Hammerjack

The futuristic city with flying cars at the beginning of the movie definitely has all the cyberpunk visuals, and technically Zorg is the head of an evil corporation. But the real villain of the movie is incoming force of evil/darkness. And the plot is resolved through the power of love. Even the President of Earth is actively trying to help do the right thing and save the planet.

While there are some great cyberpunk visuals at the beginning of the movie, I don't know if the themes are there to call this cyberpunk. What do you think? Would you consider The Fifth Element to be cyberpunk?

Here's a trailer. It's currently streaming on Hulu.

Megazone 23 is a 3-part OVA (each episode being over an hour) made in 1985-89. I've seen it included in cyberpunk anime lists as being a classic 80s cyberpunk, along with Cyber City Oedo 808. But I don't see it. I guess it's somewhat cyberpunk, but nothing compared to Cyber City Oedo 808.

It starts out with some punk kid living in 1980s Tokyo. He gets his hands on a weird motorcycle that the government wants back for some reason. And then he learns the motorcycle can transform into a mech suit. So this is very clearly a mecha anime. By the end of the first episode, the kid learns that what he thought was 1980s Tokyo is actually a space station, called Megazone 23. So that's neat. Still not entirely cyberpunk in my opinion.

In episode 2, the punk kid is trying to spend more time with his biker gang but gets drawn into the escalating war with a neighboring space station. So more mecha battles. Oh, and there is an AI which runs this space station and talks to the main character occasionally. So there's a punk with a mech suit, is that enough to be cyberpunk? There's an AI that runs the city, now is it cyberpunk? I'm not sure. It's very clearly an 80s mecha anime but I'm not sure how cyberpunk I'd consider it.

Then there's episode 3, which takes place 500 years after episodes 1 and 2. Now the main character is a hacker who spends a lot of time in cyberspace. Now things are getting cyberpunk. And I can't find this episode streaming anywhere!

You can watch an english dub of Part 1 and Part 2 on Amazon Prime. Or you can watch subtitled versions of Part 1 and Part 2 on youtube. But I can't find Part 3 streaming anywhere!

Also, a random fact I learned from the wiki page: Robotech: The Movie was made in 1986 by splicing footage from Part 1 of Megazone 23 with the anime series Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross. That's how much more "mecha" this is than "cyberpunk".

I should clarify I'm not calling this anime "bad", I'm simply judging it by how "cyberpunk" it is. If you like 80s scifi anime, this is a great example. But as cyberpunk? I'm not sure.

I know this community is specifically for the game Cyberpunk 2077, but if any of you are fans of the cyberpunk genre as a whole, come check out [email protected] for discussions on anything related to the cyberpunk genre. That is: movies, anime, books, TV shows, etc. We focus on cyberpunk as a fiction genre, so no news articles about our real world turning into a cyberpunk dystopia.

I'm not sure how many people go out of their way to find new communities so I thought I'd mention it in case people here are interested in more cyberpunk than just Cyberpunk 2077.

If this project happens, it'll be interesting to see whether this new Running Man is still cyberpunk. With Edgar Wright, I wouldn't be surprised if he just sets it in the modern day. We'll see.

In Cyberpunk 2077, Keanu Reeve's character Johnny Silverhand was the lead singer of a rock band called Samurai. So CD Projekt Red needed some Samurai songs to include in the game.

They hired the punk band Refused to write some songs as Samurai. Chippin' In is one of those songs. Here are the rest.

The Mega Man Battle Network series takes place in a completely different timeline from the regular Mega Man (or Mega Man X) games. In this world, everyone has their own digital assistant AI and some random fifth grader happens to have named his assistant MegaMan.EXE. Other digital assistants are also named after previous Mega Man games.

The gameplay is split between real-world exploring as the kid and cyber-world exploring as MegaMan.EXE. While in the cyber-world, Mega Man can have random enemy encounters with viruses. It's all very childish since the main character is in elementary school, but the RPG elements are pretty good. I thought the grid-based real-time battle system was pretty fun, although the random encounters get tedious (like in any RPG).

