No body lives forever: All the updates, trailers, and commentary for Netflix’s Altered Carbon

Netflix’s adaptation of Richard K. Morgan’s cyberpunk novel Altered Carbon is getting an eight-episode second season. But when it returns, it’ll have a new actor playing the lead role of Takeshi Kovacs — Joel Kinnaman will be replaced by Anthony Mackie, currently best known for playing Falcon in the Captain America and Avengers Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

Altered Carbon is set centuries in the future, in a world where humanity has overcome mortality via a technology that allows human consciousness to be transferred from one body (or “sleeve,” in slang parlance) to another, assuming the client can afford it. The show’s first season is a grim neo-noir thriller that follows a former soldier named Takeshi Kovacs as he’s hired to solve the murder of a prominent Earth billionaire, Laurens Bancroft, who apparently committed suicide. The season, a bloody and violent affair, completely wrapped up the events of Morgan’s 2002 novel.

Netflix’s new science fiction TV series Altered Carbon ticks all the boxes for a modern-day cyberpunk series. Based on a 2002 novel by Richard K. Morgan, it’s about a hardboiled investigator named Takeshi Kovacs who lives in a world where human consciousness can be stored on a chip called a “stack,” and transferred between bodies (now known as “sleeves.”) The rich have effectively become immortal, sequestering themselves far above the gritty streets of futuristic San Francisco. The masses use flashing holograms to sell copious sex, drugs, and violence, beneath a perpetually dark and rainy sky. The series offers a Blade Runner-tinged aesthetic that many people adore, me included.

But that aesthetic, paradoxically, is why Altered Carbon fails, as both good television and good cyberpunk.

The first season of Netflix’s Altered Carbon began streaming on February 2nd. It’s the company’s answer to some of its competitors’ big-budget science fiction shows like The Expanse or Westworld. But in this case, it’s a civilization coping with a technology that allows them to escape death, downloading people’s minds from one body to the next.

While the show has its roots in Richard K. Morgan’s 2002 dark cyberpunk novel, and certainly carries some of the aesthetics of stories like Blade Runner, the show’s designers worked to make sure that it had its own unique look and feel. That includes the show’s costumes, which costume designer Ann Foley says helps tell the story in their own way. I recently spoke with Foley about her work on the show, in designing costumes both for far-future action and for specific storytelling.

Ever since HBO launched its widely successful fantasy drama Game of Thrones, other networks have been on the hunt for the next big genre show. Amazon has Man in the High Castle. Starz has American Gods. Syfy has The Expanse. These shows demonstrated that science fiction and fantasy could be a form of astute commentary on society embraced by mainstream audiences, instead of just escapism. While Netflix has fielded its own prestigious shows, like House of Cards and The Crown, it has lagged behind when it comes to science fiction. Its new science fiction thriller Altered Carbon, which launches on February 2nd, finally delivers the goods: it’s a hard-hitting genre story that doesn’t shy away from complexity and ugly truths about humanity.

Altered Carbon is based on the 2002 novel by Richard K. Morgan, a grim cyberpunk future where technology allows people to transfer their consciousness from one body to the next — if they can afford it. It’s a groundbreaking achievement. Murder victims can testify against their killers, and explorers can travel to distant planets. But there’s a downside: those who can afford to effectively live forever, jumping from cloned body to cloned body, consolidate their power for centuries and use it in disturbing ways.

Netflix has released a new, full-length trailer for its upcoming show Altered Carbon, a tech noir mystery about solving a murder in a world where death has lost all meaning.

Based off of Richard K. Morgan’s novel by the same name, Altered Carbon is set three centuries in the future, where people can transfer their consciousness from one body to another — if they can afford it. The trailer likens it to a person shedding their skin like a snake, allowing them to potentially live forever. Takeshi Kovacs (played by both Joel Kinnaman and Will Yun Lee) is a body-hopping soldier called an Envoy who is killed on a distant planet, but wakes up again 250 years later on Earth. He’s been resurrected by a wealthy man named Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy) to investigate Bancroft’s own death.

Among the deluge of CES news releases this week, one stood out to me because it made little sense: Netflix was bringing its upcoming Altered Carbon series to the big Las Vegas exhibition. How do you bring a drama series to a hardware show?

It turns out, Netflix’s idea was to construct an elaborate faux-serious campaign, including a partnership with the drama’s fictional company Psychasec, and the collaborative booth they’re presenting at CES is a pretend exhibition area for Psychasec’s “sleeve” products. A sleeve, in the Altered Carbon universe, is a spare body you can transfer your consciousness into — because, as the tagline smugly proclaims, “no body lives forever.”

In February, Netflix will begin streaming an ambitious adaptation of Richard K. Morgan’s debut science fiction novel Altered Carbon. The novel is a cyberpunk mystery that delves into issues about wealth and power, and it’s the perfect source material for a prestige television series.

Set in a future where people can trade bodies on a whim, Altered Carbon is the first of Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs trilogy (it’s followed by 2003’s Broken Angels and 2005’s Woken Furies). Its cynical take on human behavior puts a cyberpunk face on the idle excesses of the super wealthy, a theme that feels more relevant than ever in 2017.

Netflix debuted a new trailer for its upcoming cyberpunk show, Altered Carbon, introducing the main story for the show: after he’s murdered, Earth’s richest man hires an ex-soldier to track down his killer.

The streaming service released an announcement trailer last week that introduced the show’s main McGuffin: humans have developed a technology that allows for someone to transfer their consciousness from one body to another. The rich and powerful can now afford to become effectively immortal, jumping from body to body, while murder victims can be brought back to life to testify against their killers.

Netflix has unveiled the first look at its upcoming cyberpunk show Altered Carbon. In a world inspired by Richard K. Morgan’s 2002 noir science fiction novel, a soldier is brought back to life to investigate a rich man’s murder. The show will begin streaming on February 2nd, 2018.

The trailer introduces the novel’s central McGuffin: in Morgan’s version of the future, people can digitally copy their memories and personalities into a “cortical stack” and implant them in a new body, called a sleeve. The process allows people (usually the rich and famous) to avoid death by jumping from body to body. Last week, Netflix began teasing the show with a couple of in-universe teasers for Psychasec, the company responsible for “sleeving” people.