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Andrigaar posted:Six episodes down. This is now an ungodly chimera of books 2 and 3 that doesn't really make any sense. Not only does it look cheaper and cheaper the further in it goes, but this feels like it's barely above a PG-13 now. The chick in hibernation (who it is doesn't matter at the moment), it was hilarious how perfectly glued on and placed her hair was to cover things up. The lengths to which they go to avoid showing nudity this season are almost Austin Powers-esque. It’s really jarring after the first season was so casual about it. As far as source materials go, I would bet they want to adapt the Martian spaceship from book 2, but they’ve kind of burned through/wasted a lot of the other material they could have used this season. There’s cool stuff in the books like the Decom Squads that I feel will never get used because they get in the way of trying to force Quell into being the protagonist.
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Mar 7, 2020 12:54
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Ugly In The Morning posted:The lengths to which they go to avoid showing nudity this season are almost Austin Powers-esque. It’s really jarring after the first season was so casual about it. Decom squads can work as a plot, but they'd absolutely gently caress it up Borg-style with a "Queen" as a big-bad. Also they'd gently caress up the Martian Dreadnought by just giving it conventional weaponry. I'd wager season 3 would go for the Dreadnought, because the Needlecast station lists Latimer and Sanction IV in its addresses. edit: Hoo-boy let's talk about episode 4, shall we? I'd actually forgotten that they rewrote Quell to be the creator of Stacks and really wants people to die again instead of being, oh no, immortal!!  . This episode's flavour of reductive sci-fi tropes is the colony ship having a crew. The Colony Barges in the books were really cool things; Rather than the cliche pilgrims-in-a-new-world approach of kicking people out and seeing what happens (general example; "OH NO; MAN-EATING BUGS WERE LIVING UNDERGROUND  "), the Barges land on a world... and do nothing. The only thing that leaves them is a shitload of drones to go watch and virtually model the planet for a few years until it understands everything about its cycles. Weather, wildlife, local diseases, the works. There is no active crew, just AI processes working to model anything and everything that might kill people and livestock, and it's only once it spits out a solution that it starts decanting stored DHF's into cloned Sleeves.But anyway; It's Niel McDonough Day! Wait, sorry, *checks notes* Harlan's Day! Which Kovacs of all people doesn't know about somehow! Envoy Intuition actually makes an appearance, in the form of an rear end-pull on Trepp's brother so deep it's grabbing Kovacs' shirt collar. I will admit they did use it properly with looking at Trepp's son though, if hamfistedly. It's also still patently clear when they start pulling elements verbatim from the books, because suddenly they can do a reality-perfect simulation for "recuperation" for Kovacs-2 like in the start of the second book. The reductive writing continues with suddenly Jaeger/Carerra being responsible for a good chunk of the darker background details in the book, like the shitstorm that was Innenin, because lord knows we gotta wrap up as much as possible into as few characters as we can. Can't have background details or worldbuilding, that might require effort! Also now apparently a soldier can threaten a Meth, even though (according to the first season) the Meths run everything and are untouchable  .I also love how when it comes to torture, a member of the Protectorate's functionally Not-Envoy unit (because whoops, they wrote those to be the rebels and not the Protectorate's Bagmen)'s idea of effective torture is just pulling teeth. Ooh, organic damage, how original and edgy. How about that memory machine they stuck Kovacs in to get at his loved ones by mapping his neural pathways? Surely that'd get something useful? Or at least be consistent writing. Hell; use VR torture, considering they used it (badly) in the first season. Pretty sure that random technician can't use Envoy Matrix Bullshit. And lashing them to the fireworks? Really? That seriously is out of some Young Adult Sci-fi writing, and the rockets look comically cheap to boot. Also I've mentioned before how some changes can go so far as contradicting other book-pulled elements in the show, and hoo-boy is Double-Sleeving Kovacs off a backup a biggie. The whole point in the book was they used a backup of Kovacs from when he was in his prime Envoy days, before Innenin got a bunch of his friends killed and he quit and eventually turned into the hosed-up burnout of a man he is today. The double has all his skills and abilities, a top-of-the-line combat sleeve, and the only thing he lacks is the most recent century-odd span of subjective experiences the original's endured. The Kovacs backup here in the series is merely a simple Marine going up against ~The Last Envoy~. Even by the series' rewrites, he should be no better off than anyone else. Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Mar 7, 2020 |
