“As time goes on Transverse City looks less like science fiction and more like home.
“I received Warren Zevon’s Transverse City back in 1989 when it originally came out, but I confess I only really got it recently. The fact that it took more than a decade for this fine album to sink in my say something bad about me, but it also says something great about the foresight and ambition that marked Warren Zevon’s work on Transverse City. Having taken a long, hard and inspired look at himself on his 1987 comeback effort, Sentimental Hygiene, Zevon seemed ready here to take on the world at large with this trippy song cycle that suggested the intellectual influence of Philip K. Dick and George Orwell, and the musical influence of everything from Kraftwerk to Igor Stravinsky, with a little refried California rock and a bit of British art rock thrown into the potent, dense mix. With characteristic guts, Zevon dared to combine a cyberpunk concept, a mindbending modern soundscape, and a crowded house of well-known musical guests from Neil Young to Chick Corea, Jerry Garcia to Dave Gilmour. The resulting album didn’t become a big hit, but its futuristic songs here have already stood the test of time.” - David Wild, 2002 (From the 2003 liner notes).
Track Listing: 1. “Transverse City” – 4:19 2. “Run Straight Down” – 4:05 3. “The Long Arm of the Law” – 3:47 4. “Turbulence” – 4:08 5. “They Moved the Moon” – 4:31 6. “Splendid Isolation” – 4:35 7. “Networking” – 3:02 8. “Gridlock” – 4:34 9. “Down in the Mall” – 4:28 10. “Nobody’s in Love This Year” – 4:17 11. “Networking (Acoustic Demo Version) (2003 Bonus Track)
Excitable boy is excited. You must have heard at least one of Zevon’s songs; It’s played to death every Halloween. While it is his biggest hit and best known song, Zevo took a stab at cyberpunk music thanks to an interest in William Gibson’s works. Of course the album didn’t sell, mostly because cyberpunk was still an underground sensation at the time so many didn’t understand the concept.
Re-released the same year as his death, Zevon’s Transverse City sounds like a brand-spanking-new soundtrack of our modern world instead of a 30 year old slab of classic rock. You don’t need to be a Warren Zevon fan nor a cyberpunk fan to enjoy this album, but it might help to be a bit of both for full enjoyment. So let’s take a trip down into town to see what’s going down downtown…
Transverse City. Warren Zevon plays keyboards on most of the tracks. For the opening title track, his keyboard playing sounds almost Japanese. A rather nice touch to a song about a city past the shiny Mylar towers, past the ravaged tenements, where life is cheap and death is free. You’ll also get to hear the hum of desperation, the song of shear and torsion, and Jerry Garcia (the head Dead-Head himself) on guitar.
Run Straight Down.
Zevon sings about walking through the decaying city wanting to head home to watch the decline on T.V. instead of experiencing it first-hand. Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour plays lead guitar. If you listen carefully (it’s most noticeable at the beginning) you can hear a monotonic, almost robotic voice delivering a rhythmic delivery of 4-Aminobiphenyl, hexachlorobenzene, Dimethyl sulfate, chloromethyl methylether, 2, 3, 7, 8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin, carbon disulfide, Dibromochloropane, chlorinated benzenes, 2-Nitropropane, pentachlorophenol, Benzotrichloride, strontium chromate, 1, 2-Dibromo-3-chloropropane. (That shit sounds dangerous, like some super-adrenaline-and-caffeine-charged-heroin… or that “cream” they put in Twinkies.)
The Long Arm of The Law. Seems like no matter where you go these days, the blue meanies are looking to lay a beat-down on someone. If the first words you remember hearing are Nobody move, nobody gets hurt, you better live like a fugitive and don’t protest your innocence, only the dead get off scott free.
Turbulence. Turmoil back in Moscow brought this turbulence down on me. Told from the POV of a Russian soldier in Afghanistan, 1989 was the year of Perestroika in the former Soviet Union, which also lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall. All our soldier wants is to go home, singing in Russian about “missing our mothers” (that’s according to a couple of translations of the Russian lyrics).
They Moved The Moon. A bit of a sad song, written after a breakup. Zevon suddenly feels like his everything in his life has been re-arranged so nothing makes sense anymore (They changed the stars around). Definitely a breakup song.
