Will we finally see Neuromancer on the screen?

31 点作者 Emigre_超过 2 年前

17 条评论

A film adaptation of Neuromancer loses my favorite part of it, the writing. The most famous part of the book is its opening line: 'The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.' It feels more like reading verse than prose, and it's worth it to read it just for that.Take that away and what is left? It's published far back enough that unique elements of its plot should already be familiar to audiences from its imitators. The characters to me are not very memorable (maybe Wintergreen is). Gibson found that Blade Runner looked exactly like what he had in mind for Neuromancer. There's no meat to the book without it being a book.

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Apocryphon超过 2 年前

I'm going to be Pollyanna and say that we might be at the cusp of a golden age of sci-fi adaptations. For decades people said that Dune was unfilmable and then Villeneuve went and done it and made it look easy, even conventional. (I actually have some additional thoughts on that- it could have been a little bit longer for greater exposition and characterization, and more weird.) So this should mean that any classic work of sci-fi should get some consideration. We're at a time in the industry where both visual effects and audiences (with the mainstreaming of nerd culture) are ready for such media.That's not to say these adaptations will be good, but they're certainly filmable. Neuromancer gets a lot of cachet, but other IPs have been attempted already. Villeneuve successfully made a good Blade Runner sequel. Live-action Ghost in the Shell happened- it was execrable and wrapped up in controversy, but it still got made and the neon-soaked setting looked decent. They made a fourth Matrix. Stepping away from cyberpunk, Childhood's End got a miniseries. The Expanse got a full show.So I doubt that there's anything inherently more difficult about Gibson's novels. If anything, the popularity of Cyberpunk 2077 and its Edgerunners anime has primed the public for '80s retrofuturistic cyberpunk, so they can choose to adapt this as a period piece if they wanted to, without "modernizing" its futuristic conceits. No need to add smartphones.Call me when they start adapting John Brunner '60s new wave sci-fi. Now that would be a hard sell.

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sonofhans超过 2 年前

Honestly? I hope not. If a true visionary were to direct it, Stanley Kubrick or Ridley Scott in their prime, or Denis Villeneuve, who seems to be able to do impossible things — maybe. Otherwise I’d expect it to be as dull and forgettable as most movies made from PKD sources — <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adaptations_of_works_by_Philip_K._Dick" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adaptations_of_works_b...</a>I saw William Gibson read at Powell’s years ago, maybe around the Virtual Light era. Someone asked him about Johnny Mnemonic, about why Molly Millions wasn’t in it. He said something like, “I thought they were going to fuck up the movie, and if I’d let them write Molly into it then the studio would own her and I’d never be able to have her in a better movie.”So I’d hope that Gibson is involved in this, and has higher expectations or involvement than before.

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sp332超过 2 年前

<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221203202712/https://j-nelson.net/2022/12/will-we-finally-see-neuromancer-on-the-screen/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20221203202712/https://j-nelson....</a>

semiquaver超过 2 年前

It’s only a matter of time before Snow Crash finally follows in suit...

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ninth_ant超过 2 年前

Interesting that the blog author dreads a serial adaptation. If anything I would dread a movie adaptation as the limited time and the pacing requirements make it difficult to avoid rushing through the story and skipping much of the worldbuilding.They use Foundation as an example of why serialized adaptations are poor, but this understates the difficulty of the task in adopting a set of short stories that sprawl over worlds and eras, featuring complex ideas. I have a hard time believing a movie format could do a superior job with Foundation.

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tangentland超过 2 年前

Out of the sprawl trilogy, I'd say Mona Lisa Overdrive would probably make the better "movie". Unfortunately, Molly is difficult character to use as the common thread. Don't get me wrong, I love Molly as a character and she is perfect to connect the books, but I cannot see using her ambivalence to the world as the connective tissue between "movies". And if we're mentioning sci-fi books that should be turned into movies, Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age is high on my list.

