The first teaser for Netflix’s new cyberpunk series Altered Carbon was more about the tech than the world it exists in. But there’s a new teaser for anyone who wants to get a sense of how grand a scale this thing is on. It’s big, folks. Really damn big.
Netflix has released a new teaser for the upcoming series, set in a world where human consciousness has been digitized and bodies are interchangeable. The clip features no dialogue—instead, it’s just a series of quick frames that show off the characters and give a better look at Bay City circa 2384. Turns out, it’s not just a Blade Runner-esque world of permanent night. The teaser shows us the cloud skyscrapers where Mechs, or wealthy people who can afford to be moved from body to body, live above the rest of the world as immortals.
We also get a better look at series protagonist, former soldier Takeshi Kovacs, in his original body. The Wolverine and Hawaii Five-0 actor Will Yun Lee plays the character in flashbacks, but the series takes place after he’s been “resleeved” into Joel Kinnaman’s body. There has been concerns about another situation where an Asian person is placed into a white body, like the latest Ghost in the Shell—but at least in this case they’re being open about it, instead of saving it for a really crummy reveal. I’m hoping the show does a better job than the book, or other media, at addressing the problems that come with this kind of representation.
Altered Carbon comes out February 2.
DISCUSSION
To be fair, the body he has is Asian-to-Caucasian in the novels. It’s not so much whitewashing as it was a choice made by the employer who is.... unique.... and has reasons in the overall plot of things.
Moreso, in the second book, he’s black (if I recall?), while his entire team becomes Maori. In these novels, race is at a point of biological nothing, and is instead an aesthetic choice based on the manufacturer. It’s sort of to highlight the idea that these are no longer bodies, but clothes to be changed at will for those with the money to do so
Let’s not make a controversy for no reason on this issue.