What IS Cyberpunk? What is Blade Runner?

[hempknight]

Blade Runner is not just any cyberpunk movie, it is The cyberpunk movie. This site even lists it as a cyberpunk movie. There are those of us who feel differently, however:

Originally posted by Autechre (taken from the previous poll: http://forums.sciflicks.com/showthre...&threadid=5322 )

yeah??...is that suppose to mean anything else apart from a list that is completely full of bollocks....you cant honestly think that bicentenial man is cyberpunk?...or have you just noticed that it was on there and a load of others, proving that im right?

...what an anti-climax...look, thats all fine, but the main ingrediant in the cyberpunk genre is the ****ing internet, if its not there, then its not cyberpunk, its as simple as that..ok??..of course its obvious that philip k. **** more so than blade runner influenced the cyberpunk genre, but this dos'nt mean that philip k. **** or blade runner are cyberpunk.

Now here's the question: Is Blade Runner cyberpunk or not?

[Autechre]

Originally posted by hempknight
This site even lists it as a cyberpunk movie.

yeah?..are you blind..it also has bicintenial man and..get this,...weird science on it aswell...


..hmmm..


just what are you trying to prove with this list anyway?...oh i see...that your mentally challenged..

[hempknight]

if you want to resort to low blows and name calling (so mature), go right ahead...


...at least I can spell...

[Autechre]

once again.......... ........ouch....

[kinetickyle]

Autechre...

Are you this belligerent everytime someone's opinion differs from yours? If so, how do you function in everyday life? I really wish you would just let it go and move on to something more meaningful in your life (if there is such a thing). No one is going to change anyone else's opinions here, that's obvious...

Get over it and move on...

[Autechre]

i have moved on...everytime i prove you wrong, you always reply telling me i was wrong...what can i do??...so go away. ha!

[SF_not_Sci-Fi]

1) bc MAN WAS not CYBERPUNK. I am not aware that Dr. Asimov wrote any cyberpunk at all. Wasn't his bag. In fact one of the most disgusting features of this 'new' 'foundation' trilogy is that it attempts to incorperate cyberpunk into it. Asimov has retained his 'wide star-spangled yonder' (no relation to any bloody pieces of cloth) perspective for the whole of his career, and has never to my knolege gone deeply into cyberpunk and similer subgenres.

2) If bladerunner ain't c-punk, I don't know what is. It is cyberpunk in both style AND substance. Wait... I forget, did the movie incorperate the cyber-spiritual aspect of the novel? The tech inself in that bit, and the philosphy about the nature of reality are drenched in the stuff of the subgenre in question.

[HighWiredSith]

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of Science Fiction launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel "Neuromancer" (though its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's "True Names" to John Brunner's 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider"). Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found both irritatingly naive and tremendously stimulating. Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series.

In the 1990's, the idea of cyberpunk was corrupted into little more than a "futuristic" fashion style that is little more than a union of 1950's-esqu science fiction get up and the nauseatingly popular "goth" look (a good example would be Neo's look from The Matrix). However, Cyberpunk finds it's roots in science fiction that deals almost exclusively with great reaches and achievements in computer science whether it be computers or robots. Most tend to take one of two views concerning computers. Ben Bova, for example, holds to the idea that computers are the next evolution of human culture, that the android and the thinking computer will accomplish the ideal being, perfect and without error, as computers are today were it not for constant human error. The other extreme can be seen in George Lucas's world of Star Wars, the fear of technology, turning off the targeting computer because the computer, without emotion, without the human capability to exceed the sum of its parts, is flawed and it is human capacity that is good and will win the day.

Hope I cleared all that up.