#murderbot trailer

[thepainthereigntheflame]

My insanity over Murderbot continues (I reactivated this tumblr account after reading the books for the first time in January and literally the only think I have searched for since is 'murderbot' ) and I offer a little trailer breakdown. I said a few days ago I wanted to do this and here we are!!

1) Med System

See this thing in the left bottom corner? That's definitely med system monitoring Arada and Bharadwaj. Love that detail!!

2) Habitat

I am obsessed with Rattih and Arada being just 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️ Amazing acting 10/10

Also, please note the colored glas of the habitat, we will come back to that in a second.

3) Preservation bubble

Murderbot infornt of the Preservation habitat. The outside seems to have been painted and I want to know by WHOM (I'm voting Rattih initiated it because he seems to maybe have embroidered his clothes).

4) first move in

I believe this is the first look we will get of the planet and Murderbots arrival. Why? Compare this to the screenshot before. The red cable on the left, the mountains to the right. I thought this might be the habitat of the DeltFall group, but the Preservation logo is on it, so that doesn't really make sense.

5) DeltFall

*Kendrick Lamar voice* I see dead people.

Now THIS is DeltFall. Rip to all of them.

6) Murderbot getting its ass beaten

Murderbot is getting its ass beaten and we get our first look at an evil SecUnit! Is it one of the DeltFall ones? I think it's gonna be the 'evil survey' unit, purely based on it being black. Could be a nice visual clue.

7) murderbot babygirl tm

Listen, I have seen people day this line delivery seems off to them, and I get why. To me, it is pretty much perfect tho. "Stay calm. Everything's gonna be alright." It sounds robotic but with just enough push (cant find the right wird rn) behind it that you want to believe Murderbot. This is also how I look when I am trying to convince myself and everyone else that I am totally fine.

More about the fight with Hostile One: (This *almost* made me burn my schnitzel because I was deep in analysis mode.) I went through the fight and originally thought that Murderbot is delivering the killing(?) blow while still being stuck in Hostile Ones mouth. We see it firing the projectile weapon while being clamped in its mouth. However the final blow (in the trailer) is delivered from groundlevel. At that point Murderbot is not in its mouth.

Okay thats it from me. I have watched this trailer so many times but I am trying to manage my insanity at least a little bit. Let me hear what you think tho!! I need to discuss this so so bad.

[ao3cassandraic]

The depeopleization of *Units in the Murderbot trailer

Just some things that caught my eye as I watched.

The amount of literal and metaphorical dehumanization -- ugh, bad word; Murderbot isn't and doesn't want to be human, so let's go with "depeopleization" -- of bots in a short li'l trailer is... whew. It's a whole damn thing. If you didn't feel as uncomfortable as the Preservation crew did watching the corpos market their SecUnits not with spec sheets (much less résumés) but by putting the most expensive model on blatantly posed display... I'm not sure I know you, because wow, that's absolutely hideous. The books aren't subtle about Murderbot's story being a sci-fied enslavement narrative, but absolutely zero punches pulled in that scene.

(It reconciles me, a tiny bit, to Murderbot being acted by a white person. I still don't love that! But I can acknowledge there's some symbolic utility to it. Thing is, there would be symbolic utility the other way too; it'd just be different.)

While Murderbot itself waves off the corpos' scorn of it as an older and less-capable (by their lights) model, I can't. That, too, is a blatant denial of inherent worth and individuality. (Also I have every confidence that Murderbot could give that new model a fair fight. Experience counts for something, not that the corpos care. So they're being ageist, too! If Martha Wells was using that moment to take a shot at the publishers that wrote her off, more power to her.)

Obviously SecUnit armor is also designed to look deliberately not-human, even perhaps with an ableist touch. Murderbot's visor makes it look as though it has only one eye, and what it wears as it's guarding the door of the crew base is tilted toward what reads to me as a cliché TV robot. The newer SecUnit is entirely faceless (in a very 2020s-riot-cop sort of way, which was doubtless fully intentional).

I frankly got angry (Watsonianly, not Doylistly; I'm not mad at the trailer or those who made it) at the "it can't hear us!" bit. Personal history as a bullied child. I was walking back to school from a fourth-grade field trip, two of my bullies talking shit about me right behind me. One of them finally noticed I was there, shut up, and nudged or poked or kicked the other, who just said disdainfully and in full consciousness of the lie, "she can't hear us." Yeah, so that completely depeopleized bit in the trailer -- again, possibly with a touch of ableism to it -- was perfectly executed, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

And then we get to the Sanctuary Moon clip, in which the soap-opera conflict revolves around the Captain possibly having slept with "that bot," also a completely depeopleizing (though perfectly soapy, doubtless paralleling "that bitch") phraseology. (For what it's worth, I fully believe the Captain slept with that bot. John Cho's face, y'all!)

What's fascinating about that clip is that the crew's reactions of disgust and dismay are ambiguous. Possibly sleeping with a bot is viewed as inherently gross. Possibly it's something about that specific bot. Possibly it's something to do with how humans gender bots in soap operas (which we know nothing about even from the books, because Murderbot doesn't give a crap about gender or sexuality). Given that Sanctuary Moon is a soap opera, quite possibly there's history specific to the Captain, the bot, or both. We don't know! But what's clever about that is that it forces us to allow the possibility that once again it's bot depeopleization.

Cinnamon-roll Ratthi (perfectly cast) gets himself in a perfectly Ratthiesque muddle trying to work out how to be respectful to Murderbot. Using a person's self-chosen monicker is indeed respectful in almost all circumstances! But as Murderbot itself says about its name, "That's private." So Ratthi's attempt falls a bit short, but I'll give him some love for trying.

