Appleseed is a strange franchise. Made by Masamune Shirow (the creator of Ghost in the Shell), Appleseed never seemed to reach the same popularity as Ghost in the Shell so all attempts at creating Appleseed movies have always felt somewhat low-budget to me. Also, they usually feel more like military scifi than cyberpunk.
The one exception to this is Appleseed: Ex Machina. This one actually felt cyberpunk to me. One of the main plotlines is about everyone in the city using an augmented reality headset in their day-to-day lives when someone hacks the headsets, turning everyone who uses them into mindless zombies. This is the only movie in the Appleseed franchise (in my opinion) that touches on the 'dehumanization of technology' aspect that I expect/want from my cyberpunk stories. I mean, the 2004 Appleseed movie spent the second half of the movie trying to stop a giant mobile fortress and Appleseed Alpha never even left the wasteland. Having a city inhabited by both humans and cyborgs isn't enough for me to consider something cyberpunk.
I guess part of the problem is I'm expecting the American version of cyberpunk with its 'High Tech, Low Life' focus, while the Japanese version of cyberpunk seems to be focused more on police forces in the future.
What do you think? Any fans of Appleseed here? Am I being unfair by not calling the other movies cyberpunk?
