There's a particular sentiment among the Internet these days that neon lights -- typically pink, purple, and blue -- above any city street is what the cyberpunk genre is. With many pop-culture hits using such colour themes in vaguely science-fiction settings, true cyberpunk has somewhat lost its meaning. And don't worry, this will be spoiler free!
Way back when Netflix released Altered Carbon, I attempted to give it a try, but I had this feeling that it was just that. I was judging it before really giving it a chance, it's true. But it did start off relatively weak, it failed to pull me in. Fortunately, with all of this free time and an inability to sleep at a regular time like most, I decided to pick it up again. I can safely say that I was quite wrong about the show.
Altered Carbon opens itself to you in a manner that feels rather generic: big, futuristic metropolis, a couple in a dark apartment seemingly being hunted by a group in all black and glowing red visor eyes. Some fairly frequent tropes found within the science-fiction genre. For story purposes, this event needs to happen for it to establish its setting and main foundation to the narrative itself: the Sleeve concept.
Sleeves are the show's main concept, and its narrative built around it: a Sleeve is just any body. A person's 'soul' or 'consciousness' is backed up in a small chip that is placed in the back of the neck. If destroyed, a person dies for good. If their Sleeve is destroyed, it's an expendable piece of flesh that can be replaced by another Sleeve at a cost. It's a nice addition that doesn't result in too many questions given we are told not how this technology came into existence, but more how it is used in a high-tech, low-life society. We witness ways in which Sleeves are given to those who are poorer, and how those with money are given high-end sleeves in terms of appearance and strength.
Using the Sleeve concept, we have a protagonist that is killed, kept dead and imprisoned, but then placed into a Sleeve, forced to return to life for the purpose of solving an egocentric living-in-the-clouds businessman's 'Sleeve death', a death in which just a person's Sleeve is murdered. Of course none of this is relatively simple, and the show unravels into a series of complex strings that come together to form a web that connects all.
The way in which the narrative plays out remains interesting and unique with its cyberpunk concepts, but it does feel a bit stale in areas. Particularly moments in which certain concepts may be deemed a bit too complex for some, and the show goes into a bit of unnecessary exposition that disconnects you from the immersion of the world it tries quite hard, and succeeds often, in building. These moments of exposition can pull you out of what seems important and throw you into flashbacks you don't really care for that seem a bit too long, or quite literal moments of a character describing a concept.
The Concepts
Altered Carbon is at its greatest when exploring its world-building themes. It works excellently to combine editing and cinematography to amplify such themes: a virtual construct in which the lighting is rough, surroundings distorted and otherworldly from the use of wide angle lenses that bend the edges of the screen. These touches are excellent and produce a realistic nature in which the concepts thrive in. The transition from reality to virtual constructs is done in a manner that doesn't feel too science-fictionlike but instead hold some weight to them: laying down or leaning against the wall, placing some wires on your head with the construct then taking over, booting you into a completely different location. While virtual constructs are filled with all kinds of themes, as expected, the concept is conveyed without over-complicating things.
As the show progresses, we see more of the streets and the low-life elements of the world: a lack of care for nudity, showing a humanity that has been reduced to what some might perceive as degeneracy. There's a lack of care regarding the body, a Sleeve is just flesh to be used, not seen as the private, fragile thing it is today. This is a cyberpunk theme that is often met with controversy, which is in my opinion quite stupid, as the genre of cyberpunk is built on showing the ways in which humanity has changed from its core values and no longer cares for the things that connect us to nature the most. With the increase in technological advancements and consumer access, morals are replaced by convenience and dopamine rushes. The body is no longer a temple.
With this perception of the human body changing, Altered Carbon ensures that it displays the ways in which the rich will take full advantage of access to full-body modifications. They're glamorous, in perfect shape, with not a single flaw. Again, the lack of caring for the body itself is displayed in the ways that the rich flaunt this perfection through the use of nudity. The ego has taken over. As an expensive watch on the wrist displays wealth and power, a flawless body does the same in a futuristic world, for only those with money and power have access to the best Sleeves. This isn't conveyed through the use of exposition, fortunately, but instead is just evident based on body language and character appearance.
The Conclusion
Altered Carbon, with its many weaknesses, manages to thrive on its world-building and sticking to the foundations of the cyberpunk genre, which unfortunately is something we don't see too often these days. It's best moments are when its explores such themes, but what certainly amplifies them is the show's incredibly beautiful production. The lighting is crafted to near perfection in many episodes, and the cinematography has been taken well into consideration, taking advantage of camera movements and styles alongside cyberpunk themes that certainly did benefit from such decisions. By using great editing, lighting, and camerawork, you hardly even notice the special effects, given there just are so few of them. Locations are authentic, with many little elements to improve the realism of them. It's a great direction for a Netflix show, given Netflix's often disappointing approach to taking very obvious and cheap actions that ultimately ruin a scene, and even entire show.
