Altered Carbon is Back!

Well, the wait has finally paid off, folks–Altered Carbon Season 2 is finally almost here! The release date has been announced for February 27th, and all eight episodes for season 2 will drop at the same time in true Netflix fashion. Make sure to keep your calendars open!

Teaser Trailer

Last week on February 4th we were blessed with a new teaser trailer for the new season, which you should check out below!

As you can see there’s a lot to unpack here. You can bet that the first time I saw this teaser trailer I paused the trailer ad nauseum to take in what each still in the trailer was telling us. We hear Anthony Mackie say the following:

“This is a ghost story. Technology has conquered death. But with endless future comes endless past. We are trailed by specters. They cling to us like shadows. But if you chase after your ghost, you just might become one.”–Takeshi Kovacs

What to Expect

In the teaser trailer we definitely see what appears to be preserved ruins of Martian bodies, which would definitely be from book 2 of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, Broken Angels (for a primer on what happened in that novel, check out my review). We see more little scenes of what looks like Kovacs’ childhood, as well as his connections to Quellcrist Falconer, which is examined considerably in book 3, Woken Furies (which you can also read my review for here). We also see a ship exploding, which could be the one used to go through the portal in book 2, as well as Kovacs fighting an unclear group, and Kovacs in a new sleeve where he can summon handguns to his hands.

Clues from Episode Titles

We also know the names for all eight episodes, which are below:

Ep 201 “Phantom Lady” – written by Laeta Kalogridis, directed by Ciaran Donnelly

Ep 202 “Payment Deferred” – written by Sarah Nicole James, directed by Ciaran Donnelly

Ep 203 “Nightmare Alley” – written by Michael R. Perry, directed by MJ Bassett

Ep 204 “Shadow of a Doubt” – written by Sang Kyu Kim, directed by MJ Bassett

Ep 205 “I Wake up Screaming” – written by Cortney Norris, directed by Jeremy Webb

Ep 206 “Bury Me Dead” – written by Adam Lash & Cori Uchida, directed by Jeremy Webb

Ep 207 “Experiment Perilous” – written by Nevin Densham, directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield

Ep 208 “Broken Angels” – written by Alison Schapker & Elizabeth Padden, directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield

Because of the strong emphasis Season 1 and the trailer has put on Falconer, and the fact that it would be prohibitively expensive to shoot the whole season on Mars or in space, I suspect Season 2 will be taking parts of book 2 (the Martian ruins, Carerra’s Wedge, and Col. Ivan Carerra) and adding them to the plot of book 3 (finding Falconer again). Oh, and it’s set on Harlan’s World, with one main character being Danica Harlan, and that’s definitely from book 3 as well.

The fact that the last episode is called the name of book 2 is very interesting, however. The angels in question referred to spirits of the dead or gone Martians, so I wonder if that will play any part in that final episode.

A New Instagram Grid for a New Season

At around the same time the official Altered Carbon Instagram was scrubbed and refitted with promotional pictures on their grid. Just look at this beauty.

Altered Carbon Season 2: The Main Trailer

On February 12th, about two weeks before the release of Season Two, we FINALLY got a complete trailer that dropped on YouTube. Let’s check it out below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MzbLQBeR9Y

So one of the first things I really enjoyed seeing right off the bat was the sky above Harlan’s World. You see, Harlan’s World is where Kovacs was born and raised, where he spent his misfit youth before he joined different military outfits. On this planet, Martians left behind an array of satellites that will automatically shoot lasers to vaporize anything that goes too high in orbit over the world. As a result, it’s very difficult to get anything onto the world from space. The only way to do so is to slip in through small cracks in the defensive satellite network. No one knows why the Martians left them behind or what they were for, all they know is that they’re there and they are still operational.

Harlan’s World and the Satellites of Death

In one of the first shots of this trailer, we can finally see how Kalogridis envisioned this satellite network of death, here dealing shots of blue lasers.

Your Resleeving is Now Complete

Mackie’s resleeving this time also looks a lot smoother than Joel Kinnaman’s resleeving. Here we get to know all the cool new military features Mackie’s sleeve will have.

