The Matrix is not quite that easy a target when it comes to nailing what's fundamentally wrong with it. A lot of critics who actually read and like cyberpunk mistook this for a cyberpunk movie and exulted that at last Gibson's and Sterling's vision had made it to the big screen. They're missing what Sterling praised most about Gibson's writing: Gibson went to the trouble of fleshing out vivid, believable, original futures, instead of taking the old post-apocalyptic copout. The writers of this movie did the opposite.

One of the Turner networks just got done with a 3-day-in-a-row The Matrix orgy. After at least one airing, they (logically enough) showed Johnny Mnemonic, the other pseudo-cyberpunk Keanu Reeves vehicle, supposedly an actual adaptation (as opposed to a ripoff) of a Gibson story. I tried to watch it. I really did. I'll just say that in the 15 or 20 minutes I managed to watch before seizing a bottle of Jim Beam and bludgeoning myself with it, I couldn't detect any trace of the original story. Watching those two movies in a row was like watching Gibson get robbed and ass-raped, in that order.

I don't think anything approaching the cyberpunk vision has made it to the screen since maybe Robocop, and even that movie wasn't quite true to the aesthetic, what with the added layer of Grand Guignol. Anyhow, you have to read books to to see what a travesty the Reeves movies really are, and I'm afraid most "science fiction fans" don't read much anymore. They watch TV, anime videos, and movies.

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What others say about boorite!

Oh yeah, and they play games.

Today's SF scene strikes me as overwhelmingly video-oriented. Even the market for the printed word is dominated by RPGs, adaptations of same, comic books, and cheesy adventure novel series. I guess by the standard that emerges from such a culture, The Matrix is pretty hot writing.

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What others say about boorite!

And thusly does the generational wholesale rejection of the skills and ideas of the generation it's elder leave the quality and and content of art and entertainment barking up it's own ass.

A lot of good stuff gets lost that way.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

quote:

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And thusly does the generational wholesale rejection of the skills and ideas of the generation it's elder leave the quality and and content of art and entertainment barking up it's own ass.

A lot of good stuff gets lost that way.

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Like I've said before, the problem with reading is that no one writes any good sci-fi anymore.

It's a challenge to find a book that isn't Kevin J Anderson-ized, and where the story sparks the imagination like the writers of old did(Arthur C Clark, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlien, Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov).

If you do know any good new authors, I'll take my nose out of re-reading my dusty oldies for the 100th time and check them out. Gratefully(though it will take awhile to finish reading the complete works of all these guys).

Oh yeah. Even the movies(scifi) seem to suck lately(Matrix was the last great one as far as I know).

Every thirty years or so, the "bright and shining youth" of whatever era is at hand rejects what they see as the archaic tenets and ideas of their elders. This is especially true in the limited scope of American culture. A lot of babies are thrown out with that bath water, and a lot of the ideas and methods are replaced with things that don't really replace them. Like technology. Technology can only replace old technology, not writing, not acting, not talent, not anything but old technology. A lot of skills are pushed aside as dated and old hat because the businesses that profit from creating films and music and so on for mass sales and distribution find that they can do things more cheaply and quickly, and that people will buy them if there's perceived to have sufficient "ooh and ahh and golly gee" value for the buck. No matter how lame it is. In other words: America has no sense of history and eats it's young on a regular basis. The surviving young feast on the corpses of their elders' skills and ideas no matter how useful they are. We don't listen to our past. We don't expand on or learn from anything that happened too long ago, because we're all about shiny and new even if that shiny and new thing has little or no artistic substance. And that's sad.

Just my opinion.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

That's why Jazz is dead.

Thank you, that was much better. Mr. Dum-dum now sees your point.

"Johnny Mnemonic" was easily one of the most laughably bad sci-fi movies I have ever seen.

I don't like to compare books vs. movies. They are completely different experiences. A good author can better explain a character's thoughts and create mental imagery far more complex than can be shown on a 2-D screen. (I was thinking specifically of Harlan Ellison when I wrote that.) On the other hand, a director can create a wordless picture or multi-layered construction of sight, sound, and meaning that conveys an idea in a way a writer can't. One form is not superior to another, in my opinion. I prefer to value both forms for what they are.

