Cyberpunk

I'm not sure if Runaway counts as cyberpunk but I think it could. The premise is solid, it follows the police unit dedicated to wrangling or disabling runaway robots as they come to realize that their most recent robotic troublemakers aren't just running amok from glitches but have been deliberately sabotaged in order to conduct a series of murders.

One of the things I like is that the runaway squad isn't treated as glamorous work. The closest fit I can think of would be Animal Control. Not something to earn the envy and respect of beat cops, perhaps. I think that does a good job of setting the scope of the film and nicely illustrating that the protagonists are both in over their heads, and still the only ones qualified to unravel this mystery.

And the film gets a few other things very right - their 'floaters' are a downright prescient prediction of modern consumer drones, right down to how they're used. The digitized records, voice synthesis, and other predictions of the future are pretty solid. I like the gear and precautions they take to mask and insulate themselves. The bad guy's prototype gun that shoots rounds that chase people is actually a fun concept, might work well as a flavor of tiny suicide drones since it seemed to move at about running pace anyways.

It's mostly let down by the setting, sets, and limitations of the props/technology.

All these predictions of the future where robots are everywhere bounce hard off the boringly 1980s aesthetics and the tiny robots. It's not trying to be the future, really, or it's not trying very hard. The robots especially are kind of disappointing. They're... cute, and Tom Selleck tries really hard to look intimidated by two-foot-tall robots on little roller skate wheels in several tense scenes but there's only so much he can do.

I think with some modern cyberpunk aesthetics, some updated understanding of technology, and some more elaborate robot designs/malfunction scenarios, it could be a really good flick. Maybe borrow the creepy android from Megan for the scene where the robot housekeeper has killed its family and the protagonist has to sneak in to save the crying baby before the robot goes after it, and you'd have something really tense. (The current version has Tom Selleck sneaking around a dark house, trying to outsmart a boxy little two foot cube holding a gun).

I suppose I've described a Bad Metal movie. You know, I think I'd like someone to fund that instead please.

The Blind Spot is about a city where no one has any privacy. Everything they say and do is recorded. But there's one district in this city, called The Blind Spot, which offers full anonymity and privacy. Everyone even puts on masks when they enter this district. There's a delicate truce between the residents of the city and The Blind Spot.

The book centers around two main characters, one who lives in The Blind Spot, and one who is a resident of the city. The resident's storyline is really where data privacy and the anonymity of The Blind Spot are on display. The residents of the city have an app on their phone which notifies them anytime someone (anywhere in the city) says something nice about them. The main character is desperate for approval so he intentionally says lots of nice things about his co-workers out loud as he walks to work just so they'll be notified that he said something nice. But there's a rumor that you could jailbreak the app and actually hear everything someone says about you, not just the nice things...

Unfortunately, the other main character, the one who lives in The Blind Spot, has basically every cybernetic enhancement possible. It makes her character boring in my opinion. Her storyline and the conflict she's trying to resolve is fine, but I think the author made her so overpowered that a lot of the tension goes away.

The novel is full of your standard cyberpunk tropes with low-lifes, crime bosses, hackers, cybernetic enhancements, giant corporations trying to keep the populace subdued, etc. But it's rare to find a cyberpunk novel that also touches on privacy and anonymity. That's really where I thought this book stood out. Unfortunately, aside from some fun ideas with the resident's storyline, the author doesn't really have anything to say about privacy in general. I read the second book in the series and it's about Ms. Plot Armor going on an adventure in a different city and data privacy is no longer a theme at all. So yeah, this is a soft recommendation. It's a fun pulp cyberpunk read but nothing more.

https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Spot-Science-Fiction-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07SGFYF3W/

I know if I really wanted data privacy handled in a cyberpunk novel I could read Little Brother, but that isn't cyberpunk enough for me. It's a great YA novel but it's more "near future" than cyberpunk.

A crew of low-lifes working with an android in a dirty old spaceship for a faceless corporation that treats them as expendable.

Obviously the movie is really scifi horror, but it does hit a lot of cyberpunk themes. So do you consider Alien to be cyberpunk? If you don't, what would need to change to make it cyberpunk?

I usually include a trailer for the movies I reference but come on, it's Alien. You already know about this movie.
It's streaming on Hulu if you haven't watched it recently.

