Cyberpunk

Released in 1995 (the same year as Hackers and The Net!) and I've never heard of this movie. I think it was direct-to-video though, and there are plenty of terrible direct-to-video movies from that time.

Here's a description of the movie from someone's review on imdb:

An evil billionaire develops a weapon that will entrap its victims in a catatonic state of virtual reality. His girlfriend steals the disk (back when DVD discs were considered a big deal) that creates the software for the weapon and amazingly, it's the only copy. She makes friends with a sailor who helps her escape, and they put the software in a tattoo on his back.

Here's a trailer. If you think you can stomach it, the entire movie has been posted to youtube. For what it's worth, one of the reviews says there's a lot of nudity in the movie but I guess it isn't enough to trigger youtube's algorithm for removal. I think it's a little too low-budget even for my tastes so I haven't tried watching but maybe someone here might be interested.

I happened to stumble upon this today and wanted to talk about it. Bujji & Bhairava is an animated 2-episode mini-series (15 minutes each) prelude to one of the most expensive Indian movies ever made, Kalki 2898 AD.

Now, as far as I can tell from the trailer, Kalki 2898 AD doesn't actually look cyberpunk to me. It looks more like Stargate or Gods of Egypt, where "the gods" have glowy futuristic technology but the humans are just living regular (non-scifi) lives. Yet this 2-episode animated prelude absolutely takes place in an Indian version of a cyberpunk city. The main character is a high-tech low-life bounty hunter who finds an android head and installs into a car to help him capture bounties. He's trying to make enough money so he can enter The Complex. Although I can't tell if The Complex is where all the rich people live (which would be even more cyberpunk) or if it's where "the gods" live (which I'd call less cyberpunk).

Anyway, these two 15-minute episodes are available on Amazon Prime. And the movie they're leading up to, Kalki 2898 AD, releases on June 27.

I'm genuinely sorry about posting shit a week ago. I was drunk. ...I'm less drunk now. This is genuinely awesome, however.

Nivalis is a life sim set to be released in spring of 2025, from the makers of Cloudpunk.

Anderton is recovering from an illegal surgery, when the police come searching for him! But did his new retinas have enough time to heal?

After E.T., Spielberg started to consult experts, and put more scientific research into his science fiction films.[36] In 1999, he invited fifteen experts convened by Peter Schwartz and Stewart Brand to a hotel in Santa Monica for a three-day "think tank". He wanted to consult with the group to create a plausible "future reality" for the year 2054 as opposed to a more traditional "science fiction" setting.[37] Dubbed the "think tank summit",[38] the experts included architect Peter Calthorpe, author Douglas Coupland, urbanist and journalist Joel Garreau, computer scientist Neil Gershenfeld, biomedical researcher Shaun Jones, computer scientist Jaron Lanier, and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) architecture dean William J. Mitchell.[37][39] Production designer Alex McDowell kept what was nicknamed the "2054 bible", an 80-page guide created in preproduction which listed all the aspects of the future world: architectural, socio-economic, political, and technological.[38] While the discussions did not change key elements in the film, they were influential in the creation of some of the more utopian aspects, though John Underkoffler, the science and technology advisor for the film, described it as "much grayer and more ambiguous" than what was envisioned in 1999.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(film)

Invidious link: https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=EQ55c87m4_4

I was looking through the top posts of [email protected] and noticed The Fifth Element had been posted last year, and was still up!

• Invidious Link: https://invidious.flokinet.to/watch?v=GroVSNjVybs
• An earlier discussion here on whether or not The Fifth Element is cyberpunk: https://lemmy.world/post/14250995
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Element

I posted the reveal trailer for this game a couple months ago but at that time all you could tell was that the game was set in a cyberpunk world. Now there's a gameplay trailer and it looks a lot like Observer to me. That is, as far as I can tell, it's a walking simulator (no combat) about a detective investigating a crime.

Awhile back I posted that one of my cyberpunk short stories got picked up by an anarchist fiction zine. I was excited because I had this related-but-sort-of-mutually-non-canonical photobash comic ready to go, which played with the same concept but in a different tone.

I don't want to spam this community with my comic weekly or anything, so I figured I'd just share a few still panels, spaced out whenever I get to them in the posting schedule. They're just quiet bits of art between the jokes.

