Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/28/neuromancer-tv-show-greenlit-at-apple-tv.html
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Neuromancer is the palimpsest for so many films from the ‘90s!
Apple TV have a tendency to make things look great and, at least where I am, they tend to have the best quality.
Particularly seeing as Amazon, home to the most recent Gibson adaptation the Peripheral, are going to start charging extra for their best quality.
Hey also have a far better hit rate in their shows. Amazon rarely has something watchable.
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Just don’t give Robert Longo a second chance at any more of Gibson’s material.
Please.
Seriously.
(still a fave for family movie night, but we watch it ironically)
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William Gibson’s short story Johnny Mnemonic, which is a prequel to Neuromancer, was adapted into a film starring Keanu Reeves.
The Matrix came four years later.
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Honestly, I read and re-read and re-reread the three novels, and I am deeply conflicted if they should be made into anything else but the novels.
IMO, the language Gibson used has many visual elements, but it is mostly not descriptive in a visual sense. It creates an almost abstract visual representation in my mind, constantly shifting. I think any other medium than words is going to kill that iridescent, translucent quality l like the books for.
OTH, that shifting quality of the imagination makes it almost irresistible to imagine it as a movie. I want to watch this. But I don’t want it to be made, so I can’t get Disappointed. (Capital D.)
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I’m just sad it will be on Apple so I’ll never watch it. I can’t be dealing with the balkanisation of TV the VOD channels have brought about.
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You don’t have to watch it, you know…
I know exactly what you mean, though. I almost never want adaptions of my favourite media. Not just because it collapses the wave function of my imagination but also because reading something is very personal. I don’t want to share it with the movie-going public. Even if I know that countless people have read Neuromancer, somehow talking about it as a book is not as bad as talking about it as a TV series. At least I’m talking to people who have invested significant time and effort in the same thing I have, and not just stumbled across it on their TV’s home screen?
That said, I had the same feelings when I heard some Kiwi director was taking a stab at LotR. And that was a triumph
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I’m sure it won’t be a celebration and justification of all our current enshittified technology…
Umm… counter point…
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Yeah, I’m afraid of the recurring disappointment, but peering through my fingers in hope…
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I am probably in the small percentage of BBers who have never read Neuromancer. Should I?
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I get that more because you can’t find films any more. I just expect them to not be there so I hoist the Jolly Roger.
You can ditch any other service you have and get Apple for a month or two. If this comes out I will definitely get Apple for a month or two to watch it.
Then ditch Apple. TV shows I tend to watch close to when they come out or not at all. I still watch films from any decade.
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Yeah, you probably should. But maybe start with the short stories in Burning Chrome
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Maybe? Lots of interesting thoughts and perspectives about how technology and humans shape each other, but the characters themselves are kinda flat. Plenty of vibrant interesting flow and vivid imagery, but a storyline that is somehow at once too brief and also confusing.
I like it a lot, and I can also see why other people don’t.
It’s not a long read - 250-ish quite-easily-digested pages, so it’s not a huge commitment.
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ive found a lot of apple “prestige” shows to be just so… ponderous.
they’re shot well, have good acting, excellent lighting. but dear god, where is my 1.75 playback speed? i don’t need to see someone stare into the distance for ten minutes to communicate a passing emotion.
breathing. we all do it. i don’t need it on screen.
amazon shows, while completely hit or miss in terms of writing and production quality, seem to at least respect the time i have to be sitting on my couch
sigh can’t win i guess.
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Burning Chrome, Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive are kind of the ur-text of cyberpunk. There are other great authors in the genre, like Bruce Sterling and Walter John Williams, but if you only read one of them, Gibson is probably the top pick.
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Sure. It’s fine. I personally didn’t find it ground breaking, but I might have had I read it when it first came out… the cyberpunk tropes are so well worn at this point (I guess I read it 5 or 6 years ago) that it seemed kind of what you’d expect… Gibson is a solid writer, entertaining and thoughtful…
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How does it compare to Snow Crash?
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As much as I love this book—which is a lot—I feel as if the moment to adapt it to the screen has long since passed. At this point, any adaptation is going to feel retrofuturistic and kitschy.
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