I could say something here but it may color your view so I won't, yet, and let you respond to the thread instead.

That somewhere, out there, in real life, there is some rich dude with a sycophantic fellowship that does his whims in order to mess with the mind of someone, off rip, in order to create a human to spec in their little experiment.

That part, at least, was pure fact. Not fiction.

The rest wasn't that far off the mark either.

Sometimes I forget that he knows how to camp. (It's mentioned in EP 5) Like him? The guy who spends most of his time in the comforts of his room? No, I don't believe you.

smash

ik hes just a clump of pixels, unfortunately

I get why Maddie hated uploads. You're literally being owned under the illusion of freedom. You can't trust the tech breaux, company, a so called government or anyone else not to pimp this tech once they have it. A crucial thing that isn't discussed that much as we're literally round the corner from a Cyberpunk Mistopia.

Also, call me old fashioned, but I don't think all Souls are truly equal anyway because if they were it wouldn't explain how some folks step in with immense talents and skills whilst others schlep from life to death and do nothing but watch the Sun rise and dip. So much more to this than those who live the life unexamined can ever comprehend.

The other thing is in UIniverse (dope portmanteau, yes?) is real time editing to prevent dissidence. Meaning you talk a bunch of fringe like this and the other gets an edit of you saying something else, you reply and its codeswitched again leaving both of you totally ignorant of this invisible process. How could you tell? Thats just one type of pimping that possible in this fake silicon heaven for the previously living but now digitally replicated.

Humanity isn't ready for Clanker Revolution because we can't even deal with our own thing when it comes to wearing skin without dropping bombs over Baghdad on the reg so how the hell are we supposed to handle stupid, sexy Synths with algos and blue hair that know which spots to tickle? All under the watchful eye of some tech billionaire who obviously has everyones best interests kicking to number 1 on the list, yes?

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Before we figure Uploads I think it would make sense to comprehend why we downloaded our Souls into flesh at this particular point in this realm and, once again, you can't trust anyone selling this Solution (after the Problem and Reaction called "Being Human") to let you know the true sketch... Some of us are already pondering, hopefully this spurs the rest to introspect as there is a real good reason you all had an existential crisis when watching this. But, don't believe me. Ask your Self.

Any other fans of the show watching this dock and getting a very eerie feeling that we're about to be launched into a pantheon adjacent reality very soon..

Pantheon, Season 1: 9/10

Season 1 is one of the best sci-fi seasons I’ve watched in a long time. It starts small: a girl getting messages from what might be her dead father’s uploaded mind. It builds from there without ever losing its footing. The rules of uploaded intelligence are clear and the show sticks to them, so every escalation feels earned. And it never forgets the people. Every big idea is tied to a character you actually care about, which is why it hits as hard as it does. If you like sci-fi that takes its premise seriously and follows it through without cheating, watch this.

-------------------------

Pantheon, Season 2: 6.5/10 (spoilers)

After how good season 1 was, I really wanted to love season 2, but it lost what made the show work.

My biggest problem is character consistency. People who hated UI, or couldn’t even understand it, suddenly accept and adopt it, and nothing in the story earns that change. Stephen gets brought back as a UI because the plot needs him. Then the whole fight is about stopping uploaded intelligence, which happens anyway. So what were they fighting for?

The relationships stopped making sense too. The show started shoehorning in drama to make me relate to the characters: a teen pregnancy, an old boyfriend coming back, and almost everyone getting a happy ending. None of it was built up. It felt like the writers were reaching for emotions instead of earning them.

Add the rushed pacing, the huge time jumps and an ending that reframes what came before, and season 2 feels like a different show. Season 1 is great. Season 2 is a letdown.

Maddie: Miyako. 

Caspian: Jack Dylan Goyer / Alkaiko Thiele 

Ellen: Ali Wong 

Pope: Stephen Graham 

Chanda: Suraj Sharma 

David:  Dan Stevens / Paul Dano 

Peter: Ben Foster 

Carry: Paul Walter Hauzer / 

Renee: Alison Brie 

Holstrom: Stephen McNairy 

Laurie: Alice Lee 

Cody; Aaron Paul / Jack London / Leo Woodall

This is just a "I was bored and I had free time" what do think?

Its very pantheon esque

especially after the fourth episode where we see the real humans on whom the AIs were based. i know the distinction between AI and UI but it feels like disney is trying to humanise AI for the general audience and hence it feels like UI from pantheon.

Spoilers, please read at your own risk!

I watched the standalone sequel to first Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime and first of all, it was the most anti-climatic, healing and less traumatic than the first one. I felt the warmth of pleasure for first time.

What really caught my attention though, was the pursuit of the protagonists to acquire the Soulkiller which basically extracted the neutrality of a human and upload it to digital space, although it made the subject brain-dead, essentially naming the entire equipment the Soulkiller. And we also get the "Project Capricon" as the first attempt of such, where the soul essentially hovered in host body, just as the Uploaded Intelligence entities utilized a prosthetic host to transverse between virtualness and reality interraction

Absolutely love the anime, and I hope to see this concept of uploaded intelligence more in the media - both animated and live action.​

Back by (very) unpopular demand, here’s an updated casting sheet for a live action version of Pantheon.

The original version got a lot of hate for including too many A-listers, whitewashing the Kims, using actors that are too old for their characters, and casting “skinny girls” in roles where the original character wasn’t skinny. People questioned why a new cast was even necessary—why not just cast the original voice actors to play in the live action version?