If you haven't seen it yet, do find the non-trailer clip going 'round of Gurathin opening a conversation with Murderbot. (If you check the #murderbot tag, you should find it.) This reads to me as Gurathin, perhaps prompted by Ratthi's behavior (the chronology here isn't clear), deliberately trying to assert to Murderbot that it is, in fact, a person. Gurathin does this by requesting that Murderbot do what people routinely do when they talk to one another: bare their faces.

Tactless? Yeah, arguably, though again it's not clear how much Gurathin knows about Murderbot's shyness at that point. But I get what he -- and the show -- are driving for.

[serpent-of-hope]

Watching the new trailer for The Murderbot Diaries! I'm still reserving judgement until we see the actual show, but there are two moments that have got the bees shaking in my bonnet:

1)

Gurathin: "What the hell!? You could have killed me!"

Secunit: "There was a chance, yes. But everything turned out fine."

Since when has Secunit been so cavalier with the life of one of its clients!? Secunit, who spent paragraphs internally berating a secunit being negligent about a client's life in System Collapse? Secunit, who is exceedingly competent at its job? Secunit, who repeatedly adjusts its strategies in a calculated manner to minimize harm to its clients, namely by throwing its own body at things???

Now, maybe more of that characterization is fleshed out in the show. Maybe in the actual show that moment is followed by narration saying, "Of course Gurathin was never at risk, but he didn't need to know that." That's why I'm reserving judgement. But as of right now? Oof.

2)

Don't love the framing of the workers recklessly partying in a mine and doing drugs. Specifically, because TMBD is so careful to point blame where it is due - at the company's greed and negligence, and at the fear and frusteration inherent to indentured labour. The events of "Compulsory" for example, are explicitly blamed on: frustration, accident, and the "cheap, venal bastards" that are the corporation. Notice who the books never blames? Ding, ding, ding - the blue collar workers. But the framing of that shot really makes it sound like the statement, "Humans are idiots," is aimed at the workers and not their bosses.

Again, hopefully the full runtime of the show corrects this. Heck, hopefully the events of "Compulsory" make it into the show! But right now that shot of miners dancing (?) is a disservice to the thoughtful critique of capitalism that is the books.

But, fingers-crossed, hey? I've rarely wanted to be so wrong.

[artfulacrostic]

listen guys i am like. Thinking About the murderbot show. i'm trying to reserve my snap judgements for when i get to watch it. and let me say the fact that it's being played by alexander skarsgard had me skeptical but i just watched the trailer and ngl the show may be looking GOOD.

BUT. due to the vibe of the trailer (mostly comedic) and the fact that they did need to semi-explain and/or reference the premise for new audiences why the show's name is "murderbot", they included the "it calls itself murderbot" "that was private" moment and it comes off due to music and the way it's cut as very comedic. but i will be highkey disappointed if in the actual show they play that moment for laughs. like i will be Sad. bc that is one of the moments in the entire series that hit me the hardest and i'm just!!!!!!!!

but ratthi and mensah look and feel amazing and i'm excited for the rest of the preservation crowd too so i hope. i hopeeeee that it's gonna be good!! despite the use of that one specific moment the song choice was funny bc it was in fact very mb. (clowns to the left of me jokers to the right here i am stuck in the middle with you 🙄🙄)

[potatosapien5]

So Martha Wells has been posting on her bluesky, and seeing how excited she seems for the series has whisked away all of my doubts. I’m not sure how many people have seen these posts (considering I’m mostly just hearing people mention that she said “treat it like a fanwork” and nothing else), so I’m gonna add the ones that made me the most excited below.

For all those who worried Dr. Mensah won’t have as big a presence in the show as she has in the books:

I was so relieved to hear this. I was worried they were dialing down the importance of Mensah’s character to MB, but fortunately, it seems like that won’t be happening!

A comment on the costumes and set design:

She has also stated multiple times that she is happy with both the trailer and the show as a whole, and I definitely trust her judgement.

She confirmed that the short video apple tv posted to instagram is meant to be the scene in the books of murderbot getting repaired in its cubicle. This isn’t too surprising, but it’s still nice to have confirmation.

I hope this eases some people’s worries. I know there are a lot of things that could go wrong with this show, but I think that if there’s anyone whose assessment of the show should be trusted, it’s Wells. Her enthusiasm seems really genuine, and it’s making me even more excited for the show to come out!

[sternenschaukler]

These dance moves lmao...

They're all so weird I love it. (Especially Gurathin)

[johntherobotwanderer]

Alexander skaasgard sold me on his performance when the helmet first comes down and it (murderbot) looks so... Idk how to describe it.

This is not Generic Badass Whiteman that I feared, this is murderbot, and it does not want to be here and it's clearly having many emotions and is very bad at hiding them without a helmet.

From what I can tell, the introduction of murderbot the character will be largely the same as the books, immediately before and immediately after hostile one attacks. Which means this is probably the audience's first time seeing its face or maybe even hearing its voice outside of the diary format. I think it's really cool that the show lets us see this vulnerability.

Before seeing this clip I wasn't really able to articulate my fears with the show: I was scared they would make murderbot only a stoic badass and completely ignore the whole dicotomy between how secunits are seen (very scary stoic badass) and murderbot (mental breakdown on legs).

I think there are very common tropes we don't really think about when it comes to male heroes. Strong, stoic, good at fighting, level headed, lone wolf. and when they cast a white man along with my Feelings on that, I also got it into my head that the show would follow those tropes. But this acting choice made me realise what I actually feared and also that I might not have to fear it.

[ocies-sideblog]

MURDERBOT FANDOM HOW ARE WE FEELING