Overview: After reading the graphic novels, I thought I was ready for the movie. Unfortunately, Hollywood decided to “tweak” certain elements until there’s little left resembling the books. Not that ink-on-single-colors would work for a live-action film, but they could have left the action in Georgia instead of moving it to Boston, and leaving Greer (Harvey, not John) as a city detective as opposed to an FBI agent. While some “tweaking” might not have hurt, totally deviating from the books doesn’t. This could probably be traced to the trio of Mostow, Ferris, and Brancato, who were also behind the train-wreck of Terminator 3.
The good news is the message remained intact.
The Story: In a near future (no exact year given), humans spend all their time at home jacked into stem-chairs while piloting their surrogates, robotic avatars that interact in the real world now abandoned by humanity.
Two surrogates are destroyed by a mag-pulse type weapon. The destruction kills the operators, one of whom is the son of the surrogate’s inventor. FBI agent Greer searches for the weapon and is lead to the walled “Dread Nation” where his surrogate is destroyed by the anti-surrogate group. He continues without it as he probes deeper into a conspiracy that involves the military, Virtual Self Inc., the company behind the surrogate phenomenon, and the surrogate inventor, Dr. Cantor.
William Shatner, you are not.
What else went wrong? Another problem, other than the deviation from the books, is the look of the movie. Other than scenes showing the stem-chairs and a couple of scenes showing the “central control” of the surrogate grid, it is virtually impossible to tell if it is 2053 or 2009. Having live actors playing the robotic roles only adds to the confusion, though there were times where they not only looked like robots, but acted like robots. That was a surprisingly interesting touch.
… And the message? You can hear just as the movie starts: Does living life through a surrogate mean you’re actually living? Does being a robot make you less of a human? Have you been so plugged into your surrogate that you can’t unplug? And once you are unplugged… then what?
Those kind of questions about humanity being (over)connected to technology are what cyberpunk writers and fans have been asking since William Gibson’s first draft of Neuromancer.
Conclusion: If you’ve already read the books, the movie may only disappoint you with how far off it is. Bruce Willis fans and fans of action films may get a kick out Surrogates. Cyberpunk fans should find the message familiar, though you would be better off with the books.
“Holy father, I pray that you keep Jonathan Mostow, Michael Ferris, and John D. Brancato from ever making another cyberpunk movie, lest they cause the universe to collapse on itself.”
“We had such potential. Such promise. But we squandered our gifts. And so, 9, I am creating you. Our world is ending. Life must go on. “
Overview: Tim Burton sees Shane Acker’s short and helps to make it a feature length move about 9 robotic rag dolls, a.k.a. the “stitchpunks,” who are left to fight the machines that exterminated humanity. Together, the stitchpunks must find a way to pull the plug on the nightmare creations (without John Connor’s help) that have turned their attention to the them.
The story of 9 may not be the most complex, but the straight-forward approach does work with the CGI effects, though the backstory of how the world got into the sorry shape it is in helps makes the doll’s fight more relevant.
The Story: In an unnamed country, a scientist creates the B.R.A.I.N., an AI that was supposed to help humanity. But the country’s chancellor forces the scientist to install the B.R.A.I.N. in a fabrication machine, which is used to create machines of war. The machine rebels and launches a massive war that exterminates humanity. The scientist, the last human left, creates the 9 “stitchpunks” (Acker’s name for the rag doll-bots) and infuses them with a “life force.” When 9 is complete, the scientist dies, leaving it to find the other stitchpunks in their quest to stop the machines.
A stitchpunk in time saves… 1 through 8. The other stitchpunks he finds are: #1 - the “leader” of the group, who shows much cynicism regarding 9’s plans to rescue #2, the inventor of the group who gets captured early on.
Numbers 3 and 4 are twins who hide out in a library. Through them, we learn of the machine’s war against humanity.
5 is a journeyman who was trained by 2. He is missing an eye due an attack during the war.
6 can probably be best described as an “artist” whose paintings are clues about the machines.
7 is the only female in the group. An agile warrior who wears a bird’s skull as a helmet.
8 is a big but dumb brute who acts as 1’s bodyguard. He give a slight clue that the stitchpunks may be robotic when he uses a magnet near his head like a mind-altering drug.
