Amazon Prime's: "Upload" Official Thread (a.k.a San Junipero the series)

[OJ Simpsom]

Gonna start this tonight.

 

[FukkaPaidEmail]

This is a nice little show so far

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

This was good if you look at it as a glorified web series.

As a real show is was meh at best. The overall feel was cheap. The sci-fi logic felt inconsistent. In the end it made me wish Netflix would do something like this... turn a Black Mirror episode into a full series.

 

[The_Sheff]

This was good if you look at it as a glorified web series.

As a real show is was meh at best. The overall feel was cheap. The sci-fi logic felt inconsistent. In the end it made me wish Netflix would do something like this... turn a Black Mirror episode into a full series.

I'm finding that Netflix shows may have a higher budget but the stories are trash and they try to do too much. It's like they greenlight everything. It's to the point where I won't even watch a Netflix show unless it's been thoroughly vetted for months. I enjoy the Amazon shows more even though there arent as many.

 

[BXKingPin82]

Nora is a bad baby.




edit

so if buddy wanted to break it off with his girl she could just pull the plug on him???

 

[hood b. goode]

Eh, i watched it through but kinda cringy writing and plot holes

just get a corny vibe

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

I'm finding that Netflix shows may have a higher budget but the stories are trash and they try to do too much. It's like they greenlight everything. It's to the point where I won't even watch a Netflix show unless it's been thoroughly vetted for months. I enjoy the Amazon shows more even though there arent as many.

Netflix is definitely all over the place in terms of quality, no argument there. I only brought up Netflix cuz the title specifically referenced Black Mirror and the concept of this show fits so well into that universe.

But I haven’t found that most of Amazon’s good shows feel cheap the way this one does. And even beyond the cheapness of the production the world they built and the story itself was kinda weak.

 

[Originalman]

On the first episode but this is a dope concept and I’ve always wondered why all future shows have to be apocalyptic

IMO now a days they do that to find a reason to put sex, gore and violence in the show.

 

[Beer Drinker]

I throughly enjoyed the season. When there's no up next on the last episode

 

[The_Sheff]

Netflix is definitely all over the place in terms of quality, no argument there. I only brought up Netflix cuz the title specifically referenced Black Mirror and the concept of this show fits so well into that universe.

But I haven’t found that most of Amazon’s good shows feel cheap the way this one does. And even beyond the cheapness of the production the world they built and the story itself was kinda weak.

I found it to be the opposite. They focused on what needed to be focused on to tell the story, they didn't deviate all over the place just because. Could the world have been expanded upon, yes. But it wasnt required to say what it wanted to say. If this was on Netflix I could easily see the episodes being an hour long and the plot being stretched wafer thin with filler. This had almost no filler.

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

I found it to be the opposite. They focused on what needed to be focused on to tell the story, they didn't deviate all over the place just because. Could the world have been expanded upon, yes. But it wasnt required to say what it wanted to say. If this was on Netflix I could easily see the episodes being an hour long and the plot being stretched wafer thin with filler. This had almost no filler.

I’ll expound on what I mean by the world building and story being weak on this show. They created a world with full self driving cars and traffic police monitoring via drones and the backbone of the show, the technology to upload people’s consciousness to a digital realm while still being able communicate with those living in physical world. So a pretty advanced society, technologically.

This digital afterlife is wildly successful to the tune of over 50 million uploads yet is relying on humans to be the concierges for these uploads? That doesn’t make any kind of sense and doesn’t seem doable or sustainable as the immortal upload population increases at a higher rate than the physical world’s population.

Then, they have a company policy of Angels not being able to share their names with the uploads, which makes some sense, as they don’t want uploads to get attached to their Angels. But then why wouldn’t they give them screen names/aliases? It’s human nature for people to want to know the name of the person they’re talking to. That bit seemed forced in there as a bad romcom type tool. Furthermore, since they illustrated than any human could technically use the same avatars and the avatars did not need to look like the human, why wouldn’t they have the angels use the same avatars? That way the upload wouldn’t need to know anything about the shifts that the Angels are working, keeping in line with the company’s desire that there’s no connection developed between the hosts and uploads. The upload calls for the Angel they get the same person as far as they’re concerned. Stuff like that was written that way strictly to allow this romcom relationship to unfold.