Splendid Isolation. The message of this song is quite obvious: Leave me alone. (Michael Jackson in Disneyland / Don’t have to share it with nobody else / Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand / And lead me through the World of Self). He even goes so far as to put tinfoil over his windows to block the outside world.
Networking. Zevon has been known to have a rather unusual sense of humor. Here, he has a major nerd-gasm while dropping some tech-related puns like I’m user friendly / I install with ease / data processed, truly Basic. He may have even predicted his CDs being file-shared: I will upload you, you can download me. I’m certain many of you have already.
For the re-release, an acoustic demo version is included. The same lyrics, only stripped-down with Zevo, an acoustic guitar, and a harmonica. Sounds something like Neil Young might have tried.
Gridlock. An ode to the evening rush. The morning rush isn’t too bad, but the evening rush… can I possibly tell you how much it sucks? Well, Zevon can tell you about it better… and in song form with Neil Young on lead guitar. Stuck on the edge of the suburban sprawl / Everybody’s chocking on monoxide fumes / I feel like going on a killing spree / and Roll down the window, let me scream. You have my sympathies, Zevo. Crank this one up to 11 while you’re stuck on the interstate parking lot.
Down In The Mall. Nothing like a little conspicuous consumption, especially at a mall seven stories tall with a four floor parking garage. Zevon goes on a shopping spree so he can put it on a charge account we’re never gonna pay. Like what people are doing this holiday season…
Nobody’s In Love This Year. Prepare to have your heart broken with this down-tempo bit of bitter-sweetness. When lovers no longer communicate with each other, there’s no need to wonder why the rate of attrition for lovers like us is steadily on the rise.
Conclusion: Unlike other efforts at cyberpunk albums, both intended and unintended, Transverse City has become a true time-tested cyberpunk work (though it’s too early to say anything about recent acts like Dope Stars or Ayria). Then again, this is the only album that was written by a proven musical genius like Warren Zevon. This is classic rock that cyberpunk fans, even those who are not into Warren Zevon, can get into.
At least it beats listening to Werewolves of London for the zillionth time.
This post has been filed under Cyberpunk Music by Mr. Roboto.
First of, an apology. I had received Ryan’s second Street of Eyes novel back in May. That time period was rather confused with a lay-off, some temporary work, unemployment, then being called back to work, and a reading and review got lost in the shuffle. There’s only one way to describe how I feel for letting this go for so long…
Fortunately, I did manage to cram the entire book into my eyeballs this weekend. I can say that the second Street novel ain’t no huurrr-duuurrr hurpa-derp. What it is is a worthy successor to Empathy that picks up where it left off: With Gina recovering on a Ukraine fishing trawler after her fall from an airship in a lifeboat. She gets to know the ship’s captain, his wife, and the fishing village where the couple live. But her telepathic powers are still in effect, and they have her hopping into the heads/bodies of Rat and Bomber. Soon, Gina wants to leave the simple fishing life and try to find Bomber, fearing Gabriel may have killed him.
Meanwhile, Bomber (now going by Simon Caine) is recovering from jumping out of that same airship. He begins looking for Gina and Gabriel, but needs help from hackers Jock and Rat. Rat is given a unique opportunity: She is invited to be a ranked hacker by working for the lead hacker himself, the King of Laputa. Only she meets another woman who used to be the leader until outed by the current king and is now planning a revolt against what she sees as a “boy’s club” (the Fifteen leaders of the hacker nations).
Past Prologue. For Clairvoyance, we get to learn more about some of the character back-stories. Gina used to be Emily Vaughn, the daughter of a well-to-do family who resented her father’s social climbing by “being a lap dog for the Federation.” Bomber was a US Marine who underwent ID changes as needed. And Gabriel was a survivor of a nuclear attack because of a secret nanotech program. This gives our characters the background that explains their current actions, and a little foreshadowing as those pasts return to haunt them in various ways.
Don’t derp out on volume two. Already, Ryan is working on the third and final Street volume (aka Precognition) on his site. If Clairvoyance is any indication, Precognition should be the magnum opus for the Street series. In the meantime, better get Clairvoyance (and Empathy if you don’t have it yet) to prepare for the grand finale.
This post has been filed under Cyberpunk Books by Mr. Roboto.