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Mar 7, 2020 12:57
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I didn't expect them to try adapting the second book as it probably would have been beyond the show's budget to capture, but I was surprised at how much of a mess they made out of the third book. There were a few good ideas sprinkled in the season and a few thematic beats that I thought landed well, and like the first season I thought there were a few sections in the middle where the show seemed like it could hit a stride. But it never got close to coming together into a bigger picture and any time the show went off the beaten trail of Morgan's plot the details of what was happening were an utter mess. I really can't decide whether I think they changed too much of the story or not nearly enough of it. Kovacs didn't need a personal connection to every element of the setting, I think they may have been able to get away with "Kovacs was directly involved in Quell's movement and they fell in love with each other" but it was too much making him related to the main season 1 antagonist, making Quell the person who invented the stack chip, making him "the last Envoy" instead of one of many, and so on. I know it's TV and they probably felt they needed more of a human connection for Kovacs, but the show really lost a lot zooming in so far on him instead of capturing the setting. The systemic focus of the books was almost completely abandoned in favor of a romantic history between Quell and Kovacs that did more to confuse the story than explain it. It's a frustrating adaptation because while the bones of Morgan's story are there, the show frequently misses the forest for the trees. Morgan used sci-fi elements to expand on a human society that he trended as getting crueler and colder but it felt like the writers were more interested in playing with the toys he set up.
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Mar 8, 2020 05:39
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Well, the way S2 ended was poo poo. That just felt like the target demographic was anyone who hadn't read the books or wished the first season had less sci-fi jargon, gritty violence, and nudity. Final 2-3 episodes were just a string of Hollywood-style conveniences to bring about a specific outcome on a very small scale. Someone on Reddit had a crackpot theory that the writing staff were trying to change who the main character was this season -- Quellist --. Seemed less crazy the further into the season I got and the more screen time that character kept getting. Mind hasn't changed about not wanting a third season. Whatever show this is now, it's its own animal that uses some loose ideas from the source material. Critics love it, fans are diametrically divided, but mostly against. Just dawned on me. The character was, for continuity's sake, probably in the wrong sleeve for the last imagination scene: Why would Quellist imagine Tak as Anthony Mackie when they spent their time together with him as Will Yun Lee? All I can think of is Mackie's agent argued he got all the intimacy scenes
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Mar 8, 2020 05:51
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i wonder how much neal mcdonough got paid to be in a painting
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Mar 8, 2020 09:22
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Eau de MacGowan posted:i wonder how much neal mcdonough got paid to be in a painting I want to know how many of the masks exist and how many he personally kept.
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Mar 8, 2020 09:43
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Eau de MacGowan posted:i wonder how much neal mcdonough got paid to be in a painting How did this show waste Neal McDonough, by the way? I’ve seen him be effective in shows that put him in a single scene (  Terriers) but here his character and performance were kind of a fart.