There’s also a bunch of other little shyt that was either added for cheap laughs or for weak “unique” situations. Such as uploads jumping into the data stream to commit suicide. They illustrated that they had the ability to put the uploads to sleep whenever they wanted, so why wouldn’t they just write a code to automatically put uploads to sleep once one crosses that fence before the data stream? Why even allow the uploads to see the data stream? It makes no sense to keep that avenue open when the company loses revenue if the uploads commits suicide and would have angered customers in the physical world they’ll have to explain how they lost their loved ones too. That nonsense was only left in there to give us the moment where she saves his life by talking him out of it. Furthermore, the idea that the uploads need to be carried around in the physical world like 80s video game cartridges is silly shyt they added for cheap laughs too (the fake one falling in the fountain for Ingrid to have jump in after and for the other Angel to accidentally lose one in the office). And I won’t even get into how trash and clunky the concept of the “2 Gigs” is. There’s a bunch of little shyt like that which make the world building sub par at best here.

The story itself was standard romcom stuff. Not necessarily bad, but not great either, with one exception: that convoluted arc about him stealing his own memories to make him forget about screwing over his best friend was trash.

These things didn’t make the show un-enjoyable (as I said in my first post), but it’s a glorified web series. Compared against legit shows of this era, this is a C- at best.


(sidebar, cuz this thread ain’t about Netflix and I only brought them up for reasons I mentioned in my previous post, but I don’t know what you’re painting them with a broad brush of claims that their shows are laden with filler. Their good shows (like Ozarks or Narcos) don’t suffer from filler issues. )

 

[bnew]

I’ll expound on what I mean by the world building and story being weak on this show. They created a world with full self driving cars and traffic police monitoring via drones and the backbone of the show, the technology to upload people’s consciousness to a digital realm while still being able communicate with those living in physical world. So a pretty advanced society, technologically.

This digital afterlife is wildly successful to the tune of over 50 million uploads yet is relying on humans to be the concierges for these uploads? That doesn’t make any kind of sense and doesn’t seem doable or sustainable as the immortal upload population increases at a higher rate than the physical world’s population.

Then, they have a company policy of Angels not being able to share their names with the uploads, which makes some sense, as they don’t want uploads to get attached to their Angels. But then why wouldn’t they give them screen names/aliases? It’s human nature for people to want to know the name of the person they’re talking to. That bit seemed forced in there as a bad romcom type tool. Furthermore, since they illustrated than any human could technically use the same avatars and the avatars did not need to look like the human, why wouldn’t they have the angels use the same avatars? That way the upload wouldn’t need to know anything about the shifts that the Angels are working, keeping in line with the company’s desire that there’s no connection developed between the hosts and uploads. The upload calls for the Angel they get the same person as far as they’re concerned. Stuff like that was written that way strictly to allow this romcom relationship to unfold.

There’s also a bunch of other little shyt that was either added for cheap laughs or for weak “unique” situations. Such as uploads jumping into the data stream to commit suicide. They illustrated that they had the ability to put the uploads to sleep whenever they wanted, so why wouldn’t they just write a code to automatically put uploads to sleep once one crosses that fence before the data stream? Why even allow the uploads to see the data stream? It makes no sense to keep that avenue open when the company loses revenue if the uploads commits suicide and would have angered customers in the physical world they’ll have to explain how they lost their loved ones too. That nonsense was only left in there to give us the moment where she saves his life by talking him out of it. Furthermore, the idea that the uploads need to be carried around in the physical world like 80s video game cartridges is silly shyt they added for cheap laughs too (the fake one falling in the fountain for Ingrid to have jump in after and for the other Angel to accidentally lose one in the office). And I won’t even get into how trash and clunky the concept of the “2 Gigs” is. There’s a bunch of little shyt like that which make the world building sub par at best here.