I'm pretty sure anything that includes cyberspace is basically considered cyberpunk-by-proxy so I'm suggesting Mega Man Battle Network is cyberpunk. Yes, it's from a child's perspective (so the world isn't exactly nihilistic), but I think it still fits.

There were six games in the Mega Man Battle Network series, all of them on the Game Boy Advance. So you could easily grab an emulator and play these games. Or, you could get the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection (Vol 1 and Vol 2) to play them on Steam, or Switch, or Playstation.

There was also an anime based on this video game series, called MegaMan.EXE. It was renamed to MegaMan NT Warrior in the US, but I'm not sure if all of the episodes were localized. I think there were more MegaMan.EXE episodes than NT Warrior episodes. But I already feel like I'm taking a chance with this post so I'm not going to start talking about a kids anime. For what it is, I think the world-building is pretty good, but this is definitely a video game series (and anime) made for kids.

I stumbled upon this cyberpunk movie that was called 'Webmaster' in the US. It was also called 'Skyggen' in Denmark, where it was made in 1998. The trailer makes it look like a perfectly bizarre low-budget cyberpunk movie. Honestly, the trailer reminds me a lot of Nirvana with Christopher Lambert in that they both seem to have over-the-top cyberpunk visuals and plot while also being... not good movies.

Anyway, I'd like to watch Webmaster (in english) and I can't find it anywhere. Can anyone help me find some way to watch this movie? I thought it might be posted to youtube under some weird random name but I've had no luck so far. I can't even find any services that would rent it either. But maybe one of you can find it!

Oh, and if anyone cares, here's a synopsis of the movie:

J.B. (Lars Bom) - an ultra-talented Webmaster of an illicit cyber-domain known for massive amounts of illegal money transfers is captured and is put under suspicion by the cyber-domain boss named Stoiss (Jørgen Kiil) when an intruder hacks into the system and steals the Stoiss’s money. Stoiss sticks a heart controller device on J.B. and gives him 35 hours to find who took his money or he dies.

Jodie Foster, Dave Bautista, Charlie Day, Jeff Goldblum… and yet very few people have heard of this movie. It definitely takes place in a cyberpunk world, but most of it is seen from within the "Hotel", which is actually a hospital for criminals. Definitely check it out if you've never seen it.

Here's a trailer. You can watch it on Max and Hoopla.

This is the original made-for-TV movie that introduced the Max Headroom character.

I was thinking about posting a video describing the Max Headroom hack but then figured this community is focused more on the fictional aspect of the cyberpunk genre than the real world events so I'll stick with the movie.

There are hundreds of lazy low-budget cyberpunk movies that flooded the (direct-to-video) market in the 80s and 90s. Stuff like Crime Zone, Nemesis, or Omega Doom. So what cyberpunk movies can you admit are objectively bad yet still hold a place in your heart?

Cyberpunk is always a weird genre to describe. There are lots of various aspects that could make something cyberpunk and often they're completely independent of the other aspects that can make something cyberpunk. For example, there's the "neon-lit rainy streets at night with a hard-boiled detective" cyberpunk and there's the "cyberspace" version of cyberpunk. The Tron franchise has always been a "cyberspace" franchise, so it gets called cyberpunk. I won't argue that here though (or at least, I'll try not to go on that tangent).

The short-lived animated series Tron: Uprising is a prequel for Tron: Legacy and uses Legacy's visual style. Well, a lot of the architecture and suits come from Tron: Legacy. The character models look more like Aeon Flux with their weird proportions:

Anyway, Tron: Uprising takes place solely in The Grid. The real world isn't a factor here. And the plot is actually about the beginnings of a rebellion under an oppressive regime. Typically I wouldn't call a rebellion story cyberpunk, especially if it's against a government and not a corporation (otherwise Hunger Games would be cyberpunk). I feel like the nihilism of corporations being too big to be brought down is a major aspect of cyberpunk. See, I keep going on this tangent. I'll stop.

If you enjoyed the visuals of Tron: Legacy, Tron: Uprising gives you more of that. As a way to spend more time in The Grid, this show is a lot of fun. Aside from my nit-picking whether or not Tron: Uprising qualifies as cyberpunk, the show is enjoyable. And the visuals are great.

Here's a trailer. You can watch it on Disney+.