof). Woken Fury continues that theme. The series looks like it is picking up some of the threads of Woken Fury, but the whole "in love with Quellcrist Falconer" thing has not really convinced me yet as a main motive for Kovacs. Seems like they're trying to make him a hero as opposed to an anti-hero. We'll see. In the books he's a complete asshole, driven partially by profit, partially by a nihilistic rage and partially by a blind pursuit for revenge, oh and a little bit by lust. Not a friendly guy who takes care of the AI he almost got nuked in season 1.
I'm also only 2 episodes in and I've got a totally different impression of how he treats the AI guy (I haven't read the books so I don't have a point of reference). + Show Spoiler +
He basically told the AI to potentially kill himself by rebooting... He doesn't recognize the AI as a person and treats him like a tool.