The first teaser for Netflix’s new cyberpunk series Altered Carbon was more about the tech than the world it exists in. But there’s a new teaser for anyone who wants to get a sense of how grand a scale this thing is on. It’s big, folks. Really damn big.
Netflix has released a new teaser for the upcoming series, set in a world where human consciousness has been digitised and bodies are interchangeable. The clip features no dialogue — instead, it’s just a series of quick frames that show off the characters and give a better look at Bay City circa 2384. Turns out, it’s not just a Blade Runner-esque world of permanent night. The teaser shows us the cloud skyscrapers where Mechs, or wealthy people who can afford to be moved from body to body, live above the rest of the world as immortals.
We also get a better look at series protagonist, former soldier Takeshi Kovacs, in his original body. The Wolverine and Hawaii Five-0 actor Will Yun Lee plays the character in flashbacks, but the series takes place after he’s been “resleeved” into Joel Kinnaman’s body. There has been concerns about another situation where an Asian person is placed into a white body, like the latest Ghost in the Shell — but at least in this case they’re being open about it, instead of saving it for a really crummy reveal. I’m hoping the show does a better job than the book, or other media, at addressing the problems that come with this kind of representation.
Altered Carbon comes out February 2.