I'm losing faith in film as a vehicle for good science fiction.

[-Jrabbit]

Hmm, I don't view it that way, but I can see that POV.

Ellison? Really? Always thought he was way overrated as a sci-fi author. Much better in the lit-crit and essay areas. Maybe I gave up on him too easily.

[KrazyHorse]

"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is perhaps the greatest short short sci fi story ever written.

[-Jrabbit]

A true classic, I agree. But IMHO, his potential never fully realized.

[Wraith]

--"Are there any good cyberpunkish movies out there other than Blade Runner?"

Not much.

It's post-apocalyptic rather than cyberpunk, but A Boy and his Dog is worth a watch. Brazil isn't heavy on the sci-fi, but it's very much in the spirit of cyberpunk.

Do check out Max Headroom if you get the chance. Even fewer live action TV series that fit the genre.

--"Have you looked at Ghost In The Shell? "

Unless you're fond of Mamoru Oshii's style, people seem to prefer the TV series to the movies. Personally, I prefer Oshii's stuff, but that's me.

--"Ergo Proxy"

Wouldn't be my first choice, although it is the right vein. More style than substance, I feel.

Serial Experiments Lain is pretty much the cyberpunk standard-setter for anime series, though.

Texhnolyze is another good one (Chiaki Konaka loves doing cyberpunk), although it's as much Roman tragedy as it is cyberpunk. The first episode is very spare of dialogue, but it isn't that way throughout the series, so don't let that bother you.

Bubblegum Crisis is the old classic, but stick with the original and pretend Tokyo 2040 never happened (or at least that they have nothing to do with one another, since, well, practically they don't).

It's probably not gritty enough for you, but Dennou Coil is excellent. It's more an early-stage cyberpunk setting, where things are just getting started, and the kids have adapted to the tech.

The part of Battle Angel that got animated is too short to do it justice, but Cameron is supposedly going to do a live-action adaptation of the Motorball arc. Whether or not this is something to look forward to is another question.

Oh, and an upcoming anime to consider is Despera. It's another Chiaki/ABe collaboration, although it sounds like it'll be more steampunk than cyberpunk.

Edit:

In terms of what you're looking for, Bubblegum Crisis (and the Bubblegum Crash sequel) are the closest match. Serial Experiments Lain isn't too far behind, but is definitely lighter on the action. Texhnolyze is as much in the post/transhuman style (and a rather creepy take on it) as cyberpunk, but since that's in your interest range, it'd be a good choice.

Wraith
"I just abandoned my body. I still live here..."
-- Serial Experiments: Lain

[-Jrabbit]

Max Headroom -- "Five minutes into the future..."
I miss that wacky weirdness. Fun stuff.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Wraith

[Thoth]

"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is perhaps the greatest short short sci fi story ever written.

QFMFT.


Ellison rocks. Never mind the work he did for B5, his short stories have that ability to reach into your innermost thoughts and feelings, and then kick them in the nuts. Awesome writer, and great editor.

Ellison

[molly bloom]

I enjoyed Dark City

Very good combination of film noir themes and style and science fiction.

Not directed by a Hollywood hack, which is probably why it was enjoyable.

[Lorizael]

That's science, it has nothing to do with transhumanism. Transhumanists believe in technological advancement increasing exponentially with no bound until at some arbitrary point human society magically transcends its current form. That is silly. Transhumanist visions of the future are weird by definition, because they are based on the idea that regular people have all been murdered by computers or transformed into superintelligent beings or whatever. Not human enough for Hollywood, and not cheap enough for risktakers.

SP

I'm sorry, but you're simply wrong. That's not Transhumanist philosophy. Read some of their literature some day instead of just listening to their wackos. Transhumanists want to eliminate death, because they believe it is a "disease," they want humans to adapt to alien environments, and they want humans to achieve "higher" levels of consciousness, whatever that means. What you're talking about is belief in the technological singularity, which is not universal amongst transhumanists, and which does not necessarily include cataclysmically fatal events.

[Lorizael]

Watched Strange Days with the girlfriend last night. It had interesting but not fully fleshed out SF elements and was mostly a pretty transparent allegory of the Rodney King riots. It was pretty decently done, though. I liked Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, and we both liked Angela Bassett's legs.

[BeBMan]

All you need is Stargate. Great stories, characters and dialogues.

[Blaupanzer]

I'm sorry, but you're simply wrong. That's not Transhumanist philosophy. Read some of their literature some day instead of just listening to their wackos. Transhumanists want to eliminate death, because they believe it is a "disease," they want humans to adapt to alien environments, and they want humans to achieve "higher" levels of consciousness ... What you're talking about is belief in the technological singularity, which is not universal amongst transhumanists, and does not necessarily include cataclysmically fatal events.

I agree that some transhumanist concepts can be hard to understand, but most advocates are hardly believers in any mass death, mass transfer scenarios. Most, instead, advocate physical modifications, gene modifications, and psychiatric adjustments to extend lives and adapt bodies to new environments. Those concepts would be hard to reflect in movies as providing dramatic tension. Mental stuff almost always works better in books than in visual mediums.

As to post-humanism, movie audiences haven't responded well to humans as different forms. Easier to work with imagined aliens than to postulate the forms and structures of those beyond life. However, I did see a recent TV movie in which the dead guy supervised his own death investigation through an upload jumpiing around on the web. Much corporate interplay when the "dead" boss shows up as a still thinking being. (Note that Max Headroom was a "dead" but still learning internet form as well.

[Guynemer]

Would "Snow Crash" and "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson be classified as cyberpunk?


I just started The Diamond Age a few days ago, and thus far it is, far and away, my favorite Stephenson novel (having read Cryptonomicon, all of the Baroque Cycle, Snow Crash, and Anathem thus far).

[Lorizael]

They're generally classified as postcyberpunk. It's true that cyberpunk as a genre really only existed for about a decade or so.

I guess I'm more looking for SF with cybernetics and not necessarily cyberpunk.

[Fve Crathva]

I'm sorry, but you're simply wrong. That's not Transhumanist philosophy. Read some of their literature some day instead of just listening to their wackos. Transhumanists want to eliminate death, because they believe it is a "disease," they want humans to adapt to alien environments, and they want humans to achieve "higher" levels of consciousness, whatever that means. What you're talking about is belief in the technological singularity, which is not universal amongst transhumanists, and which does not necessarily include cataclysmically fatal events.

Transhumanism: religion for the deophobic.

SP