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Mar 8, 2020 14:38
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Ugly In The Morning posted:The lengths to which they go to avoid showing nudity this season are almost Austin Powers-esque. It’s really jarring after the first season was so casual about it. The first season also had Jame Purefoy nudity goodness. The 2nd season feels like a step down in many ways since it feels like direct to video action movie and also missed the more mature tone / unique ideas of the first season. etalian fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Mar 8, 2020 |
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Mar 8, 2020 15:02
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Episode 5. Once again, it's Real Deaths all round, and a big old spotlight on how stupid the TV version of Stacks are by being able to yank one out with pliers and crush it into DUST easily like it's made of clay with bare hands. Kovacs-2 brings up that it'll be Real Death if anyone figures out that he's double-sleeved, but who would be able to figure that out? I mean he's only walking around in HIS BIRTH SLEEVE, one that's recognized everywhere as an Envoy in the history books. I'm sure it'll be fine. The Renouncers are an interesting idea that almost actually engages with Altered Carbon's basic premises... except it shits the bed by shooting straight for "renouncing the body equals renouncing all material wealth and turning into a cliche monk". This could've been so much more interesting watching a bunch of people turn a VR construct from resembling reality into whatever they drat-well please to suit their own tastes for eternity like it's VRChat on steroids. But, well, AC's writers. The big reveal of Terracotta McDonough is just stupid, because we've seen that it's possible to spin up a fake copy of a person. She's actively arguing with Poe at the time. Why go to the bother of a very easily-noticeable fake prop IN VR, when they can spin up a walking talking copy that'd almost certainly fool someone who doesn't know the real Konrad Harlan? (ie; just about everyone.) The show also forgets that ONI's exist for this episode, so Trepp gets her hairbraids glowing for a call and Kovacs has to hike up a hill with a satellite phone. I don't normally pick on props, but anyone else notice the "handgun" was patently a hot glue gun with kibble? As for the big showdown at the end hoo-boy this made zerooo sense. Kovacs-2 is not an Envoy, he's just a goddamn marine. Kovacs should outclass him in literally every way, especially when they're in functionally identical sleeves. It's the whole basis of being an Envoy, even for the show, and we actually SAW him learn how to fight better in the Envoy Summer Camp Episode last season. Though it was funny watching Kovacs-2 actually act more like an Envoy than ~The Last Envoy~. throughout this episode. etalian posted:The 2nd season feels like a step down in many ways since it feels like direct to video action movie and also missed the more mature tone / unique ideas of the first season. They can't miss what they never had in the first place; The unique ideas were all plucked from the book verbatim, there's just nothing obfuscating that fact now. Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Mar 9, 2020 |
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Mar 9, 2020 05:31
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Like most cheesy bad genre writers, they can't maintain any power level consistency whatsoever. One minute Kovacs is ~the last special~ and he's basically an immortal god who can read people's minds and fights like a grammaton cleric. But then ten minutes later the writer needs some cheap drama so suddenly he's struggling to just shoot somebody. The Ninth Layer posted:Kovacs didn't need a personal connection to every element of the setting, I think they may have been able to get away with "Kovacs was directly involved in Quell's movement and they fell in love with each other" but it was too much making him related to the main season 1 antagonist, making Quell the person who invented the stack chip, making him "the last Envoy" instead of one of many, and so on. I know it's TV and they probably felt they needed more of a human connection for Kovacs, but the show really lost a lot zooming in so far on him instead of capturing the setting. The systemic focus of the books was almost completely abandoned in favor of a romantic history between Quell and Kovacs that did more to confuse the story than explain it. Yeah this sums it up well for me. The world now feels extremely shallow. It feels like a short fanfiction about Kovacs, the coolest guy in the universe. Everything that exists only exists in relation to him. Not nearly enough of S2 was new stuff and new characters, it was all echoes of the same main people. Too coincidental. Too small.
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Mar 9, 2020 08:22