But, is it cyberpunk? Some might question if 9 is cyberpunk enough to review here, but from what I’ve seen (and from the definition on this site), there’s enough to make it cyberpunk; The negative impact of technology (the machine revolt), the man-machine fusion (the scientist transferring his life force to the stitchpunks), the underground (stitchpunks), and the visual style (the post-apocalypse scene and darkness occasionally punctured by light). The only things missing are the access to information and the control over society, though the machine threat could cover the control aspect. Can this be called steampunk? Possibly, though no signs of steam-power is immediately seen. Can this be called “stitchpunk?” Only the doll-bots should be called that.
Conclusion: Those looking for a deep storyline are going to be disappointed. Those who prefer bleeding-edge eye-candy will have a ball with 9. Those looking for a good cyberpunk movie, this should hold you… until Surrogates hits the screens next week.
Overview. At first glance, Gamer would seem to be about first-person shooters (FPSs) taken to new extremes… and the people who play them. Beneath all the explosions, spent bullet casings, and piles of fragged corpses, there’s a story about how one man is using nanotechnology for more than just sick entertainment. While the concept of technology to control humanity is nothing new to cyberpunk, how it is being used to that end in this movie may make you look at Quake and Unreal Tournament (and maybe The Sims series and Second Life) differently.
The Story. Ken Castle is the mastermind behind Nanex, the nanotechnology that fuses to human neurons in the brain to effectively control it. With this level of control, one person can make a Nanex-infused human his/her personal meatbot-slave. This results in the creation of the two largest, most successful live-action MMORPGs: Society, a Sims style RPG, and Slayers, the FPS where convicted death-row inmates fight to survive thirty matches where they win their freedom.
Kable, convicted of murder and separated from his wife and daughter, has won 26 matches already, thanks in part to his “controller” Simon. Kable has become a virtual god worshiped by the world, while Simon has become a rock star equivalent. But as Kable closes in on his 30th victory, a hacker group called the Humanz inform the duo that Kable’s appearance in Slayers is no accident as he hold information that can bring Castle’s empire down.
“This is not something you can control. It ain’t just a game, we’re all slaves.”
Who’s playing you? The potential danger of Nanex becomes all too obvious near the end of the movie, with Castle seeking godlike status. The immediate problems can be seen as Angie (Kable’s wife) is often seen as a Society meatbot to a controller who… let’s just say that which once seen cannot be unseen.
Kable: “You pull all the strings around here.”
Castle: “I think it, you do it.”
As if to drive the point of control home, you should see the “Under My Skin” scene with Castle and some of this personal meatbots doing a little song and dance for visiting Kable, a’ la West Side Story.
Also worth noting: The contrast of the bright neon-and-flesh colors of Society vs. the blood-drenched gray war zones of Slayers.
Conclusion. Some people might love watching meatbots fight for their freedom. Some might be turned away from the movie’s explosive (literally) battle scenes. But if you look past the blasts, you can see how it makes for a pretty good cyberpunk film.
And if you don’t think meatbots are possible, you should take a quick look at this article from 2006…
Lead Slave Hunter/Labor Camp Guard/Slave: Aidar Sydykov
Slave Hunters: Yerbol Zimanov & Yerbol Alkhanov
Slave: Tengiz Sydykov
Labor Camp Guard: Erden Zikibay
Rating:7 out of 10
Any similarities between this and certain movies… was probably intended.
Overview: Somewhere is a budding Steven Spielberg, Riddley Scott, Cecil B. DeMille, or Laszlo Kovacs sitting in a classroom, secretly (or not-so-secretly) dreaming up the next Blade Runner or Matrix, or some similar mash-up of cyberpunk media. Erden Zikibay and Mohamed Talaat make their case with this cyberpunk short.
The Story: It’s mid-21st century and Earth government begins an ambitious space exploration endeavor, but getting people to join the effort proves difficult… until they revive an old institution: Slavery.
I’m going to stop it there since you are already familiar with Blade Runner (And if you’re not, WHAT THE F&^@ IS WRONG WITH YOU???). Forbidden Dreams draws heavily on Blade Runner, and to a lesser extent, The Matrix (the hunters’ outfits and shades). There’s no Roy Batty speech at the end, but a quote from Phillip K. Dick that makes the connection obvious.
Being a student film, the quality is far from the multi-megadollar Hollywood fare. But for its ten minute run, they use what they had to its best effects.
