Transcription
I'll tell you guys a little secret. I really like Cyberpunk. It can be summed up with one phrase: Hightech, low life. Virtual reality, artificial intelligence, the three seashells. Technology that we can only dream of, right? Well, today we're going to be looking at the Cyberpunk movie Iceberg. An iceberg that covers many, many different cyberpunk movies from the '80s and '90s. Nearly 350 of them. Back when the internet looked like this, mobile phones looked like this, and the biggest threat from AI was wiping us all out instead of now getting us to put glue onto pizza. At the top, we're going to have movies that, unless you've been living under a rock for the past 40 years, you probably have heard of them. And as we go down, we're get to get to some more obscure, weird, and outright strange entries. In part one, we'll be looking at the first five tiers, looking at the plots and themes of each entry. Many thanks to Reddit user Brianna Imagination for making this Iceberg and letting me make this video on it. And shout out to Reddit user Yeli who made the iceberg template she used. Anyway, let's start from the top, shall we?
The Matrix. Probably the most well-known movie on this Iceberg. It follows computer hacker Neo as he discovers the world he knows is not actually real and is in fact a computer simulation, and that humans are little more than batteries for their machine overlords. Phrases like "glitch in The Matrix," "blue pill," and "red pill," and the "bullet time" seam have permanently rooted themselves into popular culture.
The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Super intelligent AI called Skynet becomes self-aware and tries to wipe out humanity in an effort self-preservation. The future is now a bloody struggle between the machines and the human resistance. In the last stitch effort for survival, Skynet sends two machines into the past to stop the resistance from forming. One being a metal endoskeleton covered in living tissue to kill Sarah Connor in 1984, and the other being from a polymatic alloy sent in 1995 to kill John Connor.
Aliens and Alien 3. I'm glad Brier added these to the iceberg. If you take the alien out of the alien movies, what do you have? A malevolent corporation prioritizing profit and money over human life, which harnesses the technology to make artificial people or to terraform planets to literally create worlds. Then what does that do to the value of human life, really? They're the true villains of these movies. These are themes common in cyberpunk, although I'd also like to add Alien Resurrection to this list.
Blade Runner. In the year 2019, replicants of these humanlike machines made as an off-world slave workforce. They're so much like humans that they even develop their own emotions but are limited to a four-year lifespan. Those who rebel and are found on Earth are killed by these bounty hunters who work for the police called Blade Runners. This film is interesting as, despite being focused on Harrison Ford's Deckard as a main character, Rodger Howarth's Roy, who is a replicant, really steals the movie as the most interesting character.
They Live. A man fallen on hard times comes across a pair of sunglasses that reveal dozens of hidden subliminal messages for humanity to obey and to consume. He also discovers that a significant portion of the population are actually aliens in disguise. All of this used to keep humanity underfoot, using every arbitrary divide we have to keep us from uniting against them. The man joins a group dedicated to fighting their control.
Akira. A member of a biker gang, Tetsuo, is taken after an accident to a top-secret facility to have experiments performed on him. These experiments are related to a force that destroyed Tokyo in World War II, 31 years ago. He soon breaks out, and with his newfound powers being unstable, he could very well destroy Tokyo once more.
RoboCop. A story about a cop who is killed on the job but is later declared fit for work. Crime becomes rampant, and the police are essentially owned by Omni Consumer Products, another malevolent corporation. Alex Murphy is killed and is built back as the ultimate crime-fighting robot, RoboCop. Although there might not be left of him physically, he is still the same man inside.
Gattaca. In a world where genetically modified babies are the norm, anyone born the old-fashioned way would have a severe disadvantage. Vincent is one such person and unfortunately cannot achieve his dream about going into space. He enlists the help of Jerome, a genetically perfect paraplegic, to use his DNA in order to achieve his dream.
Ghost in the Shell. Many humans now have cybernetic implants. Some with a few modifications, others like Major Kusanagi have everything replaced aside from a few brain cells. The Major and her police partners try to hunt down an elusive hacker named The Puppet Master. Little was known about them when they come across a dismembered cyborg torso, believing the Puppet Master has to be inside. It comes alive, stating its name as Project 251 and requests political asylum.
Total Recall. Ever wanted to feel like you lived a life that is more exciting than your own? Well, Total Recall has you covered. Here we see Hauser try to get said memories installed, only to reveal he has had some hidden memories installed of his own and is not the man that he thought he was. Or is he? The film ends on an ambiguous note and has had people discussing it ever since.
