Cyberpunk

Karl Urban plays a cop in a cyberpunk city who hates androids and he's assigned an android partner to work with. Over the course of the series, his character gradually learns to accept and respect his android partner. Except you'd never know that watching the show as it aired.

Fox aired the episodes out of order so Karl Urban's character constantly jumps between respecting the android and being a jerk to the android from episode to episode. With no continuity, the show had terrible ratings and was cancelled after one season. I hate that all streaming services and even the DVD kept the incorrect airing order. None of them use the production order, which is how it was intended to be watched:

It's a shame too, because throughout the season there are references to "The Wall". They keep mentioning how no one crosses The Wall. And yet in the very last scene of the last episode... someone crosses The Wall. I would've liked to see where they took that storyline.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3zsK38y72I

Anon takes place in a world where everyone has Augmented Reality vision. Looking at someone will tell you their name and occupation. And everything everyone sees is uploaded to government servers. In this world, a hacker (Amanda Seyfried) is able to hack this system and inject whatever she wants into your vision and also edit the stream going to government servers. So she makes a living covering up the crimes of others.

AR vision, hackers, oppressive government, it all sounds cyberpunk. But there are no neon lights here, only brutalist grey concrete everywhere. And rather than the hacker being the Robin Hood-type fighting against oppression, the story follows a detective (Clive Owen) who's trying to hunt down this hacker, mostly because she's creating blind spots in their all-seeing eye of surveillance. The movie treats the detective as the sympathetic "good guy" and the hacker as the "bad guy" who needs to be stopped. So the movie is more about data privacy than cyberpunk, but I still enjoyed it.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJOoYhQcQBI
And it's on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80195964

In this series, everyone is chipped with a Security Identification Number (SIN). So those without SINs call themselves "saints".

When I say the series is "violent" I mean action-movie violence, not horror-movie violence. And when I say "vulgar" I mean using the word "cunting" as an adjective ("I'll rip off his cunting head"). Overall, I thought the series was pretty fun. It won't win any awards, but it's a fun pulp cyberpunk read.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SQGK5KT

In 1992, Flashback revolutionized action gaming and gained legendary status, ranking among the 100 best video games in history.

Today, Paul Cuisset, the creator of the original game, invites you to play again as Conrad B. Hart, the young agent of the GBI (Galactic Bureau of Investigation).

In the 22nd century, the peace of the United Worlds extends throughout the Solar System — but this tranquility is threatened by the Morph invasion led by the fearsome General Lazarus. In search of his lifelong friend, Ian, and with the help of his few allies — including A.I.S.H.A., his iconic AI-powered weapon — Conrad, once again, dives into a heart-pounding adventure full of twists, turns and revelations!

A gripping, fluid and intricate platform shooter, including exploration, puzzle solving and, of course, adventure!

Planned to release on Nov 16, 2023 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2008420/Flashback_2/

"Can you jam with the console cowboys in cyberspace??"

Let's do another one of these... Do you think Tron is cyberpunk?

The majority of the movie takes place inside a computer and the bad guy is near the head of an evil corporation, but is that enough? The characters in the movie range from scientist to a computer programmer who owns his own arcade. Not exactly low-lifes. And the only thing that could be considered high-tech is a prototype laser in a laboratory currently under research. Otherwise, it's a perfectly ordinary modern-day setting. There's no breakdown in society, there's no massive wealth gap on display (unless you count someone not getting recognition for a video game he wrote).

So are the visuals of a world inside a computer enough to call it cyberpunk?

You can watch Tron on Disney+ if you haven't seen it before: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/tron/4MFq1JeXEe1z

(On a side note, I'm tempted to make a weekly "is this cyberpunk?" post just to help grow the community and drive discussion)

I don't know anything about this game other than what's in the article but I figured I'd share. So when it says there are sex scenes, I have no idea if it's the "may contain nudity" type or more "full-blown hentai game" type. Good luck to anyone who tries it!

I have a kind of specific fascination for proto-cyberpunk, generally stories that preceded the cyberpunk genre's start and have most of the elements but aren't quite there for one reason or another. I think it's fascinating to see how these things form, to try to find strands of DNA through fiction. Writers, sometimes decades earlier, voicing the same complaints, identifying the same problems I associate specifically with cyberpunk.

The first one I thought I'd mention is a pretty safe bet: Frederik Pohl and C M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants

Written in 1952, this book has everything but the 1980s feel of a cyberpunk story: Megacities, corporate-states, corporate espionage, addiction-based-marketing, subscription-based-police, corporate citizenship in layers right down to indentured servitude, ecological collapse and a society that doesn't care. Even the visuals of layered, overcrowded, continent-spanning cities.

But it feels like a 1950s science fiction story. It's great; very slick and steeped in the language of marketing. That works really well for it. But it doesn't feel like a cyberpunk story.

I think that's part of the reason I find looking at these precursor stories so fascinating. Cyberpunk discussions often fold in on 'is this even cyberpunk?' and it can be really interesting to see something that has so many of the elements but is still something else.

Obviously these are all just my opinions, and I'd love to hear anyone else's on this book.

Oh, one last opinion: If you're going to get a paperback, get the 1976 version, it looks great.