Source: Lost Control - Characters (by Pawel Kozera - ArtStation)

Some original characters from my upcoming wordless graphic novel "Lost Control"
🀄 https://pkozera.com

ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/pkozera

RSS Feed: https://www.artstation.com/pkozera.rss

I'd be interested in seeing a movie based on Stray, but I'm not a fan of this statement:

Annapurna Animation head Robert Baird told Entertainment Weekly that the film is in active development and that it’ll be the “greatest hopepunk movie that's ever been made.”

"Hopepunk"? I'm so tired of the "-punk" suffix just meaning "genre" these days.

I think you could probably call Nirvana a hidden gem. It made $10 million at the box office in Italy at the time... but I have no idea if that's a lot for an Italian movie.

It hits all the cyberpunk themes and cyberpunk visuals, but it's hard to say how big of a budget it had since this isn't a Hollywood movie. What I'm trying to say is it doesn't feel like a low-budget indie film but it also doesn't feel like a big-budget American film either. It just falls into this weird 90's mid-budget category. They have lots of interesting sets and locations but it's still with 90s effects.

The story is about a video game designer whose current game he's working on gets attacked by a computer virus which somehow gives the main video game character sentience (happens all the time, right?). The video game character hates living in a video game world and begs the designer to delete him. So the game designer hires a hacker to help him hack into his company's servers and delete the game before it releases.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO4Q_6hr5II
This is a small Italian movie from almost 30 years ago, so it isn't streaming anywhere... except maybe the internet archive.

I have a weird obsession with integrating LEDs into fashion: https://www.jilanico.com

Both seasons of Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 are on Netflix. They already released a recap/compilation movie of season 1 called Sustainable War, now a season 2 recap/compilation movie is coming for those too impatient to watch all the episodes.

Like the poster says, it'll be in japanese cinemas in November. No word on when this movie will be added to Netflix, but I assume it will at some point.

SAC_2045 uses CGI animation so it's been pretty divisive among GitS fans. The story is solid though if you can get past the animation style.

If you aren't up to date on Ghost in the Shell, there's also a 5-episode OVA called Ghost in the Shell: Arise which came out in 2013. Those five 1-hour episodes were recut into ten 30-min episodes, called Ghost in the Shell: Arise: Alternative Architecture. Those ten 30-min episodes were then recut into a single movie, called Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie. All iterations of that show are streaming on Crunchyroll, so you can watch it however you want!

Serial Experiments Lain is definitely a classic cyberpunk anime. But it's also incredibly slow. This isn't an action anime, it's a psychological anime. And I wonder just how dated it feels. Aside from the CRT monitors everywhere, are the themes still applicable today? I think the anime was enamored with the idea of what The Internet could become. But now, in 2023, does that message still hold up?

What do you think? For those who have already watched Lain, would you recommend it today to someone who has never heard of it?

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5y4nQ5Y1V8
It's streaming on Funimation. For some reason it isn't on Crunchyroll yet, even though Crunchyroll and Funimation were supposed to merge libraries over a year ago.

Cyberpunk 2077 is getting an update to version 2.0 on the same day the Phantom Liberty DLC releases (September 26). Here's the list of what's included in 2.0 vs the items you'll have to pay $30 to get with the DLC.

https://kotaku.com/cyberpunk-2077-phantom-liberty-update-2-0-free-patch-1850797911

Ok, clickbait title aside, it isn't quite a lovecraftian horror. But this is the closest to a lovecraftian cyberpunk novel I've ever come across.

The novel is about a hacker named Debian who joins up with a crew of organ harvesters. The organ harvesters start noticing that their victims have something... odd in their biology. And then it gets a little "Shadow Over Innsmouth" in my opinion after that.

I'll admit I initially bought the book because there was a character named Debian but I ended up really enjoying it.

https://www.amazon.com/Xenoform-Mike-Berry-ebook/dp/B005GXLKGO/

A cool 3d printable model made by Z0r4n. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4947757

Source with timelapse: Cyberpunk City (by Michal Kváč - ArtStation)

ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/kvacm

RSS Feed: https://www.artstation.com/kvacm.rss

Big budget, A-list actors, lots of marketing, great movie. Is anyone here not aware of Dredd?

