quote:

Originally posted by Sense/Gnat:
I think Reloaded is actually my favourite. It posed some very interesting possibilities, none of which, sadly, materialised in the very substandard finale. I still think the Matrix is the best super-hero concept there is, for people like me who are OCD about plausibility. Power through knowledge and awareness of your surroundings... brilliant.

What I really love about The Matrix is the universe - a really fresh new playground for sci-fi - but, as with many Wachowski projects, they seem to keep it within their grasp. They control everything that has anything to do with it - even the MMORPG is pretty rigid, as far as I can tell.

I have a nice concept for some Matrix fanfic which I'm toying with: it follows a group of academics who are recruited by the machines to code new areas of the Matrix and address the human issues that the machines don't, or can't, understand. Why would they want to live in Zion, when they have the power to create their own surroundings? They see the Zionites as terrorists, the Zionites see them as traitors, but really, everybody's just made their own choice.

I'd like to go somewhere with that, but I have this feeling the Wachowski's wouldn't like it that much.

I don't know much about fanfic.

The finale did indeed cause all the questions posed in Reloaded to become irrelevant by not addressing them.

I didn't like the CGI Neo they used in Reloaded either, it looked CGI. The tech isn't there to do believable people, I wish the companies that do it would stop.

Like Legolas on the Oliphant or whatever it's called in Return of the King, totally artificial looking.

Oh, God, and that bit where he flips up onto a horse, using only his little finger...

Well, don't get me started on a topic which includes both The Return of the King and disappointing third-in-trilogy films. I have to admit, with Neo, it was only when I actually replaced my spectacles after 4 years without them that I noticed. Legolas, it seems, could out-smug gravity. But I've said, right from the first hour of The Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson just doesn't get the Elves. By the time we get to Helms Deep...

"We would be proud to fight alongside men once again," says Haldir. He's lying through his perfect immortal teeth, and he knows it.

Sorry, I've taken a tech argument and made it a canonical one. But it really bugs me!

To pull this thread a bit back on topic, from the CGI issue, lets say Neuromancer makes it to the big screen. How would you, as a director, do Cyberspace? Would you make it a sort of high-resolution, up-to-date Tron (in appearance, I mean, the grid, the paths of bright logic etc.)?

That CGI Neo was bad, indeed man...

I would do the cyberspace 'believable'. I would describe it different than the book. Because I don't think it would work well if you describe it the same way. When I read it, I can imagine a thousand things, flashing lights, maybe Tron like envorinments and stuff like that, but when I see it on the screen, it could be boring I guess. I mean Tron was great back then, but it could be boring to watch it right now, I mean not the original movie, just a 'similar' one..

The question is, eventhough the story and thus the book is heavily based on cyberspace, would it be smart to try to describe that 'cybespace'? Or should the film focus on the characters, maybe action, dialoges and then just a little cyberspace??

Because whatever you do, no matter how hard you try to describe that cyberspace, it won't 'satisfy' people, I'm sure about that. And if you cannot satisfy people, you're most likely to end up having a bummer movie! Hence, focusing on other elements would be the key, and leaving a little but a quality part for cybrespace would be the best.

Maybe I'm totally wrong

I have an interesting way of doing cyberspace but I'll let everyone know when I actually start work on it rest assured it won't look like TankWar3D :P (a popular VR game).

Getting back on topic here:

I'm concerned that Hayden will over act his role, come off too cocky - too arrogant and too MTV. I'd be very shocked if he pulled it off. First off I can see them getting rid of Ratz, they will no doubt do that as to save time during the first few scenes.. Linda would be in it.. only she'd die in the first 10mins so that Molly can quickly be inserted into the film. It'll be rushed and I don't think the audience will appreciate it. My apologies for bringing up Games in this thread, its helpful to know what the fans think and the information was helpful to me.

No way, talking about games is always fun

I think, the opening scene will be the same as the book. We will see Ratz. Because it can be very interesting to portray him. You know, the arm and stuff. Chatsubo would be a cool place to start.

But what I'm wondering about the most is that if the scenes in Istanbul will be included or not. That'd be cool

Let's see what happens..

quote:

Originally posted by Mr_Cyberpunk:
I have an interesting way of doing cyberspace but I'll let everyone know when I actually start work on it rest assured it won't look like TankWar3D :P (a popular VR game).