Hopefully that's all okay, and if you do want to read this silly webcomic about a stolen secret service protoptype and the endangered deer it thinks is the president I'm posting it weekly here or here

I don't think the original Perfect Dark was cyberpunk (it was mostly about aliens, right?) and this new Perfect Dark doesn't really look cyberpunk either so I probably shouldn't be posting it here. But something about the gameplay/setting looks like a solarpunk version of the Adam Jensen Deus Ex games so I still wanted to share it with this group.

I don't know. I'm not sold on this new reboot, but I'm intrigued.

Like many good cyberpunk albums, this one has lore!

CYBER CRASH 2000 (1987)

Despite a limited run at the time of release, Pak Nam-Gyu’s 1987 tech-noir classic CYBER CRASH 2000 has gained a small cult following among 20th century completionists. Equally praised for its ominous predictions and panned for its overuse of cyberpunk clichés, the film dealt with complex themes for its time including body modifications and transhumanism. The film soundtrack, credited to unknown producer Lee Hae-Dong, garners similar criticism, being both a schlocky analog product of its time and a tense atmospheric peek into the future. Restored from the original master tapes, the soundtrack is available here in full for the first time.

Synopsis: The year is 1999, 5 years since the metanet crash and the uprisings that followed. Pockets of civilization still exist in the wreckage of the mega cities and the off world colonies, collecting and hoarding data that could lead to a new awakening of humanity. However, ruthless “sequencer agents” prowl the soft space and the intranet, viciously hunting down netrunners. Only the upgraded stand a chance against the Syndicate. The perfect synthesis of man and machine. This is the age of the Machine Warrior.

It appears there is no such movie; this is the work of Prekursor, which seems to be some Seoul-based artist or collective or label or something? Anyway, they have a whole bunch of music, art, and stories available, much of it cyberpunk-related:

• https://www.prekursor.net/topics

cross-posted from [email protected]

According to ISFDB this was originally published in 1987, right at the dawn of cyberpunk. It's interesting to see that era's depictions of cybersecurity and AI. For example, here's a passage about hackers:

I must have been thirteen when I first discovered the hackers, phone phreaks, network bandits, all the computer cowboys living in the optic fibers, wave guides, old-fashioned copper wires. I tapped into HUMAN HEADZ, the most accessible of the underground networks, and began to meet them one by one. The Zork, from New Jersey, who would stack up long-distance tandems around the globe just to listen to his own voice echoing through the night. E-Muff, from Berkeley, a consistent thorn in the side of the U.C. Computer Police. U-3 Kiddo, a group from Portland who planned free gas and electricity for one month for all Bonneville Power Authority customers—power to the people.

Through them I was admitted to the inner circles and the gossip, rumor, and mad delusion that passed in the midnight hours. The Princess and Ozmo and Dwarf had gotten married over the net but had sworn never to meet in person—it was a purely spiritual connection that gave total intimacy through the wires. Frostie had disappeared in Paris, taken away by Interpol, and would never be heard from again. Bright Water the Hiroshima-Nagasaki group, had sworn vendetta against Boeing because their B-29s had dropped the bombs. Captain Muck had broken into a C3 system at Omaha and planned to launch a first strike if he didn't—finally—get laid.

Haw! Those crazy hackers with internet waifus who hate Boeing and can't get laid! Things are totally different now... right? RIGHT?!? Anyway, this story's hosted on Baen, so you won't be computer cowboy network banditting if you read it: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625791474/9781625791474___4.htm

I've always been intrigued by WH40k. I like how over-the-top everything is and how they'll shamelessly steal ideas from from Lovecraft, Dune, Star Wars, or any other franchise they want and somehow make it all work. But, personally, I've never been a fan of military sci-fi. So stories about the Astartes never really interested me and as a result, I only had a passing interest in WH40k. And then I discovered Necromunda.

To be fair, I only discovered the video game Necromunda: Hired Gun and while it looked like a cyberpunk game set in the WH40k universe, I thought Necromunda was just the name of this specific game (like how Darktide is just one game). But I recently learned that Necromunda is the name for an entire WH40k spin-off and Hired Gun is just one game set in that world. And my mind was blown.

From what little I know, Necromunda is absolutely cyberpunk. It takes place in a giant Hive City where the elite/rich live near the top in opulence while the poor live below the Hive City in ruins. And the story is basically about various gangs living in these ruins fighting with each other. With cyborgs, augmented humans, high tech gadgets, and whatever else they can shove into the story. It's over-the-top cyberpunk.

