I was originally going to ask whether you consider Running Man to be cyberpunk or not. But then I figured, that’s a stupid question, of course it is. Just look at how they depicted Los Angeles:

We can argue whether or not it’s a good movie, but it’s definitely cyberpunk.

I was just thinking this movie has a police state with a small rebellion rather than a megacorporation that didn’t care about human life. Typically, I would say it’s just dystopian fiction if the nation is run by a police state and it’s cyberpunk if the nation is run by megacorporations. But that’s probably too narrow a view when everything else in this movie fits a cyberpunk setting. Especially a game show that doesn’t care about human life.

Anyway, here’s a trailer. You can watch it on Pluto or Hoopla.

  • @[email protected]
    3•6 months ago

    The Stephen King novel that this is based on is one of his best stories, IMHO. It’s way less “action movie” and more focused on the dystopian society. A sub-plot involves dispossessed youths who are teaching themselves about technology, but there’s no cyberspace involved. If you read it, skip King’s introduction, there’s a major spoiler there.

    • Stern
      2•6 months ago

      I remember two things about it. One was that they did a 9/11, and the other was that King wrote it under a pen name, Richard Bachman, under which he also wrote a book called, “Rage”, about a school shooter, which he eventually pulled from publishing because it appeared to have been read by a fair amount of school shooters and he didn’t want to inspire any more.