The show was about a low-life trying to infiltrate a corporation. I find it interesting because all other cyberpunk stories I know will only show the evil CEO hiding at the top of some giant building. It's rare to find a story that shows the life of the average worker drone. Obviously, it was cancelled after one season.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7eKEHhSw00

Most of the ones I knew about, like Neon Dystopia, seem kinda dead these days, and I was wondering if anyone here knew of anything active, especially fiction zines.

This video is only 4 minutes long and I still struggled to get through it. It's rough.

There's a Mad Max-themed event in the Mojave Desert called Wasteland Weekend. The people behind Wasteland Weekend decided to make another event, but this time cyberpunk-themed, called Neotropolis.

All I know about Neotropolis is what I see on the website so I'm curious if any of you have actually been there.

We all know the second season of Netflix's Altered Carbon series was terrible, but Netflix also made an anime movie called Altered Carbon: Resleeved which is completely unrelated to the show. It isn't the best cyberpunk anime ever made but it's still worth watching.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmDxxoFslzs
On Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81001991

Daniel Deluxe also provided the soundtrack for the video game Ghostrunner

I'm not sure how well-known this series is, but I really enjoyed it. The entire series is written in first-person perspective and it has a fun dark humor to it.

Synopsis of the first book:

In the near future, the only thing growing faster than the criminal population is the Electric Church, a new religion founded by a mysterious man named Dennis Squalor. The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks -- cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans.

Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken -- and it may well be his last.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KCTKVP7

More posters here: https://kuciara.com/project/bladerunner

To be clear, this movie isn't cyberpunk. It isn't even scifi. As the article puts it "The film feels like Grease by way of Escape from New York" and that's pretty accurate.

And yet, the movie is referenced in Megazone 23 and Bubblegum Crisis. And was one of the influences for the Cyberpunk tabletop game:

Streets of Fire was also a formative influence on Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk tabletop role-playing game, serving as a chief inspiration for the game’s “Rockerboy” player class, the character of Johnny Silverhand, and even the worldbuilding of the game’s videogame adaptation Cyberpunk 2077. “While Blade Runner​ ​is the most obvious go-to for the visual style, I think the original material is even more influenced by the little remembered ​Streets of Fire,” senior quest designer Patrick Mills said in an interview with Collider

The article is a couple years old, so while it mentions the movie being available on Netflix... it isn't anymore.

You're an elite operative recruited to the experimental Deadlink project. Pilot an autonomous combat shell, fighting your way through cramped slums, twisted labs, grimy warehouses, and sleek office buildings on a mission to thwart the schemes of the most powerful corporations in the world. Wield a deadly arsenal, upgrade your skills and tech, devastate destructible environments, and slash corporate profit margins — all at the same time.

Deadlink recently fully released from Early Access and is currently on sale on Steam through August 4, 2023: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1676130/Deadlink/

Releasing August 18: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1353230/Bomb_Rush_Cyberfunk/

Amazon Prime Video has an original series called 'Upload'. Here's the premise: It's the future. The rich can have their consciousness uploaded when they die. They can spend their digital afterlife in a VR country club/resort forever (or until they run out of money, whichever comes first). In this world, the main character is working on an open source version of the digital afterlife so he can give it away to those less fortunate who can't afford this paradise. But before he's able to release it to the public, he's murdered. So his rich girlfriend pays to have his consciousness uploaded. Now he's in this VR country club with a bunch of billionaires, trying to solve his own murder.

With that premise alone, I'm interested. Sounds totally cyberpunk. The rich/poor divide, uploaded consciousness, murder mystery, all hints of Altered Carbon. And yet... it's a romantic comedy.

That entire premise I described above is just the sub-plot, the B story. What the show is actually about is the love triangle between the main character, his rich girlfriend (who's paying for his digital afterlife but treats him as an accessory), and the tech support rep assigned to his case (who's a genuinely nice person). He's falling in love with the tech support rep but if he breaks up with his psycho girlfriend she'll stop paying his afterlife bills and he'll die. Cue wacky sit-com antics.

If the focus was reversed and the character was spending all his time investigating his murder while gradually falling in love with this tech support rep, I'd probably really enjoy it. But instead, the focus is on the love triangle and his murder investigation is mostly just something to talk about while taking long walks with his tech support rep.

Now, obviously, the show simply isn't for me. It never claimed to be a gritty cyberpunk murder mystery; it was always marketed as a fun-loving rom-com. So it's my own expectations that are flawed. But the world-building is so close to a solid cyberpunk tv show that I can feel the wasted potential. I guess I'd say it's the most cyberpunk rom-com I've ever seen, but that's a really odd category to have.

Trailer, in case anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZfZj2bn_xg

Awhile ago I was watching a let's play(?) Podcast(?) using the Aliens tabletop game system. During one of the sessions, the players and GM joked about a keyboard being in Fly Agaric, like it was the Dvorak keyboard from hell you'd have to sit and really think hard to remember how to use. Wanting to know what they were talking about, I stumbled into this typography blog which did explain the history of that keyboard prop, but also goes into detail on any prop with text on it, some subtle foreshadowing, and even some translation issues that might be plot-relevant. It also talks about references to other films and ways Alien influenced scifi movies that came later.

Talking about Space Sweepers recently got me thinking about Alien/Aliens props and that reminded me of this. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

By the way, which Alien stuff do you consider cannon? There's enough of it that most people I've talked to seem to pick and choose. Personally I go: Alien, Aliens, Alien Isolation, then these two tabletop podcast/video series.