The Bottom Line: You have to give Erden and Mohamed credit: To make a low-budget version of a legendary movie takes some balls. Hopefully they got A’s for their effort.
For the rest of us, Forbidden Dream would probably be best described as the Cliffs Notes to Blade Runner: It gives you the basic idea behind BR in a ten minute snippet, but you really need to see the full movie, if only for Roy Batty’s death speech.
“I knew it. I knew it was coming. But this is not the future my mother warned me about. And in this future, I don’t know if we can win this war. This is John Connor.”
Overview: After the train wreck that was Rise of the Machines, one would think that, with “salvation” in its title, this would be a return to the glory days of Judgement Day.
Not quite there.
Note: The Star rating is based on the cyberpunk content of the movie, not it’s quality. Personally, it would only be a 4 or 5 out of 10.
Salvation is better than T3, but still falls short of T2. Maybe it’s because of the way it is presented. From the trailers one gets the impression that Salvation would be about John Connor’s rise to leadership of the the human resistance. In actuality, Connor’s rise is more of a side-story…
The Story: The movie starts in a death-row jail cell in 2003, where a murderous convict named Marcus Wright awaits execution. He is being visited by Dr. Serena Kogan who wants Wright to donate his body to “science.” Wright agrees and signs the papers (with Cyberdyne letterhead) before being put to death.
Now, it is 2018, and John Connor leads an assault on a Skynet facility. Connor’s team is exterminated while he barely escapes, but someone else manages to leave the facility after the devastation, Marcus Wright. Wright wanders the wastelands until he reaches what’s left of Los Angeles, and encounters a young teen named Kyle Reese. Meanwhile, Connor has his own problems with the current leaders of the human resistance, then learns that he is on Skynet’s hit list, number two behind Kyle Reese.
Wright tries to get help Reese find Connor, but Reese and his deaf-mute friend are captured, leaving Wright to try to find Connor and possibly find a way to save Reese. When the two finally meet, we learn that Wright isn’t human… only Wright himself doesn’t know it …
Who’s Salvation Is It Anyway? Like said before, Salvation isn’t about Connor’s or humanity’s salvation. Rather it’s about Wright’s salvation; His trial by post-nuclear fire in the robot ruled wastelands to learn that he is not a monster we are first lead to believe…
“He saved my life. I saw a man, not a machine.” - Blair Williams
After being shot down by Skynet’s forces, Blair Williams finds herself and her parachute tangled in a high-tension wire tower. Marcus finds her and helps her down to the ground. She asks if he is one of the good guys, but he says no. She tells him “You’re a good guy. You just don’t know it yet.” She soon falls in love with Wright as they travel back to Connor’s base, and even helps him escape when his mechanization is revealed.
Later, after helping Connor rescue Reese (and some other captured humans), Connor is critically hurt and needs a new heart. Wright offers his. The last words we hear from him are along the lines of “there’s something about the human heart that can’t be programmed into a chip” (Quotes are still coming in). This act of sacrifice would complete Wright’s transformation from death row douchebag to a hero for the resistance. If only the same can be said for the rest of the movie.
The Bottom Line: It’s hard to say that Salvation is bad. It’s not T3 bad, but no where near T2 level. Maybe if McG focused more on Wright’s story than Connor’s… that story would seem be more about salvation than Connor’s rise to resistance leader.
“Humans have a strength that cannot be measured. This is John Connor. If you are listening to this,you are the resistance.”
Synopsis: With Terminator: Salvation coming this Thursday, it’s time I got my review circuits ready by doing a short review of a short movie, Maya. I found this short while searching for cyberpunk music on YouTube. A vid for a song called “Organics (Slowmotion Mix)” by Evil’s Toy had a link to MetaCafe and Maya. Note: The version embedded and reviewed here is the Final Cut version.
The film starts out with Maya, decked-out in some near-future laser-tag gear, stalking a structure with some guards. She manages to take out one guard, but winds up getting shot dead, only to awaken back in reality… or what we think is reality. From there, we witness Maya “reawakening” with different outcomes, like a dream within a dream. [Obligatory “Yo, Dawg!” goes here]
While the philosophical use of VR is nothing new, this piece does make the best of its ten minutes of low-budget cyberpunk. It certainly fills a need for a shot of cyberpunk when you need more than a music video but you don’t have the appetite for a feature-length film.
