
Altered Carbon – All the DNA of great science-fiction with some missing links - walterbell
https://www.criticalhit.net/review/altered-carbon/
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gipp
The show is mostly _fun_, but I definitely wouldn't call it a _great_ or well-
made show, apart from the visuals. Too much clunky dialogue and half-baked
subplots.

In particular, there's a certain traumatized daughter whose plot never makes
sense at any turn. The show seems to expect us to already know and have a
major emotional investment in a character who we've never seen speak and who
seems to have almost no tangible relationship to anything else happening in
the show. Plus the way other characters react to what's going on with her is
completely nonsensical.

The show has plenty of issues but that one in particular really bothered me
for some reason.

~~~
Joeri
Personally, I really liked altered carbon. The acting was good, the sets
great, and the story intriguing. The show doesn’t go out of its way to
surprise you like GoT, but it had enough mysteries and twists to keep things
interesting.

The only lesser part for me wasn’t the story but the technology. I’m ok with
unexplained advanced tech, but it has to make sense. Why are the only things
run by advanced better-than-human AI’s hotels and brothels? Why is it so
trivial to transfer minds between bodies but so difficult to make a simple
backup? Why are prosthetic replacement arms so powerful they can crush metal,
and why if that tech is available don’t the special ops use bodies which are
all-prosthetic? Too many things didn’t make sense.

~~~
philipkglass
I re-read the book a few weeks ago in anticipation of the series. The
inconsistencies that you notice are real and present in the source material. I
didn't notice them so much the first time I read the book 10+ years ago. The
relentless action was fresh the first time around and helped paper over
weaknesses in the logic of the world. Also I've apparently become less able to
overlook internal inconsistencies with time.

The vast majority of SF uses technologies as cool set props for minor
variations on familiar kinds of stories and social dynamics. Star Trek was/is
terrible about this too. It's hard for a creator to model the higher-order
effects that would be introduced from (e.g.) starships, teleporters, AI, or
what-have-you. Do that hard work too well and most of the audience won't be
able to understand what's going on without lengthy infodumps. The only current
show I can think of that tries to show how technologies could drastically
_change_ societies is Black Mirror. Almost everything else is "familiar social
dynamics, Amazing Gizmos are just props for the adventure." The proportion of
internally consistent works is somewhat higher in written SF, but I'd say over
half still follows the Amazing Gizmos Somehow Leave Society Basically Familiar
template.

~~~
carapace
(Oh man, Star Trek... Artificial gravity _that no one ever talks about_.
Gravity control would be a total game-changer.

Also, One day I realized, how does the Klingon disintegrator ray stop at the
soles of the boots? It never disintegrates the floor.)

~~~
dingaling
> Artificial gravity that no one ever talks about.

Much the same as how most people today don't talk about how 4G works, or how
pressurisation on an airliner prevents them from asphyxiating. Until it stops
working, like in Star Trek VI...

~~~
carapace
Yeah, but we _mention_ 4G, pressurized cabins, what-have-you.

My point is that of all the futuristic fictional technologies that ST presents
and deals with: teleporters, replicators, phasors, warp drive, etc... they
_never_ ever even mention the artificial gravity. (Spoiler alert: There is one
part in one of the movies where the bad guys turn it off on a ship during an
attack. But still no one actually talks about it.)

Arguably, gravity control would be a huge thing (Larry Niven has a book where
one of the characters has developed g.c. and done spectacular things with it.)

------
walterbell
A central theme of _Altered Carbon_ is the effect of immortality, wealth and
power on parent-child relationships and social hierarchy.

One of the executive producers is David Ellison, son of billionaire Larry
Ellison.

Another exec producer is James Vanderbilt, descendant of the Gilded Age
Vanderbilts, once the wealthiest family in America.

There's some overlap with virtual reality themes from Joss Whedon's
_Dollhouse_. Dichen Lachman has a role in both shows.

------
philipkglass
I'm cribbing part of what I wrote about the adaptation on Ars Technica.
Spoilers follow, and I have no spoiler tags here.

 _Worst change from the book:_ Making Quellcrist Falconer into a technophobe
and the personal love interest of long-ago Kovacs. In the book she's a famous
dead[1] figure from history who a) admirably fought on the losing side of a
rebellion and b) wrote a lot of quotable things. She's like a cross between
William Wallace and Sun Tzu. Falconer thought that her followers could play
the long game against unjust power, since human immortality made time
irrelevant; she didn't argue that immortality itself was wrong. In the series
she's just that tired stock character, the pseudo-wise reactionary who argues
that there are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know.

In the book Kovacs seems to love Falconer's ideas, but she lived before him
and they weren't a romantic item. He's not interested in personally trying to
fight a rebellion against the whole Protectorate, either. He's just looking
out for his own skin and a few people he cares about.

Making Rei into Kovacs's sister was unnecessary and again went directly
against the tone of the original: it made Kovacs sad and conflicted instead of
furious and calculating when it comes to permanently stopping her.

The series _is_ visually gorgeous, and if you haven't come into the series
with the expectation that the same ideas and noirish conventions will be
maintained from the book (as I did), you may well enjoy it better for that.

[1] Yes, I read the later Woken Furies where Falconer seems to "come back" in
a way, but an event from decades after Altered Carbon shouldn't have been
shoehorned into the Altered Carbon adaptation this way. Or at least I thought
it shouldn't have been.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I have not read the book or watched the show, though I want to. Should I watch
first then read the book?

~~~
philipkglass
You should be fine watching the show first.

