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[Altered Carbon] Robocop in Blade Runner on LSD
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I'm up to Ep3 and I can see what people are saying about the budget. It doesn't look like a TV show I don't agree, but small, closed sets. The first season felt like basically Blade Runner, and it felt more epic because you're opening with this grand mystery about Bancroft and it is escalating in all manner of ways.
This feels much more closed and personal, and if you don't really care about Quell, the central mystery isn't really that big of a deal.
The AI has all the flaws and personality and Kovacs is boring AF.
Edit: I just realized how irritated I was they pulled the "super soldier body can't even get drunk" trope.
The first season was this gritty, noir detective tale that just happened to be set in a world where the murder victim can come back, and the detective is some guy is just out of fucks to give after a lifetime of shit and then being on ice for like a century. It delved into vice, the hedonism of immortality, the slums of those who weren't lucky enough to get in on the ground floor of perpetual wealth making, clones, synths and a conspiracy to stop a law that would interfere with the most rich-person vice of all, murdering poor, innocent people for pleasure. Kinnaman was perfect for the role, stacked (heh) and just looking like a man who did not care at all, but has compassion underneath his beaten down exterior. I actually liked Reileen as a character and a villain.
The second season is a
I don't mind aliens. They've established aliens. It just felt like a boring premise in general and nothing fell in line with that first season. I've never found Mackie to be the most interesting person in anything I've seen him in, and I don't think he conveys the bitter, broken, but sarcastic Kovacs that birth-sleeve Kovacs and Kinnaman seemed to pull off. Trepp just seemed like she was there to be there. Maybe that all happens in the books, but it's not great character work. The Poe stuff was ok, I was disappointed that Neal McDonough ultimately did not show up. The governor kept throwing me because she looks like Megan Markle. Her evil was a little comical, though attaching her weak links to the fireworks rockets was a nice touch.
I don't feel particularly invested in Quell, she feels like some hand wavey new age preacher. I was hoping either Kovacs would find her and realize they'd both changed over hundreds of years or with new Kovacs, he'd just move on. I did feel for Reileen in the first one, and here too in a way, especially when Kovacs tells his younger self about her death.
Trepp and her family weren't nearly as interesting as Ortega.
I did like the governor just because she was such a consistent piece of shit always raising the piece of shit stakes right up until the end.
edit:
The sleeve can't shoot Jaeger, but...it can force him to pull the trigger, causing him to shoot himself? What? That just felt...dumb?
I feel like going back and watching Season 1 again for comparison, but S2 when I think about it, feels like the made for tv movie sequel to a good R rated movie. I'm not entirely unhappy with it, but after some thought, it's easily the lesser of the two.
That's how the books are too. Each of them are completely different from the others, and for me the only one I really enjoyed the whole way through was the first.
Might've been one of those times to take some creative liberties then. The detective noir in dystopian future was the best part about it.
Also, what’s the time frame here in relation to season 1? It feels like it could be anywhere from a year to several decades later.
All in all, I preferred the story of season 2 but not the performances. It was nice to get away from the prurient nastiness of season 1 with all its lingering on the naked bodies of murdered or soon-to-be murdered women.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
30 chronological years
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I think that it's in episode 1 where they mention he'd been to Harlan's world just after Bay City, and hadn't been back in thirty years.
I intended to watch just the first episode, but I loved the hell out of this season and ending up binging the whole thing in one sitting.
All in all I liked it a lot. It wasn't as good as the best bits of season 1 but it didn't eventually taper off into a terrible, boring answer to the conspiracy either.
Season 1 (except flashbacks) took place on Earth.
Season 2 takes place almost entirely (except the first scene) on Harlan's World, which is where Kovacs was born and where the flashback events of Season 1 took place.
also, yes, thirty year time lapse.
Like I wish I could un-warch S2 of Westworld and just pretend it ended after the one.
The only safe choice is to not watch it.
Not really? I don’t think it retcons anything.
I can't imagine why it would.
If you're going in expecting more of Season 1 you'll probably be disappointed though as this is a different world dealing with different issues and while there are spots where Mackie can get across that he's Takeshi Kovacs he just doesn't do as good of a job with it as Kinnamen did imo. Now I don't know if that's just because Kinnamen is my default reference, or if Kinnamen actually did a great job, or if it's because I'm so used to Mackie being Falcon in the MCU (the real answer is probably a mix of all of that) but by about halfway through season 2 I largely got over it and it stopped taking me out of the show every now and then.
Honestly I think that’s most of the problem. There’s two worlds of intrigue jammed into one with no room to breathe
Yeah as much as I've seen praise for the shorter season making things more focused? Outside of Poe's story-line I feel like there's enough things that need to be assumed that another episode or two could have made it better overall.
I never read the 2nd and 3rd books (although #2 is on my shelf somewhere) - so I don't know about how closely it adheres to the plot from them. But maybe that is a good thing, idk.
Is a 3rd season planned?
After the way this season ended I can only assume a 3rd season is planned.
Whether or not it actually gets made is another matter entirely.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
A few whole season thoughts / nitpicks with only slight spoilers
The only thing I really didn't like was in ep 7 when Trepp takes the fancy sleeve for a spin. The fact that she just casually destroys everybody really takes away from the special Envoy expertise. It implies that the reason Kovacs was so badass was all about the sleeve and definitely undercuts his capabilities.
I'm also not keen on the whole 'I can't pull the trigger, but putting your finger on it and pushing is A-OK'. Also not clear to me why the sleeve is restricted from shooting, but punching/kicking/etc is fine, but for me that was all still in the /shrug it looks cool department.
Poe was great and I definitely want more Lizzie. I definitely did not predict the end scene; I hope this means there is a season 3 in the works.
Morgan apparently being a TERF and still involved with the show doesn't make me optimistic, though.
I agree that Poe was great, and I'm glad that he has Annabell Lee for future seasons (if they occur).
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
What's left to address? Poor people get whatever they can get their hands on, the meths probably grow their birth body clones with the correct gender. The rest of the show is devoted to dysphoria already.
I agree with this and the point that Mackie doesn't really seem like act like the Kovacs we know, but I think this is also due to an important, huge change in motivation.
S1 Kovacs is completely done with this shit because he wakes up 250 years in the future with incomplete memories but the knowledge that he has lost everything. He doesn't care about whatever everyone is on about and acts because he is dragged into it.
S2 Kovacs at the start receives the best lead yet to finding the woman he loves who he thought was dead. He now has a clear goal he very much desires, and acts accordingly. S1 Kovacs didn't really care if he died, S2 Kovacs desperately wants to find and save Falconer.
They do a good job, but it very difficult to ignore the human instinct to see two different bodies as two different people. Maybe a less well-known actor would have helped, but still.