Getting back on topic here:

I'm concerned that Hayden will over act his role, come off too cocky - too arrogant and too MTV. I'd be very shocked if he pulled it off. First off I can see them getting rid of Ratz, they will no doubt do that as to save time during the first few scenes.. Linda would be in it.. only she'd die in the first 10mins so that Molly can quickly be inserted into the film. It'll be rushed and I don't think the audience will appreciate it. My apologies for bringing up Games in this thread, its helpful to know what the fans think and the information was helpful to me.

Film doesn't need Linda necessarily, that'd be a toss up for me.

I'd put Ratz in though, cause he's a throwaway, you don't need to worry about him later, he doesn't need screen time.

But Linda has a history with Case, that requires a bit of screen time. It does help motivate his anger, the shifting rage that comes and goes, and that scene where he finds it and then loses it is important in terms of the character arc.

Cyberspace is central to so many of the book's settings. You'd have to show it, at least once. You'd have to juxtapose it against simstim, so that you could understand what happens later to Case, when Wintermute flatlines him. I reckon that would be very tricky because, to start with, when you're jacked into ordinary cyberspace, you don't see yourself like they did in Tron - you're presumably a representative shape or something - so what is the audience seeing, and from who's perspective? Neo's probably got a point. The matrix is a bit of a Pandora's box for a director.

I think the film will stand or fall by which theme or themes it follows. Film-makers have this tendency to try and make a point, make you go "Ah!" at the end. I suspect that it will be difficult to find a marketable point in Neuromancer, so they'll just aim roughly at one or other of the stylistic points and miss it totally.

If it was me, I'd go dark and build the story around how everyone is being manipulated - Wintermute has a mycotoxin gun to Case's head, uses nasty sexual psychology tricks on Molly, rebuilds Corto as Armitage purely to be its puppet, and ruthlessly kills many, including a child, in order to achieve its goal. 'Destiny? Are we just living our a sequence of pre-ordained objectives, perhaps at the behest of some higher power?' For the principal characters, hell yeah! And that's fucked up!

Sorry I can't really comment on the game, Mr_C, not something I know much about but look forward to seeing some more of it as you progress!

On the matter of Linda, she is central to the whole thing. The fact that she is physically dead is utterly irrelevant.

Throughout the book, Case doesn't have a choice. Wintermute has him by the balls. Neuromancer, on the other hand, gives him a choice, but is using Linda's personality as bait, for some weird reason thinking Case might stay in that shipping container with it and eat dehydrated food rations. Linda is used against Case by both AIs as General Girling is used against Corto - as emotional leverage.

She's got to be in there.

Yeah, Linda is important.

I'd like to see how would they portay Molly. I would make her look nasty, vicious, sexy and cute A wild girl when awake, innocent when asleep. Those scenes must be there for sure, I like'em a lot.

But that cyberspace thingy, that's tricky. It is the element that will either ruin the film or make it a success. That's a big deal.

Linda is just as important as Molly, especially with the ending. Seeing her virtual Ghost is a huge philosophical statement that I deem necessary. Hence why for my game I've given Linda more of a backstory, I think her character needs a bit more development, thats probably why so many people see her as throw away.

Cyberspace is a huge element of the film.. It is the film basically.. without it all you are doing is making a Blade Runner clone. The perspective is through the eyes of case.. my idea was to have the micro-toxin burn out cases memory of Cyberspace.. the two months without Cyberspace are like torture because he can't remember what the rush was like.. he's addicted to it, for the game we see these memories burn out in Case's mind and it gives us this first image of cyberspace. The story however is told from a third person perspective - but we see parts of it from a first person. (Gibson's descriptions of Cyberspace is DEFINITELY first person, Whereas in the real world, I see it cinematic. Similar to how JM did it, the only part of the cyberspace stuff they got right IMO. )

Whats been bugging me is how Cyberspace should look its a hard decision and I'm scared about it as it does make/break the game.

quote:

Originally posted by Neo:
A wild girl when awake, innocent when asleep.

Yes, I quite like the image of a sleeping Molly. WG seems to too. I'm not sure about cute, though - I always imagined the lenses to wipe out a lot from her face except a cold kind of beauty. We know she has the body of a dancer.

What's confusing if you're trying to faithfully visualise Cyberspace is that it is apparently used by billions every day, and yet you don't see other users. Dixie expects to see the Kuang virus unfolding, but doesn't. How can you do it at all without a point of reference, other than a first-person view? Some artistic license has to be employed, I think. And there's the danger.

