Apple TV Finally Brings Neuromancer to the Screen After 42 Years

In the late 90’s it looked like we were going to get a Neuromancer film by the amazing director Chris Cunningham, known for his Aphex Twin and Bjork videos. Gibson strongly approved of Cunningham, reportedly stating he was the only person he had met whom he trusted to do the adaptation justice. Sadly, it never came to be.

When I first read Neuromancer I wanted it to be adapted into a film. I think the reason was a common one: when you love a book you want there to be some validation of your affection from the rest of the world. A bunch of people deciding to make a movie feels like validation, especially if it goes on to be wildly successful.

Over the years and many successive readings my feelings have changed. In some ways, a screen adaptation make less sense with every passing year. As Gibson himself points out, sci-fi works are always a commentary about the time in which they are written, not the future time in which they seem to take place and there's a lot of the 1980's in Neuromancer, from punk-rock counterculture to the Cold Way, from payphones to the technological ascendancy of Japan, and I'm not sure how much it would feel like the novel if all that stuff is taken out or changed. Also, presumably because it's been in production hell for so long it's already been kinda strip-mined by other works. There's a lot of Neuromancer in The Matrix as well as echoes of it in a bunch of lesser films from the 90's (e.g. Lawnmower Man, Hackers, Ghost in the Shell), to say nothing of Cyberpunk 2077.

Lastly, films like Lawnmower Man and Johnny Mnemonic have shown us that attempts to cinematically depict cyberspace can end up looking laughably ridiculous. I observe that there is essentially no depiction of it in the series trailer/preview. I wonder if they'll try to side-step its depiction as much as p […]

I've read neuromancer a few times and it's one of those rare books that always holds up. It's a stream of words plugged directly into my imagination and I see that world in my own way, lingering around and filling in the spaces Gibson describes.

It's nice that people are putting a lot of effort into making a movie about it but for me watching would be like taking the tourist bus around a place I already know and love.

I'd feel something similar if they did The Mote In God's Eye, with the difference that I think curiosity would get the better of me there.

I re-read all of the Sprawl Trilogy books (and Johnny

Mnemonic from Burning Chrome) just to be ready for the

upcoming Apple TV series. It's going to be tough to match

the imagination of the books, but the trailers make the

series look great.

As an aside... I originally read Neuromancer, et al. back

in the 80s, before I had read Burroughs or Cassady or

Kerouac. After re-reading the trilogy after reading the

beats (especially Burroughs) I completely understand why

the literary hoi and palloi were going ga-ga over

Neuromancer in the 80s.

Anyway... you still have a couple months to read (or

re-read) Neuromancer. It's a delightful book, even on

second reading.