[Movie] The Running Man
[Movie] The Running Man
I was originally going to ask whether you consider Running Man to be cyberpunk or not. But then I figured, that's a stupid question, of course it is. Just look at how they depicted Los Angeles:
We can argue whether or not it's a good movie, but it's definitely cyberpunk.
I was just thinking this movie has a police state with a small rebellion rather than a megacorporation that didn't care about human life. Typically, I would say it's just dystopian fiction if the nation is run by a police state and it's cyberpunk if the nation is run by megacorporations. But that's probably too narrow a view when everything else in this movie fits a cyberpunk setting. Especially a game show that doesn't care about human life.
Anyway, here's a trailer. You can watch it on Pluto or Hoopla.
Why are you calling this documentary cyberpunk?
What I love about this movie is that despite the dystopian society, the writers still have an optimistic (naive?) take on things. IIRC once the news reporter gets the evidence and the truth comes out, the evil corporation is somehow thwarted.
I absolutely never thought of that movie again since I watched it early 90's on TV. For one second I even doubted I saw it. Now I need to rewatch it 😁
Lol, so many zingers in the old Schwarzenegger movies.
"Here is Sub-zero! Now... Plain Zero!"
"Killian, I'll be back."
"Only in a rerun."
I would lean a little more dystopian. I think it’s missing some of the cooler aspects of cyberpunk.
Thank you, that makes me feel better about questioning it myself. It has a lot of things that could definitely be considered cyberpunk but other things that really don't fit.
The Stephen King novel that this is based on is one of his best stories, IMHO. It's way less "action movie" and more focused on the dystopian society. A sub-plot involves dispossessed youths who are teaching themselves about technology, but there's no cyberspace involved. If you read it, skip King's introduction, there's a major spoiler there.
I remember two things about it. One was that they did a 9/11, and the other was that King wrote it under a pen name, Richard Bachman, under which he also wrote a book called, "Rage", about a school shooter, which he eventually pulled from publishing because it appeared to have been read by a fair amount of school shooters and he didn't want to inspire any more.
It's always interesting to watch movies with Jessie Ventura in them. You can kinda see his downfall from being a big buff wrestler to just being a politician.