#murderbot show

[orbitkevin]

maybe fucking up the murderbot casting and therefore dooming the series and ultimately wasting large cooperation money is what murderbot would have wanted

[celestialcass]

my reaction to the murderbot casting:

[idiosyncreant]

The problem is: the Murderbot adaptation is not for us.

We already found Murderbot and gave money or circulation numbers to it and love it and are fans.

But the moment Hollywood steps in the objective is not to treat fans—it’s to translate a known quantity narrative into material for audiences that will hopefully grow to nice streaming numbers or ad revenue.

I’m not saying stop the grieving process, not at all. Not saying stop discussing why the first casting glimpse is disappointing. I’m not even saying it might not turn out well, if it does make it to air: so many things can change and we have no sense of the vision of the production yet.

But a lot of this conversation is centered around an assumption that this is an adaptation meant to turn the books into a show. When really, it’s probably about making a show with parts taken out of the books.

Is there irony in that? Absolutely. I am so intrigued about what Murderbot thinks about reboots and what media it hates because the other version was better…

And also, protect yourself. Things that are important to you about Murderbot probably WILL be missed. Because the adaptation is for someone else.

[ilovedthestars]

hey murderbot fandom can i propose "murderbot show" as a tag for posts speculating about / discussing news regarding the tv show adaptation, for filtering purposes? (I for one would like to control when & how much info i see about it, and I suspect others will as well)

[lizzy-lue]

Yeah, no. There is no way they can do a live action Murderbot correctly. A bunch of white corporate money money cishet show runners just do not have the emotional intelligence to make this. I do not trust this. It's going to erase all the queerness, all the anticapitalist, all the allegories to stories of native peoples and people of color. They absolutely won't create an agender expreience thats authentic, if they even try. I'd be shocked if they even made it aroace like it is in the books. I'd be shocked if they respected the character's pronouns. This show will become what murderbot is known for, and it will be a story about erasure. That's so awful.

Sorry about the negativity, but I'd be floored if this becomes a good faith adaptation and not just a white washed money grab. Handing MB over to the corpos is just not going to be a good thing for all the marginalized identities the books represent. MB is meant to be a story and a voice for the unheard.

[allegorymetaphor]

A Murderbot show or movie would be great with all the visuals you can play with...

+ We open with a scene from Sanctuary Moon. Then the screen minimizes and we're mid-battle.

+ Always a scrolling feed of reminders and stuff from ART in a window that Murderbot keeps minimizing and ART keeps unminimizing, etc.

+ Murderbot decides it finds some human unbearably annoying but are forced to interact with them. It dubs over that person's voice and appearance with an actor from Sanctuary Moon.

More later probably.

[blessphemy]

[ID: 5 panel comic scribbled with pencil on lined paper. Panel 1: Murderbot and Amena are in frame. A small drone is pointed at Amena's face. Amena says: "Hey I heard they casted the sexiest man in Sweden to play you in a show." Murderbot responds: "ok." Panel 2: Murderbot says: "3 quick follow up questions." Amena says: "Sure." Panel 3: Murderbot tilts its head and says: "How did they determine who is the sexiest?" Amena has a finger touching her mouth in thought, and responds: "Hm..." Panel 4: Murderbot turns its head away and says, "What is a 'man'?" Amena raises a hand and says, "Oh, that's a complex sociological question actually—" and her speech bubble overlaps with the next panel. Panel 5: Murderbot's speech bubble cuts off Amena's, saying, "Nevermind. Don't care. What is 'Sweden' and what do they sell?" Amena shrugs, and says, "idk." /end ID]

[aspenispoplar]

Look I know everyone's upset over the casting of Murderbot, or worrying about the show not keeping to the settings and themes, but seriously I'm just really excited that we're actually getting something like this.

Even if it doesn't live up to what the books are like, we can direct a whole bunch of new people to read and fall in love with our favorite book series.

(I also might be a teensy bit worried that all this negativity might convince the studio execs that there isn't a market for this and we could get it cancelled before it's started but thats just my broken risk assessment module (read: anxiety) talking)

Finally, just a reminder that the casting of Alexander Skarsgård doesn't mean that the show won't be good. A nonbinary or BIPOC actor for sure would have been way better casting, but given that (from what I've seen) all we really know is the casting of Murderbot, I really think it's too early to make general judgements on the show.

