The Murderbot Show - trailer

[galadhir]

So what do we think of the Murderbot trailer over here?

Watch on YouTube

I'm absolutely pumped. I can feel myself going into hyperfixation mode as we speak. I've always liked the books, but I seem to need visual media in order to really engage, and I'm engagaged.

Alexander Skarsgard is not what I'd expected MB to look like (or sound like) but as someone pointed out, he is very much what an evil megacorporation would think a 'standard' but threatening human would look like, so I can get behind it.

People have said that he is 'too gender' or 'too masculine' for the agender MB, but being agender has nothing to do with what you look like. I am agender and I look feminine. It's an inside thing not an outside thing.

If you see the short of MB being repaired, you will see that it has no nipples. I think that's a great detail. It also has no bulge - and really props to Skarsgard for not letting that worry him. I really appreciate both of these things.

Ratthi is just delightful (and very handsome, as is only right.)

Sanctuary Moon is just delightful too. I think I'll like it as much as Wormhole Xtreme.

Argh. I'm so excited rn. I can't wait!

Comments

[soc_puppet]

I'm very much looking forward to it! Dunno how exactly I'll watch it (I think my mom has purchased a high price Apple item recently enough for us to get the three months of Apple TV+ free, but I haven't checked yet), but watching is definitely going to happen.

One thing to remember about Alexander Skarsgård in this particular case is that he's the reason we're getting a Murderbot TV show in the first place; he's producing and funding it possibly because he wanted to play Murderbot himself, so we might not have a Murderbot TV show at all without him as the title character. marthawells (who is on Dreamwidth!!!) linked to an interview with him about playing the part, and it seems like he relates pretty closely to it.

But yeah, I'm also jazzed to see a more masculine-read/AMAB agender character representation! It's pretty sorely lacking in general, and Murderbot is not the worst place for it to happen, IMO.

[the_siobhan]

Meeee toooo!

I'm starting to get a little irritated by the complaints about lack of androgyny to be honest. Non-binary & agender people look like anything! If it were a few people I wouldn't mind but it's been a lot.

I'm possibly an exception but just assumed that Murderbot would look like a muscular man. The kind of people who exist in this world who would build something like a Sec Unit would absolutely model it after themselves, because they all like to fantasize that they are badasses.

[mistressofmuses]

I was trying so hard *not* to get too hype, because I feel like I'm jinxing myself when I get too excited before something airs, but... I'm getting hyped for it anyway!

(I may have to actually get the correct subscription service for a while...)

While Alexander Skarsgard isn't what I pictured either, I DO see the point about how a corporation making human-ish constructs would think of that appearance as a default.

Also, solidarity fistbump for being agender-but-look-real-femme. The insistence that agender or nonbinary identities have to have a specifically androgynous look is... not great or right!

I love the other casting, too.

[duskpeterson]

I haven't yet read the Murderbot books, but the trailer made me want to.

So the "nonbinary must equal androgynous appearance" myth is still around? Oof, it has staying power.

[galadhir]

Oh I agree on the difficulty of watching it! I don't have Apple tv and I don't intend to get it, but that wouldn't stop Murderbot, so I will follow its example. I'm sure someone in the fandom will oblige.

The more I see of the project, the more I think Alexander Skarsgard isn't just a fan, but he's a fan who gets it. One of us, so to speak. I hope so anyway. It's immediately reassuring that they chose to keep calling Murderbot 'it', for example. I was scared they might even change that. And the trailer looks pretty faithful to the book, even down to putting two heads-up displays on scenes from MB's perspective, and including Sanctuary Moon etc.

I'm also really jazzed to see agender character representation in a form that is not 'androgynous'. That's a step that is needed. If we get some asexual representation too my cup will run over :)

[galadhir]

Venturing into the wider Murderbot fandom, even book fandom, certainly does make you realize how far there is to go with even the realization that nonbinary people exist and have different pronouns than men and women. It's like pushing a rock uphill trying to get the wider MB fandom just to call MB 'it', let alone understand that it can be an it while still 'looking like' a he.

But I guess MB is also a great place to have those discussions and it's really going to crack open a vein of queerness that a lot of people outside fandom simply didn't know existed. Not a great time for it, in the present climate, but I think it's exciting anyway :) (Which doesn't stop it from being infuriating when you think that maybe people could have picked up on MB's pronouns after coming out of reading thousands of words where it describes itself as it.