Kumalo Bioware

In the trailer Poe asks Kovacs what compelled him to return to Harlan’s World, a place he swore he would never return. He seems to respond “I’m still looking for her, and I can’t walk away.” This suggests that he came to Harlan’s World by choice this time.

Another difference here is that it looks like Kovacs will find Falconer, in her original sleeve, here on Harlan’s World. This is very different than in the book, where she was found only in digital form. Unless if in fact what we are seeing is in virtual space?

Colonel Ivan Carrera and Carrera’s Wedge

We then see Danica Harlan ordering Col. Carrera to find and kill what I’m guessing is Kovacs and Falconer together. This would make sense, since Quell was trying to lead a rebellion against the Harlan family, and perhaps still is here in Season 2. We also hear “the whole planet is going to be hunting you” because, well, it’s literally Harlan’s World.

We are Trailed by Specters. They Cling to Us Like Shadows

Then, at 1:58, we get a very exciting view of…Will Yun Lee as the original Takeshi Kovacs! This refers directly to what happens in book 3, which I won’t spoil if you haven’t read it, but it’s very important indeed.

So after this trailer I think I have a good idea of what to expect from Season 2. The beginning premise might not be as exciting as season 1, but once you discover the twist, it might become a lot more interesting.

What were your impressions on the Season 2 trailer? Comment below!

I’ve seen on many blogs online that Psycho-Pass is high up on the list of must-watch cyberpunk pieces, along with Ghost in the Shell in terms of quality. So I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with Psycho-pass.

What is Psycho-Pass?

Psycho-Pass is a Japanese cyberpunk anime television series from 2012 about a dystopian future society where omnipresent public sensors constantly scan the mental states of citizens in order to determine their threat to society, which determines not only what freedoms they have but also what careers are best suited for them.

The story follows Akane Tsunemori (right) in her first assignment with the Public Safety Bureau’s Criminal Investigation. The series is set in futuristic Japan where a powerful network of psychometrix scanners, called the Sibyl System, actively measure the minds and mentalities of the city’s population using a “cymatic scan” in order to give them their Psycho-Pass. If the coefficient is higher than an acceptable threshold, the individual is pursued, apprehended, and killed if necessary. One of the tools of the PSB’s Criminal Investigation Unit is something called the “Enforcers”, humans (such as Shinya Kogami, left) with higher-than-acceptable crime coefficients who are used as hunting dogs basically to find latent criminals. Both the Enforcers and the Detectives use large handguns called “Dominators” that change their lethality based on the crime coefficients of the targets they are aimed upon, in real time.

A second season was released in October 2014, with an animated film released in January 2015 and a third season is set to come out in October 2019.

Inspiration

A lot of the inspiration for Psycho-Pass came from various Western films, in particular L.A. Confidential but also from Blade Runner, Minority report, and Gattaca, with the director wanting to explore psychological themes in society’s youth using its dystopian storylines. This is clear as there are a LOT of monologues and long discussions between characters in the anime, which I suppose is pretty common among most animes anyways.

Review:

I liked Psycho-Pass enough to watch it to the end, but I felt it wasn’t as good as other animes I’ve watched like Ghost in the Shell. I liked that its story was more connected than other animes like Cowboy Bebop, and it had a good amount of Cyberpunk visuals. It had some interesting concepts that it explored, such as ethics and morals of delegating who decides whether a criminal is dangerous, and whether that is just. By using a crime-coefficient to judge a person before he or she commits a crime, it definitely felt reminiscent to Minority Report, but streamlined as that judgement is made in the gun itself. I also liked how the series tackles the question of how people would respond to violent crimes if they are not used to the idea of someone being able to do so in a supposedly utopian future where crime doesn’t really exist. But it doesn’t have that “cool” factor of the streets and high-tech of Ghost in the Shell, or of the devil-may-care attitude that Cowboy Bebop had either.

I felt sometimes that the anime could have used more action. It has a high level of detective work and it also has a healthy amount of time invested into developing the relationship between detectives and enforcers, somewhat mirroring different levels of society today. However, the use of the dominators, and the twists and turns the story took the viewer, was very entertaining. Also, the dialogues between characters on the nature of society were worthwhile and interesting as well.

