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December book club canceled. Short stories instead!
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I'm enjoying it. Some of the decisions are a little odd. The thing that's most distracting to me is that, in my head, Murderbot appears much more androgynous. That might have been hard to pull off, but Skarsgard is definitely male (even without genitalia). Some of the other characters are goofier than in the books, but I kind of understand the choice.
I hope the show gets people to read the books, but the show is entertaining.
I'm actually a big fan of that decision.
The idea that non-binary people have to visibly appear non-binary is a harmful stereotype. Murderbot's physical appearance is a part of its design that it has no control over. Why should it look androgynous? Just because it perceives itself as genderless, doesn't mean it's creators did.
I hope the show will actually dig into that at some point. I think it's really important for people to see an agender character who still has a strongly masc appearance.
It's an interesting point, and I agree with it politically, but in the books it's made clear secunits look androgynous and non-human.
Some change between media change is always going to happen. I think Skarsgård is doing as good a job as can be done with his face. I'm making peace with it. Maybe the bigger problem is the dismissiveness of the portrayal of Preservation Alliance society. But we did live in the Corporate Rim!
I don't agree they look totally 'non-human', since they are able to pass as human security consultant with little to no changes to their appearance. Heavily augmented, but human enough to pass with little more than a heavy sweater/hoodie and a cap.
Honestly, i love the way everyone of the Corporation Rim dismisses Preservation, they are a bunch of backwater hippies... and the fact they do have a working and strong economy just shows how wrong the CR is.
It was only after ART's modifications that Murderbot was able to pass for a heavily augmented human. That was the point of them.
I hope they show the Preservation more seriously later. It was all vague at the start in the books. Though I will be rereading!
ARTs modifications helped, but he did walk around prior to receiving them. ART adjusted his height, how his hair grew, ect, but didn't fundamentally change his looks.
But the whole point of the modifications was so it could pass as human. Which means beforehand, it was a struggle to.
Yes, but most of them were things like shortening the legs, growing out the hair, changing their gait, and adding "fidget" algorithms.
Not major cosmetic changes, and as he says a security would still identify him as a sec unit, but making it so the meatbags... Err, humans, are less likely to notice.
We remember/interpret it slightly differently. I'll be rereading soon. See what I second time round. 😀
In the books, Murderbot is aggressively no gendered. It gets upset at any suggestions that it has sex characteristics. That was enough for me to form a mental image of androgyny.
I mean, it's fine. They had to go with someone, and that someone was going to have a body, it's just different from what I pictured.
I think the idea that Murderbot's conception of its gender conflicts with its appearance of gender is actually a lot more real, and relatable. If Murderbot is simply genderless because it was designed to be genderless, that flies directly in the face of the story's underlying themes of breaking your own programming and discovering an identity apart from the one you were assigned by society and your expected place in it. So the notion that this thing was designed to look like a very handsome guy, but thinks of itself as having no concept of gender at all seems to fit that much better to my mind. But I get how it's difficult when you start with a book, form an image of a character, and then get met with something that runs completely counter to that image.
They could of at least removed his hair and put some clear cybernetics. In the books, you couldn't mistake Murderbot for a human. Even after ART's modifications (adding hair etc) Murderbot still could only pass as a heavily cybernetically augmented human.
I do fear the shied away from the gender stuff.
In my imagination, Murderbot looked kinda like the player character from the game 'Citizen Sleeper', pictured below.
Which is to say, very androgynous and very obviously cybernetic.
There's quite a bit of character similarity between them too, because the titular Sleeper is a human consciousness in a cybernetic body that has a lot of biological parts, and they are kept loyal to the company who owns them by a drug that will cause their body to break down if they stop taking it. Same intent as the governor module, but a different approach.
I found Murderbot's physical appearance an important aspect of the books, not just for surface plot reasons (everyone knows they are a bot etc) but because it's a large part of what people need to overcome from the perspective of seeing past their prejudices.
The show clearly shows Murderbot as being ACE and uncomfortable with the sexual and gendered reactions of others towards them — which is as important in my view the outward and physical apparent gender.
I read all the books, and my only complaint about the show is that the episodes are over too soon. I know it's different in some ways from the books, but who cares? It's a great show.
I haven't read the source material, but so far I'm really enjoying it. My only gripe is that the episodes are short, I'd rather 45min episodes.
Yea, its very accurate, a lot of it is word for word, and the character adaptations are great.
They definitely padded it to hit 8 episodes of 45 minutes each (ie, in the books to confirm the map is wrong they all go, including Murderbot, and Mensah doesn't go on a solo exploration), but defiantly feel more like expanding the world than useless padding.
I feel like the changes to characters are really large. The feelings I have from each character in the books and the show are not close enough to be the same character. Mensa is so much more emotional and reactive in the show than she was in the books, but I like both. Murderbot is much more human than in the books, there is way less internal monologue, so it feels very different, but I still love the character in both. Same for all the rest.
As for the story changes, so far it seems good in terms of changing just enough to make it fit for TV rather than doing something insanely different with only a passing resemblance to the books. I like how the violence is shocking, sudden, and really limited. In the books it is not the whole story, one gory moment after another, and I was worried they would get sucked into the trap of violence being attention getting and shocking and therefore needed in huge quantity.
