The Adaptation That Shall Not Be Named aside, I had an idea for an interesting way you could represent ART in a visual medium: it's cameras.
We know that, in any visual medium, what The Camera (be that literal in film or figurative in animation) chooses to show and focus on is important. Its the primary way the piece of media communicates to its audience, and the framing of a scene tells us a lot about how we're supposed to interpret it. What is on screen and how it's on screen convey authorial intent.
Take all that, and turn "authorial intent" into character expression (in this case, for ART). A conversation between Murderbot and ART that would traditionally be shot-reverse-shot becomes shot-ARTPOVshot, so both shots would be of Murderbot, but one would be from The Camera and one would be from ART. Even though the subject is the same, the difference between them could show us something about ART in the same way a reverse shot shows us something about any other character.
To me its like those shots from a monster's POV in horror movies, where one second you're with your protagonists, the next you're watching them from a far off angle between some blades of grass, shaky cam, ragged breathing. It's a classic, even a cliche, but it does the job of conveying the sense of unsafety, of Something Out There Watching Them, of monstrosity, of something feral and dangerous. All without needing to see the monster. What if that type of shot was all we ever got of a character?
(Also, in all honesty, some of my favourite meta about this series is how it's in conversation with the horror genre. ART and SecUnits being the type of characters that would be The Monster in another story, or from another perspective, is compelling to me, so i'm drawing on that a bit here. The idea of characterising but not visualising ART by taking pages out of horror monster cinematography? I just think it's neat.)
Anyway, you could also do all the sci-fi Augmented Vision stuff with it too. ART POV shots where we watch it pull up a feed tab over the camera feed and replay a section of audio, or check Murderbot's diagnostics, or look at Some Code Or Perhaps A Graph. ART POV shots that are broken into multiple feeds showing different things. ART POV shots that give you the sense of it being textually present without it being physically present.
You could use some of this for Murderbot itself, if you leant into how its drones are an extension of its awareness. You could even use it in a similar way to how Murderbot uses its narration, narrating less when it's upset as well as leaving out major details. What if, when Murderbot is tired of people looking at it or in a more vulnerable headspace, we get more drone POV shots without Murderbot in frame. It's still there, but present in a different way, behind The Camera rather than in front of it.
I think there's potential in using POV shots from ART's cameras to characterise it without visualising it in a traditional way. I think there's potential in using horror movie monster language on ART and Murderbot. I think there's potential in having the cinematography focus on what they're seeing in a way that emphasises the amount of Surveillance both of them are constantly doing.
I think there's potential in a show using The Camera as cleverly as the books use Narration.
148 notes
·
View notes
"advise you move interior if you're not already... it's good cover"
that last bit has always felt like such an afterthought; it comes just a beat too late like ghost hadn't intended to elaborate on his order
did he add it to head off soap's inevitable questions; pushing back against his orders just like in al mazrah? never bc of insubordination but just bc of an intrinsic need to know the thought process behind an order before he can follow it
has he ever had to explain his thinking before; too used to being followed without question, his word always the authority in both rank and experience? just to meet soap who pushes back, not in doubt, but from the sheer desire to know
has it already become instinct to explain?
was it to start teaching him to think even deeper about his own survival? to look at his surroundings and see everything as an opportunity and tool at his disposal? already feeling the urge to implant these lessons so, should the time come, soap can implement them himself
he knows he won't always be there; whether it's as simple as distance, comms going down or his inevitable death, at some point soap won't have anyone at his back
better to teach the root of survival so he won't need protecting
even the phrasing, "if you're not already", he's not babying soap, not undermining his skills; he assumes soap knows to get inside bc he knows he’s a good soldier. but just in case he doesn’t, in case he’s frazzled and not thinking, he offers it as a reminder
40 notes
·
View notes