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Episode 6. I'm gonna give some credit here to start off; Quell's actress does a great job of showing she's right on to Kovacs-2's bullshit the entire time without hitting you over the head with it. As for the rest of the episode... Oh dear .Something I've noticed is that the writers seem to think people will get bored if there isn't action involved every five minutes. Or yelling. This episode's flavour is their Summercamp Jedi spin on Ascertainment. Ascertainment in the books isn't actually an Envoy thing; It's something literally everyone does as part of a society built on Stacks and Sleeves going back centuries, and it's a pretty simple social ritual for when you've got an apparent stranger walking up and claiming to be your friend/relative/lover in a new Sleeve. Just sit them in the middle of a circle, gather some people who know the person to sit around them, and start asking random questions. What their favourite food is, what they did that one time they went drinking they swore never to tell, what their friend's embarrassing tattoo says, all that kind of thing, until everyone's certain they're who they claim to be. No need for throwing knives or shooting at them for sick action kickflips because Envoys are kewl doods, yo. Regarding power creep, Carerra has a BIG problem with this too. His level of apparent authority alternates between "I answer to the Protectorate" and "I'm stuck doing what the Governor says" as the plot demands. As does his combat prowess, seeing as no less than twice now Praetorians have easily subdued him to his surprise. You would think a man with 300 years of combat experience would also not be fooled by body cameras sitting perfectly still and looping, but guess he needed a Harlan to point that one out (Okay, granted on this one he was zeroing in on Kovacs-2 at at the time, but still). It's also really weird how they keep demanding to pull Quell's stack so they can "learn about the [Meth-killing] weapon". Maybe bring in the Sleeve that she's doing it with that would actually be the weapon?... Having Joshua Kemp actually show up and the Revolution being a false-flag operation was just loving duuuumb. The "Peons" are clearly full-fledged Quellists, and all that's been achieved is to start an actual revoluti-Oh wait, never mind; Kovacs pulled an SMG out of literally thin air and gunned down all the  . The whole thing with Trepp's brother was similarly dumb considering engraved Stacks exist in the books, but it's something only idiotically rich and vain people do, like sticking a spoiler on a sedan. I doubt Trepp's family is all that wealthy, given what we've seen of them. You would think someone would ask "hey, maybe we should get our dead comrades resleeved instead of wearing them as jewellery?" too. I can't help but think they wrote themselves into a corner on what to do with the brother and scoured the second and third books for anything remotely useful. At least we got some cool Angelfire FX at the end. 
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Mar 9, 2020 12:19
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I'm only a few episodes in and I was dreading return of Qwell, but it's not terrible. At least there's a mystery to why someone reactivated her and why she's out there doing what she does. No doubt it's going to turn out to be the Governor who did it or something cliche like that. I'm also curious why the Protectorate guy saw the techs attached to the rockets and freaked out, demanding the woman he was torturing released. It didn't seem like his incredibly cruel personality would care if she died, a true death in this case, after she gave up the information that the Gov was doing something hinkey behind the scenes But yea I feel like they pulled back on a lot of the extreme stuff from last season. Maybe Netflix was "to much casual nudity, cut it out". At least Poe is still around.
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Mar 9, 2020 12:42
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twistedmentat posted:I'm also curious why the Protectorate guy saw the techs attached to the rockets and freaked out, demanding the woman he was torturing released. It didn't seem like his incredibly cruel personality would care if she died, a true death in this case, after she gave up the information that the Gov was doing something hinkey behind the scenes She was a material witness to Danica Harlan's criminal acts and he needed her for leverage.
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Mar 9, 2020 13:09
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I thought season 2 was good, even if 1 was way better. I never read the books, and went into both seasons with no expectations except for "cool sci fi/cyberpunk poo poo, and action" and was happy both times. I thought Anthony Mackie did a good job, though there were a few times, especially in the first couple of episodes, where his acting felt forced to me, like maybe he was trying to imitate the mannerisms of Joel Kinnaman, and loving it up...but eventually he got better, or i got used to it (then in a later episode, when we got a flashback to Kinnaman as Kovacs again, i felt as if he was the one that was out of place, I thought that was funny). I liked the ancient angry alien twist, because i wasnt expecting this show to go there at all, and i think dumb aliens are cool.
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Mar 9, 2020 23:54
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Neddy Seagoon posted:She was a material witness to Danica Harlan's criminal acts and he needed her for leverage. Oh yea, that was much clearer in the next episode.
