{"id":2813,"date":"2010-08-25T23:19:32","date_gmt":"2010-08-26T03:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=2813"},"modified":"2010-08-25T23:19:32","modified_gmt":"2010-08-26T03:19:32","slug":"is-inception-the-new-cyberpunk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/is-inception-the-new-cyberpunk\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Inception the new cyberpunk?"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Inception and Neuromancer.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I just saw Inception<\/em> for the first time today, and I couldn’t help but notice the uncanny similarities between between it and Neuromancer<\/em> by William Gibson. \u00a0It made me wonder if Inception<\/em> represents some kind of reincarnation of cyberpunk.<\/p>\n

Before I go on, I should confess that I’m not an expert on cyberpunk. \u00a0I’ve read Neuromancer,<\/em> seen Blade Runner,<\/em> and read a couple of books that are on the borderline (such as\u00a0On My Way to Paradise<\/em>). \u00a0That’s about it.<\/p>\n

However, Inception<\/em> and Neuromancer<\/em> have too many parallels to be just a coincidence. \u00a0For example, in both stories:<\/p>\n

1)<\/strong> the main character is a “hacker,” or someone with an uncanny ability to control or manipulate the virtual reality,
\n2)<\/strong> the main character gets entangled with hostile corporate entities that threaten his life and are far more powerful than himself,
\n3)<\/strong> the main character agrees to work for the corporate entities in an illegal, high-stakes heist involving private interests,
\n4)<\/strong> the main character is haunted by memories of a dead love interest from a past relationship and ultimately confronts that love interest in the virtual reality,
\n5)<\/strong> the main character rejects the objective reality for the virtual reality.<\/p>\n

There are other, broader similarities as well: the near future dystopian setting, corporations weilding more power than governments, significant portions of the population abandoning the objective reality for the allure of the virtual reality, etc. \u00a0In particular, the ending of Inception<\/em> reminded me of the ending of Neuromancer<\/em>, in terms of ambiguity as well as the emotional twist.<\/p>\n

So what does all this mean? \u00a0I see I’m not the only one<\/a> to notice this<\/a>–apparently, the discussion is already underway. \u00a0Is this the next incarnation of cyberpunk, and if it is, what can we expect to see come out in the next few years?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Inception and Neuromancer. So I just saw Inception for the first time today, and I couldn’t help but notice the uncanny similarities between between it and Neuromancer by William Gibson. \u00a0It made me wonder if Inception represents some kind of reincarnation of cyberpunk. Before I go on, I should… Continue reading Is Inception the new cyberpunk?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[311,453,599,452],"class_list":["post-2813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-cyberpunk","tag-publishing-trends","tag-thoughts-reflections","tag-william-gibson","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-Jn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2813"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2830,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813\/revisions\/2830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}