6 ms·

Apple Orders 'Neuromancer' Series

82 points by ortusdux 3y ago

catchnear4321 3y ago
would be a missed opportunity to not somehow tie in the headset.
- bni 3y ago
  That would be super lame. There are no VR headsets in Neuromancer. Its headband and electrodes, connected to something that I imagine resembling an Amiga 500 form factor.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
At this point I'm expecting a kind of retro vibe. Big chunky decks either beige or gray....
- more_corn 3y ago
  Maybe some TOS style blinkenlights…
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  The challenge is to avoid cribbing from Blade Runner, or modern popular works influenced by it (such as Cyberpunk 2077 - whose original tabletop game Cyberpunk 2020 was in the same wave of '80s cyberpunk). Gibson hadn't yet seen the film when he wrote the book!
  - steve1977 3y ago
    According to Wikipedia, Gibson did see Blade Runner and even rewrote substantial parts of Neuromancer due to that. https://web.archive.org/web/20070926221513/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.asp#90199532 https://web.archive.org/web/20070926221513/http://www.willia...
- duskwuff 3y ago
  It'd almost have to be. The Sprawl novels were a product of the 1980s; the fragments of backstory we're given imply that the Cold War continued for decades longer than it actually did (and went "hot" at least once in a nuclear exchange over Germany), and that Japan became the world's dominant superpower rather than the US. It'd be exceptionally difficult to remove these elements from the story and rebase it on the world's actual history without losing a lot of the flavor of the story.
  - jhbadger 3y ago
    >Japan became the world's dominant superpower rather than the US. According to Gibson himself, the US itself no longer exists as a country in the Sprawl novels. I never noticed it from reading them, but apparently the only person who mentions the US as a country is Armitage/Corto, who is a generation or two older than the other characters, and even he is just talking about it in the context of "the war" the other characters were too young for.
    - duskwuff 3y ago
      Huh. I never noticed that before, but you're right. Do you happen to know if Gibson ever explained what happened to the US, or is that left as an intriguing blank spot?
      - jhbadger 3y ago
        I'm trying to find the interview where he talked about that it that I read a decade or so ago, but as I recall, he said that his idea (which wasn't actually stated in the books) was after the brief WWIII, the US was demilitarized and broken up into smaller states, of which the "Sprawl" (the urbanized US East Coast from Boston down to Atlanta) was one of.
- bmordue 3y ago
  Maniac (Netflix) nailed the retro-techno-cool vibe for me.
more_corn 3y ago
Better to have picked up Peripheral.
- vidarh 3y ago
  The Peripheral is already on Prime.
  - mark242 3y ago
    It got cancelled after season 1 -- we never actually got to the end of the book.
    - MattPalmer1086 3y ago
      I didn't get to the end of the book when reading it! Loved his earlier work, found his later stuff tedious for some reason.
  - snowfield 3y ago
    Sadly cancelled
  - themadturk 3y ago
    And as enjoyable as the show was, it deviated a lot from the book.
  - unculture 3y ago
    It’s been cancelled, sadly.
itg 3y ago
Kind of cautious considering Apple's adaption of Asimov's Foundation.
ViktorRay 3y ago
Some irony here in Apple (wealthiest corporation in history and also a gigantic tech company) being involved in adapting the quintessential cyberpunk novel considering the themes the cyberpunk genre revolve around. But I guess you could say the irony is perhaps very fitting. Cyberpunk indeed
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  The main irony I find is that '80s cyberpunk envisioned net tech to be the province of outlaws and daredevil dreamers, with the antagonist corporate giants often being shadowy faceless monoliths resembling Japanese zaibatsu or IBM or Ma Bell, but the present moment is dominated by very consumer-friendly-presenting, bubbly-UX FAANGs. Instead of outright cold and imposing Tyrell Corporation pyramid dystopia you have cheeky customer service chatbot landing page dystopia. Definitely not the tone that Neuromancer was invoking, though I suppose by the time post-cyberpunk came about with Stephenson's works, the portrayal of the megacorps got more customer-facing.
  - Gud 3y ago
    The mega tech corporations are still developing. Gibsons vision can still come true.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      Nah, his stories take place on the desperate fringes beyond the reach of middle class consumerism. But in the real world, megacorps have to at least act like OCP from Robocop and appeal to the average Joe watching TV at home.
  - beaugunderson 3y ago
    Your mention of zaibatsu reminded me of another Gibson adaptation, New Rose Hotel. Check it out if you want to hear Christopher Walken say "zaibatsu".
- steve1977 3y ago
  I had pretty much the same words in mind for a comment (to an almost creepy degree).
rixrax 3y ago
While I want to be really excited about this, I am already terrified they'll give it a 'Foundation' treatment. E.g. take a great book, and then sort of re-write it while re-using some names and elements from the original. Or the Sho-Gun treatment, where you take another great book, and turn it into visually beautiful, but soulless pseudo-reproduction of the book that lacks exactly the depth that made the book great. So please Apple, give it a Lord of the Rings treatment. Or even Hobbit. Pretty please!
- huytersd 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - sp332 3y ago
    In the book, two of the crew members on the heist are women (out of 6, if you include the Dixie Flatline's brain-in-a-box).