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Mar 10, 2020 02:05
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Episodes 7 and 8; Grabbing the wife and kid to do Martian Science made sense, just flag one of the old archeologs at a checkpoint and make them reverse-engineer whatever Quell did. It just gets moustache-twirlingly stupid with a bomb collar on the kid's neck as leverage and an insistence that the problem be solved NOW! Solve this multi-century problem now, smart person! With a book! And random artifacts! And being brought in blind on the matter! NOW! NOW NOW! *stamps foot like a petulant child*. I did like Trepp borrowing Kovacs' sleeve to go get them back, though I can't help but think rather than writing organically it came from a problem of "uh... how do we have Kovacs be the hero in VR AND go save Trepp's wife and kid  ". Also Anthony Mackie gets to actually emote for the scene a little instead of just scowling at everyone. Though it dips back down to dumb again when his SPUN-DOWN body starts responding to his DHF's actions the moment it's hooked back up to the VR electrodes because The Matrix says so.The reveal of there being LIVE Kovacs-2 heel-turning was alright, though I swear he went from pointman to the back of the room somehow. It also just really seems pointless when Poe demonstrates he can just pop in-and-out of existence of the bar unharmed with a functioning shotgun in hand. I still think the nanoswarm just clean breaks a lot of the show, and he really should've just been a passive hologram (especially as it works for the first episode). Why wouldn't people stay at a hotel that can seemingly tend to your every need and furnishing tastes? They fell out of fashion in the books because everything was fundamentally a vending machine; Meals via a dumbwaiter, drinks via taps and a servo arm. Only friendly face was on display screens. Useful, but fundamentally sterile, and you could pull off much the same with a holographic Poe. The show also just can't decide what to do with Poe for the finale and gives up any semblance of how he's presenting himself to the cast, popping in-and-out of multiple scenes even though none of them have his mobile emitter and the portable nanoswarm's back at the bar. As for good old Carerra... of course we gotta consolidate our villains into one for the end . ANd make it a tragic end for good measure . The whole explanation of the infection from the Songspire to people's stacks and between eachother is pretty bad though, because it means that humans should be fundamentally able to interface with Elder technology. All that's sitting in the Stack is a digital ghost of an Elder. It would've been better if there HAD been a physical weapon, even something teeny and palm-sized, just cobbled together from Elder and human tech as there's no explanation of just how the Elder would leap from person-to person just by touching their hand. They're software, not the flu. And of course the thing that makes the planet special Goes Away at the end like with any interesting premise in a story hunting for a cheap climax, because having the Orbitals continue to hang around like they have for millennia might be interesting.I did like Poe grabbing a sneaky backup of Kovacs at the end though. On a side-note the whole issue of Alloy Mining doesn't make any sense; Even the show's made it clear the only way off-planet is via Needlecasting, so anything they're sending off-world is taking a nice slow trip for a very long time. Any issues they have with shipping Alloy out shouldn't affect anyone for generations. Rah! posted:I thought season 2 was good, even if 1 was way better. I never read the books, and went into both seasons with no expectations except for "cool sci fi/cyberpunk poo poo, and action" and was happy both times. I thought Anthony Mackie did a good job, though there were a few times, especially in the first couple of episodes, where his acting felt forced to me, like maybe he was trying to imitate the mannerisms of Joel Kinnaman, and loving it up...but eventually he got better, or i got used to it (then in a later episode, when we got a flashback to Kinnaman as Kovacs again, i felt as if he was the one that was out of place, I thought that was funny). I liked the ancient angry alien twist, because i wasnt expecting this show to go there at all, and i think dumb aliens are cool. It's really not a good twist. Just knowing the writers, especially with the way they treat the
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Mar 10, 2020 04:25
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Episodes 7 and 8; I mean during the first season, i wouldn't have expected the show to do alien stuff. Or for it to jump ahead 30 years, though it makes sense obviously given the nature of stacks and that the first season started with Kovacs missing 200 years lol. I was expecting it to remain a cyberpunk detective/action type of thing based mostly around earth/Bay City, and to also have a more typical TV show structure with old characters showing up again (aside from poe and the sleeve clone battle). Yeah some things don't make sense, and some things didn't make sense last season either, i still enjoyed it though. e: yeah i liked the sneaky Poe backup too. I predicted they would save Kovacs life with a stack backup yet again, which i thought would annoy me, and then they faked me out and i thought they really did kill that version of him, but then they faked me out again and it turns out yeah they backed him up lol i dont care im glad Poe saved his rear end Rah! fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Mar 10, 2020 |
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Mar 10, 2020 08:47
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Rah! posted:e: yeah i liked the sneaky Poe backup too. I predicted they would save Kovacs life with a stack backup yet again, which i thought would annoy me, and then they faked me out and i thought they really did kill that version of him, but then they faked me out again and it turns out yeah they backed him up lol i dont care im glad Poe saved his rear end A big problem this season has had is largely just retreading plot beats from the first one, because it all clearly worked so well and it's what the audience will want. (Plus oh gently caress we don't have a book to write the script for us this time, fuckfuckfuck.) It starts off with Kovacs getting hunted down and killed. Again. Kovacs was dragged to another world and tasked with investigating a meth's mysterious murder. Again. The main villain is a nigh-psychotic female meth. Again. There's a/several recurring mercenary/ies out to kill Kovacs. Again. Kovacs is based out of The Nevermore with the assistance of Poe, alongside a badass female sidekick with local connections. Again. Kovacs gets double-sleeved. Again. We have a damaged female character recuperating and finding herself with Poe's assistance. Again. Kovacs dies at the end and gets resleeved. Again. To be fair some of the details of those events weren't so bad, and I liked Dig 3, but in just broad terms... I expect we'll see this all again if season 3 actually happens.