Videodrome. Max Renn comes across an unusual, grotesque broadcast called Videodrome and has become infatuated with it. But ever since then, it begins to distort his perception of reality.
12 Monkeys. The future of 2035 is ravaged by a plague that has killed millions and millions of people. In a bid to stop it, a convict is sent back in time in exchange for parole. Once arriving in 1990, he is placed in a psychiatric facility as his future predictions sound like the ramblings of a madman.
Escape from New York and Escape from L.A. These two movies, directed by John Carpenter, both star Kurt Russell as a convicted criminal who's brought in to do a job. In the first one, Air Force One has crashed into New York, and the whole city has been turned into a maximum-security prison, and he has been tasked with rescuing the president. The second, he is sent to Los Angeles to retrieve a doomsday device.
Cowboy Bebop. After humans have colonized the solar system, the inner solar system police lose their grip on crime. Therefore, they have to resort to hiring bounty hunters, also known as cowboys, to hunt down criminals and bring them back alive.
Brazil. Sam works and lives in a world full to the brim with bureaucracy, but he also fantasizes about getting away from it all with the woman of his dreams. A mistake means that an innocent man has been arrested and a suspected terrorist has gone free. While investigating the issue, Sam comes across his fantasy woman in real life.
The Fifth Element. Every 5,000 years, a force comes to Earth that threatens all life. The only things that can stop it are Earth, fire, water, air, and a Fifth Element. Scientists tried to reconstruct the Fifth Element by using DNA to create the perfect being, a woman named Leeloo. She breaks free with the help of a taxi driver named Dallas.
Tron. Kevin Flynn gets sucked into the ENCOM 511, a massive supercomputer, and is transported inside the machine into a whole new digital landscape where he needs to fight to escape. This movie has some of the first CGI used in a movie, combining live action and CG elements for a fair few scenes. Despite its low box office, it soon became a cult classic.
Pi. In Darren Aronofsky's debut feature, we see an obsessive, reclusive math genius called Max try to figure out the secret numbers behind the universe. He discovers a number that's 216 digits long that his computers spat out before going kaput. He tries to figure out what this could be. Could it be the key to cracking the stock market? Could it be the answer to God? Or is he just crazy?
eXistenZ. Another David Cronenberg movie. This feels like Inception before we've had Inception. It shows a technology that is able to house a shared virtual reality experience between multiple human minds, akin to a multiplayer video game. We follow Allegra, the creator of a new game called eXistenZ, and Ted, a security guard, as they are relentlessly pursued by a zealous group who want to destroy her work. The movie has a great art style, making the technology appear more organic, blurring the lines between humans and technology.
Demolition Man. A future where crime, swearing, and toilet paper have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Have a bit of a shock when violent criminal Simon Phoenix escapes from his cryogenic prison sentence. Detective John Spartan, another cryogenically frozen prisoner and former cop, is defrozen in order to help with a future that is woefully unprepared.
The Running Man. A commentary on the dangers and sadism of reality TV. Here we see a future where prisoners are given the option to play on a game show for their freedom. On Catch, it's a deadly game show where if you lose, you die, and audiences love it.
Scanners. David Cronenberg's third movie on this Iceberg. Scanners are these people with telepathic abilities, but they can also cause mental and physical distress. One iconic scene shows one scanner make a man's head explode. One such scanner is recruited to infiltrate a secret group of scanners fearing what they could do to the population at large.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer. Both of these are Japanese surrealist body horror movies that deal with the person slowly being taken over by a machine-like infection spreading until it takes over all of his body. These movies are some of the more artsy, experimental, and weird on this Iceberg.
WarGames. A smart but motivated high school student tries to hack into a games company. Only it wasn't a games company he had hacked into: the NORAD system called War Operation Plan Response. Thinking he's playing a game called Global Thermonuclear War, he actually nearly causes World War III.
Bicentennial Man. A family gets an android to help with their day-to-day lives, who they name Andrew. The film follows his development as he discovers his creativity, his emotions, and the nuances of his own humanity.
Dark City. Beings known as The Strangers have abducted a large group of humans to study. They put them in a fabricated, warlike city and every now and then put them to sleep, replace their memories, and continue to observe. By changing everything about a human, these strangers hope to discover the secrets to the human soul. One man wakes up, John Murdoch, who seems to be immune from their control with his memories missing. He tries to figure out who he is.
