There has always been more in cyberpunk than the main premise to be more than human. It could also be tempting to summarize the genre to a simple aesthetic: futuristic and refined metropolises in neon, advanced technology and a society simultaneously on the verge of progress and ruin. However, Cyberpunk’s accounts regularly criticize the supersaturation of capitalist ideology while highlighting the difficult relationship of humanity with technological progress. These stories are also openly political, where dark organizations and corrupt megacorporations have a corrosive monopoly on people’s lives, going so far as to digitize consciousness in the name of progress.
Although all these gender traits find a way to be composed in the novel by Richard K. Morgan in 2002 “Altered Carbon”, humanity appears as the most intriguing aspect of a world such dystopian. Just when you think you saw everything before, the “modified carbon” wakes you up with the ingenuity and cynicism necessary for cyberpunk prosperous as gender. The novel carries its influences on its sleeve – from the “etom” trilogy of William Gibson to “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” by Philip K. Dick? ” – But Morgan composes lurid violence and gender -specific hedonism to a 100. He also forces us to become philosophical with the idea that a body being” redesigned “forever, because a dystopian society rarely takes the most critical part of the human experience in consideration: the soul.
The interpretation of Netflix of Morgan’s “altered carbon” is an intriguing. On the one hand, it relies on the gadgets which help each science fiction program Cyberpunk, but treats these tropes well enough to justify praise. The Takeshi Kovacs show, a hardened mercenary who wakes up 300 years after the death of his previous round, is the perfect vehicle for the type of ultraviolet cynicism that history requires. While the criticisms favored this Netflix program very much despite its faults, “Altered Carbon” was suddenly canceled after only two seasons. Is this another example of the inconsistent approach to a streaming service for emerging stories, or is there a more practical reason behind the cancellation? Let’s dive.
Modified carbon has proven to be much more expensive than expected
Season 2 of “Altered Carbon” finished broadcasting in February 2020, so the post-Final discussions of a third potential season were inevitably drowned by the Pandemic COVID-19. When the news on the cancellation of the program broke out in August, it was natural to assume that the pandemic could have caused enough setbacks to justify this decision. After all, the uncertainty on the air dates and the increase in budgets were basic problems that most of the shows had to face during this period of time, in particular the one that had an enormous overall distribution. However, the abrupt end of the “modified carbon” was not at all linked to the cocvid, because all the signs indicate low viewers’ rates for season 2, which had an impact on the conversations surrounding the cost of renewal.
Netflix’s policy surrounding the renewal of a series (at the time) can be better understood via the following declaration made in 2018 by Cindy Holland, the former vice-president of Netflix of the original programming (via Digital Spy):
“The most important thing we are looking at is to receive enough viewers to justify the cost of the series? We also look at other things: how much the community of fans is, how social is a title. There are many other things that we look at this.”
Although the “altered carbon” is not a “black mirror”, it was enough topical to trigger a discourse on science fiction programs with limits on Netflix, as well as its contribution to the genus Cyberpunk. It was however quite expensive to do, because the premise in itself strongly depended on meticulously designed accessories and the heavy sets of the details which transmitted a disgusting feeling of overconsumption and technological progress.
Sleatulation is the name of the game here, in particular for the rich who declared the monopoly on the sky (as opposed to the groups, whose socioeconomic circumstances have forced them to stay on earth, which is perceived as inferior). It was also a spectacle that required a great variety, because the appearance of a dominant planet in the water body like the Harlan world would be significantly different from the Melting Pot of the Latimer Earth.
Although Netflix has not published audience rates or the estimated budget for “Altered Carbon”, season 1, Joel Kinnaman, previously told Yahoo! The news that the show had “a larger budget than the first three seasons of” Game of Thrones “.” Some sources say that the cost of each episode was nearly $ 7 million (!), But Kinnaman’s complaint easily indicates a much higher number.
Aside from the budgetary problems, the modified carbon was doomed to failure as a cyberpunk series
It is not controversial to say that the first season of the show is greater than its follow -up: a feeling that sounds true despite the recognition that the “modified carbon” has been deeply defective since the first day. The novelty of the first episode immediately wears out in season 2, thanks to a radically modified approach to history, which distances its eyes from the obsessive hyper-specific. Season 1 juggles on two versions of Kovacs – Will Yun Lee as “Kovacs of origin” and Joel Kinnaman as the newly with sleeves – and these disparate versions seem complex despite a large ditch.
After all, Love transcends time, as well as the limits of the fatal coil (IM), leading Kovacs to seek a love lost for a long time with the resolved hunger for reconnection, regardless of the cost. This connects perfectly to season 2, where Kovacs goes to a new round (played by Anthony Mackie), triggering a brand new trip which must find a way to connect to those who still linger in ether.
To indicate the evidence, Mackie inspires a new life in Kovacs, instilling the character with a humorous edge which was completely absent before. There is a laudable scope and dynamism to this performance, where the actor takes advantage of his natural charisma to blend into and outside the chaotic situations even when he is motivated by the same objectives as his predecessors. This is the problem, however: Takeshi Kovacs smiles or jokes, and he does not handle charm as an extension of himself. Kovacs de Mackie looks like an iteration completely different from the character, which inadvertently betrays the central theme of the series, which maintains that the soul persists, no matter how many sleeves are inhabited. Kovacs, for better or for worse, is a difficult and intimidating presence, formed to refine his body in a multi-purpose weapon.
Even without this fatal disconnection, “Altered Carbon” feels more generic in the second season, despite a tighter control over the history and the general management of the series. As I said above, the cyberpunk has infinitely more to offer than its associated aesthetics, but season 2 makes the confusing decision to abandon its meticulous roots and with high concept and revels in the shallow stylistic excess of a cyberpunk world. In addition, the vision of adaptation moves away so far from that of Morgan’s novels that the end result is unknown bland. What we have left at the end is an empty world that sets off because of its disturbing lack of depth or originality.