One thing I don't quite get is why people get upset when a movie adaptation of a book does not follow the book closely enough. Most (all?) books translate to the screen very poorly when done with too much fidelity to the original. This happens because many written ideas do not work well on a screen. If you want the same qualities and nuances of the book, just read the book.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

Nate, if you like The Matrix, then you'll probably enjoy a dose of real cyberpunk. You can start with Mirrorshades, the cyberpunk anthology edited by Bruce Sterling, and Burning Chrome, a collection of early William Gibson shorts. This stuff is all from the 80s, but it's essential background.

Looking at the paperback shelves in chain bookstores, it's easy to get the impression that no one is writing good SF much these days, but it's not true. Gibson and Sterling are still writing. There's also Pat Cadigan, Norman Spinrad, Rudy Rucker, Matt Ruff, Neal Stephenson, and John Shirley, to name a few. Also, the digest-sized SF magazines usually have some pretty darned good writing in them.

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What others say about boorite!

No. If you were a dum-dum, you wouldn't have even cared, let alone asked. I ask people crap all the time. Mostly they sort of sneer at me because I had to ask. Asymmetrical information as elitism. I'd shove a gun in my mouth if my life were that empty.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

Cool. I'll check those authors out, especialy Gibson.

What are the magazine/digests that you're talking about?

Digest-sized mags, or pulps: Analog, Asimov's, F&SF.

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What others say about boorite!

Thanks man. I was getting sick of Reader's Digest.

Woo hoo! New reading material I like.

No, I think the movie biz has done a great job translating cyberpunk to the screen. The Matrix rendered Gibson's world exactly as I'd imagined it 15 years before. Problem is they've pussed out so bad on certain crucial points that the result can't properly be called cyberpunk. But that's what cyberpunk is now, because Hollywood says so. To those of us who cared about that literary movement, this is a revolting development, much as the commercialization of Christmas must be to Christians. "The meaning is lost," we whine.

I wouldn't expect a movie adaptation of "Johnny Mnemonic" to map precisely to the original, but good Lord did they screw this one in the ass. They took something I loved and they shat all over it. What a waste.

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What others say about boorite!

IOW, if the next Nero Wolfe movie had our hero as a svelte man-about-town, lots of people might like the movie, but real fans would be appalled.

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What others say about boorite!

Which is the result of trying to create something under the auspices of a system wherein the fattest cat with the most money and best blow calls the shots. Regardless of any talent that they may or may not have.

Hollyweird is a ghetto.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

This is the reason that people like Tom Waits and Jim Jarmusch somehow still don't suck. They fucking avoid it like a leper colony.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

Mallpunk?

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

Has it dawned on anybody that part of the reason for this is that Keanu Reeves and Ice-T couldn't act their way out of a paper grocery bag?

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

Has it dawned on anybody that part of the reason for this is that Keanu Reeves and Ice-T couldn't act their way out of a paper grocery bag?

True, Keanu and Ice-T were more notable for their bad acting, given their higher amount of screen time, but the entire cast of that movie was horrible. Plus, the script was idiotic, the sets and FX were cheesy, and the editing was amateurish.

On a slightly different note, has anyone else noted that every David Mamet screenplay makes even good actors sound like bad actors? I think if a Mamet film had Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves, one would have a hard time figuring out which actor is the Oscar-winner...

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

In my opinion, Dark City is everything the Matrix should have been and more.

Haha, mallpunk.

Bunner, in the movie thread, you wrote something about "plot" that showed evidence of a critical faculty, and I almost replied that this is why you work in Cleveland and not Hollywood. You just can't throw words like "plot" around if you want to get movies made. "Plot? Plot? I told you, we can get Demi Moore."

As for Keanu Reeves, he's a great actor as long as you don't stretch him too much. Put a black t-shirt and trench coat and sunglasses on him, and film him a) running in slow motion, b) walking in slow motion, and c) standing around in slow motion. Limit him to the facial expressions he has mastered (Mouth Open and Mouth Closed). Don't let him talk, especially when the camera is rolling.

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What others say about boorite!

Oh god. Please don't make me remember Kiefer Sutherland's performance in that movie. If it weren't for that, "Dark City" would have been a great movie. I just...can't stand hnn...every...scene that...hnn Kiefer is hnn...in hnn...

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

I am up to my lower lip in critical faculty. What I can't seem to locate is a reason to get another television or buy a DVD player.

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.