The trailer for Netflix's new sci-fi series 'Altered Carbon' starring Joel Kinnaman has dropped

Joel Kinnaman takes the lead in Altered Carbon on Netflix
Joel Kinnaman takes the lead in Altered Carbon on Netflix

Netflix are adding another sci-fi series to their Originals catalogue with Altered Carbon.

Based on the classic cyberpunk noir novel by Richard K. Morgan, the futuristic movie is set more than 300 years in the future in a society that has been transformed by new technology. The tech allows people to digitise their consciousness and interchange their human bodies as they get older so they never have to die.

This process is called resleeving, the human bodies that they’re minds are transferred into are called sleeves and the wealthiest people in the world can afford this form of immortality.

Joel Kinnaman plays the main protagonist Takeshi Kovacs, who is the lone surviving soldier in a group of elite interstellar warriors who were defeated in an uprising against the new world order.

His mind was imprisoned, “on ice”, for centuries until Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy), a wealthy, long-lived man, offers Kovacs the chance to live again if he is able to solve Bancroft’s murder.

You may be wondering why a Swedish actor is playing a a half-Japanese half-Eastern Europe character; in the book Takeshi’s mind is implanted (resleeved) into the body of a San Francisco policeman called Elisa Ryker.

The first trailer showcases some of the more gruesome aspects of the resleeving process in the TV show, which does seem rather derivative of a few other sci-fi movies and series.

Netflix has ordered a 10-episode first season which could follow up with a second and third based on the other books in the series: Broken Angel and Woken Furies.

The series features a diverse cast including Renée Elise Goldsberry, Kristin Lehman, Leonardo Nam, Martha Higareda, Dichen Lachman, Ato Essandoh and Will Yun Lee.

Altered Carbon launches on Netflix Friday, February 2, 2018.

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