The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
opening line to william gibson's neuromancer, which is a book that helped spawn cyberpunk
cyberpunk (that's what i'm calling tech movies right now, there are other/maybe better names, i like tech noir and it's the name of a bar in terminator), cyberpunk movies i've seen and enjoyed:
johnny mnemonic
virtuosity
electric dreams
her
the net
ghost in the machine
ghost in the shell
hackers
existenz
ones i haven't seen:
wargames
tron
the lawnmower man
^^bet those are good. ones i'm forgetting to mention:
i forget
mmwait, the matrix, i forgot the matrix for example
ok, i've supplied examples to frame the context. this is a genre i in fact love, and imo it's the sci-fi equivalent to space travel for our age, in that the majority of sci-fi movies in the 50s/60s used developing space technology as a foundation for imaginative speculations about the future. the famous quote "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" was quite true, and the space age shift had rippling cultural effects. we went to space back then, we're still going to space, but for us now computers and their implementation into our lives has drastically altered the shape of human existence. the evidence here is self-sustaining, because i'm writing this for a message board and you're reading it wherever you are. we're sharing thoughts and ideas while we don't irl know each other. you mainly use my words to picture me in a physical form, good job your imagination, but really what i look like to you is this: i look like this. this is a selfie i've given myself for the message board: this
for us it's not very wacky. i know you're familiar with computers and the internet because here you are. if your'e older you witnessed the boom in the 90s, and if you're younger you've always had the internet and computers. it's a familiar concept for us, but the full extent of its influence on mankind is so fucking mysterious that there's
futurlogy, which is my favorite type of science because it's not actually science, it's a kinda science that knows for sure we live in an age that's so unpredictable our future is unguessable and it requires people who are heavy researchers and thinkers to try and figure out what the fuck is going on. cultural changes happen in our world much more rapidly than they have in the past, and no one any longer knows how to guess what'll happen next
to clarify, it's not a movie with a computer i'm talking about, as there are many and many of those, and it's not a movie in which a computer operates as a plot point, i'm talking about movies in which computers are a central component of story, character, and behavior. positive i didn't list all of them, please remind me of others and/or join the conversation
i'm not joking around, this is my favorite genre. i maybe sound like i'm being jokey, because for example this recent excitement was generated by rewatching johnny mnemonic for the fifth or so time
johnny mnemonic. mhmm. johnny mnemonic is the only feature film directed by robert longo, it was written by the estimable william gibson, stars keanu reeves and ice-t and takeshi kitano and henry rollins and udo kier, a heroin-addicted dolphin, and dolph lundgren plays a jesus-like hired killer. the studio chopped into it, sadly and of course, so cyberpunks didn't appreciate it, longo and gibson were frustrated, reeves was nominated for a golden raspberry, it's not taken seriously, and i like it every time i watch it. it's goofy and fails as a serious movie, but i enjoy the threads of topic and various incorporations of tech ideas and broadening global culture. i think through tech devices it succeeds as escapism, andbut gibson is known for merging escapism and thought, and it's hard to suck thoughts out of the movie johnny mnemonic. which makes everyone hard on the movie. glaring imperfections are easy distractions from appreciations, but you gotta admit that's overlooking the heroin-addicted dolphin a little bit. that's perfect. perfect dolphin. if you forget, the dolphin kills dolph (lol)
i'd like to give credit to spike jonze for creating a movie that's won a golden globe, made many top ten lists, been appreciated by people here, and is centered on a human and a computer. he made the fantastic emotional, he top-teired the genre, and i admire that. please feel free to discuss her, or any computer movie
feel free to hack your brain