… but for Amanda Boxtell, who has been paralyzed for 18 years following a skiing accident, the new-mobility provided to her with her new eLegs is exciting, especially for CNN’s Ali Velshi. Developed by Berkeley Bionics, the eLegs were introduced on 7-Oct-2010. I haven’t seen or heard of these legs until November 10, at 12:45 PM EST, when I saw the CNN broadcast for the first time. You can see the video on CNN’s site if the vid above doesn’t work.
The system is rather clunky, requiring a couple of crutches/canes to act as input for the legs, but it brings Amanda one step closer (literally) to full mobility. At least, it gets her out of her wheelchair.
Iron Man or HULC? Berkeley Bionics should know something about robotic exoskeletons; They also developed one for the US military called the Human Universal Load Carrier, or HULC, which they licensed to Lockeed-Martin:
The HULC is a completely un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton that provides users with the ability to carry loads of up to 200 lbs for extended periods of time and over all terrains. Its flexible design allows for deep squats, crawls and upper-body lifting. There is no joystick or other control mechanism. The exoskeleton senses what users want to do and where they want to go. It augments their ability, strength and endurance. An onboard micro-computer ensures the exoskeleton moves in concert with the individual. Its modularity allows for major components to be swapped out in the field. Additionally, its unique power-saving design allows the user to operate on battery power for extended missions. The HULC’s load-carrying ability works even when power is not available.
I suspect that the eLegs were developed from HULC technology. Hopefully they won’t come with 20mm folding-fin rocket launchers, although Lockheed-Martin is looking to adapt the HULC for industrial use (like Ripley’s loader suit) and medical applications.
Meanwhile, Raytheon Sarcos is developing its own robosuit for soldiers. Also clunky, as it still needs to be tethered to a power source:
The video and accompanying article can be found here.
Still waiting for Tony Stark. What we’re looking at are first-generation robo-suits. Naturally, they will get better as the technology advances, so a real Iron Man is years away. Now we have time to save up for when such suits are made available at our favorite outfitters. (To give you an idea, Raytheon’s suit is projected to cost $150K US).
Looking for a good scare this Halloween? Tokyo Gore Police may have what you’re looking for. Be warned: The visuals may be more… “intense” than what most would go for. Let’s say this shit makes your “Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and “Saw” franchises look like Disney productions.
Overview: Tokyo Gore Police is a “Japanese Cyberpunk” splatter movie created by the producers of “The Machine Girl”. The movie is a remake of the independent movie “Anatomia Extinction”. Currently, a prequel short for the movie is in production.
Plot: In the future, the privatized police, under control of the “Tokyo Police Corporation” has developed an extremely brutal, merciless law and order type way of action.
The whole society developed into a sadistic, pervert society with an obsession of violence.
Ruka is the daughter of a policeman who was assassinated in a very brutal way before the police was privatized. Because Ruka saw the assassination of her father, she was traumatized and developed self harming behavior. After the death of her father, she was adopted and raised by the chief officer of the Police Corporation.
Later, an outbreak of a virus causes the infected people to mutate into bizarre monsters. The virus was created by a mad scientist to take revenge on the death of his father by the police. Later, it’s revealed that the father of the mad scientist is actually the murderer of Ruka’s father and the reason for the assassination was actually a conspiracy within the police, where the chief officer of the new Police Corporation has got a key role.
After most mutants were killed by Ruka, the police start a Purge like action where also seemingly randomly civilians get hunted. Among the murdered civilians is also a close friend of Ruka. Because of this and the involvement of her foster father in the assassination of her biological father, Ruka gets mad and starts mutating, too. She fights the policemen and then encounters her foster father. Her father, who started mutating, too and using injections of the virus to get more powerfull starts fighting against his foster daughter.
The story of the film is full of sick moments and extremely brutal scenes. For example, a mutant is a prostitute who eats her customers. There is also a huge amount of psycho-sexual horror, like in the works of H.R.Giger and most other “Japanese Cyberpunk movies”, but some scenes are more funny than scary.
“Vagina dentata” much?
The movie has got a huge amount of black humorous moments. For example, like in the Robocop movies, in the movie, there are certain fake commercial scenes advertising very sick things or speaking funny warnings. For example, knifes for self cutting are advertised in an extremely sick way and there is a television warning that committing Hara-kiri will result in your death. The chief officer of the police also has got a kind of “Cyborg Dog” who looks like a BDSM Costume.
The depiction of the police in the movie is also the clichéd “ultra violent law and order” policemen type which often appear in Cyberpunk works. The most famous ones are Robocop and Judge Dredd.
