Comment by mortenjorck | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mortenjorck | Hacker News Reader

It's almost certainly too much to hope for, but my impossible dream is that this gets done up like it's the 1980s with circa-2012 CGI. A bold kind of retrofuturism we haven't seen yet in film.

Thing is, you can't take Neuromancer out of the '80s. The newness of computer networks, the ascendancy of Japan, the aesthetics of computer hardware -- boxy, whirring things with stark, green CRTs spewing masses of indecipherable alphanumeric incantations, big clunky cables, heavy briefcase-size mobile units; it's all there. And the mash-up of digital and analog technologies is no less integral than Gibson's opening lines to the book, comparing a halogen-hazed night sky to the analog noise of TV transmission.

Neuromancer didn't arrive into a world comfortable with computer technology like ours today. The book stands as a fantastic trip back into a time when technology could be dark, dangerous, and foreign, a zeitgeist Gibson leverages to dazzling effect. "Updating" Neuromancer would bring its entire shadowy world out into the unthreatening, mid-day sun.

Gibson has apologized several times, and notably in the preface to the 25 year anniversary edition of _Neuromancer_, for the utter lack of cell phones.

In an earlier interview he mentioned the scene with Case walking down the length of a row of pay phones, each ringing exactly once as he passes, as one of the first things he wanted to write for the book. I don't remember the last time I saw a row of phones in the U.S.

You could have the phones belonging to passers-by ring instead, might even make the scary location tracking stuff more obvious?

Part of the "spookiness" was that he was so easily found. Not so easy in the 80s. Nowadays? Meh.

I think that apology was a mistake. Gibson got it right when he said the future is harder to predict now. I think that covers any 'mistakes' he might have made. If he'd known the future in fact he wouldn't have been able to write such good fiction.

When I first read Neuromancer it (obviously) didn't feel dated. I think going back and correcting things would make it bland. At the time the bit with the payphones was eerie, but now if you did that with cellphones and GPS it feels like less of a deus ex machina is messing with me and more the gov't is overstepping again. sigh. Which is really not the right vibe. I don't expect a youth to pick up Neuromancer today and comprehend it, no matter what you do to it.

More than anything Gibson writes culture. He once said he writes descriptions, but he's focusing on describing people and subcultures. I think the cultural era which he wrote his first trilogy for has past. The cultural era he wrote the second trilogy for is waving goodbye, but I think it's still very accessible to youth. His following books practically document the very era they were written for, which is a fun consequence of writing science fiction set in the plausible present.

It could be redone. The first solution is Case walking by a line or some other linear crowd and, as he walks, the closest cellphone rings, then the next and so on. I wouldn't do cell phones, but Fringe Redverse-like earpieces. Rings, in that scenario, would also feel weird as some other form of warning would be employed. A series of hello's and reactions to dropped lines, as Case turns back and realizes someone really wants to talk to him. Then he would walk up to a kiosk, and buy a discardable phone that would, immediately, ring.

I would try to avoid the phone-in-an-envelope scene in Matrix, but someone perplexed could hand him a phone and say "it's for you".

It's almost certainly too much to hope for, but my impossible dream is that this gets done up like it's the 1980s with circa-2012 CGI. A bold kind of retrofuturism we haven't seen yet in film.

I'm hoping for Rez! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rez

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tStDX7QHNwI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlscv56UhbM

I'm always a bit sad that sci-fi books/ideas that are cutting-edge and shocking at the time are either diluted or delayed so much by the time they hit film that they're no longer particularly surprising when the hit the vast majority of people who'd watch a sci-fi film but not read the book form. The awe of newness often gets replaced with action/horror.

yes! i'd love to see a sin city meets bladerunner kind of thing but I'm gonna be pessimistic and expect demolition man...

Mellow greetings. Demolition Man is a fantastic work of satire. It also predicted Schwarzenegger the politician.

I recently watched the Demolition Man for the first time, and not expecting much was pleasantly surprised.

It is better than your average bland sci-fi actioner for 90s and 00s. Sure, the action is about the same as in other movies of the genre, but the biting satire brings it above the fold.

I agree - it's kind of hard to capture the spirit of it when things have changed so much in the meantime. I'd certainly want to watch it though.

However, I would LOVE to see a film adaptation of one particular more recent cyberpunk-style novel, River of Gods by Ian McDonald. It's staggeringly brilliant, and recent enough that it wouldn't be dated in the same way.

I'm actually fairly confident in the director's visual style. I haven't seen Splice, but you should definitely watch Cube. It had a strong strange visual style for the look of the titular maze. If he picks up on those elements in the novel, I'm confident he could make it work.

Please make sure to watch only the first Cube (which I agree was really nice) and not the terrible rehashes.

There have been 3 or 4 sequels and they were so bad that I'm glad nobody ever tried to make a sequel of say, Matrix.

The antagonist in Hypercube was alright, but other than that, yes skip them and forget they exist.

that is actually a very good point. a straight up movie that just tells the story would be ... just another movie.

(of course, it'll be all flat screens and iPods ... and Keanu Reeves. and all the good bits will fit in the trailer so once you have seen that there will be no real reason to see the movie. sigh)

I completely agree, a kind of '80s steampunk would be brilliant.

I agree. To an extent though. Look at anime - it has maintained the dystopian view (Ghost in the shell, etc) where you have amazing tech and ultra-dense urban environments.

Places like Singapore, specifically, and tokyo are where cyberpunk is, was and will be. The location will retain value as density increases over time.

People make the assumption that the density of population and tech is evenly distributed. It has never been - never will be.

You will have ultra-dense areas in singapore and tokyo that truly resemble cyberpunk (I think you do already).

For me, years of playing cyberpunk as a kid after reading the books in the 80s... it was more about the geo-corpolitic dynamic... Apple is Ono Sendai, for example - but not under threat yet that it needs its own security.

I predict; Facebook, Google, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs -- will be the companies that require the services of a security force like XE.

Google's datacenters are already built like prisons, complete with local - low-IQ security bio-robots already looking for a reason to exert their 'authority' over an intruder.

One can only expect that a company like GS and Monsanto are about 5 years away from the first incursions against them.

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