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mortenjorck超过 2 年前

I went looking for a comment I remembered posting on a previous occasion of an impending Neuromancer adaptation, and found the story from 2011: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2565734" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2565734</a>I think it still holds up 11 years later:> It's almost certainly too much to hope for, but my impossible dream is that this gets done up like it's the 1980s with circa-2012 CGI. A bold kind of retrofuturism we haven't seen yet in film.> Thing is, you can't take Neuromancer out of the '80s. The newness of computer networks, the ascendancy of Japan, the aesthetics of computer hardware -- boxy, whirring things with stark, green CRTs spewing masses of indecipherable alphanumeric incantations, big clunky cables, heavy briefcase-size mobile units; it's all there. And the mash-up of digital and analog technologies is no less integral than Gibson's opening lines to the book, comparing a halogen-hazed night sky to the analog noise of TV transmission.> Neuromancer didn't arrive into a world comfortable with computer technology like ours today. The book stands as a fantastic trip back into a time when technology could be dark, dangerous, and foreign, a zeitgeist Gibson leverages to dazzling effect. "Updating" Neuromancer would bring its entire shadowy world out into the unthreatening, mid-day sun.

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jzellis超过 2 年前

I've always wanted to do a Neuromancer adaptation that uses modern film and CG tech but is shot with the aesthetic and general tech level of 1984 - everybody smokes, you don't take out the USSR refs, period music, lots of Ridley Scott dry ice, the works.Except the theme song is Lali Puna's cover of "Together In Electric Dreams", because it is perfect. <a href="https://youtu.be/MjnpCd7sAqI" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/MjnpCd7sAqI</a>

krapp超过 2 年前

I hope not. Neuromancer is one of those properties that's so influential on the cyberpunk genre and which is such a product of its time (what with the mainframes and cassette tapes and "cyberspace" completely devoid of the internet and internet culture) that the more faithful an adaptation is, the more derivative and dated it would appear... and ironically more banal, since the real world has become more cyberpunk than cyberpunk in many ways. Gibson himself feared it was obsolete when he saw Blade Runner before he had even finished the manuscript for Neuromancer. Few of its themes really resonate with our modern technological surveillance dystopia, simply because it predates them all, and those which do I fear have been outdone since. I mean, its iconic opening line no longer even makes sense in a world that's moved on from cathode ray tubes and static. It's a future that still has pay phones.Metropolis is entering the public domain on January 1. I find the potential of that far more interesting than an adaptation of Neuromancer. Or better, instead of Neuromancer, adapt one of Gibson's more modern properties.

kfrzcode超过 2 年前

I have really enjoyed The Peripheral and found it to be a nice accompaniment to the books. Sprawl would be sick.

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bpiche超过 2 年前

Scenes from our favorite books often get left on the cutting room floor. Personally, I hope they don't only nail the flechette-ridden action scenes but also some of the quieter and more poetic ones, like when Case wakes up in the loft and is able to use the matrix again. Getting his fix again after being on the wagon for so long.“And somewhere he was laughing, in a white-painted loft, distant fingers caressing the deck, tears of release streaking his face.”

karaterobot超过 2 年前

I don't really need Neuromancer to be a movie. I'd rather they make a new cyberpunk story that is just as stylish and creative. Something that will influence the next 30 years. I know there are people in the world who have the talent to do that, and would like to do it. I bet they're all working on licensed IP right now though, since that's where the work is. I guess we get the culture we pay for.

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juancn超过 2 年前

It's very easy to ruin Neuromancer in an adaptation.I'm kind of skeptic after seeing the adaptation of "The Peripheral", which IMHO misses the most important parts (and characters) of the book and waters it down into an action series. All the social criticism gets diluted.On the other hand, somebody adapted "The Expanse" brilliantly, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

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alphabetting超过 2 年前

I'd pony up for apple tv in a split second for this if they make it. Must read if you're into sci fi with AI and cyberpunk themes.

westmeal超过 2 年前

This is one of my favorite novels so I hope so. Hell, I'd even settle for the other two sprawl books.

pelorat超过 2 年前

Needs to be the whole trilogy.