My favorite random scene

There’s one particular scene that I would love to share with you that jumped out of nowhere on me during a not particularly important interaction between the villain, Makishima, and one of his partners. You can watch it here.

Explained all patronizingly while enjoying some madelines with tea. How sophisticated.

The scene randomly references many different influential works of cyberpunk  (which ones? You’ll have to watch it to find out), and the villain’s love for paper books over datapad e-books because of the feel of turning the pages and the smell of the binding. This inconsequential discussion is one of many different philosophical talks that are sprinkled throughout the season.

So if you like philosophical discussions, you’ll like this series.

Overall, I would give this series 8/10. Its discussions, animation quality, detective work and world building were interesting enough, but its lack of action and sometimes slow pacing bogs it down a little. I also would have liked a little more tech-focused cyberpunk visuals, such as bionic implants or other advanced technologies past simply the dominator gun.

What did you think of the series? Did you like Psycho-Pass? Let me know in the comments below!

In preparation for Altered Carbon Season 2, this past weekend I finished reading Broken Angels. I highly recommend you read the first novel that started it all, Altered Carbon, as there are some changes between the novel and Laeta Kalogridis’ Netflix adaptation, which I have talked about previously.

The Prequel: Altered Carbon

In case you’re unfamiliar, Altered Carbon is a Cyberpunk novel a-la hardboiled noir detective style, with lead Takeshi Kovacs whose consciousness, which is being digitally stores on a small circular disk called a stack, has been inserted into a human body “sleeve” in order to solve the mystery of the murder of an ultra-wealthy long-living man called Laurens Bancroft. Since in this world people can die but have their stacks stored in the cloud to download into other sleeves, Laurens has hired Takeshi to solve his own murder. The subsequent story is filled with action and intrigue as it describes in detail a super-hierarchical dystopian metropolis called Bay City (formerly San Francisco).

Broken Angels is…completely different.

If Altered Carbon was a noir detective story, Broken Angels feels more like a page from the Alien franchise, such as Prometheus. Kovacs arrives on the scene of a war in the mercenary unit of Carrera’s Wedge. In order to escape the bloody brutality of the conflict, he partners up with Schneider in order to find an archaelogue called Wardani in order to open a portal to a Martian dreadnought deep in space. No one knows much about the Martians, except that they were technologically superior and they disappeared, leaving behind all kinds of curious relics.

So how much of this will be in Season 2?

It’s been reported from Kalogridis that Season 2 of Altered Carbon probably won’t feature much from this book, since it takes place in such diverse places that it would be very costly to produce. However, Broken Angels has Carrera as the main antagonist, whose character is confirmed to be in Season 2 from the casting video released earlier this year, so this is a good book to get acquainted with the villain and understand why exactly he might have such a big beef with Kovacs. However, they also reported Danica Harlan, who is the main antagonist (sort of) in book 3 (Woken Furies), so it may be a mix of both. If the report from Radio Times is true that season 2 will be exploring identity and gender fluidity more, then it won’t be drawing its source material from Broken Angels, since there isn’t much of that present. So either it will be from Woken Furies, or Kalogridis will just deviate from the subject material entirely.

Revisiting Torture/Brutality

The book itself was very fun to read, and surprisingly linear. Unlike Altered Carbon with a wide plethora of different characters and intrigue and things happening at the same time, Woken Furies follows Kovacs slowly add members to his team one at a time. First with Schneider, then Wardani, then Hand (the corporate benefactor of the expedition) and finally the support team of about 8 or so special ops members they bring back from the dead.

The Mystery of the Martians

Like the first book, there are scenes in this book that felt very imaginative in its brutality. One of my complaints about both the book and the series Altered Carbon is the virtual reality torture scene. A similar scene happens in this book, which makes me wonder why Morgan decides to put these parts in. The mystery of what happened to the Martians and who/what they were was very interesting, and it’s a question that the book never fully answers (and rightly so).

The Disillusion of War and Soldiers

One interesting element to this book, which can be slow at times as the team waits for the portal to be opened, is in their interactions with each other. One team member, Jiang Jianping, is the idealistic soldier who doesn’t understand Kovacs’ aversion to fighting. In their discussions Kovacs is portrayed as being older and more experienced, having seen the pointless conflicts that rarely resolves more than corporate or political interests, and this was a nice introspective into why Kovacs is clearly “ex-envoy” and more mercenary than anything else. Despite being part of a mercenary unit, his choice to ultimately abandon them in order to escape the conflict is explored as well, which I enjoyed as a side-narrative to the mysterious expedition into Martian history.

