While I want to be really excited about this, I am already terrified they'll give it a 'Foundation' treatment. E.g. take a great book, and then sort of re-write it while re-using some names and elements from the original. Or the Sho-Gun treatment, where you take another great book, and turn it into visually beautiful, but soulless pseudo-reproduction of the book that lacks exactly the depth that made the book great.
So please Apple, give it a Lord of the Rings treatment. Or even Hobbit. Pretty please!
It makes me so so happy to hear someone else complain about what they've done with Foundation. Considering the ratings (both from critics and audiences) I've seen, I was starting to question if I actually read Foundation or something else because the show is NOTHING like the books. It's not all bad per se, but just give it another name because they have nothing in common.
I’ve read 5 of the books, I’m fine with the adaptation. The books all but make it impossible to have continuity of characters in any real way, which would make for a weird show, IMO. This is fundamentally different than LOTR which does have continuity (and even the hobbit), so I feel like that explains the character smearing (Gaal, Hari, Cletus) and time compression.
The original books are great but honestly the characters aren’t even in the books long enough to really develop them beyond the crises at hand, it’s more like a collection of short stories (and I love short stories, but beyond Black Mirror I can’t think of any other sort of short stories series I like much).
The books are a full of interesting ideas but as written would be terrible for television. You should just think of the TV show as an unrelated science fiction show which happens to share a name and a few plot elements.
I like the show but it is not like the books at all.
I was pretty bitterly disappointed until I realized I could just see the show as inspired by the books. The same way I’ve written stories. I just had the respect to file the serial numbers off in editing.
I would be okay if they gave it the Peripheral treatment, which is to say it doesn't need to be 100% like the book. It would be better if Case's ono-sendai rig was something a little more modern than the original vision of essentially an Atari ST. It would be hilarious as hell if Wintermute started hallucinating like a GPT. The vision of Chiba City has been done a million times over; what if, instead of trying to just remake the street scenes of Blade Runner, we got something completely different? I'd be okay with that.
I love Neuromancer, but I feel like it's much more about the vibes than the plot per se. If you've got a good visual design and don't mess with the main characters and setting, it'll probably be good.
I mean I like the Space Rastafarians, but I'm not sure they're essential.
That's the current playbook. Take incredible IP, throw production values at it, the script is just a map to get from marketing image to marketing image.
I didn't love Peripheral (although that was Amazon). I disliked Foundation. I disliked WOT, and Amazon LOTR. I don't think I will watch this.
I would consider all of Gibson's books as must reads, if anyone is interested my reading order is:
1. Pattern Recognition
2. Neuromancer
3. Burning Chrome
4. rest of Nueromancer trilogy
5. rest of Blue ant
6. and then take your pick on the last 2 trilogies (Jackpot #3 is not out yet though)
Neuromancer is one of the coolest depictions of the "metaverse" I've ever read, one that still inspires me to think about today!
Interesting, when I was a teen I read all of his pre-2000 fiction within a period of 6 months maybe?
Neuromancer, Count Zero, Burning Chrome, Mona Lisa Overdrive, The Difference Engine. Virtual Light, Johnny Mnemonic, Idoru.
After that I lost my taste for it almost completely. The novelty factor wore off. I keep meaning to re-read again someday to check if I still feel the same way.
So you hate most big budget tv lol, like i liked all 4 of those lol
The "if its not like the book it sucks" crowd is literally making TV so difficult to get honest reviews of shows.... as shows and not as "it's not my imagination come to life"
Apple Originals have been pretty good with the scifi. I found Silo, For All Mankind, Monarch, Severance, Hello Tomorrow and See to be some of the best scifi being produced. So I feel like this might be in good hands.
I also personally enjoy Foundation, but I know that take is a bit more controversial.
I wonder why Apple seems to be having far better luck with consistent quality than Netflix, who just laid another egg with their Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation. You'd think Netflix would have better connections and much more experience given their longer history and dominant status in the field. What is Apple doing that Netflix isn't?
Apple doesn't as desperately need a big stable of first-party content. They've other revenue streams, they're not losing a bunch of third-party content, and I suspect most of their subs come in via Apple One (Apple Music, iCloud, etc.) package deals rather than direct.