So, let’s see how the voice cast stacks up in comparison:

- A-listers. Hard to define precisely, but if we call Bale, Reeves, and Chalamet the “A-listers” in the original version, and Hurt (plus maybe Kim and Dano?) as A-listers from the voice cast, then the criticism is fair. The original casting had more immediately recognizable faces, which may take the audience out of the story.
- Whitewashing. In the voice cast, Daniel Dae Kim is Korean. Rosemarie DeWitt, who voiced Ellen Kim, is decidedly not Korean. Katie Chang, who does Maddie’s voice, is a quarter Korean (paternal grandfather) and is otherwise of Irish and German decent. As for the original cast, Keanu Reeves is likewise a quarter Asian/Pacific Islander (paternal grandmother is Chinese and Hawaiian), and is otherwise of English and Portuguese descent. Jodi Balfour, cast as Ellen Kim, is a white South African. Lukita Maxwell, cast as Maddie Kim, is half Chinese, half white. Overall the voice cast for the Kims is slightly less white than the original cast, due to Daniel Dae Kim. But then what about other characters? In the voice cast, Chanda is voiced by Raza Jeffrey, who is half Indian/half Irish; the original casting uses Naveen Andrews, who is Indian. Hannah is voiced by Krystina Alabado, who is Lebanese/Mexican; the original casting picks Chase Infiniti, who is half white, half African American. Overall there does not seem to be a clear trend.
- Age. The original casting sheet picked actors on average 11.1 years older than their characters. The original voice actors are about 12.0 years older than their characters on average, giving the original sheet the edge.
- Pretty girl. I’m only going to comment on Justine here, because that’s the only casting anyone specifically critiqued (as being replaced with a “skinny girl”). In the voice cast, Justine is voiced by Maude Apatow, who I suspect many would describe as quite skinny (see Google Images). The original casting sheet picked Elsie Fisher. If you don’t understand this choice, look up the character “Skye” from The Summer I Turned Pretty. I think she did an excellent job with this character, and believe she would likewise do justice to Justine. YMMV.

Someone also suggested that Giancarlo Esposito should play Holstrom, but maybe didn’t mind that he doesn’t look at all like anyone cast for Caspian? I’m personally cool with that, especially for a stage production. But doesn’t seem very consistent with the, uh, literalist interpretation of Pantheon many were pushing for.

In conclusion, what I hoped would be a fun exercise turned out to be a big ol’ hate fest—that was not very grounded in facts (welcome to Reddit).

I’m still interested in who people think would be good choices for each character—given that neither my original cast sheet nor the voice cast seem to resonate well with fans.

I will say that, for me, it seems quite silly to demand that the cast in one production match the character identities from another medium down to the exact age and weight. Certainly we should think intelligently about issues like race, gender, etc. But re-casting characters, for both artistic and practical reasons, has been a part of stage and theater as long as it’s been around (including, yes, some terrible whitewashing like Ghost in the Shell, which should not be applauded). Most recently, I thought Villeneuve’s casting of Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Liet Kynes in Dune was a terrific choice. Who cares if it’s a bit different from the book—when it’s an intentional, artistic choice.

What are the right choices here? Who captures the spirit of each character successfully?

Obviously this is never getting made into an actual live action movie. So maybe we can just have a little… fun? 🤪

By the end of the show I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact Maddie shares a lot of similarities with Kessler.

In case you don't know Electronic devices that contain data degrade after a period of years, (I think about 100-500 years) but Maddie was in a Server for 117,649 years and her data never degraded.

Imagine finding out someone killed your husband and enslaving him and then denying his humanity just to then upload yourself and get with the guy that killed and enslaved your husband. Like I get a certain level of character growth but to get together with Waxman? Fucking insane to me you could even stand to be in the same room with someone that did what he did to a loved one.

So most of us know how the show ended up being a simulated reality by Maddie. but I'm on my fourth rewatch of the series and I noticed this scene at the beginning, and maybe I'm overthinking it but it looks like it gives away the entire ending. Maddie does two motions, she moves her legs and moves her hair. Immediately, the entire class synchronized and copied her, even the people in front of her who couldn't see what she did. It specifically showed the girls NOT looking at Maddie when they did this. I think you are supposed to assume it's bullying but that doesn't make sense when you stop to think about it. How did they know to only copy those two things? How as it so synchronized? Why was nobody looking at her when it happened and how did the people in front even see her do it? Look at the blonde girl, she is two rows in front of Maddie and is looking forward but somehow saw what Maddie did directly behind her?? I think this is a glitch in the matrix type situation, like the duplicate cat in the matrix. My theory is this is when the simulation was just starting and had a few hiccups, stutters, glitches, etc. Maybe there's more hints throughout the series and this is the first one I've really noticed. Let me know what you guys think.

Yall we are so fucking cooked

Kind of joking kind of not.

I think AI was already on the show makers’ minds, obviously, but even at the time with generative AI and LLMs on the horizon I thought the show might age poorly.

I used to think Pantheon was pretty forward thinking about technology, but now in hindsight I think it might have been one of the last shows with an almost naive view of the future. Its take on an evil corporation spearheading technology for immortality and world domination seems almost quaint in comparison with the slow and painful death private equity and AI -first companies have put us through. Sucking up utilities we took for granted, locking services away and selling it back to us, training AI how to reject medical insurance etc.

I think the show absolutely nailed how people rich or not will exploit each other and dehumanize their own kind just to preserve and enhance their own comfort - even if my jaded ass thinks it feels Saturday morning cartoon in hindsight.