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’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.
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.
I understand how you feel like that’s a satisfying portrayal, I’m just saying that’s not how it was portrayed in the books. And that’s okay, the director has to make decisions when a book is adapted to the screen. Stanley Kubrick decided that, with the state of the art of special effects at the time, the hedge maze in The Shining would have looked stupid, so he got rid of it for the movie. People were upset that it wasn’t there, but it was probably the right decision.
Yea, I wish they were both more military look (shorter hair, more armor), and more androgynous… but it was one of the changes i expected to make it work with modern TV.
Same! Skarsgard was very jarring compared to my mental image of Murderbot.
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.
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.
Which did you feel was the clunker?
“System Collapse” (book 7). It was later in the series and it just felt like the second half of one of the books or something. Like filler, or a book written to fulfill a contract.
Hmm, yeah, that one’s maybe not as strong, though I kind of look at Network Effect and System Collapse as one story (confusing because there’s a book in between them, but that one chronologically comes before Network Effect). I liked it, but agree it’s not as strong.
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.
yea, i feel like the ‘humanized’ all the characters, including Dr Mensah and Murderbot, and added more relationship drama… but the changes feel solid, not changes for the sake of change.
Yeah, exactly, like the idea of Mensa is there but she is shown in a more TV friendly way without completely wiping out what makes her Mensa. Also, the relationship drama from the single perspective of Murderbot is uninteresting, even a little gross, so it is described from a distance. They did not have the internal monologue stuff in the show so they did a lot more showing rather than telling. That makes it much more detailed and clear compared to the distant vantage of Murderbot describing “a sexual relationship”. Different, not worse, not better, but different. Honestly I am surprised how different it is without putting me off.
I wish all episodes were out all at once - I’d binge the hell out of it.
my wife and I are limiting ourselves to one episode a night, or else we would binge all 6 episodes in one night! we are so desperate that we re-started the series all ready, watching episode 1 after finishing episode 3!
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.
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.
It’s fun I like it :)
Only glaring flaw is that I can no longer ignore my need for more murderbot content
This was my experience trying to get copies of the books from the library before I gave in a bought the series.
“Three month waiting period for book 6 and five month for 3” Q_Q.
The audiobook pricing though? Actually a hate crime. An ironic one.
Murderbot IS pro pirating media… just saying 🤷♂️
I find the lens they used to film many of the shots incredibly distracting. The bokeh is outta control.
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.
Does the series spoil the books? I haven’t started watching or reading yet, although the first book went on my to-read list four years ago.
I just listened to the first book, finished yesterday (it was a whopping three hours, as it’s really a novella). It seems the show is following the first book pretty closely. Some changes sure but the main plot line seems intact. Can’t speak for later books and of course all of the episodes aren’t released yet but it seems to be season 1 = book 1, which is All Systems Red.
Well, yes, they’re following the storyline of the books, so the show is going to give away what happens in the books. The books are richer (as is typical), with more going on than they cover in the show, but the basic story is the same.
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?
Didn’t know it was out, thanks! (Love the books)
I think the show feels painfully short each episode but I am loving the content itself. It feels different from the books to me, but that’s okay too. I am looking forward to see what can come from it, just wish the episodes were twice as long.
