Ubisoft first shared its plans for a movie based on the open-world series back in 2013
I've mentioned this before, but I'm a fan of the Watch_Dogs series. And I can't believe they're actually making a movie for it. I have no doubt this movie will be terrible but that won't stop me from seeing it in the theater. Can't wait!
Nine new actors have joined Michelle Yeoh ( Star Trek: Discovery ) and Hunter Schafer ( Euphoria ) in Prime Video’s upcoming sci-fi noir series Blade Runner 2099. The new cast members include Dimitri Abold ( The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes ) and Lewis Gribben (
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 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.
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.
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?
I should probably include a link to the Steam page. And I guess this game has a demo, so go check it out if you're interested!
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.
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
It's possible that this is actually a post-apocalyptic world vs a fantasy world and I'm just seeing cyberpunk and solarpunk because that's what I want to see, but the original kickstarter for this movie calls it a cyberpunk world so I don't think I'm too far off.
Since this movie is the result of a kickstarter, I actually don't know how close it is to release or if it'll get a wide distribution. I mean, the most recent kickstarter update says they're hoping to release this June but who knows what will happen.
I know the description calls this a "sci-fi black comedy", but needing to watch an ad in its entirety before being allowed to enter your home feels like a perfectly cyberpunk satire to me.
I guess it's just a 40-minute short film that will be making the rounds at film festivals this year. Hopefully they'll post the full thing to youtube when those festivals are done though. It looks fun.
I've posted before about Mullet Mad Jack, back when the demo became available. Well, the full game is now available on Steam. It's a ridiculous game where you die if you go more than 10 seconds without killing a bad guy, but it's drenched in early 90s cyberpunk anime aesthetic.
Slyth is a movie about a group of high-tech low-lifes who happen to be the best e-sports team for some virtual reality first-person shooter. All of the establishing shots over the city show that the movie takes place in a cyberpunk world, but the plot is actually about the team hitting someone with their car which gives that person amnesia. They bring him to their house to help him, he falls in love with the main character, and then joins the e-sports team because (of course) he's a natural at this VR game he's never played before.
Now, because they're the best e-sports team ever, they're given an opportunity to beta test some new VR game. Unfortunately, that "VR game" is actually a portal into a different dimension. And then the lizard people show up.
This movie was made in Thailand, so I assume the exaggerated overacting is just part of Thai cinema. And everyone in the movie is a beautiful twenty-something, which gives it a very "young adult" feel. This isn't a dark and gritty noir, it's a fun action romp. The CGI and production value are pretty good though. It doesn't feel like a big budget American movie, but it doesn't feel like some small indie Thai movie either. Overall, the setting may be cyberpunk, but the themes and plot aren't. I've definitely seen worse movies, but I don't know if I'd call that a recommendation.
Here's a trailer, although I warn you, it spoils a lot of the movie. The lizard people don't show up until half-way through the movie yet this trailer makes it seem like a war with the lizard people is the entire plot. You can watch it on Netflix though, and I'm always a sucker for more cyberpunk content.
Underground tunnels, baby holding pens, and, of course, lizard people.
This trailer reminds me of the Black Mirror episode "Playtest" so it's probably more cyberpunk-adjacent than actually cyberpunk but that doesn't mean it'll be bad.
In addition to serving as showrunner of the limited series, Silka Luisa is exec producing
Silka Luisa worked previously on the Halo TV series as producer and writer. So we'll see how this goes...
I agree. It's a shame that this and Star Wars 1313 were both abandoned.
For me, the hard part is how many silly episodes there are. When I think about the series, I think about the amazing action sequences and villains. But when I actually look at a list of episodes, I just skip past a lot of them. The "Jack needs new shoes" episode, the "Jack loses his clothes" episode, the "Jack gets turned into a chicken" episode. There's a lot of weird episodes in the series. When it's good, the show is very good. But not every episode is good in my opinion.
I can't find the quote now so I'm sure I'm going to butcher this, but i remember seeing some interview with Gibson where he said computer nerds at the time were all laughing at him because the sheer scale of networking speeds he was talking about (up to hundreds of baud!) were physically impossible. Of course, his total ignorance of computers ended up being more accurate than what nerds at the time thought was possible.