Super Mario Bros. This movie marks the first English-language adaptation of a video game into a movie. Two plumbers, Mario and Luigi, end up in a parallel dimension that separated from our own when the asteroid killed the dinosaurs. The place is ruled by King Koopa, who is after a gem that will unite our two dimensions, allowing him to invade and take over.
The Lawnmower Man. Based on a Stephen King book, it follows Dr. Angelo, played by Pierce Brosnan, as he experiments on virtual reality in the brain. After experiments with chimps make one of them go rogue, he decides to use a human subject: the man who mows his lawn, played by Jeff Fahey. The new formulas have unforeseen side effects, including telepathy and psychokinesis. I will say this movie has some of the most trippy CGI I have ever seen.
Tank Girl. A comet has struck Earth, and our water is at short supply. In this post-apocalyptic world, a villainous Malcolm McDowell heads up the Par Corporation, a part cartel organization called Water and Power, who aim to control the world's water supply. Lori Petty plays the titular Tank Girl, who has been captured by the organization. She breaks free and aims to rescue her little girl.
Judge Dredd. The first film adaptation of this comic. Earth has been made almost uninhabitable, so the human population is forced to collect into these dense mega-cities. And with all these people moving into a small area, from high crime rates to counter this, the justice system was changed to consolidate the roles of judge, jury, and executioner. Now, instead of police, we have judges. One such judge is Judge Dredd.
Nirvana. Two businessmen, industrial spies who specialize in corporate espionage, are hired to get a man called Hiroshi to the Hosaka Corporation. To do this, they enlist the help of an Italian prostitute.
Universal Soldier. Another John Claude Van Damme movie. After two soldiers are killed in the Vietnam War, they are officially declared MIA, but really, they were taken into cryo-stasis, then put into the Universal Soldier program. The memories suppressed as to make them unaware of their previous lives.
Strange Days. On the eve of the 21st century, a technology is developed that, when placed on a person's head, can read their brain. Everything they see, hear, and experience are recorded, and these experiences can be sold off to those who want them. A high's gone wrong, slice of life, porn, you name it.
Magnetic Rose. Magnetic Rose is one of the stories in the anthology film Memories. A ship receives a distress call from a spaceship graveyard and space station. The crew soon respond to it but see no signs of life. Before long, the crews start having visions of the previous owner of the space station.
Virtuosity. A VR simulation called SID 6.7, created using the personalities of 1883 serial killers, is created to help train police officers. However, when it's under threat of being shut down, it escapes. Now loose in the world, it tries to recreate the mass murders that its program is based on.
Outland. On Io, one of Jupiter's moons, there's a corporate-owned titanium mining outpost where Federal Marshal O'Neil investigates the strange deaths where miners are walking out into space without their suits. Most are ruled as suicide, but O'Neil suspects foul play.
Double Team. Quinn is assigned to kill a terrorist named Stavros. When he fails his mission, he's sent to the Colony, the sort of prison where they keep those who were deemed too valuable to kill and too dangerous to set free.
The 13th Floor. A group of scientists make a simulated reality of the 1930s. One of the scientists is murdered, and the other is suspected. He cannot remember what he was doing that night. Later, he finds a letter in the simulation left by his murdered colleague.
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. Set in an alternate 1950s history of Japan if Germany had won World War II and if Japan didn't join the war against the Allies. There was civil unrest, and police are unable to keep a lid on it. Kazuki Fuse is a member of the counter-terrorist unit who is ordered to chase down a rioter but soon ends up involved in a conspiracy.
Soldier. Todd is one of the many selected at birth to be trained as the perfect soldier. However, when a new generation of soldiers are developed using a new genetic method, despite all of his life being dedicated to being a soldier, he is deemed obsolete.
Darkman. A scientist is working on a new method to help replace skin tissue to help burn victims. A group of criminals come along and blow up his lab, leaving him disfigured. Using his own methods to reconstruct his face, he seeks revenge.
The City of Lost Children. A scientist who has lost the ability to dream decides to abduct young children in order to steal their dreams. When one boy is taken by his henchmen, his father, One, goes after them to try and take him back.
Hardware. In a post-apocalyptic world, a scavenger comes across an intact head of a drone. Unable to sell it, he gives it to his girlfriend. However, the drone is not exactly dead, and it comes back online and reassembles itself, going on a killing rampage.
Nemesis. Another one directed by Albert Pyun. Alex Rain is a cop who works for the LAPD who is assigned to kill cyborg terrorists. After being sent on a mission, he finds out his old bosses have been replaced by cyborgs. This movie is full to the brim of creative action pieces, like Alex shooting the floor below him in order to for several stories in order to escape. I did a video on this movie and its sequels if you want to know more.
