Old stacks, new sleeves

Imagine a world that would allow us to save our minds, memories and consciousness before we die, digitally piling them up in a cortical stack then inserting that stack in a new body or sleeve at some point in the future. That’s the premise of the new dystopian series “Altered Carbon” making its debut on Netflix this Friday.
Cast members Joel Kinnaman, Martha Higareda, Dichen Lachman and creator/script writer Laeta Kalogridis recently jetted into a bitterly cold Seoul to introduce their ambitious project. 
Based on the cyberpunk novel of the same name by Richard K Morgan, Kalogridis says she initially intended to make “Altered Carbon” as a movie but later expanded the story into a 10-episode series for Netflix.
“It’s about what happens when we develop technology that allows human beings to live forever but are not morally ready for the consequences of that,” explains Kalogridis, who also wrote the scripts for and produced “Shutter Island”, “Terminator Genisys and was executive producer for “Avatar”.
Kinnaman, who is best known for his roles as the RoboCop in the remake of “RoboCop” and also as Rick Flag in “Suicide Squad”, plays Takeshi Kovacs, the lone surviving soldier in a group of elite interstellar warriors known as Envoy who were defeated in an uprising against the new world order. Three hundred years later he is brought back in a new sleeve – as the human body is known here – at the request of the rich and powerful Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy) on condition that he solves a murder – Bancroft’s own. The latter is one of the long-lived, wealthy and powerful beings classified as the Meth – a Biblical reference to Methusalah) 
After waking up in a new sleeve – formerly that of Will Yun Lee – Kovacs not only has to come to turns with his new persona but also finds himself pursued by detective Kristin Ortega. And as he works to solve Bancroft’s murder, he has to find out who wants to kill him and why, now that he has appeared in a new sleeve, he is being chased. 

 The series is rooted in a neo-catholic world in which believers have arranged that they will not be resleeved as they believe that the soul goes to Heaven when they die, and so would not pass on to the new sleeve. This makes them easy targets for murder, since killers know their victims will not be resleeved to testify. The controversy between believers and non-believers is reignited when a resolution is passed that allows the police to wake up the Catholics who have died to find out who murdered them. 
“The book is about the evolution of a new technology that would completely change the way we live. It’s not artificial intelligence; this is more about how we would change ourselves from the inside out, what I would like to call transhumanism,” Kalogridis explains.
“And I wanted to know more about the characters in the book like Ortega and Reileen who weren’t built up in the novel.”
“Altered Carbon” is complicated and non-sci-fi fans risk have problems understanding the futuristic society and being confused by the technical terms used throughout the 10 episodes like stacks, sleeve, Oni and more. Yet the series is undeniably entertaining, offering viewers an unsual glimpse to the world they created. In short, it’s a mixture of “Blade Runner” and “Matrix” with a dash of genres from action. romance, thriller and even social criticism thrown in. 

Kinnaman says working on the series felt rather like making 10 movies at the same time. He likes the idea of the stack and sleeve and says he would almost certainly opt for it should it be available in real life, a subject that caused a great deal of heated debate with his wife during shooting. ““She said. ‘go ahead if that’s what you want but get a new wife because I’m only living once,” he laughs. 
“At first we were tempted by the idea of getting to live longer as a lot of our fears are connected to death. I think the show says in a beautiful way that the essence of life and the beauty of being alive is that we are going to die. I would probably make the wrong decision and get spun up (as the stack going into the new sleeve is called) and that’s probably not good for society as a whole. But I don’t think I would be able to refuse it,” adds the actor.
His fellow stars, actresses Higareda and Lachman, agree with Kinnaman, saying they’d want to live forever too if the stack and sleeve concept were reality. 
Kalogridis is less enthusiastic. “I’m only interested in the human health span and in mental acuity. I’m interested in not taxing the planet and actually think that it’s very bad thing for anyone to live forever because ultimately death is the greatest safeguard we’ve been given against the worst parts of ourselves. It’s the balance of yin and yang,” she says. 
 Getting that debate across is one reason the writer/producer opted to change from film to series after buying the film rights to the book more than 10 years ago.
“It is hard to pack such a detailed story and characters into a two-hour movie and I became very aware that if you try and cram all the developments and the emotional growth, especially between Kovacs and Ortega into that timeframe, you can’t live any of it,” she says.
Kinnaman agrees, adding: “The book is so dense and so rich that turning it into the equivalent of a short story is impossible. It would really disappoint fans of the book as there’s so much you’d have to omit.”
The actor adds that he was pleased with the challenge of playing Kovacs in his new body.
“One of my favourite moments is in the love story with Ortega when I become jealous of myself, jealous of my new sleeve. It’s like the two of us are in a love triangle and I am two parts of that triangle,” he explains. 
The female characters play a major role in driving the story throughout the 10 episodes. For example, the relation between Kovacs and his little sister Ray or Reileen is played up much more than in the book and both she and Ortega come across as very strong women. 
“In many movies the typical Latina character is a tomboy and we wanted to break with that and turn her into a real person. So Ortega is tough. She’s also feminine but she’s also close to her family and true to her heart. But she has to defend herself in the world and that takes a well-rounded person,” says Higareda whose previous work includes “Street Kings”, “McFarland” and the hit action TV series “Hawaii Five-O.
“I wanted to make Reilleen vulnerable because in Hollywood Asian women are so underwritten and one dimensional. Asian women are much more complicated,” says Lachman whose parents are of Tibetan and German descent. Lachman also appeared in TV series “Agents of SHIELD” and “The Last Ship”.
“I just feel we’re so lucky that we can both represent a part of who we are culturally and bring it to life in a really interesting way,” Lachman concludes.