Virtual Ripoff
What is the matrix? It's William Gibson's idea, dammit!
      by David Rosiak

But James Cameron, now producing a self-written scifi show for Fox's Fall 2000 season entitled Dark Angel, is at it again. In the pilot script, the lead character, a rocket-powered courier named Max, describes the situation in America as follows: "A bunch of terrorists whacked us with nukes from eighty miles up, and the electromagnetic pulse took out everything." John Shirley's cyberpunk masterpiece Eclipse, written sixteen years ago and optioned to Hollywood shortly after, features that very same plot development. Look it up -- it's in Chapter 2, in a much more fleshed-out version that describes both the downfall of the United States as well as the dissolution of NATO. And, you know, that idea for a super-powered courier seems more than a little similar to the lead female in Neil Stephenson's Snowcrash, a preternaturally enhanced employee of a futuristic messenger service. Hmmm. Are Shirley or Stephenson credited anywhere in Cameron's draft? Not on your life. But if Dark Angel proves a hit, it will surely be credited to Cameron's sole genius. Shirley himself has been relegated to staff writer on a variety of television shows, most recently popping up to write the fully CG version of Fox's 1999 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow special. Clearly, he should be the man behind Dark Angel. Stephenson is still writing novels after the news that plans for a feature based on Snowcrash have been nixed. And Cameron is trucking onward, grabbing up ideas that belong to other folks left and right. This, after all, is the guy that wants to produce a remake of Planet of the Apes. Nothing is sacred to him, save the almighty dollar.

But these books, which are so sacred to discerning fans, just aren't seeing the light of day on the silver screen? Why not? Recent successes like The Matrix and Pitch Black dictate that audiences possess an obvious hunger for solid science fiction films. Yet, rather than bringing classic works to the big screen, Hollywood producers are much more content to recycle and repackage the same core ideas in hopes that fans will swallow them down whole without question. Original concepts are continually watered down for the masses. Abel Ferrara's recent version of Gibson's short story New Rose Hotel is another example. The story, which dealt with the seduction and betrayal of a hacker genius in an unpleasant future, was translated to film without any of the science (or the fiction, for that matter) intact. Instead, it emerged as a film that focused on the seedy sexual aspects of the tale. Go figure.

There's an argument that the movie-going public has already seen just about every idea inspired by these books brought to film, that computer generated graphics have become commonplace, and that the sheer coolness of many of these tomes has been severely outdone. Worse yet, creative teams in Hollywood are ignoring the past and focusing on these ideas as if they were theirs and theirs alone -- two sequels to The Matrix are already planned, and many are wondering if the time for good cyberpunk adaptations like Gibson's Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash have already passed us by. Are the concepts outdated? Have they been done to death? Will concepts that breathed originality back into science fiction be deemed as clichés if they ever see production?

I think not. It's a good argument, but unfounded. These teams, it would seem, just haven't been creative enough.

There are undoubtedly some visionaries out there who could bring rich realizations of these novels to the screen, but they're not getting these projects. Instead, they get saddled with remakes and knock-offs of the next big thing. People like the Wachowskis (who are now declaring that The Matrix was always planned as a trilogy) would indeed seem perfect helmers for the wealth of existing material. Contemplate the richly imagined Gibsonian world, the world that exists under, as Gibson put it in Neuromancer's first line, a sky the "color of television, tuned to a dead channel" brought faithfully to the screen in a movie-making era that finally finds that possible.

Remember the stunning vistas of Blade Runner? This would be like Blade Runner multiplied by a thousand.

Let's take the money out of big budget spectacle like Godzilla and Armageddon and pump it into some well-rounded, thought-provoking flicks that nevertheless provide more bang for your buck. Advancements in computer generated technology have made possible the rendering of nearly anything the human imagination can conjure, so the realization of these stories is at hand. Hollywood is missing out on a wealth of material that is literally at its fingertips -- instead, the fans are continually treated to filtered visions that have been borrowed from superior sources that put any "high concept" film to shame. Remember, these are science fiction fans, and they are not easily fooled. That's why derivative films like Virtuosity bombed, while semi-original takes on proven material like The Matrix continue to capture public interest (and wallets). Profitability is not inevitably tied with stupidity, and the majority of these recycled ideas are going to fail. Science fiction, after all, is about new ideas. And these are ideas that have filtered into today's cinema. In their pure forms, they'd surely blow moviegoers away.

Truth be told, as much as I enjoyed movies like The Matrix, I can't imagine how much more satisfied I would be to finally see big screen versions of all the worlds created in cyberpunk classics. If cyberpunk lite films are putting butts in theater seats, then it only stands to reason that the real thing has even more marketability, doesn't it? Science fiction as a creative medium (and, gasp, even Keanu Reeves) has finally entered an era where it can be considered cool. And cyberpunk fiction is the reason behind this. The writers can be involved, as well, if not as screenplay adapters, then at least in some capacity of creative approval -- they are novelists, after all, and they shouldn't have top worry that their works will be dumbed down or altered in plot and scope. Instead of science fiction falling into the hands of people who haven't the first idea about it, I can't help but think the future rests in a creative synthesis, where writers can continue to do what they do best and expect to get the credit they deserve. The novels sell well; Gibson regularly hits the bestseller lists. But do we ever actually see anything come of them in the Hollywood system? No. We more often get direct-to-video rejects with dubious titles like Dr. Wong's Virtual Hell.

Virtual hell, indeed. Dr. Wong was obviously never forced to endure Johnny Mnemonic.

We welcome your comments on The 11th Hour and this review. Please send letters to: letters@the11thhour.com

< Previous Page