Haven’t seen any chatter here a out the new Murderbot show.
My wife and I are absolutely loving it so far, feels like a really faithful and respectful adaptation to the books, with most of the changes being positive!
Anyone else watching this?
“ I wish they would leave me alone so I can watch my shows”
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Ugh yeah, it feels like the show is making fun of Preservation, which kinda undermines the show. Contrary to what others seem to think here, in my opinion the added goofiness really detracts a lot from the show.
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!