BONUS TRACKS:
Here’s the video that lead me to Maya. Lady-bots and gentle-borgs, I give you German EBM band Evil’s Toy with “Organics (Slowmotion Mix).” Enjoy!
Overview: Originally, it was a made-for-TV movie that aired on ABC (who said “It makes Fatal Attraction seem like a walk in the park.”), now it makes its rounds on cable under the name Host.
I came across this little ditty a few weeks ago at a local flea market. By the way the cover looked, and the story description on the back of the case, I had the impression that this was a cyberpunk movie. After doing some research and discovering it was made by Hallmark Entertainment, VO suddenly went from possible cyberpunk movie to “chick-flick” … not what I was looking for. Still, the plot description kept nagging me to watch it. So I did…
It’s definitely a direct-to-TV-quality melodrama, but there are some undertones of cyberpunk, especially with technology redefining humanity.
Synopsis: Dr. Joe Messenger has created the ultimate super-computer to run Salt Lake City’s power grid, but “Albert” (as in “Einstein,” who appears as a holograph at times) has a greater purpose: Cameras, microphones, and other sensory-input devices from around the city… and the world… feed Albert data constantly, helping it learn about humanity. Joe is looking to create the first post-biological consciousness.
Joe hires Juliet Spring to assist him, but her life is threatened by an inoperable aneurysm. She is desperate to use Albert for a project of her own: Juliet wants to upload a human brain (hers specifically) to achieve immortality, or at least until they discover a way to operate on it while she is in cryogenic sleep. Juliet begins an affair with Joe, putting a strain on his marriage, and slowly becomes obsessed with him. Just before she dies, she uploads herself to Albert and her body is frozen. While in deep-freeze, people start making demands for her body and eventually it is destroyed (the sad finale is when Karen discovers Juliet’s head in the basement freezer and, after confronting Joe, tosses it into the street where it shatters into chunky pieces). Juliet begins using Albert’s connections to take revenge, and demands that Joe joins her in her “Eden,” going so far as threatening his family.
Fatal Attraction, fer sure! The only thing missing is the obligatory “I’m not gonna be ignored, Dan!” line. From the first time we see her during the interview at the Artificial Intelligence Center, we can tell Juliet is targeting Dr. Messenger for something. Even after her death and destruction, she is still desperate to have Joe with her.
If it wasn’t for the Lawnmower Man-like idea of uploading a consciousness into cyberspace, this would just be another psychotart-gets-wet-panties-for-cuckold film.
Now for the good parts! Fortunately, the more memorable scenes and lines in the movie deal more with the impact of technology on the meaning of humanity than on one girl’s obsession for a married man:
“We’re trying to create a new consciousness… We’re trying to crate a mind. Something aware of itself… A being that can think and choose for itself, on its own terms.”
“We’re not living in a science fiction movie, Carl. Post-biological man is to be pure intelligence. There wouldn’t be any selfish interest….”
To test Juliet’s theory, they try to upload a rat’s brain into Albert. They succeed, though the rat dies with a high-pitched shriek:
“Here’s my hypothesis. The rat brain is downloaded and at time point zero, it becomes conscious. It responds to its newborn consciousness with that sound. And somewhere between zero and 21-point-734 seconds it senses competition with the living rat, the organic rat, and kills it.”
“What if silicon consciousness is unbearable to creatures that were once alive, once organic? What if stripping the consciousness from the body is agony?”
After uploading herself to Albert and “seeing” her meat body be destroyed, Juliet undergoes some major personality changes, becoming almost god-like (or goddess-like):
“Maybe you can’t separate the body from the mind. Maybe there’s something that binds us to the flesh. Loose the body and you loose the humanity. Destroy the container and you destroy the soul.”
“Imagine what an active intelligence with spontaneous access to all of mankind’s recorded knowledge is capable of.”
What do you call a computerized brain that turns a city’s light grid into a message board? Insane in the mainframe.
Conclusion: While not the most “hard core” in terms of cyberpunk themes and visuals, there is enough cyber-transhuman philosophizing to make this made-for-TV chick-flick interesting for guys to check out… IF you have stomach for such fare.