Of course, anyone familiar with WH40k is probably already aware of Necromunda, but it's all completely new to me. And while I don't play TTRPGs, I'm curious to learn more about this world. I found there are 28 books set in the Necromunda universe but I wouldn't know where to start. So for anyone who was already aware of Necromunda, can you recommend any books to me? Are any of them good?

Real Steel has low-life outsiders using high-tech to fight against corporate types, so it's cyberpunk, right?

It's another movie I'd call pretty corny but still good in many places. In the scene above they unbox a robot called Noisy Boy, here's an Invidious link for it:

• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=O03hT93n9dU

In a later scene they use Noisy Boy in an underground fight:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5r03dlJLRA
• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=P5r03dlJLRA

Later they find and boot a robot called Atom:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7hEy3rL0qs
• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=s7hEy3rL0qs

And they use Atom in an underground fight:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyyQ_PITasg
• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jyyQ_PITasg

For more info, see:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Steel

The first part is the most cyberpunk. But here's the whole short film, split across 4 youtube videos:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU8RunvBRZ8
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61FPP1MElvE
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlRMLZRBq6U
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00TD4bXMoYw

Invidious versions:

• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=sU8RunvBRZ8
• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=61FPP1MElvE
• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=WlRMLZRBq6U
• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=00TD4bXMoYw

For more info:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Animatrix

A futuristic evil corpo discourses on morality with a priest. An earlier post discussed whether or not Fifth Element is cyberpunk.

• Invidious link: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=krcNIWPkNzA
• Fun Fact: the first Roombas weren't introduced until five years after this film came out
• Fun Fact: the center henchman at the end is the musician Tricky.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Element

I dig these albums that provide storylines, even though they typically don't stand alone from just the songs. Even better if they're written by non-native English speakers.

It's the year 2081.

Our civilization -as we know it- has ended. It's the era of chrome, silicone, AI and tech corporations.

Of all the huge mega-corporations, one has become extremely large and dangerously powerful.

It completely controls every aspect of our life.

Food. Androids. Society. Life.

The name is: KRONOS

Invidious link: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=0TWGg7HcvSw

Haven't seen the movie, but this scene gives an interesting take on corporate-driven near-future tech, and its effect on the underworld.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappie_(film)

I don't actually know anything about this game (and it doesn't look like one I'd enjoy) but it looks to me like a mix of Detroit: Become Human and Shadows of Doubt so I thought people here might be interested.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15835822

Door of Durin by poppel

https://teia.art/objkt/769117/listings

It's tentatively titled The Ghost In The Shell. To be produced by Science SARU, if that means anything to you.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2024-05-25/ghost-in-the-shell-gets-new-tv-anime-series-in-2026-by-science-saru/.211152

I know what you're thinking: "WTF do I want with a dissertation about cyberpunk, I just like playing the games / watching the movies?"

Well the thing about dissertations is, they usually have a "history and definitions" section. In this document, it's pages 11-27, which contains things like:

The term “cyberpunk” was originally popularized by a 1985 Washington Post article by Gardner Dozois, who borrowed the term from the title of Bruce Bethke’s 1983 short story (Dery 75). In the article, “cyberpunk” referred to work by authors like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, who were writing stories about isolated hacker heroes fighting against faceless international megacorporations in a gritty, high-tech near- future. The word was embraced as a marketing tool by science fiction publishers, and Sterling himself enthusiastically espoused it in 1986 by editing the “cyberpunk reader” Mirrorshades. However, Gibson, the crown prince of the cyberpunk movement, has acknowledged that the term “is mainly a marketing strategy – and one that I’ve come to feel trivializes what I do” (McCaffery interview 279). It is somewhat ironic that a genre movement claiming to deride the alienating nature of capitalism was, in fact, partly defined by the capitalist needs of its publishers...

So let's say you're having an online argument, or decide to write a cyberpunk-related paper for school, now you have a well-referenced source of the basic relevant facts. Plus, it also mentions a bunch of stories and films which you may want to check out. Finally, the dissertation's argument sounds interesting, though I haven't read it all the way through.

Anyway, here's the disseration home page, in case the pdf direct link is changed or something: https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/cc08hj32d