I keep trying to come up with recommendations for cyberpunk movies that people might not have seen. Yet most obscure movies are obscure for a reason. It's usually "this movie is good but ____" or "it's a fun movie if you can ignore ____" So for most of these recommendations, I hesitate to say "this movie is awesome and you need to see it!" because I don't want to mislead anyone. Of course, this means all the movies that I truly do think are awesome I assume everyone has already seen and I don't need to suggest them.

But maybe enough time has passed that some people here haven't seen Dredd? Well, if you haven't, you should. It's awesome. Just don't watch the 1995 Judge Dredd movie with Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider because that one is not good.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqqgrUna28w

Of course, I say everyone should watch Dredd but it isn't streaming anywhere... except DirecTV I guess, if that counts. But I made a post earlier where I mentioned I've been avoiding recommending movies that you can't watch online and some people said I should recommend them anyway. So here we are.

I've been debating whether or not to recommend Akudama Drive. The anime definitely starts out in your standard cyberpunk city with giant billboards and bright neon lights, but then the majority of the series actually takes place on a train and in the wasteland. That wouldn't immediately disqualify it from being cyberpunk of course, but the show also focuses more on the characters and their interactions than your standard cyberpunk themes.

I wouldn't say this is a "style over substance" anime, even though there is a lot of style, it's just that the substance here is something other than cyberpunk themes in my opinion. The core theme of the anime is really "what does it mean to be a criminal?"

So the anime is well-made, has great animation, and great characters. And it takes place in a cyberpunk city for part of it but in my opinion it doesn't have many cyberpunk themes. For those who've seen it, am I being too harsh? Is it obviously a cyberpunk anime and I'm just being too nit-picky?

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47QY-u0CXMo
It's streaming on Hulu and Crunchyroll

I'm not saying Zone 414 is a bad movie, I'm saying it's a bad cyberpunk movie.

Here's the premise: rich old guy hires a retired detective to enter a zone inhabited by androids to retrieve his lost daughter. Sounds like the perfect setup for a cyberpunk movie. And yet, if you watched this movie with the sound off, I'm not sure you could even tell it's supposed to be scifi. For most of the characters, we only know they're androids because someone said they were.

I think there are a total of 2 scenes early in the movie which show these characters are indeed androids. Yet for the rest of the movie, there is no hint of anything scifi/futuristic in the sets or the characters. I'm guessing the budget they could've spent on VFX was spent on hiring Guy Pearce instead. The image attached to this post never happens in the movie. There are no building-sized advertisements; those are just images of the female lead superimposed on buildings for marketing purposes.

Now, I'm not someone who needs neon lights and cybernetic limbs to call something cyberpunk, but this movie is really just "rich old guy hires a retired detective to enter the red-light district of a city to retrieve his lost daughter." When I say there's no hint of anything scifi/futuristic, I mean the characters use rotary phones, listen to record players, and drive in standard yellow taxis.

Can something set in the present day (or even in the past, given the rotary phones) be considered cyberpunk? I don't mean retro-futurism, I mean nothing scifi at all. Are there cyberpunk themes in this movie? Somewhat. A rich person hires a detective to avoid staining his giant corporation's image. Are the themes strong enough to stand on their own without the accompanying visuals? That's where I say no.

To reiterate, I'm not saying this is a bad movie. If you want to watch a movie about a retired cop tracking down a lost rich girl, I don't think it's a poor execution. But the android aspect of this movie is really down-played in my opinion and that's all there was to make this a scifi.

Have any of you watched this movie? Do you disagree?

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7GYp9VLcow
The movie is streaming on Netflix

Does Overwatch, the Blizzard game, count as cyberpunk, or does cyberpunk require a darker aesthetic?

I only know cyberpunk through CDPR’s Cyberpunk 2077 game, and I guess also through the Blade Runner movies. So, I don’t really know much about it from literature or tabletop games.

That said, Overwatch has a lot of the same themes, but with a brighter “Sunday morning cartoon/anime” aesthetic.

So yeah, thoughts?

Bruce Sterling writing about Cyberpunk.

The movie is about low-lifes and there's a strong (overwhelming?) anti-consumerism theme, but it's really an alien invasion movie and the only high-tech comes from the aliens. Otherwise, it's a "modern day" scifi.

So what do you think? Do you consider They Live to be cyberpunk?

