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Murderbot TV 101-103
I've been watching the Murderbot TV show and enjoying it!
It's never going to replace the books in my heart, of course - for one thing, voice-over narration is never as good as 1st person narration, being very hard to manage from a filmmaking perspective - but so far it's been fun and cool to see visualized.
In no particular order:
-Mensah is so lovely, almost just like I imagined her: warm, calm, competent, kind, a little hidden snark because she is someone Murderbot can be friends with after. So interesting that they brought in her trauma so early, with her having panic attacks after the Hostile One attack!
-lots of interesting adaptation choices: first and foremost, that Murderbot is MUCH less experienced at hiding. IIRC, it says the PresAux mission is its first since hacking it's governor module, and it's only watched 7500 hours of media (approx 315 days worth) rather than nearly 35000 hours (approx 4 years). Which leads into the change of Gurathin becoming openly suspicious earlier (and MB being...wow. So sus honestly.).
-one thing I DON'T love is the way that the PresAux crew's idealism and naivete has been translated into a sort of...immaturity? and extra naivete. I love my fiercely competent albeit inexperienced with violence and CorpRim bs book!crew of socialist nerds, and I am less enchanted with the show shifting that into unprofessional shit like 'Ratthi was hungover and skipped weapons training' and painting the habitat and so forth. I'm hoping now that things are getting serious that will smooth out but idk. They also switched Mensah's request for MB to put down its helmet early and into a 'be part of the team' ha-ha moment instead of a hugely important and sweet moment between them recognizing its personhood, which I am personally sad about.
-we are ignoring the whole pillow-sniffing thing from 103. Whyyyyy? Especially since the previous scene was so perfectly awkward with Gurathin trying and failing to comfort Bharadwaj. Why must they take it a step into creepy? I'm copying MB and deleting it from my memory unless it's later revealed to be, idk, Gurathin trying to get MB to stop monitoring him or something.
-speaking of awkwardness: nailing it! AS might not have been my headcanon face for Murderbot but he is delivering all of its horrified-tired-exasperated-awkward facial expressions like a champ. The one right before MB gets summoned without armor to the main room was PERFECT.
-"Speech, or acid bath?" I still laughing over that one. (Also wow MB, that was epically bad even by your awkward standards)
-visuals have been great all around, like aforementioned acid bath and Port FreeCommerce and the alien remnant (which got quite a Hollywood glowup from the book but it was cool so I'll allow it). Especially love the floating interface CGI - whoever was responsible for them nailed it, with the dropping performance reliability % and MB watching its shows and other little perfect details.
-SPEAKING OF THE SHOWS OMG SANCTUARY MOON!!!! How did they get John Cho to do that?!? And Clark Gregg with that BEARD ahahahahaaaaa. We were all howling with laughter and had to watch it again a few times. All the other snippets have been delightful and great too.
-also loving how this inexperienced Murderbot is drawing even MORE heavily on personal and tactical advice from the shows. You can kinda see how book!MB is further along that path but probably spent a lot of time doing the same along the way to building up its free personality - there's a glimpse in that Compulsory short but this is obviously much more.
-That simulation of MB killing the whole team on the hopper was so creepy in a great way. Overall the show is not shying away from Murderbot being a genuine threat - especially with how they've brought in the massacre memory fragments. Knowing the books, I know the story of course, but I'm curious how it plays with unfamiliar viewers.
-oh gosh, what have I forgotten? Uh, the character lineup changes! I was avoiding spoilers so hard that I missed them in the leadup. No Volescu makes sense, since he retires and isn't a recurring character, but removing Overse and making Arada married to Pin-Lee? I can see it from a screenwriting perspective, but it's still weird.
-Pin-Lee is they/them, I just noticed in 103! Don't know how I missed that in the first set, but it's a nice detail.
-Not loving the throuple shenanigans. They're funny and I love the poly rep and worldbuilding (contracts!) but it ties into my previous immaturity critique. Like, surely we have enough mortal danger going on without throwing in some romantic conflict? Somewhere, Murderbot is rolling its eyes and fastforwarding through those scenes.
-speaking of Overse being gone - who on earth is the blond lady in the trailer? I assumed it was her, but obviously not. Do they pick up a DeltFall survivor??? That would be a wild change.
-I'm guessing the alien remnants are going to somehow be involved in the final showdown since they're much cooler/more active now, but that's just speculation. Curious to see if I'm right!
It's never going to replace the books in my heart, of course - for one thing, voice-over narration is never as good as 1st person narration, being very hard to manage from a filmmaking perspective - but so far it's been fun and cool to see visualized.
