![]() The show works so hard to push the envelope that it often depicts truly offensive scenes, forfeiting the promise of its genre for the sake of cheap violence and sketchy depictions of sex. But Altered Carbon seems most interested in exploiting that moral and social decay within its world instead. Robot) depicts how technological advancement can lead to moral and social decay within society. Good cyberpunk (like, Blade Runner, Snowpiercer, or Mr. That's because Altered Carbon is less interested in the ethical and moral implications of technology, or even how the rules of this world can work on a story level, and is more interested in what the setup allows it to depict. This is a complicated enough idea to carry through the entire show, but it's quickly doubled-down on with variations on the concept, like "double stacking" and "full-spectrum DHF remote storage backup." In other words, no sooner does the show establish the rules for its world than it immediately begins to break them. The only way a person can truly die is if their stack is destroyed. Here's the deal: People can live forever in digitized versions of their personalities ("stacks"), which are placed into discarded human bodies ("sleeves"). Riding primarily on atmosphere and a complex premise, this series has potential but doesn't live up to its classic cyberpunk counterparts. So, though he's able to go on living, he has no memory of the details of the murder or who killed him. Fortunately, Bancroft is one of the only people alive who was able to afford a backup stack. Someone has murdered Bancroft by destroying his stack, which is the only way a person can truly die in this world. ![]() Wealthy citizens choose to live in the sky, above the cloud cover, where Kovacs is brought to meet the richest man in the world, Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy). Kovacs lives in San Francisco, now called Bay City, a dystopia populated by gun runners, drug dealers, and various houses of ill repute. He immediately finds himself under surveillance by policewoman Kristin Ortega (Martha Higareda), who is suspicious of Kovacs' reappearance. Takeshi Kovacs, a Japanese-Slovakian mercenary who has been unconscious for 250 years, wakes up in the body of a former policeman (Joel Kinnaman). ![]() A person's soul is digitized into a metal disc (a "stack"), which is then placed into a vacated body (a "sleeve"). In ALTERED CARBON, by the year 2384, people can live forever. Even some adults, it would appear, only see the nudity and violence miss the deeper message, thus miss the forest for the trees. Not sure what the difference is between reading or seeing it, though again, not all are mature enough, or would understand the message beneath the graphic violence and nudity. I say 16+, because there are some mature 16 year olds. What is the cost of immortality, to me, is the central and quite interesting question of this show. She wanted to explore the stars, but her invention has led to something much darker. Or is it? What do we lose when we gain immortality? Our sense of respect for life? This message is especially apparent in the conversations between Kovacs and Falconer, who regrets having essentially invented the means for this social transformation. ![]() If one can be re-sleeved, than what is the body than just a piece of flesh, a commodity to be traded or destroyed with no real thought for the consequences? It's just meat. It illustrates the corruption and debauchery that accompanies a society in which immortality is possible and thus, human life made less valuable. This is a story about power and the corruption inherent in that power. Many comments focus on the prolific violence and nudity/sexuality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |