![]() They’re decadent, immortal, amoral, and boring. In the show they’re an indulgent ruling class driving the plot forward at every turn. There is a sense that they’re gods, so powerful and old that they can’t be fought let alone seen. They’re as alien to normal people as the birdlike Martians. In the novels, the Meths-rich, powerful, and long-lived humans-are barely seen. It is the accumulation of wealth and power that makes the rich immortals into monsters, not the technology itself. Immortality is a banal given in the novels, it’s a hard fact. It exists in our world and the idea that removing a technology that enables immortality would change that is naive. The problem is that that system already exists. She feels that she’s only enabled a system that allows the rich to accumulate power as they deepen their immortality. She regrets her decision and wants to destroy the technology and allow people to die. Falconer invented the cortical stacks that allow humans to live forever. The politics of the Envoys in the show are reactionary and anti-technology. Kovacs seeks her out because he’s in love, not necessarily because he believes in her crusade against the entrenched power structure. ![]() That change forces the show to pursue Kovacs as a personal but not political figure. In the show, he’s quite literally in love with her and that drives the plot of the first and second season. In the books, he’s in love with the idea of her. ![]() She’s a model to be emulated, the foundation for the revolutionary politics of Kovacs’ world, not his love interest. She’s a historical figure he admires, akin to Mao Zedong-a political theorist who led a revolutionary movement. In the novels, Kovacs never met Quellcrist Falconer. Kovacs is cynical, he’s not a revolutionary. He saw his fellow soldiers die horrifically and he blamed leadership, but not necessarily the power structure. He leaves the service after witnessing a genocide he blames on the U.N. Protectorate-the Earth based government that keeps order in the galaxy. In the novels, Kovacs is still an Envoy, but Envoy's are the Special Operations Forces of the U.N. In the show, Kovacs is the “last Envoy,” the lone remaining member of a revolutionary group that wants to overthrow the ruling elites and eliminate the technology that keeps everyone alive forever. This started in the first season with Takesh Kovacs, the main character. The novel Jaws is based on has an entire subplot about the local Mafia that landed on the cutting room floor for the film.īut Netflix’s Altered Carbon feels like it butchered its source material. Sometimes adaptations make large changes from the source material for the better. I think the Lord of the Rings films are better than the novels. Game of Thrones did a mostly great job of adapting George RR Martin’s books. Television is a different medium than books and things are going to change, I understand that.
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