Overview: We, who do reviews for Cyberpunk Review, sometimes feel the need to review such crappy media not only to let you know what is/is not cyberpunk, but what stuff is truly deserving of the label “crap.” Stealth is such a movie, as it attempts to be Top Gun, Firefox, and The Terminator in one overstuffed turkey. Jamie Foxx was better off behind a piano as music legend Ray Charles than he was in the cockpit of this doomed flight.
So why bother doing a review of it anyway? If you’ve seen the plot synopsis of Stealth as I have, you might have been tempted to call this cyberpunk, too:
The Story: The near future US military is engaged in a war against terrorism (still?), and they’re investigating any and all technologies to help strike the enemies heavily, quickly, and quietly. The result: The F/A-37 Talon, a multi-purpose aircraft that can out-shoot and out-fly any aircraft. Three pilots are selected out of four hundred applicants as they achieve perfect scores during a field test and are assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. There, the trio learn they will be joined by a fourth, an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) known as the Extreme Deep Infiltrator, EDI or “Eddie” as everyone calls it.
EDI is not just a UCAV; The “pilot” of EDI is a quantum computer with a highly advanced AI on a neuronal network. This gives EDI the ability to learn quickly, as the rest of the Talon squadron are initially instructed to teach what they know to it. It’s EDI’s appearance that triggers a debate about the use of robots in wars: How humans can appreciate the perils and ugliness of war, while machines can exceed human performance without being subject to the emotional baggage.
Negative impact of technology? Check. This ethical debate makes the first half of the movie a bit more interesting as we watch the EDI and Talons take on their first mission: The heads of three terrorist cells are meeting in Rangoon, and the squadron must take them out.
EDI gathers intelligence about the terrorists from satellites and even retinal scans (Ubiquitous access to information. OK.), and comes up with a way to take them out without innocent casualties. EDI is ordered to make the kill, but Gannon belays that order and makes the shot himself. While the squadron returns to the Abraham Lincoln, EDI is struck by lightning and starts to take on some human characteristics: EDI starts learning at an exponential rate, develops ethics and an ego, and even downloads all the music files from the Internet. Man-Machine fusion? Sounds like it.
Second mission: Terrorists have acquired nuclear warheads. The squadron must take them out, but the mission is aborted when it is discover the warheads cannot be destroyed without fallout causing civilian casualties. EDI attacks anyway, citing Gannon’s disobedience in the previous mission. The squadron is now ordered to escort EDI back to the Abraham Lincoln, take control of it, or shoot it out of the sky.
From there, Stealth degenerates into another cookie-cutter action movie that crashes and burns, like Purcell does when he tries to chase EDI. The debris damages Wade’s jet and forces her to return to the carrier, only to eject over North Korea, and leaves Gannon to hunt down EDI.
Nothing more to see. Well, maybe a little bit… If you’re looking for a focus on the underground, you’ll find nothing. Then again, you really can’t focus on the underground when doing Mach 5 above the Earth.
On the other hand, there is some evidence of someone trying to control society, at least the Navy anyway. Throughout the movie the carrier’s captain is seen talking on the phone to a Congressman who seems to have a vested interest in the EDI program. Also, after Gannon crash-lands in Alaska, some black-ops types try to kill him, but escapes with the help of EDI’s creator, Keith Orbit.
This is the problem in trying to call Stealth cyberpunk: The themes are there, just not enough to call it cyberpunk. And not enough to even call this dodo a “good movie.” Leave this bird on the runway, or stay within reach of the ejector button if you insist on watching.
Attention, passengers. Due to terminal crappines, this flight has been canceled PERMANENTLY! Thank you for flying Cyberpunk Review Airlines.
Don’t worry, folks. Last weekend, I came across a DVD that sounded like it was very much cyberpunk, and I have a couple of others to watch and review, with some other titles from the forums to check, so we’ll have some real cyberpunk movies for you to enjoy.
Overview: Unquestionably, A Clockwork Orange has to be among the most recognizable names of pre-cyberpunk works, invoking surrealistic images of the old ultra violence, sex done to the William Tell Overture, models of naked girls as tables and beverage dispensers, chemically induced behavior modification, the threat of Karma,… and a bit of Beethoven for good measure. It has often been cited as inspiration for cyberpunk novels, and even Rob Zombie salutes the film in his video for “Never Gonna Stop (The Red Red Kroovy).” The subject matter, while speculating about 1995 from a 1960’s view, is still surprisingly relevant for 2007. With themes of street gangs, youth against the elderly, and forced behavioral changes against free will, one can swear the movie was more recent.
