Today, Netflix released the first full trailer for its upcoming TV series, Altered Carbon. With bright neon colors bursting through the darkness of a far-future dystopia where death is little more than an inconvenience (at least to the super-rich), it mixes the imagery of cyberpunk sci-fi media like Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell with the murder conspiracy plot of a noir thriller. It is also, if you'll forgive my frankness, cool as hell.
While this trailer is much more explicit about the high-concept story than the initial teaser, there's still quite a bit of information it leaves out. If you wanna catch up quick, here's the situation: our main protagonist is actually a man by the name Takeshi Kovacs, who was a revolutionary fighter 250 years ago. He died, but thanks to *cough* magic *cough cough* future technology, he's brought back in an artificial body known as a "sleeve."
Kovacs didn't come back of his own accord though; he was brought back by bajillionaire Laurens Bancroft, who is also currently living in a new sleeve, and wants Kovacs to find who killed his previous body. Other people start getting involved (including a detective hot on Kovacs' tail and an AI modeled after Edgar Allen Poe) and of course, things escalate. Expect lots of heavy themes about mortality, ethics, what makes us human, but also a fair bit of action and sexytimes.
The series is based on a 2002 novel of the same name, so you could even get a head start on the story if you read through the source material before the show comes to Netflix on February 2. Until then, you can also re-watch the trailer or uh... enjoy(?) this unsettling poster:
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