It’s Thursday and I’m back with a new Thursday Movie Picks feature post. This series is hosted by Wandering through the Shelves and offers you a weekly prompt to post some movie recommendations/talking points according to the theme. Usually, you are supposed to post about 3-5 examples, which I find a very manageable amount.
Last week was all about period dramas and this week we are moving on to cyberpunk! That’s quite the different aesthetic, but I’m going to try and not name the most obvious movies from the past years … although I will probably fail. We shall see!
Tron: Legacy
I’ve seen this movie in theaters a minimum of five times. I don’t know what it was (the Daft Punk soundtrack. It was the soundtrack for sure), but I just couldn’t get enough of it. I liked the actors and story and wasn’t too put off by the weird face capturing technology that just felt off. I’d watch this again over and over to be honest.
Treasure Planet
Why not add an animated movie, right? I don’t mention animation projects a lot, neither in this feature nor on the blog in general, but Treasure Planet was my everything when I was little. I had a huge robot figure and just wanted to go be a space pirate.
Divergent
They mucked up that adaptation series SO BAD. I think it had a lot of potential and it surely wasn’t perfect, because neither was the source material, but it could have been really great. Now it didn’t even get an end …
Life and Other Disasters 
My favorite Cyberpunk book is ‘Snow Crash’.
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I don’t think I know that one!
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Hi Kat, I hope all is well for you.
Neal Stephenson is the author.
I have read several of his books. The last couple did not grab me, but ‘Snow Crash’ is a book I love. The book starts with the main character giving you his name, which is really cool,, but after just a few pages, he has to drop his cool name and go back to his mundane name. When I first read this and the mundane name is revealed, I fell off the couch.
His next novel, “The Diamond Age’, or, ‘A Young Ladies Illustrated Primer’, is an over the top cyberpunk adventure.
‘Anathem’ is more of a sci-fi adventure.
Happy Trails!
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It’s crazy how they bungled the Divergent series. I liked the first movie but after that, I just didn’t understand what they were doing. Now it just “ends” in such a dissatisfying way.
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Right!? I enjoyed the first movie and really liked the vibes it put out there and then it just took such a swerve and yeah … not great at all anymore. I wish they at least hadn’t split up the last movie to give it some sort of ending.
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I haven’t seen this iteration of Tron but I saw the original with Jeff Bridges long ago when it was in theatres and now I’m sorry I didn’t think of it! It’s one of the few in this genre that I sort of enjoyed though now the CGI, which was cutting edge at the time, is hopelessly dated. I looks like a Pac-Man game. 🙂
I am NOT an animation fan so Treasure Planet is one that I’ve heard of but will never see.
I’ve heard of Divergent also but it’s another I’ve never pursued. With your description I think that was for the best.
As I said this isn’t a genre that I’m overly fond of so I decided rather than struggle to come up with three that I sort of liked I picked three that I thought were awful. That was a snap!
Freejack (1992)-Future technology has advanced to the point that rich elderly citizens can hire thieves such as Vacendak (Mick Jagger) to jump back in time to kidnap young people, return with them then have their brains transplanted into the clients’ bodies. Racer Alex Furlong (Emilio Estevez) is captured, he manages to break free but finds this new world a dangerous place. Extremely short on logic this misguided flick managed to corral Anthony Hopkins and Rene Russo as well as Jagger. They collect a paycheck, the audience suffers.
Johnny Mnemonic (1995)-Implanted with a stash of information data courier Johnny (Keanu Reeves) must retrieve it within 48 hours or self-destruct. Guarded by turbo charged bodyguard Jane (Dina Meyer) but hunted by two foes he sets out to find the passwords needed to stop his death. When it’s not absurd it’s stupid.
Moon 44 (1990)-A group of prisoners is enlisted by a mining corporation against a corporate war where interplanetary companies vie for control of dwindling resources on distant moons. Agent Felix Stone (Michael Pare) is sent to the title planet when problems arise. This pastiche of Aliens, Blade Runner and every other conceivable cyberpunk film holds a whopping zero score on Rotten Tomatoes.
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This version of Tron is a sequel, so it still features Jeff Bridges! If you liked the first one, I think it’s worth checking out the sequel. I remember how funny I found the original movie though, just because I was so spoiled for better CGI at that point, but you are completely right, it was cutting edge back then!
Thanks for mentioning movies that I didn’t know about before again! I’ll look into them.
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Treasure Planet is an underrated film.
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so true!
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