But can it be called a cyberpunk movie? There’s no question about the “punk,” but in all honesty, it’s a little thin on the “cyber” since there’s no ubiquitous access to information or man-machine fusion, though Alex does undergo a “reprogramming” in a skull-cap wired to machines to monitor his vital functions. The lack of “cyber” isn’t Mr. Kubric’s or Mr. Burgess’s fault, since nobody in the 60’s could have predicted the impact of computer technology when 1995 rolled around. It still doesn’t subtract much from this piece of cinema goodness that many agree is a timeless classic.
So grab a glass of milk mixed with your narcotic of choice, pull up a naked model table, brush up on your Nadsat, and vidi well, little brothers.
The Story: Starting at the Korova Milk Bar, Alex De Large and his “droogs” tear up the streets of a future England city, beating derelicts, fighting other gangs, raising hell on the roads, invading homes, raping women, then returning to the Korova for a nightcap when we learn Alex also has an ear for Beethoven. His fun comes to an end when, during a failed home invasion. Alex kills a woman and is ambushed by his droogs, leaving him for the police to capture, convict of murder, and sentence to forty years in prison.
Two years into his sentence, Alex learns of the Ludovico treatment. He wants to volunteer, but the Prison Chaplain expresses his doubts and tries to talk Alex out of it.
“The question is whether or not this technique really makes a man good. Goodness comes from within. Goodness is chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.”
When the Minister of The Interior visits, he selects Alex for the Ludovico treatment. The treatment involves Alex being injected with an experimental serum and made to watch videos of violence and rape, where the serum causes unexpected results.
Dr. Brodsky (During Alex’s first “treatment”): “Very soon now, the drug will cause the subject to experience a deathlike paralysis together with deep feelings of terror and helplessness. One of our early test subjects described it as being like death. A sense of stifling or drowning. At this period we have found that the subject will make his most rewarding associations between his catastrophic experience, environment and the violence he sees.”
During one “treatment,” the doctors use Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as the background music while a Nazi propaganda was viewed. Alex objects to the use of the music, but the treatment continues, causing him to become conditioned to the piece.
“Stop it! Stop IT! STOP IT! Stop showing NEW ROSE HOTEL! IT’S NOT CYBERPUNK!!!!!
After the doctors show Alex’s treatment worked, he’s released back into society. That’s when the Universe plays the Karma card…
Whose Pawn Is He Anyway? The theme of free will versus society’s programming is quite dominant with the implications of the Ludovico treatment, but an underlying theme of people being used as pawns for political and personal gain is noticeable, especially when Alex returns to the home of Frank Alexander, whose house he and his droogs invaded and whose wife they raped. At first, Frank only recognizes Alex as the boy who went through the Ludovico program and calls a friend who can use him:
Frank Alexander: “He can be the most potent weapon imaginable to ensure the government is not returned in the election. The government’s big boast, sir, is the way they have dealt with crime: Recruiting young roughs into the police, proposing will-sapping techniques of conditioning. We’ve seen it before in other countries. The thin end of the wedge. Before we know it, we’ll have the full apparatus of totalitarianism. This young boy is a living witness to these diabolical proposals.”
Frank doesn’t realize that Alex is the one who raped his wife until he hears Alex singing “Singing in the Rain” in the bath. He manages to get Alex to drink drug-laced wine to knock him unconscious. When Frank’s co-conspirators arrive, they lock Alex in an upper-floor room while playing Beethoven’s Ninth, causing Alex to attempt suicide. While recovering in the hospital, we see the old amoral Alex return when a nurse shows slides. The Minister of the Interior visits Alex to apologize for the treatment and offer a government job.
Alex used the people he encountered for his own amusement, including his own droogs. After undergoing the treatment, he’s unable to defend himself as those he tormented and attacked gain a measure of revenge on him. Then he’s used as a political pawn.
Conclusion: A Clockwork Orange is a difficult movie to describe. It’s not an easy view with it’s ultraviolence, rampant sex, and drug use, but it makes for an interesting movie nonetheless. It’s a sick, twisted, demented, deviant, weird, and totally fucked-up view of the future. In other words, a real good movie.