Here's a clip if you haven't seen the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z9hMartaFc
As far as I can tell, it's only streaming on Starz right now.

Warframe is a free-to-play game where you're a space ninja fighting on various planets and spaceships. They just announced a new expansion pack Warframe: 1999 which takes place in 1999 and may be cyberpunk? It's hard to tell from just this announcement but I figured I'd share.

I read a lot of random cyberpunk novels from the kindle store and I'm always on the lookout for more. Cyberpunk novels are annoyingly difficult to find since the "cyberpunk" category on amazon is nothing but LitRPG, but that's a different rant altogether.

Anyway, I don't actively try to find trans characters in literature (I'm not trans) but I don't avoid books that have trans characters. I figure trans characters actually fit pretty well into cyberpunk universes. So for anyone who is interested in reading cyberpunk stories with trans characters, here are the ones I've read:

Escapology by Ren Warom - The main character is trans but is post-transition so the fact that he's trans isn't even mentioned until ~80% into the book. And it's really only revealed so the villain can make trans-based insults about the main character just to get him riled up. Given that the character is post-transition, I liked the fact that being trans didn't define who he was, it was just something from his past that he didn't really think about anymore. Of course, this also means the reveal of being trans almost felt tacked-on and an after-thought. But in the sequel, Virology, everyone's cyberspace avatars are visible in the real world and the main character has a theory that being trans affected how his avatar behaves. So being trans does eventually have an effect and doesn't feel tacked-on anymore.

The Chimera Code by Wayne Santos - This novel is about a mercenary crew where each person has their role (the leader, the hacker, the muscle, etc.). Their hacker dies so they need to recruit a new one (they even load up the old hacker's consciousness like Dixie Flatline to train the new hacker, so that's fun). Anyway, the new hacker they find is non-binary. This is handled pretty well where every time a new character meets this hacker they ask for the hacker's pronouns. The hacker tells them, and they move on with the story. So the hacker being non-binary is handled throughout the book but it's never a main theme of the story. The plot continues to drive forward regardless of the hacker's gender.

Bang Bang Bodhisattva by Aubrey Wood - This novel is about two characters trying to solve a murder mystery. One acts like he's a hard-boiled detective in a film noir while the other is trans and mid-transition. Now, given that the trans character is mid-transition I'm sure this makes sense, but being trans is a constant topic of discussion. It's like having a character who's vegan constantly telling you they're vegan. Again, I'm not trans, so I don't doubt that someone who is mid-transition constantly has it on their mind. But as a reader, yeah, I get it, she's trans. She's also pansexual and in a polyamorous relationship. I feel like this is more of the focus of the story than the murder mystery. I do like that the author changes writing styles depending on which character is the POV of the chapter, so the detective character always has short, terse sentences while the trans character has more free-flowing sentences. But this is the only novel in the list where I went "ok, this novel isn't meant for me." It feels more like a novel for trans people than just including trans people.

And that's it. Those are the cyberpunk novels I've read with trans characters. I find it interesting how it spans from "almost feels like an after-thought" to "handled, and not a factor" to "ok, I get it, stop talking about it". Honestly, I'm not sure what the "right" way is to handle trans characters so I figure it's good to cover this whole spectrum.

Source: Old World Museum (by Annibale Siconolfi | Inward - ArtStation):

3D Art by Annibale Siconolfi

ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/annibalesiconolfi

RSS Feed: https://www.artstation.com/annibalesiconolfi.ss

An ancient game we’re all waiting on. Going on 15 years in the making.

Who knows if thus will ever make it out to see the light of day.

The world-building doesn't quite make sense, the plot doesn't quite make sense, but they are all-in on the visuals.

I've recently made a couple "themes over visuals" recommendations so I figured I'd throw in a "visuals over themes" type of movie to see if anyone cares. This is me getting a feel for what type of posts people want to see here. Also, I'm trying to make movie recommendations that are actually available for streaming. There are other movies I want to recommend, but if you can't watch them anywhere I figure it doesn't really help anyone.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIvqkRy5KCQ
You can watch it on RedBox

This is the original short story that coined the word 'cyberpunk', free to read online.

I tried finding a pdf of the story rather than embedded in some old static webpage (most of the links on this page are dead now) but everything I find just points me back to this webpage. It's even linked directly in the wikipedia article. So I guess this is the best place to read it.