William Gibson's response: https://twitter.com/GreatDismal/status/1782941140003729650
I had 10.7 hours of gameplay and HowLongToBeat says the average is ~11 hours for people who don't spend much time in the side quests, so that seems about right.
And Michael C. Hall does a great job as the evil CEO.
Snatcher is a fantastic choice for a retro cyberpunk game! I'm not going to judge what your favorite retro cyberpunk game is, I only mentioned action-oriented games to try to get people thinking.
Also, I'm more likely to try a game I've never heard of if it's action since point & click adventure games usually demand more dedicated time. You can't just pick up a point & click game and play for 10min to see if you like it.
Well I've never heard of any of those games! Thanks!
There's a PS1 game called One which I think might be cyberpunk:
But unfortunately, either I'm terrible at the game or the game itself is terrible because I can't beat the first level.
I understand this novel is practically a diary, but that doesn't mean it has to be a good movie.
I've read a lot of PKD's books and while i won't stop anyone from enjoying them, I personally felt like he had great ideas/worlds but struggled with telling a story in that world. So I'm not confusing the films made from his work with the actual work, I'm specifically only referring to the films. I think when films use his novels as a template for world-building, it turns out great. But attempting to accurately portray his novels on film tends to fall flat.
It's perfectly fine if you to disagree with me, but I wasn't making any comment about the novels or his writing style. I was only making broad generalizations of the film adaptations.
It's more GitS, which is always a good thing. With the new character models you can tell this is a new continuity and to not worry about trying to align into earlier stories/plotlines, even though everything is still similar. This is kind of telling the story of how Major joined Section 9, but things are different enough that you wouldn't call it a prequel series.
Arise is probably the easiest to get through because it's only four 50-minute OVAs. Then they re-cut those 4 OVAs into eight 30-min episodes and called the series 'Arise – Alternative Architecture'. Of course, just to complicate things, Alternative Architecture got another "OVA" as the final two 30-min episodes called Pyrophoric Cult. So you could consider the entire series to be 5 OVAs. Oh, and I guess Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie is also part of this continuity. So 5 OVAs and a movie.
You can watch the entire series on Crunchyroll. Note that Crunchyroll shows "season 1" as being all the OVAs, "season 2" is the re-cut OVAs into episodes (Alternative Architecture), and "season 4" is The New Movie. I have no idea why Crunchyroll didn't call that "season 3"...
To be fair, this includes all novels and video games too. As far as animation, I see it as: the two movies, Stand Alone Complex anime, Arise anime, and SAC_2045 anime. It isn't too overwhelming in my opinion. Although, Stand Alone Complex is like 52 episodes, which is longer than most anime I watch.
Also, Stand Alone Complex and SAC_2045 both had their episodes pared down into compilation movies (which is what the arrows represent). So you could get through those even faster if you wanted.
There's this movie called Reminiscence that takes place after the ice caps have melted. The world-building is phenomenal as everything is just slightly flooded and all the streets have basically become canals. But the story they decided to tell in this world was so boring I can't remember any of the details. I just remember loving watching Hugh Jackman's character move about the city.
You can watch it on Tubi and Max.
Also, to re-iterate a previous rant, I think Elysium is a great cyberpunk movie which uses the current cultural fears of climate change, wealth gap, and access to healthcare as the backdrop for the story.
It is interesting though how in the 80s we thought the world would be covered in clouds/pollution/smog and we'd never see the sun. Yet it's more likely we'll make the world so hot and dry that it'll become more of a desert wasteland than a dark and gloomy rain-filled world.
Very true. Just like there's high fantasy vs low fantasy, there's almost a "cyberpunk by aesthetic" and "cyberpunk by themes" distinction in cyberpunk.
Like the other person said, I'm just trying to start a discussion. I don't actually care what the answer is, I'm just providing a topic. I try to find movies where i could see the arguments for and against being cyberpunk and I'll post it here to see how others feel.
Honestly, I consider these posts a success if the top two comments are "of course it is!" and "of course not!" because that means i picked a good movie that walks the line between cyberpunk and not and typically leads to a good discussion.
Also, I've been trying to post something here every day for almost three months now and it's hard to keep coming up with items that fall firmly into the cyberpunk category. So I start to question how I define cyberpunk and these posts help quantify it.
