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Richard Morgan + Netflix = ALTERED CARBON TV series


Werthead

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I'm surprised people even asked about that. 

Spoiler

The show makes it really clear that Kovacs is wearing Ryker's sleeve, and at the end Ryker is going to get his sleeve back. They couldn't really bring Kinnaman back unless Kovacs was occupying Ryker's sleeve for some reason in the next season. 

 

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On 2/10/2018 at 6:17 PM, Ran said:

Done with the series. All in all, spectacular production values, I enjoyed most of the performances, but the problem is that there's a lot of questionable decisions made by the writing team that basically betrays the underpinnings of Morgan's work and, frankly, just ins't that good even looking aside from that.

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The ridiculous melodrama with Bancroft and Miriam being served their comeuppance, more utopian BS when you realize how things _really_ work in the setting. Why are they undercutting the dystopian aspects of the novel with this? I've no idea. And ghost-Quell's fairy tale, underscoring that the plan for the future of the series is that Kovacs will be a paladin questing forever for his lost love is just... wow. So lowest common denominator, so tone deaf. Deeply disappointed that this is what Kalogaridis and the writing team made of the novel.

Will watch the 2nd season, assuming there is one -- Netflix hasn't said, I think -- but it'll likely be as pure spectacle rather than as something that I've high hopes for. Perhaps they'll prove me wrong.

 

There will be a second season yes.

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On 2/11/2018 at 11:21 AM, Ran said:

I enjoyed it as well. It could have been much better, however.

Kalogiridis' vision was inconsistent with the material she chose to adapt, and shows. I don't really get why anyone heads out to adapt something if they then say, "Well, except I don't want to adapt X, Y, Z, I think I can do a better job." And it's even worse when you set out to do that and fail.

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Per an interview, a lot of of the problematic choices relate specifically to her really wanting to have Quellcrist Falconer on the show, and everything -- flipping the Envoys around into anti-Protectorate guerrillas, making Quellcrist and Kovacs anti-stack (which in turn leads to a Kovacs who'll do the exact opposite of what the character did in the novel, re: Laurens and Miriam Bancroft), extensive flashbacks and Quellcrist focus -- is really the result of that. Kalogiridis suggests it's because she was terrified she wouldn't get more than one season, so basically she shoe-horned Quellcrist into the story by twisting parts of the story out of shape to accomodate it.

And, again, it shows. There's some real structure and pacing issues that are largely the result of these decisions. Which is a shame. Most critical reviews were mediocre and they may have been a bit better if they'd trusted Morgan's material (and themselves) more.

This has been the issue with anyone, except Stanley Kubrick, making a TV series or a movie. Essentially you are working on a committee to create an artistic vision. Being a writer, or Stanley Kubrick, is the only way create the piece of literature or movie that you want.

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Season 2 has been "amberlit", which means it's probably going to happen, scripts are being written, studio space has been booked (for November, according to SpoilerTV, so we probably won't see Season 2 until very late 2019 if not early 2020), but Netflix hasn't formally pulled the trigger. Bit like the GoT Season 2 situation.

Netflix seem to pretty much automatically give every show a second season regardless of initial viewership (apart from The Get Down, when Baz Luhrman went almost $70 million over budget and the show immediately tanked), so that's not too much of a surprise.

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Finished it two days ago. Overall, great stuff. I particularly enjoyed the first half but the second half was a bit boring. Some random thoughts about it:

  • Main cast was great except for Reileen
  • Ortega had so much screen time but she did almost nothing except follow Kovacs around. All the detective stuff was passed off to her two fellow policemen. I'm not a fan of that. If you're gonna make her a main character, at least make her do something.
 

She got kidnapped twice...

  • It seems she was just there for eye candy and for Kovacs to have a relatable romantic interest.
  •  Having said that, I understand why they went for Ortega as Kovac's main love interest instead of Miriam. IIRC, in the books Kovacs was more into Miriam than Ortega, right? :mellow: Kovacs drooling over hot Miriam like he did in the books would probably be a turnoff for TV viewers
  • The brother sister plot was bizarre.
  • Quell was actually okay for me at first even though they mixed her up with Viduara. The only problem was when they made her into the main love interest. Their romance fell flat for me.
  • Loved the visuals of the city, the casting was mostly great, and wow, that one actor who was the grandma and two other characters was great
  • CTAC are just soldiers in this setting? Hmmm, they didn't seem to do anything very Envoy-like at all
  • I hope there will be more psychological manipulation and Sherlocking next time. Just having Kovacs kick ass physically doesn't do it for me. I prefer the way Envoys would mess things up via manipulating people
  • ;)  I loved the part
 

in the clinic when he panicked the people there just by using words and threatening them with CTAC

I look forward to the next season.