Liquid Sky. A smoke alarm-looking UFO lands on Margaret's apartment roof and is full of invisible aliens watching her. After an opiate that is produced in the human brain, one that is developed especially during moments of orgasm, soon every sexual partner she has ends up dying right afterwards.
On Your Mark. A music video for Sting's "On Your Mark" made by Studio Ghibli. See two policemen come across a young girl with wings during a raid, but when she's taken in for further study, they decide to break her out and to escape their city to free her.
Transmetropolitan. A police trooper called Jack Death is on the hunt for a notorious criminal called Whistler. He has the ability to make anyone with a weak mind bend to his will and turn them into these automatons called Trans-Cultures. Whistler has gone back in time to Christmas of 1985, and Jack Death is sent as well to stop him.
964 Pinocchio. Another strange Japanese movie. A young woman comes across a man in distress, bald with only one bit of hair on his head. She takes him in and looks after him. The only thing is, he's a malfunctioning sidewalk sex slave who has thrown away.
Robot Jox. War is now a thing of the past. Now conflicts are settled by one-on-one fighting matches between these giant robots with a singular pilot inside. Here we see America and Russia fight for the state of Alaska.
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. The movie made from the first two episodes of the series Batman Beyond. It's set in the not-too-distant future, 20 years after Bruce Wayne has retired from the role of Batman. A young kid named Terry McGinnis gets in contact with the old Bruce Wayne and allows him to use the Batsuit and be the new Batman.
The Whole. A Taiwanese musical that sees members of an apartment complex while there's perpetual rain and an epidemic of an unusual disease. Two people living in the complex share tension as a whole appears between their flats until the end of the world.
La Jetée. Chris Marker's 1962 short film. A man is haunted by the past and the image of a woman's face at a childhood fair. He is sent back in time to try and prevent the destruction of humanity.
Split Second. Set in a future where global warming has been ignored and the sea levels have risen, there is a serial killer loose in London who seems to be targeting his victims at random and has supernatural powers. Detective Stone is on the case after the killer murdered his partner.
Patlabor: The Movie. While Tokyo is going through some redevelopment, the construction robot suits, known as labors, go haywire. Special Vehicle Section 2 Division 2 is sent in to stop them and investigate why this has happened.
Runaway Robots. Soon become commonplace in people's homes, but every so often they malfunction and become a hazard. So when that happens, the police send in the Runaway Squad to stop them.
No Escape. A veteran is sentenced to prison and is sent to an island where the worst of the worst go. Here he tries to escape the outsiders, a gang of violent prisoners, with the help of the Insiders, a peaceful commune.
August in the Water. A teenage girl who takes up diving has an incident mid-air. She falls into a coma but soon returns to consciousness, but after she wakes up, she behaves like a completely different person. All of this coincides with the strange events that have happened recently, like water shortages and two meteorites landing nearby.
Brainscan. A couple of misfit kids play a new video game called Brainscan, where the player is a murderer. Michael plays it, and he kills someone in-game. The next day, he realizes that that same murder that he did in-game happened in real life.
Freejack. To avoid death, the ultra-rich use time travel to snatch people from the past who might have otherwise died and transfer their minds into their bodies. One such person, Alex Furlong, manages to escape.
Fortress. The US is now a fascist dictatorship with a one-child policy. John and Karen are expecting another child, so they try to escape to Canada but are caught and put in high-security prison there. He tries to break the both of them out before his baby is born.
Bullet Ballet. After Go's girlfriend kills herself with a gun, he becomes obsessed with him and tries his best to win one himself. This leads him down a rabbit hole after being assaulted by a gang of thugs.
Neo Tokyo. An anthology made of three stories: Labyrinth Labyrinthus, a girl and a cat go to a strange new world; The Running Man, where races take part in a deadly event; and Construction Cancellation Order, a man who is ordered to shut down construction robots who do not want to be shut down.
Screamers. On a mining planet orbiting Sirius B, there is a conflict between two factions: the New Economic Block, a large mining corporation, and the Alliance, a collection of miners and scientists. In the fast wastelands, there are these robots that can kill anything with a pulse: self-replicating machines called Screamers.
Drive. No, not that one. This one. Toby has an experimental biological energy module installed in his chest and is on the run from hitmen hired by the Chinese government. They would do anything to get this tech back. Toby, along with his newfound friend Malik, must get to a corporation in Los Angeles to remove it before the hitmen can get to him.