  - mark242 3y ago
    This is how we all know you never read the book.
    - gpderetta 3y ago
      Steppin' Razor is a way more memorable character than Case.
    - huytersd 3y ago
      I actually did a long time ago. I did a full read through of Gibson’s major works at some point. My comment generally applies to a lot of adaptions though, if not this one specifically.
- rfarley04 3y ago
  It makes me so so happy to hear someone else complain about what they've done with Foundation. Considering the ratings (both from critics and audiences) I've seen, I was starting to question if I actually read Foundation or something else because the show is NOTHING like the books. It's not all bad per se, but just give it another name because they have nothing in common.
nickthegreek 3y ago
Apple Originals have been pretty good with the scifi. I found Silo, For All Mankind, Monarch, Severance, Hello Tomorrow and See to be some of the best scifi being produced. So I feel like this might be in good hands. I also personally enjoy Foundation, but I know that take is a bit more controversial.
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  Check out Extrapolations, even if it's talky and at times preachy.
  - joshka 3y ago
    The problem with Extrapolations is that it's really a watch a single time series. Despite how good it was, I don't think I could sit through that twice.
- Cyberdog 3y ago
  I wonder why Apple seems to be having far better luck with consistent quality than Netflix, who just laid another egg with their Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation. You'd think Netflix would have better connections and much more experience given their longer history and dominant status in the field. What is Apple doing that Netflix isn't?
  - jkestner 3y ago
    Maybe giving the creators more rein and budget, because they’re a cash-rich underdog. Netflix isn’t that now.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Apple doesn't as desperately need a big stable of first-party content. They've other revenue streams, they're not losing a bunch of third-party content, and I suspect most of their subs come in via Apple One (Apple Music, iCloud, etc.) package deals rather than direct.
  - smugma 3y ago
Apocryphon 3y ago
Where's Joe Cornish's Snow Crash adaptation, Paramount?!?
frankfrank13 3y ago
I didn't love Peripheral (although that was Amazon). I disliked Foundation. I disliked WOT, and Amazon LOTR. I don't think I will watch this. I would consider all of Gibson's books as must reads, if anyone is interested my reading order is: 1. Pattern Recognition 2. Neuromancer 3. Burning Chrome 4. rest of Nueromancer trilogy 5. rest of Blue ant 6. and then take your pick on the last 2 trilogies (Jackpot #3 is not out yet though) Neuromancer is one of the coolest depictions of the "metaverse" I've ever read, one that still inspires me to think about today!
- fouc 3y ago
  Interesting, when I was a teen I read all of his pre-2000 fiction within a period of 6 months maybe? Neuromancer, Count Zero, Burning Chrome, Mona Lisa Overdrive, The Difference Engine. Virtual Light, Johnny Mnemonic, Idoru. After that I lost my taste for it almost completely. The novelty factor wore off. I keep meaning to re-read again someday to check if I still feel the same way.
  - MattPalmer1086 3y ago
    Yeah, I read pretty much the same stuff, then found I really didn't like his newer work anymore. I actually didn't finish The Peripheral, and I mostly do finish things I start. Maybe I'll have a look at the older stuff again one day too.
  - frankfrank13 3y ago
    I highly recommend Blue Ant trilogy! Its very different though
- ortusdux 3y ago
  WOT was insulting.
- cchance 3y ago
  So you hate most big budget tv lol, like i liked all 4 of those lol The "if its not like the book it sucks" crowd is literally making TV so difficult to get honest reviews of shows.... as shows and not as "it's not my imagination come to life"
mullingitover 3y ago
I'm enjoying the hell out of the Foundation series, and the first couple episodes of Shogun have been great. I'll probably love Neuromancer as well. The trick to enjoying film/TV adaptations of books is to never read the books beforehand.
pjbster 3y ago
However lavish or detailed or faithful to the Gibson Vibe this adaptation turns out to be, it will live or die on its realisation of Molly Millions, the baddest badass take-no-shit progenitor of Lisbeth Salander, Lara Croft, and The Bride.
- themadturk 3y ago
  If they do a good job with Molly, they need to immediately pick up Mona Lisa Overdrive.
thwarted 3y ago
"Soon to be a major motion picture by Cabana Boy Productions" Anyone else remember this from the computer magazine ads from the Necromancer C64 game?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jurassicfoxy 3y ago
People are going to complain "This Neuromancer story totally rips off the Matrix!", before realizing the order of operations.
ThinkBeat 3y ago
I cant say I will be looking forward to this. Apple cant make dark and gritty, and this will require that. As well as a lot of independent artistic creativity to bring the book to life.
drcongo 3y ago
Previous discussion from 2022, not sure why Variety thinks this is news now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018327
Chiba-City 3y ago
[dead]
catchnear4321 3y ago
it will be over-sexed and dumbed down. flashy, but losing steam every episode, until you start the next one to find the “very important sex scene” just a couple of minutes in. yes yes, monkeys have sex, but don’t pretend the ratios are accurate or even meaningful. it’s wank, simple as. just like foundation. monkeys, calm down, not everything is sex or food or both. you’re teaching the models absolute nonsense.