Final Review: 8.5/10

Broken Angels is an excellent addition to the Kovacs trilogy, although it definitely feels like a standalone novel at the same time. Other than being a little bit more familiar with the titular Kovacs, there’s no need to read the first novel in order to read the second. I’m curious to see what the third novel entails, and if it connects at all to the first or second books. But Morgan has done an interesting thing here in shaking up his type of novel. The dialogues were interesting, the action fast, the pacing good although a little slow at times. There were moments of surprising sexual scenes like the first novel, as well as strong brutality and torture which I felt were both somewhat unnecessary. Although themes of the meaning of war and the role of soldiers who fight in them is explored a bit, there isn’t a lot of deep discussions in this novel. It really feels like a Cyberpunk version of Prometheus, without the Xenomorphs but with added dark tech. Still, very interesting, enjoyable, and I look forward to seeing what Woken Furies has in store.

This is a review and brief analysis of Cowboy Bebop. There seems to be a lot of discussion in the Cyberpunk realm regarding whether Cowboy Bebop counts as Cyberpunk or not. But first, a little bit about the anime itself.

After having seen it often referenced and after having been recommended to me multiple times by various friends, I finally took the time to watch the entirety of Cowboy Bebop’s 26-episode series.

Unfortunately, part of that experience was marked by my move to France, which resulted in me watching the first half of the series in English, and the second half in French. Good thing I can speak French! Although I do feel like the difference in language  changes the experience a bit.

Anyways, Cowboy Bebop is an anime that aired in 1998-1999 directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, written by Keiko Nobumoto, and with music by Yoko Kanno. The story centers around a team of bounty hunters that are aboard the spaceship Bebop, comprised initially of Spike (the main character of the series) and Jet, a jaded ex-cop. Later characters that join them on the Bebop include Faye, a flighty hustler who uses her sensuality to her advantage, Edward, a childlike wacky ace-hacker, and Ein, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi with human-like intelligence.

Each episode is able to stand alone, with a loose plot centered on Spike’s departure from the mob and his past that eventually comes back to haunt him. This theme repeats itself with Jet, Faye, and Ed, as many episodes are centered on having them explore their past as well.

The beauty of this series lies in its relaxed form of asking philosophical questions paired with its jazzy music, which results in the effect of combining a lot of different genres into one, making the anime a truly fun genre-bending experience. Loneliness and purpose are explored a lot, as well as the importance of the past in how it shapes someone in the present.

I personally really enjoyed Cowboy Bebop. The stand alone quality of the show allowed me to stop watching and pick up whenever I wanted, which was great. However, after being treated to different shows on Netflix and elsewhere where each episode really builds on each other, I felt that my interest lower than other shows I’ve watched, which also included what I felt was a somewhat anticlimactic ending.

One thing I did like was how different each character was from each other. Going into the anime without knowing anything about it, I was always surprised when a new member joined the crew and actually stuck with them until the end.

The style of the crew, of all characters they encounter, of the different worlds they visit, it’s all very interesting. Some episodes are more cyberpunk than others, with tvs controlling minds (a la Snowcrash) or hacking issues, or AI that seem like they’re humans but aren’t. There is also definitely a punk element with these bounty hunters who live paycheck to paycheck, often going hungry or running out of fuel, but always trying to catch their bounty in their own way and sometimes pissing off the authorities in doing so.

Do yourself a favor and watch this anime, and then check out the great music from the series as well. Describing it will only go so far. I’d give it  9/10 as an anime, but I wouldn’t quite qualify it as a cyberpunk anime since there are too many other elements in it at the same time.