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Mar 10, 2020 09:29
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Harlan's World confuses me. So you can only go so high before the Alien Orbitals shoot you down, but a colony ship managed to get past them because Damien Darkh piloted it through them?
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Mar 10, 2020 19:43
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twistedmentat posted:Harlan's World confuses me. So you can only go so high before the Alien Orbitals shoot you down, but a colony ship managed to get past them because Damien Darkh piloted it through them? In the books it’s explained there’s some gaps that the colony ships flew through. Also, they only shoot things that are more technologically advanced than, say, a 20th century helicopter (except for the times where they shoot those too, because gently caress you, that’s why).
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Mar 10, 2020 19:47
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Ugly In The Morning posted:In the books it’s explained there’s some gaps that the colony ships flew through. Also, they only shoot things that are more technologically advanced than, say, a 20th century helicopter (except for the times where they shoot those too, because gently caress you, that’s why). Ah that makes a bit of sense. Harlan could have studied the defenses and found a hole or something that let the colony ship through. I do like how you travel from planet to planet by just shooting yourself through space into a new sleeve. No need for FTL drives when you're pure information.
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Mar 10, 2020 20:27
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twistedmentat posted:Ah that makes a bit of sense. Harlan could have studied the defenses and found a hole or something that let the colony ship through. I thought it was odd they kept needlecasting but added mining stack materials for other worlds, which would take hundreds of years to get anywhere. It’s just another reason that “stacks are based on alien tech” fundamentally doesn’t work for me. The way everything is set up, human worlds have to be self-sustaining.
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Mar 10, 2020 21:15
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Ugly In The Morning posted:The And the soul markets in the book were so creepy. Buying and selling human minds by the pound. How do you gently caress that up? I'm only two episodes in and frankly I'm debating continuing at this point, it was a dingy drug rave in a fairly small space with people just... Laughing stupidly. It was a lovely nightclub that even managed to look fake and bland. They touched on the human minds aspect a teeny tiny bit and then, eh. I actually laughed at some bits before IMPORTANT PLOT DRAMA started happening and oh we murdered everyone in the dingy club, AROOOOOOO
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Mar 11, 2020 00:51
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It wasn't quite the hallway full of boxes but some of the sets really were looking scifi channel.
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Mar 11, 2020 00:55
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twistedmentat posted:Ah that makes a bit of sense. Harlan could have studied the defenses and found a hole or something that let the colony ship through. Hyperspace tech exists in Altered Carbon, but the power costs are so obscene they can only open a tiny window to transmit data through for a fee seconds. Hence why it's called "Needlecasting". Ugly In The Morning posted:In the books it’s explained there’s some gaps that the colony ships flew through. Also, they only shoot things that are more technologically advanced than, say, a 20th century helicopter (except for the times where they shoot those too, because gently caress you, that’s why). More specifically a few of the Orbitals are just gone to create those gaps. It's implied they failed and fell from the sky due to being thousands of years old. They also aren't as stupidly densely-packed as in the show, where you'd clearly need to break dozens to get a colony ship down. It's just a question of (largely assumed and prayed-understood) firing radius. Size is the assumption though, not tech level. Iirc, A favourite execution of the Harlans is tying someone to a balloon and, well, ZAP. But yeah, anything larger than a small helicopter is assumed that it will get swatted. Unless they decide a hang-glider has angered them. Come to think of it, they also retconned "STRONGHOLD" being on Harlan's World this season, didn't they? I vaguely recall the orbital strike on their bigass shuttle being Protectorate ships in orbit with red beams. edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmDxxoFslzs Altered Carbon: Resleeved has a trailer. It looks fun, I hope it's good  .
Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Mar 11, 2020 |
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Mar 11, 2020 01:19
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Oh yea, I forget that when Qwell and Rey's shuttle was shot down. I assumed that it was some support ships in the air that shot them down, but it makes more sense the orbitals did it.
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Mar 11, 2020 03:49
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Finished the season. Pretty good. Liked season 1 better, I think this was too safe and also really toned down everything. It's really weird they only had nudity once in the last episode. I was glad that the Qwell stuff actually paid off and we got some more insight on the Aliens. Though I'll be pretty happy if we never see her again, her whole deal outside of what happened in this season is not terribly interesting. Curious if season 3 happens it will follow Our Kovacs or the New Kovacs.
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Mar 14, 2020 04:05
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Hyperspace tech exists in Altered Carbon, but the power costs are so obscene they can only open a tiny window to transmit data through for a fee seconds. Hence why it's called "Needlecasting". Looks okay, although the voiceover guy really didn't get the memo on how to pronounce "Kovacs". Which is a shame because the other show was pretty consistent about it.
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Mar 14, 2020 21:31
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Zaphod42 posted:And the part where Takeshi lets himself get beat up after claiming to be a yakuza boss so that he'll be taken before that boss and get to talk to him. You fools! That was what he wanted!!! Except couldn't he have just been like "hey I'm friends with your grandfather and here's your death poem to prove I know him, now take me to him! and avoid getting the poo poo beat out of him? The whole thing was stupid just so they could do a fakeout with the audience making you think he wasn't in control but HAHA he actually is! Its so contrived. That was really really silly. Done with the first episode, and I'm not feeling it. Daniel Jackson appearing in one scene and dying the next sucked. Doesn't help that I'm not a fan of Kovacs' new actor. McSpanky posted:None of this is making season 2 sound particularly interesting, I think I'll just pretend season 1 was a fairly decent one-and-done.  Edit: Zaphod42 posted:The fight scene with the protectorate guys where they throw a single pistol around to each other seemed like the silliest poo poo to me. Like why not have one guy just shoot everybody? ITS NOT COOL ENOUGH! Oh god. I guess there's a minimum of one (bad) action scene per episode. itry fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Mar 14, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 23:48
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itry posted:Edit: lol its not that bad, there's some good action scenes. For the record i almost gave up after the first couple of episodes too mostly because the actor switch was throwing me off, but i stuck with it and was entertained 
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Mar 15, 2020 00:25
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I hated this and still watched it all in one go... mostly because I have one day off and wanted to see all the ways they hosed it up. But for all its flaws, it’s not boring. Even if you don’t like it there’s always a surprise. It’s so cliched that even if you called how they were going next you groan “ohhh, of loving course they did that”
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Mar 15, 2020 00:32
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We cast an action movie actor to be the lead so now this is space rambo. You like the detective mystery poo poo, to bad watch these sick fights!
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Mar 15, 2020 02:44
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Zaphod42 posted:Looks okay, although the voiceover guy really didn't get the memo on how to pronounce "Kovacs". Which is a shame because the other show was pretty consistent about it. Not really; It's a name that's common to Harlan's World with a Slavic "sh" instead of a hard K sound, and the reason people keep getting it wrong is because that's how it's read by anyone who either doesn't know Kovacs or haven't been to/from Harlan's World. Getting it wrong at first read is actually correct. The series even drags this out in THE DUMBEST way with *GASP* Jaeger/Carerra getting the pronunciation right. On Harlan's World. Where everyone should know it.