82 points by ortusdux 3y ago

catchnear4321 3y ago

would be a missed opportunity to not somehow tie in the headset.

bni 3y ago
That would be super lame. There are no VR headsets in Neuromancer. Its headband and electrodes, connected to something that I imagine resembling an Amiga 500 form factor.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

At this point I'm expecting a kind of retro vibe. Big chunky decks either beige or gray....

more_corn 3y ago
Maybe some TOS style blinkenlights…
Apocryphon 3y ago
The challenge is to avoid cribbing from Blade Runner, or modern popular works influenced by it (such as Cyberpunk 2077 - whose original tabletop game Cyberpunk 2020 was in the same wave of '80s cyberpunk). Gibson hadn't yet seen the film when he wrote the book!
- steve1977 3y ago
  According to Wikipedia, Gibson did see Blade Runner and even rewrote substantial parts of Neuromancer due to that. https://web.archive.org/web/20070926221513/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2003_01_01_archive.asp#90199532 https://web.archive.org/web/20070926221513/http://www.willia...
duskwuff 3y ago
It'd almost have to be. The Sprawl novels were a product of the 1980s; the fragments of backstory we're given imply that the Cold War continued for decades longer than it actually did (and went "hot" at least once in a nuclear exchange over Germany), and that Japan became the world's dominant superpower rather than the US. It'd be exceptionally difficult to remove these elements from the story and rebase it on the world's actual history without losing a lot of the flavor of the story.
- jhbadger 3y ago
  >Japan became the world's dominant superpower rather than the US. According to Gibson himself, the US itself no longer exists as a country in the Sprawl novels. I never noticed it from reading them, but apparently the only person who mentions the US as a country is Armitage/Corto, who is a generation or two older than the other characters, and even he is just talking about it in the context of "the war" the other characters were too young for.
  - duskwuff 3y ago
    Huh. I never noticed that before, but you're right. Do you happen to know if Gibson ever explained what happened to the US, or is that left as an intriguing blank spot?
    - jhbadger 3y ago
      I'm trying to find the interview where he talked about that it that I read a decade or so ago, but as I recall, he said that his idea (which wasn't actually stated in the books) was after the brief WWIII, the US was demilitarized and broken up into smaller states, of which the "Sprawl" (the urbanized US East Coast from Boston down to Atlanta) was one of.
bmordue 3y ago
Maniac (Netflix) nailed the retro-techno-cool vibe for me.

