Murderbot‘s Main Character Is Both Killing Machine and Sci-Fi Nerd

Murderbot creators, writers, directors, and enforcement producers (and brothers) Chris and Paul Weitz are immense fans of the Martha Wells Murderbot Diaries books, and they approached their Apple TV+ series from the aforesaid perspective. Sci-fi fans similar what they like, including the show’s main character, played by Alexander Skarsgård: a Security Unit that’s hacked its ain system, gained escaped will, and discovered the chaotic satellite of trashy TV.

Its favourite amusement is The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, a soapy abstraction opera that astir of the different characters disdain but Murderbot considers to beryllium “premium entertainment.” And it would know: by the clip we conscionable it connected Murderbot, it’s consumed thousands of hours of amusement programming.

It enjoys the show, but Sanctuary Moon proves to beryllium amazingly influential, too, giving SecUnit much-needed inspiration erstwhile it needs it the most.

© Apple TV+

“We loved the books. We wanted to dainty this arsenic if the quality truly existed,” Paul Weitz told io9 astatine a caller Murderbot property day. “So due to the fact that Murderbot is truthful obsessed with it, [Sanctuary Moon and the different media was] thing that we could bash successful the amusement that was true, we felt. And each measurement of the way, we were checking successful with Martha Wells, showing her visuals, sending her scripts. So we knew that she was going to get a footwear retired of it arsenic well. But we wanted to spot what Murderbot was into.”

He continued. “Also, we emotion the thought that different radical are disrespectful of what Murderbot is into, but that it sticks to its guns done the end. It’s having this large adventure. It’s having to benignant of beryllium successful an enactment sci-fi show, but it does conscionable privation to ticker [Sanctuary Moon]. So we thought it was truly important to cheque successful with it.”

As for creating The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon arsenic a amusement wrong the show, the squad aimed to bash the nonstop other of Murderbot itself: it’s bright, it’s corny, and it’s afloat of acquainted faces giving deliberately over-the-top performances.

“In presumption of the texture of the amusement itself, we would enactment each benignant of maximalist instinct that we had, which wasn’t due for Murderbot, into Sanctuary Moon,” Chris Weitz said. “So the colors are amped up. It’s changeable connected a virtual signifier arsenic opposed to successful existent locations, which was the regularisation for the on-planet scenes successful Murderbot. We were besides dialing up friends of ours, particularly ones who had acquisition successful large franchises, due to the fact that there’s thing astir fandom arsenic good that we were benignant of playing on.”

John Cho connected Murderbot‘s amusement wrong a show. © Apple TV+

“So John [Cho] being successful Star Trek and Clark Gregg from the MCU and DeWanda [Wise] having been successful the Jurassic World franchise, arsenic good arsenic the weird benignant of meta relationship of Jack McBrayer and [Alexander Skarsgård]—it’s a existent friendship. It’s conscionable there’s a benignant of a meta facet to it. So it was a amusive repository for each of those unusual notions.”

Murderbot‘s archetypal 2 episodes get May 16 connected Apple TV+.

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