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Mar 15, 2020 03:10
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twistedmentat posted:Finished the season. Pretty good. Liked season 1 better, I think this was too safe and also really toned down everything. It's really weird they only had nudity once in the last episode. The new Kovacs will become a bad guy through season 3 and we'll have a last episode confrontation between the two. Write team hire me on! It's a fun show. Season 1 was better but season 2 is fine. I also didn't read the books so I don't have an alien alloy stick up my rear end about them doing things differently. Who cares. It's not like there are that many decent sci fi shows around besides The Expanse, which is more of a hard sci fi than anything cyberpunk. What else do we have around in AC style/setting? Rad Russian fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Mar 15, 2020 |
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Mar 15, 2020 04:02
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twistedmentat posted:Finished the season. Pretty good. Liked season 1 better, I think this was too safe and also really toned down everything. It's really weird they only had nudity once in the last episode. The insight on the Also the answer is "both Kovacs'", because it's an excuse to get Will Yun Lee out of flashbacks and handwaves to get him screentime and properly in the show alongside the next flavour of Current Kovacs (also no Current Kovacs means no Poe, and they wouldn't dare allow that).
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Mar 15, 2020 04:16
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Ugly In The Morning posted:I hated this and still watched it all in one go... mostly because I have one day off and wanted to see all the ways they hosed it up. But for all its flaws, it’s not boring. Even if you don’t like it there’s always a surprise. It is in fact one of the most boring things ever committed to screen, because it’s cliched. No energy, no surprises, just a turgid floppy load of old poo poo. The books may not be great works of fiction, but they have edge, energy and anger in them. I can’t understand how Morgan signed off on such a toothless joyless adaptation.
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Mar 15, 2020 10:08
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If it makes you feel any better, he seems to have made no comment on the second season of that adaption and has only said he's looking forward to the animated adaption that comes out in four days. That silence could mean anything. Checking Wiki and IMDB, only two writers returned from the first season (the creator and an executive producer), and Morgan himself has zero writing credits so far listed in the second season. No idea how up to date that is, but it would explain why I saw angry fans on Reddit claiming no one who was familiar with the source returned. Oh, and in an attempt to find comment, I instead found that Mackie wants to revise the role in a third season.
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Mar 15, 2020 11:01
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The thought the first season captured the neo noir feel of the first book really well along with showing the overall moral bankruptcy and depravity of the Meths.
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Mar 15, 2020 12:30
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etalian posted:The thought the first season captured the neo noir feel of the first book really well along with showing the overall moral bankruptcy and depravity of the Meths. The setbuilding was excellent in the first season, but not so much with the Meths; The problem is they took a surface read of "rich elite hedonists" and ran right off into a cheap cliche without reading any further. What made Meths truly scary was their sheer willpower to just live. Literally anyone on a decent income can keep on going indefinitely, most just tap out and happily go into Storage after two sleeves or so because living that long is just mentally exhausting. Meths just have a fortitude to want to exist, and keep on existing, and it's what makes them get rich and powerful as a side-effect. If anything, they're the direct opposite of what the show presented, because they very much pay attention to the world around them and their place in it, and have taken in centuries of experience. They are all the kind of very old people who have seen some poo poo, and while they do have a stupid amount of accumulated power and reach, it's generally applied as a chess move in a larger scheme because they've gotta live with the outcome and repercussions indefinitely. The best comparison I can think of is they're more like Power-gamers in an MMO; They've been at it way longer, done everything, and while you could absolutely reach their level if you put in the time and effort most just don't want to. That said, the Harlan's World First Families are absolutely rich hedonistic nobility, and it's where they could've showcased the "Look at what immortality does to rich people!  " poo poo they tossed in the first season, rather than a singular stupidly-selfish Danica Harlan and a bunch of straight-laced corporate execs. It's why the planet's such a poo poo-show and caused the Unsettlement over what were functionally peasants were treated.
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Mar 15, 2020 13:04
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etalian posted:The thought the first season captured the neo noir feel of the first book really well along with showing the overall moral bankruptcy and depravity of the Meths. Another thing that pissed me off is how they made the meth's more evil in a way that missed how evil they already were. Harlan commits genocide, his daughter fakes a war to become a dictator, it's so over the top. How about the fact that they're a family of immortal oligarchs who literally own a planet, isn't that evil enough?
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Mar 15, 2020 13:09
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