more_corn 3y ago

Better to have picked up Peripheral.

vidarh 3y ago
The Peripheral is already on Prime.
- mark242 3y ago
  It got cancelled after season 1 -- we never actually got to the end of the book.
  - MattPalmer1086 3y ago
    I didn't get to the end of the book when reading it! Loved his earlier work, found his later stuff tedious for some reason.
- snowfield 3y ago
  Sadly cancelled
- themadturk 3y ago
  And as enjoyable as the show was, it deviated a lot from the book.
- unculture 3y ago
  It’s been cancelled, sadly.

itg 3y ago

Kind of cautious considering Apple's adaption of Asimov's Foundation.

ViktorRay 3y ago

Some irony here in Apple (wealthiest corporation in history and also a gigantic tech company) being involved in adapting the quintessential cyberpunk novel considering the themes the cyberpunk genre revolve around. But I guess you could say the irony is perhaps very fitting. Cyberpunk indeed

Apocryphon 3y ago
The main irony I find is that '80s cyberpunk envisioned net tech to be the province of outlaws and daredevil dreamers, with the antagonist corporate giants often being shadowy faceless monoliths resembling Japanese zaibatsu or IBM or Ma Bell, but the present moment is dominated by very consumer-friendly-presenting, bubbly-UX FAANGs. Instead of outright cold and imposing Tyrell Corporation pyramid dystopia you have cheeky customer service chatbot landing page dystopia. Definitely not the tone that Neuromancer was invoking, though I suppose by the time post-cyberpunk came about with Stephenson's works, the portrayal of the megacorps got more customer-facing.
- Gud 3y ago
  The mega tech corporations are still developing. Gibsons vision can still come true.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    Nah, his stories take place on the desperate fringes beyond the reach of middle class consumerism. But in the real world, megacorps have to at least act like OCP from Robocop and appeal to the average Joe watching TV at home.
- beaugunderson 3y ago
  Your mention of zaibatsu reminded me of another Gibson adaptation, New Rose Hotel. Check it out if you want to hear Christopher Walken say "zaibatsu".
steve1977 3y ago
I had pretty much the same words in mind for a comment (to an almost creepy degree).

rixrax 3y ago

While I want to be really excited about this, I am already terrified they'll give it a 'Foundation' treatment. E.g. take a great book, and then sort of re-write it while re-using some names and elements from the original. Or the Sho-Gun treatment, where you take another great book, and turn it into visually beautiful, but soulless pseudo-reproduction of the book that lacks exactly the depth that made the book great. So please Apple, give it a Lord of the Rings treatment. Or even Hobbit. Pretty please!

huytersd 3y ago
[flagged]
- sp332 3y ago
  In the book, two of the crew members on the heist are women (out of 6, if you include the Dixie Flatline's brain-in-a-box).
- mark242 3y ago
  This is how we all know you never read the book.
  - gpderetta 3y ago
    Steppin' Razor is a way more memorable character than Case.
  - huytersd 3y ago
    I actually did a long time ago. I did a full read through of Gibson’s major works at some point. My comment generally applies to a lot of adaptions though, if not this one specifically.
rfarley04 3y ago
It makes me so so happy to hear someone else complain about what they've done with Foundation. Considering the ratings (both from critics and audiences) I've seen, I was starting to question if I actually read Foundation or something else because the show is NOTHING like the books. It's not all bad per se, but just give it another name because they have nothing in common.

nickthegreek 3y ago

Apple Originals have been pretty good with the scifi. I found Silo, For All Mankind, Monarch, Severance, Hello Tomorrow and See to be some of the best scifi being produced. So I feel like this might be in good hands. I also personally enjoy Foundation, but I know that take is a bit more controversial.

