Netflix & # 39; s Modified Carbon surprise both fans and critics alike for a series of high-quality scientific ideas that have paid off with a satisfying arc. Season 1 sounded like a complete story, even holding its own, visually, against contemporaries like this Blade Runner 2049. But how do you keep fans involved when you continue to cast a character who plays the main character?
In the premier of Season 2 on February 27, Polygon got Alison Schapker to discuss how the program is now, putting Anthony Mackie (Falcon on the Marvel Cinematic Universe) in the lead.
In Modified Carbon, historian Richard K. Morgan foresees a future in which humans can transfer their vast distances between stars. The catch is that travelers should leave their bodies behind, but be put in a new “bag” once they reach their destination. The novel follows one Takeshi Kovacs as he travels through space and time investigating public and private mysteries.
In the first season, the Kovacs were portrayed by two different players – Will Yun Lee as the “real” Kovacs and Joel Kinnaman as the recently cut Kovacs 200 years later. The challenge has been connecting both men to the series & # 39; s basic quest, which is Kovacs' long search, the Quellcrist Falconer
"They knew it was a love story, and they knew it was a ghost story," Schapker told Polygon. “The new Kov acs and I want to find Quell. She had been looking for him for centuries. That brings up the question of time. Time changes everything.
“What does it mean to love someone for so long and find them?” Continued Schapker. “And they'll be the person in your memory, and they'll be the person you finish? How have you changed and how have they changed? And how has the world changed and what would that be? So you start from the most open, pure, intellectual places, and go from there. ”
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Season 1 concludes with a revelation that Quell is still alive – or at least his best known. But in the next chapter, the Kovacs move on to a new outfit, introduced as Mackie at the beginning of season 2. Everything may be a bit boring, even for fans of the novels. Schapker says that's part of the challenge of converting objects of such an unusual size. The band is not following Morgan's books in the book, so fans should be heading into next season expecting to meet the next part of the short story collection.
"Kovacs is traveling every season with a start and a middle end, but there is an added feeling of looking at his season," Schapker said. "I think the idea that throughout the seasons, the new Kovacs, the new sleeve, the new planet, and the new mystery, sounds like the backbone of an indirect anthology.
The challenge, he says, will be to combine science fiction themes with the same kind of emotional touch you worked on season 1.
“For me that is the challenge, the fun, the authority,” Schapker said. "How do you tell a story in sci-fi that is thought-provoking and thought-provoking – and makes you question our gift by exploring a possible future – and not throwing it down?"
