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"How to make neuromancer into a tv show/movie" is one of my favorite idle past-times, and for a long time, I used to think about how it would have to be updated

"How to make neuromancer into a tv show/movie" is one of my favorite idle past-times, and for a long time, I used to think about how it would have to be updated to make sense with current technology, but after playing Cyberpunk 2077, I think they should fully commit to retro-futurism, and keep everything _exactly as it is in the book_, and just make it the future as seen from 1983, banks of pay phones and all. I just don't think there's any way to update the technology and keep the story as it was written coherent, and I don't think it's necessary.

AlanYx 3y ago
I don't think the phone scene at the Istanbul airport is particularly anachronistic, even now. (Cue Phoebe Bridgers' song "Kyoto": "They still got payphones") The challenge for the showrunners is probably more that that scene was already done in one of the Matrix movies. Neuromancer was so original and has been so influential in so much mainstream media that playing it straight might feel derivative in some way.
ctparker 3y ago
BBC created a two part radio drama of neuromancer back in 2003. It disappeared from the BBC web site in 2011 but finally popped up online again. https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/197833/105798 https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/197833/105798
- MilkwoodSF 3y ago
  Here too: https://youtu.be/S89BHnaxULo?si=TUnjHGLt95UvC7UA https://youtu.be/S89BHnaxULo?si=TUnjHGLt95UvC7UA
ethbr1 3y ago
The other problem with updating it is that the future it was predicated on is mostly lost in mainstream. Sure, the Sprawl trilogy has looming megacorporations, but fundamentally the Matrix is still a democratic, standardized, and free communication medium, open to use by all. Those megacorporations are simply islands in a much more vast net. In contrast, modern computing reality is much more defined by walled gardens: Apple+Android devices, Meta, Microsoft Office, Discord. To the extent that "doing what you want in the dangerous corners of the net" is an alien concept to younger folks.

AlanYx 3y ago

I don't think the phone scene at the Istanbul airport is particularly anachronistic, even now. (Cue Phoebe Bridgers' song "Kyoto": "They still got payphones") The challenge for the showrunners is probably more that that scene was already done in one of the Matrix movies. Neuromancer was so original and has been so influential in so much mainstream media that playing it straight might feel derivative in some way.

ctparker 3y ago

BBC created a two part radio drama of neuromancer back in 2003. It disappeared from the BBC web site in 2011 but finally popped up online again. https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/197833/105798 https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/197833/105798

MilkwoodSF 3y ago
Here too: https://youtu.be/S89BHnaxULo?si=TUnjHGLt95UvC7UA https://youtu.be/S89BHnaxULo?si=TUnjHGLt95UvC7UA

ethbr1 3y ago

The other problem with updating it is that the future it was predicated on is mostly lost in mainstream. Sure, the Sprawl trilogy has looming megacorporations, but fundamentally the Matrix is still a democratic, standardized, and free communication medium, open to use by all. Those megacorporations are simply islands in a much more vast net. In contrast, modern computing reality is much more defined by walled gardens: Apple+Android devices, Meta, Microsoft Office, Discord. To the extent that "doing what you want in the dangerous corners of the net" is an alien concept to younger folks.