Altered Carbon is a 2018 Netflix television series from Laeta Kalogridis (Alexander, Shutter Island) based on the 2002 novel of the same name by author Richard K Morgan. The first season of the series and first novel of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy are about a dystopian future set in 2384 where consciousness and memories are kept on small metal discs, called cortical stacks, that are implanted into the stem of the vertebrae in humans when they are young. When any human dies, their cortical stack can be put into another body such that the human consciousness can live on, but if their stack is also destroyed, this would result in a permanent death. However, this also means that certain humans with enough wealth can effectively live forever, through the use of human clones and uploading their consciousness to a cloud server via satellite. These elite god-like humans are called Meths, in reference to Methuselah who according to the myth lived 1000 years.

The series centers around Takeshi Kovacs, the last remaining elite soldier of the envoys, a rebel group who were defeated in trying to rise up against the new world order. The  the story starts when one particularly wealthy meth, Laurens Bancroft, decides to take Takeshi’s stack out of prison storage and put it into a new body 250 years after the uprising, so that Takeshi may solve the mystery of Laurens’ own (body) death.

Fortunately, Morgan was very active in the creative process of making the Netflix series a reality, as he worked very closely with Kalogridis. Morgan was actually an ESL teacher for over a decade before he wrote and published his novel, and upon its success he quit to become a full time writer. This kind of life experience is something that I aspire to have one day as well, and is indeed quite inspiring since I’m currently an ESL teacher myself.

I should start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed both the novel and the series, and I would recommend reading the book first before watching the movie, as there are some significant differences in both and I feel like the original should be what gives you the first impression of the story. I also feel like it’s always better to create an image of a story with your own imagination, before having someone dictate that vision for you with a visual medium.

Morgan writes very well, with a great handle on pacing and with excellent action and story line to keep you hooked. Be warned, however, because the plot will be a little confusing (at least, it was for me) as the mystery slowly unfolds itself and will keep you guessing who murdered Laurens. I should also mention that this is definitely an adult book, with some surprisingly graphic sexual scenes written in, which is something new for me in reading a science fiction novel.

The TV series is also very good, but I felt personally that it leaned a little too hard on violence and sexually explicit scenes. It also chose to critically change some main characters which leads to a significantly different ending, one that I felt wasn’t as strong as the novel, but also that somehow was more fleshed out if that makes sense. In some ways the TV series feels like 1.5 books, compared to the 1st book by Morgan, which actually makes sense since Kalogridis decided to put more content in the first season out of fear that the series wouldn’t be renewed, and because she felt there was too much good content to ignore in books 2 and 3 from Morgan.

If you’re a fan of this genre, but feel like you only want to either read it or watch it, I would urge you to reconsider and do both for one main reason: the influence of Netflix on our society is undeniable, and that influence shouldn’t be underestimated when a big series such as Altered Carbon ends up being the big hit that it has been. The series has already gotten a myriad excellent reviews (although not being perfect), and the greenlit second season and subsequent seasons will naturally be drawing from its source material, the books, as well.

So what does this all mean?

It means that Netflix has made Altered Carbon a culturally relevant modern TV series, and subsequently also is bringing Cyberpunk into social awareness and consciousness. The stylistic choices, colors, setting, and film noir feel of Altered Carbon (both the series and the books now) are creating a new modern perception of the Cyberpunk genre for our society in real time. I would venture to say it even has more of an effect than standalone movies such as Blade Runner 2049 or Ghost in the Shell, although the recent increase in Cyberpunk movies just further points to the growing trend that Cyberpunk is quickly becoming mainstream, something that industry favorite Neon Dystopia is quick to mention here and here.

So take the time to enjoy a great series and a great book. I am still trying to get my hands on book 2 and 3 of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy. Altered Carbon tackles some great existential themes, such as the effect of money on society and the meaning of identity in a world where bodies are expendable sleeves, consciousness can be copied and downloaded, and laws grapple with religion and justice (such as it being illegal to put a stack of a Christian into a new body, even if the previous body was murdered and only that stack can pinpoint who the murderer was in a court of law).

Futuristic weapons, culture, and society, confused senses of identity and self as they relate to new technology, cyber enhancements, neurochemical stimulants, drugs, gangs, Artificial Intelligence and immoral business practices, Altered Carbon is the modern Cyberpunk series that our world needs. I give the novel 10/10, and the TV series 9/10, notching it one point for its gratuitous sexual scenes and violence.

If you’ve read or watched them, please let me know what you thought in the comments below!