It has low-lifes living in the future, but there really isn’t much high-tech and governments are still in control (not corporations). So do you consider Escape From New York to be cyberpunk?
Apparently the movie was an influence for William Gibson:
Escape from New York never made it big, but it’s been redone a billion times as a rock video. I saw that movie, by the way, when I was starting “Burning Chrome” and it had a real influence on Neuromancer.
But that doesn’t immediately make it cyberpunk. After all, Gibson was also influenced by hard-boiled detective novels and that doesn’t make those cyberpunk.
I could see the argument for this either way so I’m curious what your thoughts are.
It’s streaming on Roku Channel and Freevee (Amazon Prime) if you haven’t seen it before.
I would put Escape into the category of dystopian science fiction, because it’s not dominated by computer technology (as opposed to Neuromancer or Snow Crash, eg). Road Warrior is similar to Escape in that computers played little to no role in the story. The “science fiction” part might even be disputable if people would prefer something like “futuristic dystopia,” because the science element is mostly absent as a plot point.
I’d put a lot of PKD’s stuff on the borderline or well into cyberpunk as they feature androids and questions revolving around high tech as central plot elements. I’d hesitate with Robocop, because although it does have, well, robots and lowlifes, it doesn’t mix them like we see in Hackers or even They Live. The central plot point in They Live is how the aliens are using technology to hide themselves and execute their agenda while the good guys are hackers trying to disrupt the system.
All solid points. The lack of computer tech really is the weak point in my argument. But I’d also argue you can have a cyberpunk setting without computer tech being a focal point of the story. In which case, the only remaining point is does this society have a higher level of computer technology? And the answer to that is indeterminate based on the information shown. But I do feel like it’s strongly hinted at.
This is my thought process as well and why I wanted to post the question. I was tempted to make the same post with They Live. These movies have a strong anti-authority theme, but not “cyber” enough for me to call them cyberpunk. It’s interesting then that you consider Escape From New York dystopian while you would put They Live in the cyberpunk category. We’re definitely discussing shades of gray here but it’s interesting how we would draw the lines differently.
For me, I think the use of technology (hacking) to find a solution is what crosses the line into cyberpunk. Escape From New York and They Live both involve punching and shooting things to win; they’re using the “old” way of thinking. Cyberpunk is using the “new” technology to fight the injustices of the world. At least that’s how I think of it when looking at these shades of gray.
I know - I think They Live is definitely borderline. I was thinking specifically about the fact that the aliens were specifically using technology to control the population, represented and ran corporations to drive consumerism and sheep-like obedience, and the rebellion were scruffy leftist hackers as well as having a guerrilla movement. The concentration of the film was on the action, but the story with the aliens was more than a McGuffin.
“Scrappy tech folks trying to hack and crash the system and bring about the revolution” tips it for me, but it’s definitely an edge case and not what you’d call a canonical example.
Neither Escape nor the Mad Maxen had that kind of plot line, so I’d exclude them.