Elysium hits all the themes of a cyberpunk movie. It has high-tech low-lifes, it has corporations in total control, it has a massive inequality gap, it has technology leading to dehumanization. But what it doesn’t have, is neon-lit rainy streets at night.

Cyberpunk as a genre has themes that don’t rely on visuals and yet so many cyberpunk stories use the 80s aesthetic as a short-hand for “cyberpunk”. I think this makes the cyberpunk “look” feel dated even though its themes aren’t actually stuck in the 80s.

This video does a great job of breaking down where cyberpunk came from. It was a product of the 1980s. Specifically (in America), the cultural fears of rising crime rates, removing regulations on corporations, and the rising influence of Japan. These were things people worried about in the 1980s and cyberpunk was able to tap into those fears by taking them to the extreme. And while some of those fears were well-founded (removing regulations on corporations), not all aspects of them remained timeless.

Elysium replaces the cultural fears of the 1980s with the cultural fears of the 2010s. Climate change, access to health care, increasing wealth gap. These things are now taken to the extreme while still following the cyberpunk template. I wish more stories were able to separate the 1980s aesthetic from the themes of cyberpunk. The themes of the genre are still relevant today even if the “look” has become dated.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s a trailer. And it’s currently streaming on Netflix.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
    5·
    11 months ago

    Is Johnny Mnemonic just a bad example of cyberpunk? 🤔

    Or is just that the 90’s looks too similar to the 80’s and things made in the 90’s still look like the 90’s? Cuz Ghost in the Shell also would fit in with Elysium.

    • HammerjackOPMEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      Johnny Mnemonic (and Ghost in the Shell) was still all neon-lit cities at night. My point was more that Elysium goes in the opposite direction by having a dry, arid world in the daylight while still fitting in cyberpunk themes.

      • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        I see. I was hung up on the look of the tech and clothes more so than the world overall. In that case, Chappi also fits. District 9, too even though it probably doesn’t get classified as cyberpunk often but it has all the hallmarks of the genre while featuring aliens.