A crew of low-lifes working with an android in a dirty old spaceship for a faceless corporation that treats them as expendable.
Obviously the movie is really scifi horror, but it does hit a lot of cyberpunk themes. So do you consider Alien to be cyberpunk? If you don't, what would need to change to make it cyberpunk?
I usually include a trailer for the movies I reference but come on, it's Alien. You already know about this movie.
It's streaming on Hulu if you haven't watched it recently.
I guess I'm willing to accept space in cyberpunk as long as it's dirty and broken down and not military-based. For example, I think the belters in The Expanse series could be the basis for a cyberpunk story. The Expanse isn't cyberpunk, but I think you could easily tell a cyberpunk story in that world.
I was thinking of the Expanse as I wrote that. The Belt maybe feels closer to cyberpunk because the Belters are trapped. They can move around in space, but can never go planetside.
I think that's maybe the crux of it: Characters in cyberpunk are trapped. By circumstance, definitely, but I think there's a physical element as well. Sure you can go anywhere you want in the Sprawl, you can even leave and go to Chiba City. But they're not meaningfully different. You can trade one urban hellscape for another, but you can't escape. The life you lead is very close to the life you will always lead. Interplanetary travel removes that limitation. Being a space trucker might not be better, but it's different. That's too fancy for a cyberpunk protagonist.
The Churn, one of the Expanse novellas, is cyberpunk. It's Amos' backstory in Baltimore. Of course then he makes it off-planet and it's no longer cyberpunk.
Totally agree. That's also why I dislike any cyberpunk story that has a revolution/rebellion in it. Any attempt to actually change/fix the system goes against the cyberpunk themes of how futile that is. Cyberpunk stories are about trying to survive with the hand you've been dealt, not enacting societal change.
I don't know that I mind a doomed revolution, as long as it avoids or subverts themes like heroism.
I could also see a revolution inconveniencing the protagonist.
But yes, being hopeful for things to change at the societal level is probably too much.
It's also worth noting that execution trumps most other factors. A Scanner Darkly reads as cyberpunk to me, despite missing a lot of the aesthetics of the genre. Infinite Jest also reads as cyberpunk, even though most of the sci-fi elements are hiding most of the time. That last one might be a hot take, I haven't been able to find anyone else talking about it as cyberpunk.