Silo was far too predictable and slow for my taste. Ending in full was predicted correctly in episode 2 (which was a bit infuriating that that's all it was culminating towards)...
The acting was good, the cinematography and sets, and costumes too: but not worth the watch, as it says nothing original, new, or interesting. It falls into 'content' for me, something rehashed to make money first and tell a story second. To each their own.
It was based on a book... and that kind of ending (the finickiness of details) works far better in a literary setting, in a film the connections seem arbitrary and ad hoc.
The problem with Extrapolations is that it's really a watch a single time series. Despite how good it was, I don't think I could sit through that twice.
I'm enjoying the hell out of the Foundation series, and the first couple episodes of Shogun have been great. I'll probably love Neuromancer as well. The trick to enjoying film/TV adaptations of books is to never read the books beforehand.
Some irony here in Apple (wealthiest corporation in history and also a gigantic tech company) being involved in adapting the quintessential cyberpunk novel considering the themes the cyberpunk genre revolve around.
But I guess you could say the irony is perhaps very fitting. Cyberpunk indeed
The main irony I find is that '80s cyberpunk envisioned net tech to be the province of outlaws and daredevil dreamers, with the antagonist corporate giants often being shadowy faceless monoliths resembling Japanese zaibatsu or IBM or Ma Bell, but the present moment is dominated by very consumer-friendly-presenting, bubbly-UX FAANGs. Instead of outright cold and imposing Tyrell Corporation pyramid dystopia you have cheeky customer service chatbot landing page dystopia. Definitely not the tone that Neuromancer was invoking, though I suppose by the time post-cyberpunk came about with Stephenson's works, the portrayal of the megacorps got more customer-facing.
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So please Apple, give it a Lord of the Rings treatment. Or even Hobbit. Pretty please!
The original books are great but honestly the characters aren’t even in the books long enough to really develop them beyond the crises at hand, it’s more like a collection of short stories (and I love short stories, but beyond Black Mirror I can’t think of any other sort of short stories series I like much).
I tried reading Foundation when I was younger and could not get into it. I think they've done a pretty good job with the Apple Series.
I was pretty bitterly disappointed until I realized I could just see the show as inspired by the books. The same way I’ve written stories. I just had the respect to file the serial numbers off in editing.
The hobbit, imo, was the harbinger of high budget films rewritten for modern audiences into unrecognizable disasters.
I mean I like the Space Rastafarians, but I'm not sure they're essential.
It'd be a shame to lose one of the best stealth puns I've ever seen in literature.
What does your heart tell you?
Dead Comment
I would consider all of Gibson's books as must reads, if anyone is interested my reading order is: 1. Pattern Recognition 2. Neuromancer 3. Burning Chrome 4. rest of Nueromancer trilogy 5. rest of Blue ant 6. and then take your pick on the last 2 trilogies (Jackpot #3 is not out yet though)
Neuromancer is one of the coolest depictions of the "metaverse" I've ever read, one that still inspires me to think about today!
Neuromancer, Count Zero, Burning Chrome, Mona Lisa Overdrive, The Difference Engine. Virtual Light, Johnny Mnemonic, Idoru.
After that I lost my taste for it almost completely. The novelty factor wore off. I keep meaning to re-read again someday to check if I still feel the same way.
I actually didn't finish The Peripheral, and I mostly do finish things I start. Maybe I'll have a look at the older stuff again one day too.
The "if its not like the book it sucks" crowd is literally making TV so difficult to get honest reviews of shows.... as shows and not as "it's not my imagination come to life"
I also personally enjoy Foundation, but I know that take is a bit more controversial.
I think Apple gives a lot more free rein to its creators. For the Dr. Dre biopic they let it be made and then shelved it.
Another notable exception was they allegedly wouldn’t let Jon Stewart talk about China.
The acting was good, the cinematography and sets, and costumes too: but not worth the watch, as it says nothing original, new, or interesting. It falls into 'content' for me, something rehashed to make money first and tell a story second. To each their own.
It was based on a book... and that kind of ending (the finickiness of details) works far better in a literary setting, in a film the connections seem arbitrary and ad hoc.
Dead Comment
Anyone else remember this from the computer magazine ads from the Necromancer C64 game?
But I guess you could say the irony is perhaps very fitting. Cyberpunk indeed