In no particular order:
-Mensah is so lovely, almost just like I imagined her: warm, calm, competent, kind, a little hidden snark because she is someone Murderbot can be friends with after. So interesting that they brought in her trauma so early, with her having panic attacks after the Hostile One attack!
-lots of interesting adaptation choices: first and foremost, that Murderbot is MUCH less experienced at hiding. IIRC, it says the PresAux mission is its first since hacking it's governor module, and it's only watched 7500 hours of media (approx 315 days worth) rather than nearly 35000 hours (approx 4 years). Which leads into the change of Gurathin becoming openly suspicious earlier (and MB being...wow. So sus honestly.).
-one thing I DON'T love is the way that the PresAux crew's idealism and naivete has been translated into a sort of...immaturity? and extra naivete. I love my fiercely competent albeit inexperienced with violence and CorpRim bs book!crew of socialist nerds, and I am less enchanted with the show shifting that into unprofessional shit like 'Ratthi was hungover and skipped weapons training' and painting the habitat and so forth. I'm hoping now that things are getting serious that will smooth out but idk. They also switched Mensah's request for MB to put down its helmet early and into a 'be part of the team' ha-ha moment instead of a hugely important and sweet moment between them recognizing its personhood, which I am personally sad about.
-we are ignoring the whole pillow-sniffing thing from 103. Whyyyyy? Especially since the previous scene was so perfectly awkward with Gurathin trying and failing to comfort Bharadwaj. Why must they take it a step into creepy? I'm copying MB and deleting it from my memory unless it's later revealed to be, idk, Gurathin trying to get MB to stop monitoring him or something.
-speaking of awkwardness: nailing it! AS might not have been my headcanon face for Murderbot but he is delivering all of its horrified-tired-exasperated-awkward facial expressions like a champ. The one right before MB gets summoned without armor to the main room was PERFECT.
-"Speech, or acid bath?" I still laughing over that one. (Also wow MB, that was epically bad even by your awkward standards)
-visuals have been great all around, like aforementioned acid bath and Port FreeCommerce and the alien remnant (which got quite a Hollywood glowup from the book but it was cool so I'll allow it). Especially love the floating interface CGI - whoever was responsible for them nailed it, with the dropping performance reliability % and MB watching its shows and other little perfect details.
-SPEAKING OF THE SHOWS OMG SANCTUARY MOON!!!! How did they get John Cho to do that?!? And Clark Gregg with that BEARD ahahahahaaaaa. We were all howling with laughter and had to watch it again a few times. All the other snippets have been delightful and great too.
-also loving how this inexperienced Murderbot is drawing even MORE heavily on personal and tactical advice from the shows. You can kinda see how book!MB is further along that path but probably spent a lot of time doing the same along the way to building up its free personality - there's a glimpse in that Compulsory short but this is obviously much more.
-That simulation of MB killing the whole team on the hopper was so creepy in a great way. Overall the show is not shying away from Murderbot being a genuine threat - especially with how they've brought in the massacre memory fragments. Knowing the books, I know the story of course, but I'm curious how it plays with unfamiliar viewers.
-oh gosh, what have I forgotten? Uh, the character lineup changes! I was avoiding spoilers so hard that I missed them in the leadup. No Volescu makes sense, since he retires and isn't a recurring character, but removing Overse and making Arada married to Pin-Lee? I can see it from a screenwriting perspective, but it's still weird.
-Pin-Lee is they/them, I just noticed in 103! Don't know how I missed that in the first set, but it's a nice detail.
-Not loving the throuple shenanigans. They're funny and I love the poly rep and worldbuilding (contracts!) but it ties into my previous immaturity critique. Like, surely we have enough mortal danger going on without throwing in some romantic conflict? Somewhere, Murderbot is rolling its eyes and fastforwarding through those scenes.
-speaking of Overse being gone - who on earth is the blond lady in the trailer? I assumed it was her, but obviously not. Do they pick up a DeltFall survivor??? That would be a wild change.
-I'm guessing the alien remnants are going to somehow be involved in the final showdown since they're much cooler/more active now, but that's just speculation. Curious to see if I'm right!
no subject
And that they put her in to provide more exposition about the Corp Rim so that Murderbot's interior monologue doesn't have to carry it all?
But that's just a guess.
Love your thoughts!!!
no subject
no subject
I agree the PresAux team is being presented a little more silly than I'd prefer. I feel like the first couple episodes were a bit shaky but I liked episode 3 a lot!