SFAM Note - Change to Review: CPR now has a number of people doing reviews here. Inevitably, there will be differences over whether or not we think of something as being cyberpunk or not. In the case of the Transformers, Mr. Roboto feels that it is, but I do not (nor do many who listed comments below). I have changed the categories to reflect this (its being placed in the “It’s Not Cyberpunk” category), but the rest of the review is still Mr. Roboto’s.
~SFAM
Optimus Prime: Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.
Overview: Anyone growing up during the mid-80’s must have played with, or at least heard of, Hasbro’s Transformers and watched the animated series that began in 1984. Since then, the Transformers have attained a cult status among nerd types who dreamed of owning a muscle car or heavy duty pick-up that can transform into a kick-ass robot. Now, those fans have a live-action movie to go along with the animated 1986 movie from those heady first-generation days.
I went to see this movie, not expecting cyberpunk themes, but like Optimus Prime and Megatron colliding, BOOM! There they were, though some may say there’s a bit of a stretch for them. Like Alien, there will no doubt be some discussion about the themes and visuals and if the movie qualifies as cyberpunk.
Negative Impact of technology on humanity: Decepticons and the power-hungry Megatron will destroy Earth and the humans for the Allspark, and Megatron even shows his disgust for our species as he flicks a human away during the final battle. Also, the ongoing war between the Autobots and Decepticons could be a metaphoric warning about a possible future “robot war” on Earth.
Keller: We’re facing war against a technological civilization far superior to our own! Our enemy can take any shape! They could be anywhere!
Since America’s technology was based on Megatron, leader of the evil Decepticons, it makes our cyber-present sound like it is the seed of evil, forged by evil, for evil purposes. This origin of our technology causes the Allspark to turn ordinary electronic devices into transformer robots that attack humans.
Fusion of man and machine: There isn’t the deep, philosophical aspects of Blade Runner with this theme, but there are signs of lines between man and machine being crossed somewhere between Earth and Cybertron.
At the car lot, Bobby Bolivia (a cameo by Bernie Mac) tells Spike “A driver don’t pick the cars. Mmm-mm. Cars pick the driver. It’s a mystical bond between man and machine.” Spike and Mikaela interact with the Transformers like they were real, even though they’re just CGI animations added afterwards.
The Transformers themselves act sentient, even human like, with their own personalities. Optimus Prime acts like a real leader, keeping trigger-happy Ironhide in check, sacrificing Bumblebee when he’s captured to get to the Allspark, and even plans to sacrifice himself to protect the humans and destroy the Allspark if needed. There’s even dissension among the Decepticons, especially between Megatron and Starscream in their ongoing power struggle since their animated days.
What isn’t clear is if the Transformers were created by organic beings, or used to be organics, but found a way to transfer themselves into robot bodies, or if the Allspark just created the robotic race as the opening narration suggests. I would find it interesting to hear of the Transformers’ origins (creation or evolution?). Maybe a future “prequel” will deal with that.
Control over society: There doesn’t seem to be an “all-controlling entity” present in the film… until Sector 7 enters the scene.
Sector 7 was created by president Hoover when Captain Archibald Witwicky’s Arctic Circle expedition stumbled upon a frozen Megatron to keep the find secret. They reverse-engineered the Decepticon’s technology to create the technology of modern America and her military.
Story focuses on the underground: Mikaela has a juvenile record, thanks to her father showing her how to steal cars. Not much else here. Moving along…
Ubiquitous Access to information: Early on, the Decepticons try to hack America’s military systems, looking for information on the whereabouts of Megatron and the AllSpark. After Blackout’s attack on America’s Qatar base to access the military nets, the Pentagon tries to decipher the signal used to hack the systems. One of the analysts copies the signal to a memory card and takes it to a hacker friend she knows, who succeeds.
The Decepticon Frenzy, who first appears as a boom-box, furthers the hacking cause aboard Air Force One, and succeeds in obtaining information on Sector 7 and “Project Iceman.” He then uploads a virus that causes military systems worldwide to shut down to aid the Decepticon’s attack.
Autobot Jazz: What’s crackin’ little bitches?
Sam ‘Spike’ Witwicky: Where’d he learn to talk like that?
Optimus Prime: We learned Earth’s language through the World Wide Web.
