Michael Shanks To Appear On Netflix’s Altered Carbon

View Comments

• That’s just what we need; another white paste actor for a sci fi show based on an East Asian lead. Hollywood can’t even bring themselves to hand over the reigns to an East Asian male lead because Hollywood is a bunch of racists stereotypical bigots. F--- what this show represents and f--- Hollywood.

  • Inverse racism right there

    • Nope, just plain old racism.

  • In the books, the racial orientation of the sleeves themselves is rarely if ever discussed. The main characters home planet certainly has those cultural origins and it's clearly implied the people that live there are of that genetic history but race in that universe seems to be pretty much a moot point as it's much more concerned with pointing out the class separation between the virtually immortal rich and the slum dwelling poor they manipulate. That being said there's no mention of who Shanks will be playing. The first two books take place on a multicultural earth and then a warzone filled with mercenaries. Only the third book takes place on Harland's World, his home planet. I don't understand how you could assume white washing in a situation like that. In the first book it's pretty clear he has been given someone else's combat enhanced body, in the second he has a custom designed combat sleeve so I would find it surprising if Shanks is meant to play him and that doesn't seem to be the case.

    • Why is it that every time a person’s skin color is up in the air, the go to is always a white cracker? Why is that when the particular person is not white what whites always ask is why race matters? Case in point: Jesus of Nazareth. Stick a desert Jew right next to a desert Muslim and I can’t tell the difference. They both look brown to me. Whites will swear up and down Jesus was either white with red sun burn and peeling skin flakes hanging out in a desert or that age old white excuse of why does it matter what color Jesus was. If it doesn’t matter then go with the evidence in the desert right now; Jesus was as brown as any of the other desert Jews that live in the desert today.

      • did you read the article? BLACK actor Anthony Mackie will be taking over the lead role as Takashi Kovacs

      • I'm just shocked after all of StormOverKrynn's complaints that he poses the question "Why is that when the particular person is not white what whites always ask is why race matters?"

        The immediate assumption that someone has to be white to have a broad misunderstanding of racial differences is pretty ridiculous and frankly, needlessly insulting. Don't get your political bias and western centric view point mixed up with common sense. People of all ethnic backgrounds have equal opportunity to be ignorant.

  • From what I've read Anthony Mackie is playing the lead in season 2...

    • This is the new century. People shouldn’t be saying well isn’t that nice; an East Asian male got some screen time on a sci fi show. According to sci fi Hollywood; East Asian males are extinct in the future. Let me break it down for you like this. When an East Asian is needed for a scene the obvious answer is a sexualized East Asian female that f---s all the white and black actors said every Hollywood producer ever. Never mind that it took a full blooded Asian male to help make that East Asian female in the first place; he’ll never get any screen time. All that’s important is that the public doesn’t view East Asian males in a leading role as being sexy to females. Better to just pretend East Asian males went extinct. Welcome to the new century.

      • Deleted this as my point was addressed already.

  • What are you on about? The lead for season 2 is a black guy, Shanks is playing a supporting role. Seems like you've got some issues with race that you need to sort out, buddy.

    • So I’m supposed to be happy that black men get the leading man role while banging the East Asian female? That’s a tired Hollywood trope; one that gets played way too much. Think I’m being too sensitive? Then try an East Asian male lead scoring with the African American female actress on for size: and not just for a comedic situation. Now let’s hear your opinion.

      • If only Will Yun Lee or Byron Mann had been cast as Takeshi and not some other guys in throw away bodies.

        You're ridiculous.

        • Right because the East Asian man should just be happy he got any screen time at all. If sci fi Hollywood didn’t insist that East Asian men were extinct in the future then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s because the scales of balance are so off center that even with the a sci fi show that has a supporting East Asian male in a relationship with black/ mixed female; it’s not enough. In fact it’s too little too late. In fact the whole show should of just been about an East Asian man and his relationship with a black/ mixed female until the rest of sci fi Hollywood catches up with the times. Then the ridiculousness will stop.

        • At least try to be knowledgeable on a topic before you go on a racial tirade you troll. It is very clear that you haven't read the source material at all. Takashi has multiple sleeves through out the series. In the second book, which the second season is loosely based on, he is black. You are a Troll plain and simple.

      • Trolling a bit hard

      • You want my opinion? If the show doesn't appeal to you, don't watch it. And if you haven't seen it, stop complaining about it.

    • You wouldn’t ask a black what his hang up is about slavery. Why do you think it’s ok to ask what my hang up is about what I perceive to be racism on a Hollywood tv show? Unless you’re an East Asian male that has to see what I see that is still happening in Hollywood towards the East Asian male.

      • Did you even read the books at all? The whole central premise behind the character is that he is an envoy and they change sleeves like most people do socks.
        If you watched season 1 at all you would have realised that Will Yun Lee was the original Kovacs (The birth sleeve) yet in the very 1st episode he wears the body of another person (Byron Mann who is asian by the way) then he wakes up on earth inside the body of Joel Kinnaman a white body a body that was rented by Bancroft so that Kovacs could do what he wanted for him.

        On the TV show you have Dichen Lachman play Kovac's sister yet despite the body she is in is identical to her birth sleeve it is in fact a clone body.

        Envoy's are soldiers conditioned to hop planets into any type of sleeve available and be indistinguishable from any local yet also be able to use that sleeve to its fullest in any form of combat.
        In the books Kovacs uses sleeves who are white, Asian, African, robotic, Polynesian.
        Your faux rage at yet another white actor being cast is just that false and unjustified.

  • If Idris Elba can play Roland deschain of Gilead I don’t see a problem. We got Arab’s in Aladdin with a black genie. We got a black Ariel. This just doesn’t surprise me.

  • I'd suggest that, while whitewashing in Hollywood is a real and severe problem, in the case of Altered Carbon the criticism is misplaced. The show's very premise is that people's conscious minds can be put in different "sleeve" bodies. This is science fiction at its best: race is not irrelevant, but rather the premise prompts some challenging questions about race.

    The fact that an Asian man can find himself in a white or black body (in Takeshi's case, rather against his will) should provoke some tough and thoughtful conversations. That's kind of the point with this world; so complaining that a white actor is playing an Asian character is very much beside the point. In the source material Takeshi's (Season 1) sleeve isn't Asian.

    If that offends, take it up with the author of the source material. Not those who are faithfully adapting it for the screen.

    • If you dig even deeper in the books you will see that Harlan's World where Kovacs is from was settled by Japanese and Polish people that heavily intermixed hence his unusual name.

  • The show (so far) is a fairly faithful adaption of the books. In the books the racial makeup of the bodies/sleeves simply isn't an issue. Shanks will not even be playing the lead. Your point, such as it is, is totally without basis. You should write to the author and demand he rewrite his novels and eradicate all the caucasians so that you then feel better.

• I hope michael shanks pushes to reboot good ol sg1#bestshow ever #thisshow be b istruth!!

• Love it, enjoyed it, more,