As far as the other elements go, well, it's logic - paths of logic, a three dimensional nonspace which is filled with geometric representations of data storage sectors proportional to the capacity and sophistication of the host machine (from some stuff the Flatline says, it sounds like the higher you go, the more secure the data is). Punch into an element, more nonspace - like a directory structure. I think the key is figuring out where in Cyberspace you actually are, and what you're looking at. Then you could probably come up with something. Might be fun.

One Idea I did have was, Avatars are basically DATA, so its next to impossible to tell them apart from the rest of the information overload which is Cyberspace. The way users communicate with each other would be something similar to IRC only Audio and telepathic.. Think WingCommander/Starfox style where the user's avatar appears and talks to you - identical to that in Jhonny Mnemonic. When you communicate with an Avatar in Cyberspace you are accessing them just as you would data - AI when moving also should appear as data.. when they stop then we can see their avatar (aka their true form) because remember that the Matrix is a 3D representation of Data - its still confined to the realm of 2D processes, codes and arrays. Is that a good explanation, that way the artistic license is limited and we stay true to the style.. plus it's going to be hard for me to explain the information overload in Cyberspace when a majority of that information will be useless - its there purely for Aesthetic reasons .

In terms of system structure I'm working on it. Databases would work similarly as the deeper you went the harder it'd be to decrypt the file types and the harder it would be to brute force your way past the firewalls and ICE. For a gameplay mechanism its brilliant. The key for making it so that data can't be accessed (aka the stupid stuff that is there for Asethetics only) would be to encrypt things individually, requiring decryption tools for specific jobs.

I just want to play down the Snow Crash style of avatars because thats too much like an MMORPG/Second Life :P

I'd like to know what Paulf saw in the Gibson script he read last year.

Maybe Cyberspace could be visualized by only showing some flashing lights, some flowing numbers (quite like Matrix but not the same though)& information, super fast moves and etc. It would be confusing, that's for sure. Especially for those who didn't read the book. But maybe it's the only way to describe it, considering no one has an exact opinion about how it would look like, right?!Therefore, those scenes must be or should be held short. You can use these Cyberspace scenes a couple of times, but not as long scenes.

Oh it's tough.. The more I think about it the more I start to think that they will ruin the film. I hope they do brainstorming as much as we do here, at least.

You said it, Neo. Fingers crossed they will put in plenty of effort to figure these things out, and not blast in with some pre-ordained ideas...

UD, what was the story with the Gibson script?

Check out the Win Pollard thread in SC Spoilers.

A new poster says he read the Gibson script for the film last year.

quote:

Originally posted by Neo:
Maybe Cyberspace could be visualized by only showing some flashing lights, some flowing numbers (quite like Matrix but not the same though)& information, super fast moves and etc. It would be confusing, that's for sure. Especially for those who didn't read the book. But maybe it's the only way to describe it, considering no one has an exact opinion about how it would look like, right?!Therefore, those scenes must be or should be held short. You can use these Cyberspace scenes a couple of times, but not as long scenes.

Oh it's tough.. The more I think about it the more I start to think that they will ruin the film. I hope they do brainstorming as much as we do here, at least.

I disagree, the scenes in cyberspace will define the film. They must look as revolutionary and cool as when we first glimpsed the future LA in Blade Runner.

Neuromancer is a book that is largely about style, the matrix defines the book in many ways.

They can't short it, they shouldn't, but it has to be really spectacularly cool.

They need to find someone who can do that right.

Someone with vision.

Actually, Tarsem, comes to mind, but only for the cyberspace scenes, I didn't like the way he directed The Cell.

But cyberspace has to have that kind of artistic drive. I'd go so far as to hire an artist to do the concept work for it.

Someone new, whose work we haven't seen sprayed all over the sci-fi canvas before.

Sure, the cyberspace is the most important thing of NM. But, I meant, if it's not going to be revolutoinary (which I think it won't, unfortunately), then it is better to focus on other elements of the book maybe.

But of course I would love to see a great cyberspace visualization, but I greatly doubt that it is going to happen. That's why I've said better 'brief and acceptable' scenes than 'long and boring' ones.

I hope they can manage it and we can get to see a great cyberspace on screen.

Many they'll do it right.

Maybe they'll have some really great motorcycle scenes.

Yeah - and the dance, the commerce of Ninsei, the nighlife of Freeside, will be twenty fit teenage girls filthing it up in perfect synchronicity...