Also, both sides learn of Spike and Captain Witwicky’s glasses from his posts as Ladiesman217 on eBay.
Cyberpunk visuals and style: The desert battle with Scorponok is probably the most cyberpunk visually, with all the sand and the primitive village hosting a high-tech battle between the Americans and a killer robot. There are scenes inside the Pentagon (a cyber-romanticized version) featuring rooms of computers to gather and analyze data. Many scenes take place at night in locations like junkyards and industrial parks. In the final battle in the city, Spike runs through what looks like a long-abandoned rail station. The scenes inside Hoover Dam could be called steampunk.
Do note the color schemes between the bot sides; The Autobots have brigher colors while the Decepticons have darker, militant paint jobs.
A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away… (Oops, wrong movie… My bad.) Optimus Prime narrates the opening of the movie; How the Cube of the Allspark gave life to Cybertron (well, ANY planet it came across), and how the evil Megatron tried to abuse its power. The civil war that erupted practically destroyed Cybertron and all life on it, and the Allspark was lost for thousands of years, until it was discovered on an unknown-to-them planet called Earth.
Captain Archibald Witwicky was leading an expedition to the Arctic Circle when he stumbled upon a frozen Megatron and accidentally activated his guidance system, causing the Decepticon leader to imprint the Captain’s glasses with the location of the Allspark. The glasses are now in the possession of his great-great-grandson, Sam “Spike” Witwickey, who is trying to sell them to buy a car.
Sam and his father, Ron “Sparkplug” Witwickey, eventually buy an old Camaro that helps Sam attract Mikalea Banes, who knows her way around cars thanks to her father.
What could be hotter than a babe who knows her way around cars?
One night the car drives away with Sam in pursuit, believing his car was being stolen. The car arrives at a junkyard and transforms into a robot that transmits a signal into space while Sam watches in disbelief. The next day, the car returns and Sam runs believing the car is stalking him. Sam encounters the Decepticon Barricade, in disguise as a police cruiser, who demands the glasses. Sam’s car transforms to fight the Decepticon off, and then reveals his role as guardian before taking Sam and Mikaela to the arriving Autobots and Optimus Prime, who reveals Sam’s connection to the Allspark.
Sam ‘Spike’ Witwicky: It’s a robot. You know, like a super advanced robot. It’s probably Japanese.
What follows is a race to get to the Allspark, followed by a huge city-wrecking mech battle between the deadly Decepticons and the heroic Autobots and American military, including survivors of Blackout’s attack in Qatar.
Robot Apocalypse? We never see the death and destruction of Cybertron, but it wouldn’t be hard to imagine it based on current human events. With two opposing sides fighting over a valuable resource, whether it’s energy or the Allspark, such Armageddons are always possible whether anyone wants them or not. And with the Transformers’ civil war now being played out on Earth, the humans may become unwilling victims of such an Armageddon, especially if the Decepticons win out.
But what about robots the humans will make? Advances in robotic and computer technology have made “human-like” robots more of a possibility in the near future. Future improvements in artificial intelligence can lead to learning machines, machines that can think and act for themselves, and possibly sentience like the Transformers. At that point, our robots may take sides to be human-friendly or anti-human. That could lead to a robotic civil war that could wipe humanity out and leave the planet unlivable, while the robots take their dispute to the stars, possibly destroying other sentient worlds and life forms.
Fortunately, we’re far from that robotic civil war, and the Autobots do keep Earth protected from Megatron’s lust for power and the Allspark. The final lines in the movie are spoken by Optimus Prime as he sends an invitation to his fellow Autobots:
With the Allspark gone, we cannot return life to our planet. And fate has yielded its reward, a new world to call home. We live among its people now, hiding in plain sight, but watching over them in secret… waiting, protecting. I have witnessed their capacity for courage and though we are worlds apart, like us, there’s more to them than meets the eye. I am Optimus Prime and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars. We are here. We are waiting.
Conclusion: While geared for the toy-line fans, Transformers does offer something for cyberpunks to think about, whether it was intended or not. There’s little question that it will be this summer’s blockbuster, but some might question if it belongs in the Parthenon of cyberpunk movies.
All I can say is: Do watch it and see if you also notice the cyberpunk themes as I did. It’s OK, it’s a pretty good robot action movie.
