ALTERED CARBON: Cyberpunk Crime – Good, But Not Good Enough

When the first trailer for Altered Carbon was released online, Netflix really fired up the imagination of its subscribers (and not only theirs) and the hype around this cyberpunk crime series continued to grow. The countdown to the premiere began, and the service built up the tension, gradually delivering more exciting teasers… However, raising expectations can be a double-edged sword. Did the first season of the series rise to the challenge?

Before watching Altered Carbon, I was only concerned about two things – the excessive number of spectacular fight scenes compared to the neo-noir content (as suggested by the trailers) and the challenging attempt to fit such a vast source material into just ten episodes of nearly one hour each.

The story of Takeshi Kovacs is a multilayered treatise on life and death, eternity and immortality, and values that, after hundreds of years, as a result of cosmic expansion and civilizational conflicts, few still remember. Altered Carbon is the debut novel of Richard Morgan – at times, this is noticeable during the reading, as there are some awkward passages – but it’s no accident that it brought a great deal of attention to the young writer. The world he created, seemingly similar to other futuristic dystopias, turned out to be a breath of fresh air for the entire science fiction genre. Morgan chose to write a crime story with a neo-noir atmosphere, which instead of a stylish trench coat and hat, draped itself in a shimmering neon cyberpunk cloak. The grim vision of the future, where the gap between the rich and the poor deepens, and the former acquire the status of self-proclaimed gods, was particularly surprising with its solution to the problem of interstellar travel – the human body ceased to matter when a way was discovered to store the soul in a cortical stack (a small device that, after a data transfer, can be inserted into any shell, anywhere in the universe). However, this invention had an additional use – people wealthy enough could change skins like snakes, thus gaining eternal life, but gradually losing their humanity.

Takeshi Kovacs, from the Harlan World (played mainly by Joel Kinnaman, but also by Will Yun Lee and Byron Mann – after all, the shell is changeable), is a man with an interesting record – a former soldier of the Protectorate, a deserter, a member of the anarchist Emissary Corps, and ultimately a fugitive criminal with a bounty on his head. With such a CV, every mistake meant a life sentence, which the protagonist ultimately receives. After 250 years “in the ice,” Kovacs unexpectedly comes out on the request of someone named Laurens Bancroft (played excellently by James Purefoy) – the wealthiest man on Earth, which for Takeshi was a completely foreign place. The hero is given a chance – to regain his freedom, he only has to solve the case of… Bancroft’s suicide, which the main subject doesn’t believe in.

Although the plot described above is the main theme of both the novel and the series, I must unfortunately disappoint fans of the literary original. Altered Carbon takes quite a loose approach to the source material. Many elements are recognizable, but led by showrunner Laeta Kalogridis (who worked on Shutter Island, Terminator: Genisys), the writers introduced a lot of more or less distorting changes to the content of the book. Fortunately, they did not kill the huge potential of this story, but – unfortunately – the overall execution comes off as somewhat clumsy.

It’s clear that despite Richard Morgan’s help, the project caused many problems on this front. The episodes are uneven, and we have to wait a long time for the pacing to settle – in the first episode, which should introduce the viewers to a completely foreign world, it’s hard to avoid the feeling of a frantic rush. If it weren’t for knowing the novel, I would have probably missed how briefly the process of transferring the soul to new shells was presented, and I suspect that someone unfamiliar with Altered Carbon would have many questions after the first ten minutes, to which – unfortunately – they wouldn’t receive answers. During the screening, I had the feeling of being overwhelmed, as if my cortical stack had been placed into a completely unfamiliar shell. A strange feeling – and probably not intended by the creators. It’s only at the end of the third episode that the pace begins to stabilize, the action slows down significantly, and we can finally start appreciating what’s most interesting – the wonderful cyberpunk city, which inevitably evokes associations with Blade Runner but also Ghost in the Shell.

Visually, it’s hard to fault Altered Carbon. The production of each episode cost around seven million dollars, a large portion of which was absorbed by special effects – this is clearly visible. There may not be mastery in the handling of the camera, but who would care when the ever-present neon lights cutting through the darkness create such a charming atmosphere? I also appreciate the small touches, such as the conversation with the police over a bowl of rice noodles in one of the street Chinese bars – a classic. And since I’m already talking about the visual aspect, I can’t overlook a certain detail that might discourage many of you…

The creators of Altered Carbon spared no expense. The body count is high, blood splatters almost constantly, and naked figures pass across the screen just as frequently – I’m aware that for many people, this is too much to watch the series out of curiosity. In defense of the creators, I’ll just say that it is actually plot-driven – since the body doesn’t matter, it’s merely a shell that the characters of Altered Carbon wear, but can be removed from at any time, physicality in 2384 is no longer a taboo subject.

So is Altered Carbon what we were promised? Definitely not. Netflix made one cardinal mistake – ironically, one that is quite in line with the general tone of the series – it believed too much in its own power. Even now, I’m not entirely sure what feelings this title aroused in me. After watching it, I needed a few days to gather my thoughts – I tried different approaches, but ignoring the raised expectations and literary source material didn’t lead to an overwhelming admiration. Altered Carbon looks very good and I certainly wouldn’t call it an average series, but contrary to expectations, it’s not Netflix’s best series either. The only adjective that comes to mind is “above average,” although it’s really not a word I’d want to associate with Altered Carbon. And unfortunately, that’s how it is. A series (only) above average, but still worth watching to form your own opinion.