The story itself was standard romcom stuff. Not necessarily bad, but not great either, with one exception: that convoluted arc about him stealing his own memories to make him forget about screwing over his best friend was trash.

These things didn’t make the show un-enjoyable (as I said in my first post), but it’s a glorified web series. Compared against legit shows of this era, this is a C- at best.


(sidebar, cuz this thread ain’t about Netflix and I only brought them up for reasons I mentioned in my previous post, but I don’t know what you’re painting them with a broad brush of claims that their shows are laden with filler. Their good shows (like Ozarks or Narcos) don’t suffer from filler issues. )

It's plausible that they are probably relying on human concierges as a stopgap until AI has advanced enough to provide a more human like level of service.

yes they could have used an alias but it's way better user experience for those who are uploaded to have one name to call out rather than having to learn multiple names of each angel if one is on leave cause of vacation, on sick leave, fired, or dies. As seen in the show not every upload is interested in their angels real name. making angels have the same avatar would get frustrating for uploads real quick cause despite appearing the same they have different personalities and thats impossible to mimic across 2+ individuals.


i got no real rebuttal for your fourth paragraph

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

It's plausible that they are probably relying on human concierges as a stopgap until AI has advanced enough to provide a more human like level of service.

It’s not plausible to me that they’d service 50 million+ uploads with humans (over at least two shifts).

The AI needed to provide concierge level services that they were providing isn’t much more than a Siri/Alexa with an avatar. Given all of the other technological advances in this world seems unrealistic the AI hadn’t advanced to that level.

yes they could have used an alias but it's way better user experience for those who are uploaded to have one name to call out rather than having to learn multiple names of each angel if one is on leave cause of vacation, on sick leave, fired, or dies.

I was referring to their names, not who they call. They’d still call out “Angel” to get their angel but if they asked their angel their name, then they’d give the alias rather than the cold “company policy doesn’t allow us to give our names” spiel. Like you said, some would be content to just call them their angel and never care to learn their name, others will certainly ask. So why put the angel’s in the situation to create bad customer service by having to refuse to answer this simple question? Just say “my name is Julie” and keep it moving. Strippers do this in present day.


With respect to differing personalities in the same avatar, the Angel’s function is to provide concierge services; don’t see why it would need to show much personality. Give help, move on.

 

[FukkaPaidEmail]

With respect to differing personalities in the same avatar, the Angel’s function is to provide concierge services; don’t see why it would need to show much personality. Give help, move on.

I mean when Nathan was uploaded one of the first questions he asked Nora was if she was a human or AI. That shyt matters . You know the feeling you get when you get a automated system shyt.Imagine that feeing x 1000000 when you just wake up from dying.Thats one extra connection
To the outside world . Dude was about to kill himself until that speech that Nora gave exhibited passion that cannot be replicated by AI.The conversation that he had with Nora’s dad which led to Nora’s dad seeing that Nathan did have a personality,if not a soul which kind of sold him on the idea.That matters to humans and even though Nathan and the rest are “dead” they still have needs that can only be fulfilled with human interaction.

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

I mean when Nathan was uploaded one of the first questions he asked Nora was if she was a human or AI. That shyt matters . You know the feeling you get when you get a automated system shyt.Imagine that feeing x 1000000 when you just wake up from dying.Thats one extra connection
To the outside world . Dude was about to kill himself until that speech that Nora gave exhibited passion that cannot be replicated by AI.The conversation that he had with Nora’s dad which led to Nora’s dad seeing that Nathan did have a personality,if not a soul which kind of sold him on the idea.That matters to humans and even though Nathan and the rest are “dead” they still have needs that can only be fulfilled with human interaction.

Yea that was the first question he asked.... that’s also the first question William asks when he enters Westworld...