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Murderbot - thoughts (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world
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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?

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[–] 24 points 1 year ago (12 children)

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.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    It's an interesting point, and I agree with it politically, but in the books it's made clear secunits look androgynous and non-human.

    Some change between media change is always going to happen. I think Skarsgård is doing as good a job as can be done with his face. I'm making peace with it. Maybe the bigger problem is the dismissiveness of the portrayal of Preservation Alliance society. But we did live in the Corporate Rim!

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

    I don't agree they look totally 'non-human', since they are able to pass as human security consultant with little to no changes to their appearance. Heavily augmented, but human enough to pass with little more than a heavy sweater/hoodie and a cap.

    Honestly, i love the way everyone of the Corporation Rim dismisses Preservation, they are a bunch of backwater hippies... and the fact they do have a working and strong economy just shows how wrong the CR is.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    It was only after ART's modifications that Murderbot was able to pass for a heavily augmented human. That was the point of them.

    I hope they show the Preservation more seriously later. It was all vague at the start in the books. Though I will be rereading!

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    ARTs modifications helped, but he did walk around prior to receiving them. ART adjusted his height, how his hair grew, ect, but didn't fundamentally change his looks.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    But the whole point of the modifications was so it could pass as human. Which means beforehand, it was a struggle to.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yes, but most of them were things like shortening the legs, growing out the hair, changing their gait, and adding "fidget" algorithms.

    Not major cosmetic changes, and as he says a security would still identify him as a sec unit, but making it so the meatbags... Err, humans, are less likely to notice.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ugh yeah, it feels like the show is making fun of Preservation, which kinda undermines the show. Contrary to what others seem to think here, in my opinion the added goofiness really detracts a lot from the show.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    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.

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