before the matrix...
there was "Johnny Mnemonic" - A film that I really love. Based on a short story by William Gibson called "I can remember for you wholesale", he was originally involved in the production until the first director walked, the suits took over and made a bit of a bodge of it. Having said that, it was perfect cyberpunk when the next most techie movie was The Lawnmower Man. I really, really wish that they made a movie of Neuromancer, but I think that things like the first Matrix might have made it a bit passe. Shame, as the book is fantastic - I could read it once a month.
(Chad, Wed 23 Jul 2008, 16:09, 7 replies)

slight pedantry
Johnny Mnemonic (possibly the worst film I have ever had the misfortune to see) was based on a short story by William Gibson called "Johnny Mnemonic."

"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" was a Philip K. Dick story, and Total Recall was based on it.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 23 Jul 2008, 16:23, closed)

Beat me to it chcb.
A fellow PKD fan?
( Cawl, Wed 23 Jul 2008, 16:43, closed)

^ yes,
up to the point where I read Valis on a transatlantic flight at the tail end of a psychotic episode and emerged in Dulles airport in DC completely unable to identify what was real and what was not.
[Edit: correction - it was A Scanner Darkly. Just as headfucking.]
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 23 Jul 2008, 16:51, closed)

Whoops...
Along those lines, after reading The Electric Ant, and drinking far too much, I tried to open up my chest-plate to get to the tape-reel.

It didn't work.
( Cawl, Wed 23 Jul 2008, 16:57, closed)

Neuromancer the movie
Supposedly, they are making a film of Neuromancer. The bad news? The director is Joseph Kahn (He did Torque) and it's starring Hayden Christensen.....
(Snoogans, Wed 23 Jul 2008, 17:19, closed)

re: pedantry
You know, I knew I'd gotten that wrong,but it was a long day yesterday and couldn't be arsed. heh.

On the PkD front, I think the best of his work is The Man In The High Castle, but it loses the plot slightly in about the last four or five pages when he kinda goes "well, you've really enojyed the premise of the book, so let's just make it all out as a bit of someone's imagination and get rid of all those awkward plotholes" - now I tend to stop reading before then, as it spoils the book in my mind. It was the literary equivalent of when they brought back Bobby Ewing in Dallas or beamed that woman up into a UFO to get rid of her (Alexis' nemesis? I can't remember, I was too young, but even then it seemed ridiculous)...
(Chad, Thu 24 Jul 2008, 10:04, closed)

Neuromancer
Some guy who did MTV videos in the 90s had the rights to the movie for years, but it went nowhere. If they've been passed on to anyone other than the Wachowskis or maybe Guillermo Del Toro, then I think it'll end up as straight-to-dvd tripe, sadly. I know Johnny Mnemonic wasn't great (I did say it was a guilty pleasure, after all), but I think that it got the cyberpunk vibe as portrayed by Gibson pretty right. I worry that if they make Neuromancer now, it'll end up being a poor rip-off of the Matrix, or it'll be all shiny and "5th Element" in its futuristic look, as opposed to being the ultimate expression of 80s consumerism, with grotty ghettos, pollution, crime all contrasted with the bright, rich, vibrant consumer centres and homes of the rich elite...
(Chad, Thu 24 Jul 2008, 10:11, closed)