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7 hours ago, Werthead said:

Netflix seem to pretty much automatically give every show a second season regardless of initial viewership (apart from The Get Down, when Baz Luhrman went almost $70 million over budget and the show immediately tanked), so that's not too much of a surprise.

. . . How on Earth did Netflix let him go $70 million over budget? They should fire whoever was in charge of production on that. Luhrman probably should have been fired mid-production as soon as he started seriously going over budget even in spite of the generous planned budget for the show. 

That's like a whole second season of Altered Carbon right there in overages. 

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13 hours ago, Fall Bass said:

. . . How on Earth did Netflix let him go $70 million over budget? They should fire whoever was in charge of production on that. Luhrman probably should have been fired mid-production as soon as he started seriously going over budget even in spite of the generous planned budget for the show. 

That's like a whole second season of Altered Carbon right there in overages. 

It's like how Bryan Fuller went $30 million over budget on American Gods but he was forgiven (kind of) because AG did very, very well in the ratings. The Get Down did not. My guess is that Luhrman's contract also prevented him being fired, and his name brand probably made Netflix think the show would be popular enough to make up for the losses. They were wrong.

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Interview with the showrunners on many topics. She emphasizes that they do not yet have a greenlight on S2. Also, interestingly, @Richard either with the writers to come up with a second season that could incorporate part of the 2nd novel.

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I pretty much agree entirely with Ran.  They made the wrong choices with what they wanted to explore in this setup.  Not entirely, the empowerment of Lizzie Elliot was good, if a little trite in how they did it. And most of how they made it a multi cast story was interesting. But a lot of the other stuff was very basic Power of Love type crap that i’d rather see on Doctor Who than a supposedly sophisticated SF series. 

And besides that, it wasn’t very well made - plodding plot, overuse of exposition, clunky dialogue, ridiculous voiceover.

However I did enjoy it, it was entertaining enough.

Its interesting that Kubrick was mentioned upthread.  Kubrick’s vision of the Shining was better than Stephen King’s vision.  Kalogridis’s version of this material never even really had a chance to be better than Morgan’s because it was so tame. She seemed to grasp on to the immortality idea (which I don’t think is the main theme of the book but others may disagree) but didn’t say anything much interesting about it.

And she’s previously done Shutter Island, which I did think was better than the book. And Night Watch, which I don’t remember enough about but I do recall it being a good film.  So it’s not like the talent isn’t there but I didn’t see much of it. 

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Will Altered Carbon be next show canceled by Netflix?

Quote

The ratings are in for the Netflix Original series Altered Carbon and it could mean the show is one-and-done.

...

In the first weekend, Altered Carbon had 1.2 million viewers and by the end of the week had 2.5 million viewers.

This is about one-fourth the audience of Stranger Things for their season 2 release last October.

What’s really troublesome is as viewers watched more episodes, the less interested they became in finishing the show. There was no rush to binge-watch the show and finish what was started. That’s troubling for a show that was hoped to get multiple seasons. If viewers tuned out midway through the first season, that doesn’t bode well for a commitment for future seasons, especially considering the hefty price tag to produce the show with all of its special effects.

The seven-day average of 5.9 million viewers dropped considerably to 1 million for the tenth episode. This falls in line with what we’ve heard from fans who watched the show. They were excited to see what the show was all about and tried to keep pushing through and watch even though they didn’t understand what was happening or even all that interested. They were watching with the hope that the show would suddenly get good.

 

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And Laeta Kalogridis penned the pilot for Netflix's live action "Sword Art Online" adaptation, and will executive produce. Not supposed to be showrunner, but the fact that this news came out today makes me think that Netflix is leaning towards writing it off.

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On 2/2/2018 at 9:35 PM, Ran said:

(Also, yeah, Joel Kinnaman hit the gym HARD. Jesus.)

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw him was this segment about anabolic steroids use in hollywood from Joe Rogan's interview of Dorian Yates.

I liked the first episode. Some infodump bits in the beginning were a bit silly (the exchange about the 6-8 year old in an old woman's body) and I didn't like the actors playing the Bancroft couple, both characters seemed a bit cliche. Poe was probably the best thing about the episode. I'm not that eager to continue watching but I'll watch the second episode when I feel like it.

I know people already watched the ten episodes so I don't want to read spoilers. Did Kovacs have a sister in the book?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Up to episode 6,

Spoiler

I've liked the series so far, the action scenes and the music aren't good mind you, and I'm not sure if I've been following close enough because I don't know how they connected the Ryker case and Bancroft's death, but when his sister came in at the end of episode 6 with the ninja moves and the terrible song I couldn't help but think "what the fuck?" I heard from someone that the second half of the series isn't as good as the first and I can already feel that this is the point where it goes downhill.

 

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