Ran. There are new inventions in elder care. A bed is made that fully automates everything from entertainment and food to going to the toilet. These here are held as innovations, but some are concerned about the elders' quality of life being confined to this mechanical bed.
Saturn 3. A couple stationed on a moon orbiting Saturn get a visit from a strange man. He brings with him a machine called Hector, installed with human brain tissue as his computer, but it doesn't take long before Hector starts malfunctioning.
Eclipse. From the sun, they cannot call for help. What follows are several scenes of paranoia, tension, and psychological horror.
23. A German movie based on a true story where it follows Karl Koch, who buys a computer and soon gets into computer hacking, realizing there's some money to be made. Him and a couple of friends go over to East Germany to try and contact the KGB.
Looker. Multiple women who were clients of a renowned plastic surgeon have ended up dying in suspicious circumstances. Are they killing themselves, or is there a murderer coming after them one by one? The movie features the first CGI model of a human used in a movie.
Wild Zero. The zombie apocalypse is upon us, and it is caused by alien invaders. A fan of rock and roll, Ace, gets caught up in the middle of it. Here is where he calls for help from a rock band who he saved earlier, who he formed a blood bond with.
Cyber City Oedo 808. The series follows three criminals who were serving long sentences. They go off offer to have those sentences reduced if they help the Cyber Police Unit fight cybercrime.
R.O.T.O.R. R.O.T.O.R., or Robotic Officer Tactical Operations Research Reserve, is a prototype robot developed with the aim to help fight crime, but when it's accidentally activated, it follows its command to enforce the law. Only instead of arresting or giving tickets, it starts executing members of the public.
O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world after nuclear war, where a group of survivors are huddled away in a vault. The vault itself is crumbling to pieces, and the only hope for the people is to make their way to the Ark.
Robot Carnival. A collection of nine animated short stories, all following the themes of robots.
Cherry 2000. Sex and intimacy have become rare among humans. Instead, people opt for robotic partners. When a man's robotic wife shorts out, he hires a tracker to find a new one of the same model.
Burst City. Discontent is widespread in Tokyo with the announcement of the construction of a nuclear power plant in Tokyo. Two bikers are on the lookout for the guy who killed one of their brothers, only to find out that the guy is the same one who is running the power plant.
Fresh Kill. A couple live near a landfill site called Fresh Kills Landfill. Contamination from a local corporation causes the fish to glow, and when their daughter eats one, she glows and disappears. The couple then decide to hack the corporation responsible in order to expose the truth.
Battle Angel. A young cyborg named Gally is abandoned and discarded on scrap heap. When a cyber doctor finds her, fixes her, and raises her as his own daughter, it's not long that she starts displaying her skills as a fighter.
Class of 1999. As violence and gangs are on the rise, the CIA experiments with putting former military robots as teachers in schools. However, when the students react violently, so do the robots.
The Adventures of Denku-koo. A boy who has a telephone pole grown out of his back accidentally transports himself into the future. Here he learns he has to fight for the sake of humanity against these cyborg vampires.
Ghost in the Machine. Klye Hawkman, known as the Address Book Killer, is a serial killer who selects his victims via address books. He gets involved in a car crash and gets taken to have an MRI, but when lightning strikes, he is transferred into cyberspace. Now unbound by physical form, he uses computer networks to continue his killing spree.
DecoDa. DecoDa, or Data Analyzing Robot Fly Form, was found and adopted by a family who were unaware of his cybernetic origins and are amazed by his abilities. DecoDa, a man who is into industrial music, soon learns that if he switches music from calm to aggressive industrial, he can incite a crowd to riot, giving him control.
Angel Dust. A woman is murdered on the subway every week. A psychiatrist, Setsuko Suma, is brought in to help with the struggling police investigation. The more she investigates, the more things point to the man she used to date.
Robbers' Lovers. A group of scientists conduct experiments on people they pick up off the street. These experiments are often sadistic and subject them to all sorts of depravity, treating the Geneva Convention like a to-do list.
Brainstorm. Scientists develop a new way to read and record what another human being senses and feels. One scientist on the team decides to use it to experience the last moments of his estranged wife.
And that concludes part one of this Iceberg, covering about 100 movies. I'll be making the following parts to this Iceberg as when I'm able to. But if you stuck around till now, thank you very much for watching this. If you like what we see, please subscribe, and I'll see you later.