The visuals are excellent. From a purely technical perspective they have done a great job with making something easy to look at, enjoyable to experience, and mostly visually consistent. There have been very few moments where the colour balance is skewed weirdly, where the lighting requires adjusting the screen, or where the volume levelling was terrible. Great production quality.
I agree. Subtly different but overall and surprisingly very similar.
PresAux are more hippy like and a little less like the academics in the book which I find just a little annoying but it’s OK (I’m an academic).
One of the things I’m really curious about is how they flesh out the contrast between the capitalist dystopia of the Corporation Rim and the clearly socialist Preservation Aux. I feel like it’s a politically charged topic in the current capitalist dystopia American context (at least that’s how it looks to me from outside America). I keep waiting for them to water it down but they haven’t done it so far. Good on em.
A lot of people are watching it, but I ducked out after episode two. I read the books and I felt like it was overly broad in comparison.
The TV adaptation rushes through the story, and doesn’t take its characters seriously. The books aren’t really a broad comedy like the show. For example, the books were more respectful of gender and sexuality. It wasn’t played for laughs except as the bot’s perspective of how he didn’t relate to it or understand the point of it. Same with a lot of the other characteristics of the humans. The humans in the book aren’t actually bumbling idiots, that’s just how the bot perceives them. I felt like the show was missing the point.
I did enjoy how the tv show portrayed “sanctuary moon” though.
If you haven’t read the books, I recommend them. There’s only like one real clunker in the set.
Absolutely fucking yes w.r.t. the characters being stupid in the show. In the books, the people from Preservation are incredibly competent.
TV SHOW AND BOOK SPOILERS
As an example, book Mensah would NOT have had a fucking panic attack dragging a sensor up a mountain alone because she would not have been foolish enough to put herself in that situation. Book Mensah does not take needless risks. She only does inadvisable things when her moral code requires her to do so.
Mensah and the other preservation folks are acting too much like the corporates. The books show you that living under a corporate boot makes you stunted and limited because that's a natural consequence of the profit-focused environment they create. Preservation cares about people, so the people from there are well rounded and don't do stupid things quite as often.
It's really hurting my enjoyment of the show. Why can't we have competence porn like we used to with shows like TNG and DS9?
I disagree that it’s a faithful adaptation from the books.
There have been plenty of lore and story changes. The overall ‘tone’ is different too. Books are more hard sci-fi.
That being said, I’m still enjoying it as its own thing and I wish the episodes were longer.
My general head cannon for the discrepancies especially with the additions is that the books are written by Murderbot as a record and it has admitted to being an unreliable narrator including glossing over things that it's not interested in or doesn't understand the value of. The show is more of a third-person perspective so it's entirely possible some of what we are seeing was those moments that Murderbot didn't see fit to include.
I'm enjoying it, though it feels...off? Somehow, likely because its a 30m format, it seems to speed through episodes, or starts to pick up steam then abrubtly ends.
yea,
The books are all novellas, with All Conditions Red only being 160 pages, so im not surprised how short the episodes were. I wish they had adapted the first two books, as 8 1 hour episodes, but loving what they did!
Fitting, then,.for a collection of novellas.
I've read the books and thoroughly enjoyed them and am now thoroughly enjoying the show. The emphasis of the show is different, certainly, but in this case I am happy with that. After the first episode in which I was all 'It's not that way in the book...' I am taking as it is.
My SO has not read the books and is also thoroughly enjoying it. It is probably her favourite show at the moment.
I wish all episodes were out all at once - I'd binge the hell out of it.
I've read the books and loved them and am thoroughly enjoying the show. I wish the episodes were longer. It's definitely got a somewhat different tone than the books, but I think the changes that have been made are generally fine and help transition the story to the medium of a TV show, rather than books.
The visual distinction of Sanctuary Moon compared to the "real" world of the story is great. Sanctuary Moon has all the tropey sci-fi TV schtick that Murderbot is avoiding as a show. Extremely vibrant colors, overdramatic line delivery, cg sets, it's just great.
It's fun I like it :)
Only glaring flaw is that I can no longer ignore my need for more murderbot content
I find the lens they used to film many of the shots incredibly distracting. The bokeh is outta control.
To be honest I've only seen the first two episodes and they didn't really grab me.
I enjoyed the books a lot when I read them, but never felt like it would adapt well to TV since so much exposition happens in the main character's head.
Does it get better in later episodes?
I've been loving it so far, tempted to pick up the books now.
The show is good, the books are fantastic!
It's pretty good but feels quite basic compared to the books.
My wife and I are hooked also. I bought the first book in the series and started reading it, but decided it's better to not get ahead of the plot, as every episode seems to end in a cliffhanger. (I don't think that's really necessary, as the show has enough pull to keep us coming back regardless.) I have a feeling though that once season 1 is done, I'm going to binge the novels.
yea, the books are great. My wife and i are really looking forward to the introduction of our favorite character 'A.R.T.'
I've picked it up as a casual follow because there's not much else at the moment. It's okay but I am not overwhelmed.
The show focuses, in my opinion, a bit too much on that human/bot mix portraying all kinds of ways he's not actually human. It distracts from the (in my opinion rather thin) storyline. Maybe this is one of those shows that is complementary to the books it's based on?