I agree with you that I had always pictured MB as looking like a big man, although I wouldn't have objected at all if it had been played by someone like Gwendoline Christie (and that might have better explained why everyone who sees MB's face seems to want to rescue it.) But I agree that the corporations would be much more likely to make a white male when they were trying to come up with someone they thought was ideal for the police-like job of a SecUnit.

[galadhir]

LOL! I was also trying not to be too hyped, but now I'm hyped :) It would have been so easy for them to drop the whole pronoun thing, drop MB's humanizing character moments of being anxious and autism-coded, and just make it a male power fantasy about how a male character gets everyone to love him by acts of hyperviolence, without having to communicate with them at all. That's what I was afraid of, but it seems like they've been much more faithful to the book than that.

I have the superpower of aphantasia, so I had not been picturing anything while reading the books other than a vague shape in armour like you see on the covers. So while Alexander Skarsgard was a wrench, it would have been the same wrench for anyone.

LOL. I did try to dress really male for a long time, but absolutely nothing stopped me from being immediately identified and addressed as female absolutely all the time. (It's the boobs.) So it didn't seem worthwhile to stop resisting the allure of clothes with colour. Honestly, two centuries ago everyone dressed like peacocks, so the idea that clothes have gender is just stupid. And that's other people's problem, not mine.

[galadhir]

Oh it's definitely worth reading the books, although I would recommend the audiobooks even more. Kevin R. Free's read is delightful - very wry and deadpan.

Honestly, even in the book fandom, it's a luxury to have got as far as "nonbinary must equal androgynous appearance". Most people seem to still be at the "calling it 'it' doesn't seem respectful, he just seems like a he to me," stage. I suppose it'd great that there is something so far in the public eye that people are being forced to have these conversations.

[duskpeterson]

Thanks for the rec of the audiobooks! I usually read with my eyes first (and am up to #2 of the series by this point), but I'll definitely check out the audiobooks upon rereading.

[mistressofmuses]

It would have been really easy for them to go a direction that would have changed the character in a way that would have made me not want to see it at all, but they didn't, and I'm very glad of it! It seems like Martha Wells is happy with it, and I do like that the actor was apparently already a fan. People who care about the source material can make such a big difference!

Yeah, my attempts to dress in more androgynous ways tend to be thwarted by long hair and boobs. Even as someone who'd be happy with about 80% black in my wardrobe, I still like the option to sometimes have colors, or fun patterns, or a spinny skirt, etc. and that's all easier with clothing aimed at women. Luckily, being read as feminine doesn't bother me enough to cause distress, even if it isn't really accurate, so I just go with it.

[galadhir]

Fan made stuff makes such a difference! Especially if they find that balance between understanding the important things that make the story what it is, and - on the other hand - not being too reverential.

I remember thinking that the makers of the Harry Potter movies could have done to be less fannish about them - they really needed to be cut and streamlined a bit. (OTOH perhaps that's because I wasn't a fan of the books. I was only the mother of a fan ;) )

I've even had a buzz cut and been wearing men's clothes from top to bottom, and never got anyone to even look doubtful for a second. That was, I think, where I stopped even trying. I have long hair now. (I'm growing it so I can look like one of the sword wizards from The Untamed, but does anyone ask? No, they don't ;) )

It did used to bother me but now I'm on Pregabalin and it seems to be chemically impossible for anything to bother me any more. Which is nice :)

[mistressofmuses]

It's true... there are adaptations where you can see that the creators are fans... but in a way that actually hinders the project in some ways. Like... there will always have to be changes when you're going from a book to a movie, or a movie to a game, or any other medium change. Different types of media have different strengths and require different considerations, and trying to cling *too* tightly to the source material can cause its own problems.

Well, it *is* nice to have a chemical unbotheredness, but it does suck that it was so hard to get any sort of recognition, even when you were trying. Though I am with you now too on not wanting to cut out a whole range of available colors and styles due to other peoples' perceptions!

I think that's a perfectly wonderful reason to grow out your hair! Haha

[galadhir]

Oh yes, honestly I thought the directors of the Harry Potter films could have done to be less fannish and chopped a bunch of stuff out to streamline the movies. I get what you mean about being less fannish. (I think.)

(The first time I grew my hair long it was so I could look like a Viking warrior. It didn't work that time either but I knew what I was doing ;) )