Apocryphon 3y ago
Check out Extrapolations, even if it's talky and at times preachy.
- joshka 3y ago
  The problem with Extrapolations is that it's really a watch a single time series. Despite how good it was, I don't think I could sit through that twice.
Cyberdog 3y ago
I wonder why Apple seems to be having far better luck with consistent quality than Netflix, who just laid another egg with their Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation. You'd think Netflix would have better connections and much more experience given their longer history and dominant status in the field. What is Apple doing that Netflix isn't?
- jkestner 3y ago
  Maybe giving the creators more rein and budget, because they’re a cash-rich underdog. Netflix isn’t that now.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Apple doesn't as desperately need a big stable of first-party content. They've other revenue streams, they're not losing a bunch of third-party content, and I suspect most of their subs come in via Apple One (Apple Music, iCloud, etc.) package deals rather than direct.
- smugma 3y ago

Apocryphon 3y ago

Where's Joe Cornish's Snow Crash adaptation, Paramount?!?

frankfrank13 3y ago

I didn't love Peripheral (although that was Amazon). I disliked Foundation. I disliked WOT, and Amazon LOTR. I don't think I will watch this. I would consider all of Gibson's books as must reads, if anyone is interested my reading order is: 1. Pattern Recognition 2. Neuromancer 3. Burning Chrome 4. rest of Nueromancer trilogy 5. rest of Blue ant 6. and then take your pick on the last 2 trilogies (Jackpot #3 is not out yet though) Neuromancer is one of the coolest depictions of the "metaverse" I've ever read, one that still inspires me to think about today!

fouc 3y ago
Interesting, when I was a teen I read all of his pre-2000 fiction within a period of 6 months maybe? Neuromancer, Count Zero, Burning Chrome, Mona Lisa Overdrive, The Difference Engine. Virtual Light, Johnny Mnemonic, Idoru. After that I lost my taste for it almost completely. The novelty factor wore off. I keep meaning to re-read again someday to check if I still feel the same way.
- MattPalmer1086 3y ago
  Yeah, I read pretty much the same stuff, then found I really didn't like his newer work anymore. I actually didn't finish The Peripheral, and I mostly do finish things I start. Maybe I'll have a look at the older stuff again one day too.
- frankfrank13 3y ago
  I highly recommend Blue Ant trilogy! Its very different though
ortusdux 3y ago
WOT was insulting.
cchance 3y ago
So you hate most big budget tv lol, like i liked all 4 of those lol The "if its not like the book it sucks" crowd is literally making TV so difficult to get honest reviews of shows.... as shows and not as "it's not my imagination come to life"

mullingitover 3y ago

I'm enjoying the hell out of the Foundation series, and the first couple episodes of Shogun have been great. I'll probably love Neuromancer as well. The trick to enjoying film/TV adaptations of books is to never read the books beforehand.

pjbster 3y ago

However lavish or detailed or faithful to the Gibson Vibe this adaptation turns out to be, it will live or die on its realisation of Molly Millions, the baddest badass take-no-shit progenitor of Lisbeth Salander, Lara Croft, and The Bride.

themadturk 3y ago
If they do a good job with Molly, they need to immediately pick up Mona Lisa Overdrive.

thwarted 3y ago

"Soon to be a major motion picture by Cabana Boy Productions" Anyone else remember this from the computer magazine ads from the Necromancer C64 game?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jurassicfoxy 3y ago

People are going to complain "This Neuromancer story totally rips off the Matrix!", before realizing the order of operations.

ThinkBeat 3y ago

I cant say I will be looking forward to this. Apple cant make dark and gritty, and this will require that. As well as a lot of independent artistic creativity to bring the book to life.

drcongo 3y ago

Previous discussion from 2022, not sure why Variety thinks this is news now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018327

Chiba-City 3y ago

[dead]

catchnear4321 3y ago

it will be over-sexed and dumbed down. flashy, but losing steam every episode, until you start the next one to find the “very important sex scene” just a couple of minutes in. yes yes, monkeys have sex, but don’t pretend the ratios are accurate or even meaningful. it’s wank, simple as. just like foundation. monkeys, calm down, not everything is sex or food or both. you’re teaching the models absolute nonsense.