Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said “biggest”. I’m equally happy with the amount of detail from the book that they’ve faithfully kept in the show. For instance, I knew that was Virginia Vdura the second I saw her face.
I like the show but that scene illustrates a big problem I’m having. Everybody in this movie acts like a present day early 21st century person with no real familiarity or understanding of the many-centuries-hence tech they live with every day.
A hitman would very obviously not have failed to understand what an AI hotel is, what it will do under the circumstances etc.
I keep noticing things like that. Of course we and the protagonist won’t immediately grasp the implications of the techs around them. But the same should not apply to the people who have lived with that tech their entire lives!
Right.
This was even the case in the first episode, when the newly-minted sleeves apparently needed a lesson in what a stack is, and how it works. In the flashback scene where Kovacs’ earlier sleeve is killed, we see quite clearly that he understands how stacks and sleeves work. He makes mention of his own previous sleeves, and he clearly grasps what it means when his female companion has the base of her neck blown away by the leader of the assault team. And as soon as he wakes up, he demands to see what sleeve they’ve put him into.
Presumably, if they’re being reloaded into new sleeves, these stacks have been around the block before, and don’t need the very nature of their own existence explained to them. But the audience has to know, so let’s have a holographic person explain it to them.
Lazy exposition.
Just binge watched the whole thing. Visually it was pretty good and the world building was there. I felt like the plot went off the rails in the second half. The characters are 0-dimensional, just vehicles for sex, violence and plot advancement.
I started reading the book at one point, and I remember being quite confused about stacks and sleeves. The series is very clear on how it all works. There a few interesting moments where they stop to explore some of the possibilities; I would have liked more of that.
Well, no one had been in an AI hotel for 50 years and that hotel had a non-standard set-up from what I gathered (Ortega questioned its licences). Plus Dimi is a raving idiot, who handled the whole thing badly.
That scene felt very familiar to me, like it seen it before. Was it in the book? (I read part of the book before giving up.) Or maybe something from Heinlein.
I would dispute the accuracy of “everybody”, but I support the underlying contention: I was most jarred by dialogue that sounded like something someone would say now because their world is so very, very different than ours (and also so far away: this is HUNDREDS of years from now).
IMO the exposition from the first episode was necessary and handled about as suavely as anyone was going to; it drops off noticeably in the next 2 episodes and jargon is used with aplomb: stack, sleeve, needlecast, etc.
But when one character says something to another that’s lifted from OUR pop culture, it definitely clashes with the overall vibe of the show.
ETA: Let’s face it tho, the show contains A LOT of pandering to the audience. For instance, did we need to see Ortega in her panties? Did that further the story or help define the character?
Not having heard of these books before, is this still something I could get into? I do enjoy Sci-Fi, especially when well done. I’ve been looking for a new show to watch.
Hey, I liked Mike Hammer.
Aside from the theme of the hotel, the scene is almost exactly like the book. Annoyingly, it’s more drawn out in the show - Kovacs didn’t have to get thrown around in the book, iirc - he just touched the screen.
One thing I hope they explore is how stack/sleeve culture removes the stakes from violence, which is why everyone simply starts shooting in the series, knowing the person’s stack will be reloaded later.
IMO, yes, this is something that you could get into. The underlying concepts aren’t difficult (consciousness can be digitized; clones can be raised in a tank, etc.), but there are quite a few of them. If you’ve had any contact at all with cyberpunk, it’ll mostly feel like familiar territory (even The Matrix’s central conceit is similar, for instance.
And the underlying form, a noir detective story, helps because we understand the tropes involved; culturally they’ve been around for more than 100 years.
ETA: I’d be very interested to hear opinions from people not familiar with the books, since that is going to be vast majority of people who view this show. So far, the noobs on IMDB are knocking it quite a bit as too slow and too complicated (no surprise to me, TBH).
I have a question: So the daughter borrowed rich mommy’s sleeve. So where was the mother at the time? I feel like I missed something here.
The mother has multiple cloned copies of her sleeve in storage, in case anything happens to the one she is wearing.
Binged it today – I thought the story went off the rails (and diverged significantly from my memory of the book) at about episode 7 or 8. The motivation of the main villain was pretty ridiculous, IMO. But it was still fun to watch. Hopefully it gets renewed.
Thanks Weedy.
Never read the books, enjoying the series rather a lot.
This might have been a bit too negative – I thought it was great up until about 7 or 8, and then I had to struggle a bit to suspend my disbelief about the behavior of the villain. But I still enjoyed it a lot.
6 episodes in.
I love Matt Frewer; recognized him the second he appeared onscreen.
Dang; missed the edit window:
Takeshi’s character has come around to being more like how I picture him since his VR stint; that’s welcome.
Ortega is still the weakest part of the show.
I notice that each episode has different writers and directors; that seems to be a mistake, IMO.
The dialogue recording and post- is not as good as I’d like; every voice seems flat and buried in with the background noise, but if I turn it up, pretty soon a car or plane or vacuum cleaner or something roars by at like +9db.
In episode 6I thought the fight in the Drome was poorly lit and shot; it was like watching a Bourne fight but with more strobes endless flares.
This whole thing where they’re screwing with the timeline of the books is starting to piss me off, but I try and remember that it’s not the books, it’s a TV show… but ddammit, they’re screwing up future storylines.
Overall still quite pleased, but it’s hard to quickly let go of mental imagery that’s been built up over 15 years when I see that they’re making significant changes.
I lasted 44 minutes into Episode 7. I’m done.
It was binge-able entertainment. It is a nice, long, noir / cyberpunk / pulpy story. It could’ve aimed loftier, but it didn’t and that’s okay - it was a good B movie.
Did you mean Episode 1? Because that’s how far I got before declaring defeat. Unwatchable, IMO. Each element of the show is terrible. It’s as if the special effects are supposed to distract you from the terrible acting, which is supposed to distract you from the terrible writing, which is supposed to distract you from the terrible editing, which is supposed to distract you from the terrible wardrobe… etc… ugh.