[specialagentartemis]

see. here’s what’s going to happen if they ever make a Murderbot tv adaptation:

- they will cast a white man as Murderbot

- (they will also cast a white man as Gurathin, and either a white man or white woman as ART.  Probably a man though)

- Murderbot/Gurathin as a ship will explode in popularity.  This will be what the majority of the fanworks are about

- Murderbot/Mensah will also be extremely popular.  Murderbot/ART only somewhat, unless they give ART a like hologram human form and that human form looks like a white man, in which case Murderbot/ART will possibly take the top spot.  My money is still on Murderbot/Gurathin though

- people will argue that you are racist if you don’t ship Murderbot/Mensah, homophobic if you don’t ship Murderbot/Gurathin, and ableist if you don’t ship Murderbot/ART.

- people will argue that you are all three of these things if you interpret Murderbot as not having any interest in romance or pairing up whatsoever, as it is depicted on the show

- people will call the show queerbaiting and say it should have had a more explicitly romantic arc in it and if you like the fact that there isn’t any romance then you are wrong and homophobic and ableist

- people will start saying that interpreting any character as aro or ace is inherently homophobic

- people will start saying that being aro or ace is inherently homophobic

- I will stop participating in any version of the fandom

[africanmorning]

I find it funny to imagine that you can tell which marginalized identity someone identifies with the most by which aspect of the Murderbot casting they're most upset by

[grammarpedant]

Excerpting these tags from this Murderbot Fanimation post because frankly hell yeah, this is only the second adaptation opinion I've felt the need to publicly say LOUDER FOR THE BACK for:

#I think my optimal would be a voice actor and a physical actor and maybe even a 'acknowledged' stunt actor #So you could cast the perfect deadpan yet not dull VA #And the perfect face and someone who can fight well in armor #AND so you could make it clearer than Murderbot is neither human nor gendered #Neither of them would be a Skarsgård tbh (via @drcalvin)

You could get SO MUCH genuine gender-fuckery with this strategy! By casting multiple actors into different elements of the same role you could create a true broadness of identity rep that just would never have been possible even for the most optimal casting, AND you could potentially still have your Big Name Actor pulling in the mainstream crowd in the mix.

Anyway, watch the Murderbot Diaries Fanimation (@murderbot-fanimation-project) to see what the fandom can really do with its love for and dedication to the series.

[thirtheenprimes]

And also apparently Skarsgård is also going to be executive producer, which says to me (especially since we have so few details, it's so early in production, and yet we know he's playing Murderbot but almost nothing else) he sought this out. He wants to do it, and that (hopefully, and to me, probably) means he's going to try to do it justice.

Look, he isn't the worst choice. He's just a disappointing choice to pretty much all of us.

[lies-unfurl]

i guess with all the Murderbot casting drama, now is the perfect time to acknowledge that i spent the entirety of Rogue Protocol picturing Miki as Dot Matrix from Spaceballs. so if they adapt that storyline and this isn't what we get, i will be VERY upset.

[taurnachardhin]

It's not that I think Alexander Skarsgård is a BAD choice to play Murderbot; it's more that I feel like he's what the average viewer would EXPECT to see behind Murderbot's armor (intense-looking white cis man) and I kind of wish they'd picked someone more surprising, you know?

But on the other hand, I feel like most of the human characters in the books are canonically women, nonbinary, and/or POC so I get that they may have felt it "necessary" to cast a conventionally hot white guy in the lead because that's what Hollywood thinks they need to do to get people to eat their vegetables (watch stories about people who aren't conventionally hot white guys).

[radialtrail000]

Never in a million years could I have imagined this guy being cast as Murderbot.

Apologies to all fans of the actor, I'm sure he's very talented, however I have smashed the nearest window and escaped into the night.

[tenowls]

The ONLY person I can imagine for a live action casting of Muderbot is Kit Young as Ratthi. That fake wannabe Murderbot white guy could totally play a corporation rim character, maybe someone who gets creamed by the real Murderbot.

Had no idea about this life action until now, but I was secretly hoping for an animated series with cool colorful visuals (like your blue pixelation for ART's presence, maybe a signature feed color for when people speak in the feed? Life action feels like such a cop-out)

hmm personally i imagined ratthi to be at least late 30s ish and also i would choose a south asian actor based on his name!! i don’t watch a lot of tv shows tho so i don’t know enough actors to have my own fancast lmao (martha wells’ pick of sendhil ramamurthy def works tho)

definitely agree however that if there had to be an adaptation (altho i think the series works much better as books) i’d prefer an animated one!! u could do so much…..