Do you feel more satisfied with fiction when powerful villains are, by some
miraculous stroke of luck, brought to justice? Or do you feel more satisfied
with the _logical consistency_ of stories where the powerful can mostly get
away with crimes, because that's what power is?

The latter is more like the book and noir-ish fiction in general. I also
prefer the latter, perhaps because the first is just so much more common.
Maybe if the standard Hollywood ending had powerful villains crushing attempts
to bring them to justice I'd have an affinity for "plucky underdog triumphs
against the odds" stories. But the plucky underdog pulls off an improbable win
so often in popular entertainment that I'm tired of it. To believe that
underdogs are actually underdogs I need to see them lose more often than they
win.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
> Do you feel more satisfied with fiction when powerful villains are, by some
> miraculous stroke of luck, brought to justice? Or do you feel more satisfied
> with the logical consistency of stories where the powerful can mostly get
> away with crimes, because that's what power is?

Given those two choices, I prefer logic. But, I would prefer justice if it
wasn't "by some miraculous stroke of luck".

I'll check out the show first. I already have Netflix, but haven't bought the
book yet.

------
cheschire
A very faithful adaptation that reflects most of the strengths (and
weaknesses) of the source material.

For example the ending felt a bit like a false summit. Solving the Bancroft
murder should have been the climax of this detective novel, but the story
keeps going and feels awkward afterwards. I had forgotten how badly the story
lost me in the books until I was watching this show and I couldn't remember
what I should be caring about. You can't build climactic tension if the viewer
isn't even sure what they should be tense about!

Setting aside content, I just want to say Poe's actor was fantastic, but Rei's
actress just didn't deliver on the same level as the rest of the primary cast.

And the sets were amazing. Some of the best I've seen on a streaming-only
show.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
The story isn’t about the murder, though, it’s about power. If the novel (and
the show) failed to sell you on that, it’s a legitimate complaint.

~~~
nine_k
The book definitely does not fail in this regard. The very way the murder is
solved and presented to Bancroft is certainly not the stock "mystery solved,
justice is restored" ending, though the mystery is solved, and justice is
indeed sort of restored.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
It's quite a lot like Fletch, in a weird way

------
aeleos
I am currently about 5 episodes in and I am enjoying it so far. The 5th
episode has kinda lost some of the excitement that the first 4 had, but I'm
hoping it it picks up again.

I know that this series is based on a book, and I have been looking for more
sci-fi books to read. Does anyone have any insight on how the TV series
compares to the book and whether it is worth reading?

~~~
grondilu
On reddit there is some kind of consensus that the series is great up until
around episode 7, when it gets from bad to worse.

I personally did read about half the book until I lost interest. So I guess
the series and the book have _that_ in common. Anyway, from what I've read the
series is more or less true to the book, except from episode 7 when even I
could notice some major differences (mainly the nature and motivations of the
envoys).

~~~
nightfreeze
I completely agree with the first sentence. I actually had to make an effort
to watch it past the middle, where the writing gets really bad. (I stuck with
it because i'm a cyberpunk fan, your mileage may vary)

The book is no masterpiece, not by a longshot, but it's a fun read and I think
it's miles better than the show.

------
rebuilder
Haven't read the book because the back cover made it sound pretty cookie-
cutter. The show is surprisingly good, good cinematography, some nice visual
ideas, good cast, overall a very solid cyberpunk-noir world is built. Ok, a
lot of the visual design is pretty recycled - 45 degree angles make things
scifi right?- and unfortunately the main plot underlying it all seems to be
the usual "Rich sociopaths vs the rest of the world" dystopia that hasn't been
thought out well enough to make it interesting. But despite having little real
foundation, the edifice they've built has kept me interested so far.

------
Scene_Cast2
I've only read the book, haven't seen the series. I wonder if I'm alone in my
opinion - the book has a great storyline, great setting, ideas and concepts,
but all the interactions seem to be heavy-handed sarcasm, and that gets old.
It's almost like someone put a sarcasm Instagram filter, or applied style
transfer to pretty much every interaction. I mean I get it, it's supposed to
be gritty and noire - however, "edgy" (just like spicy) can't be the only
flavor in a dish.

~~~
maxerickson
I don't think it is that far out that an ex soldier that literally had their
personality deconstructed is a bit jaded.

------
Symmetry
A lot of the adaption was good but so many of the changes to the plot and
characters were in the direction of pushing it into a cookie cutter Hollywood
show that I eventually lost patience and didn't finish. Like the changes to
Quellism, making the main character more of a chosen one, the soap opera-ish
familial ties, and the mystical matrix warping powers.

------
kkotak
Lost interest in the first 30 mins. What I saw was a contrived story timeline
inconsistencies (people protesting 1960s style outside the building -
really?), flying cars with drivers (who can drive and land badly - really?),
stacks stored on spines (and only the richest can afford the cloud - really?),
squaller living on the planet with rich living on the towers (not original by
any stretch), one special living person better than everyone in the universe
(again, original?, really?), a police department functioning like the 1990s, a
woman detective have inexplicably drives Neo (sic) to the super villain and
will inevitably be romantically involved with Neo? Please people - watch some
Black Mirror and plethora of short Sci-fi films on Youtube for intellectual
entertainment.

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forgotAgain
Meh. Too often falls back on nudity to make up for failure to develop a more
immersive environment. Said in another way, they used nudity to make up for a
small CGI budget.

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baconizer
It felt like playing a triple A game with great idea and visual, but with
writing, acting, dialogue from a generic RPG maker by a teenager done after a
Monday evening.

------
nfriedly
Heh, I just started watching this. I wondered about the DNA-linked line of
credit - how's that work if you can change bodies?

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geobourazanas
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