I agree with the Review on DVD Times.com , the film definitely reminds on Blade Runner, but it mostly lacks the brilliant atmosphere of Blade Runner. Only the driving scene through the streets of Tokyo and the Bar Scene catch a similar, brilliant atmosphere.
The opening scene, where at first, all is peacefull, but suddenly, Rukas father is killed in a very brutal way was one of the best depictions of the concept of “the Real” by the psychologist Jacques Lacan, a kind of traumatic, unexplainable event suddenly appearing which is threatening the function of the mind, I have ever seen.
Speaking of unexplainable events suddenly appearing which is threatening the function of the mind…
On most parts, the movie is extremely entertaining, but I don’t understand these “police purge” scenes near the end of the movie and to me, these scenes doesn’t really make sense. The story of the movie isn’t very intellectual, but it’s a good satire on the actions of these populist law and order politicians. The story is also more complex than these Japanese Cyberpunk movies starring Dr.Joseph Mengele like Mad Scientists performing cruel experiments.
Conclusion: Tokyo Gore Police is a truly sick brutal movie like most Japanese cyberpunk films. The story is also not very original and is mostly extremely thin. Nevertheless, it’s still an entertaining satire which can’t be taken seriously. Like all “Japanese Cyberpunk movies”, if you have got problems with violence, you won’t like this movie. Most of the horror scenes aren’t as scary as the horror scenes of the movies Yu On and The Ring, although these movies are less brutal.
Developed by: Solid Image Ltd (Glyn Williams, Joey Headen)
Released by: Firebird, Ovine by Design
Platforms: Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Windows
Degree of Cyberpunk Visuals: High
Correlation to Cyberpunk Themes: High
Rating:8 out of 10
What do I consider a “good hack” to be? Well, you see that robot? A good hack would be if I can use that robot to get a beer, deliver some pizzas… and free humanity from this bunker.
Overview: Much like Paradroid from our last review, Cholo is another remake from indie game makers Ovine by Design. Originally made for 8-bit systems of the mid-80’s, the new Cholo improves upon the bare-wire-frame graphics for something more Tron-like.
The story carries over from the original, but the new version changes the interface for an FPS feel of looking out a robot’s eye(s) and adds more “rampaks” (upgrades and clues) to the gameplay. Think of it as Paradroid done first-person.
The Story: The city of Cholo was an important asset to allied forces for it’s robotics works. When a nuclear war broke out, Cholo was spared from a direct hit, but radiation made living on the surface impossible, not only for biological reasons but for causing the many robots to go berzerk (obligatory retro game reference) and attack any human they encounter. An underground bunker was built, the remaining people were move inside, and sealed from the robots and radiation. To keep the people occupied, a robot game called RAT was created. You have mastered RAT and have been selected by Cholo’s computer to use those skills to free humanity from the bunker.
To free humanity, you must use the rat-droid to hack into other robots and use their weapons and abilities to find a way to open the pyramid seal and free humanity.
Easy, right? If it really was meant to be easy, it probably wouldn’t be worth playing. Like most any puzzle, a bit of difficulty is expected to make solving all the more satisfying. For Cholo, that puzzle is made all the more difficult because of the buildings; They all look similar outside, making identifying individual dwellings harder. HINT: There’s a map of Cholo that you can print out so you can mark-off buildings you have been inside of. Ovine also gives you a quick-start on how to “capture” your first robot (Igor, the hacker droid). From there, you’re on your own.
A cast of characters. To succeed, you will need to know what robot has what abilities. Starting with the rat-bot you investigate inside buildings, and hijack other bots. Hacker-bot Igor can then access the computer systems inside buildings, but don’t let him get into any fights; Igor has no weapons. Police bots (not to be confused with RoboCop) patrol the streets and guard important areas, while Grundon tank-bots guard the pyramid entrance to the bunker. Leadcoats can access irradiated areas that can harm other bots, while a maintenance bot is available to repair the others. There are a couple of remote camera robots to keep an eye on things (no pun intended), and robotic vehicles to get around town.
Sounds like you everything you need to free humanity… except a solution…
Cool story, bro. One of the key features of Cholo, both versions, is the novella which gives a bit of background to your quest, and possibly some hints.
You are a computer maintenance engineer named Jared. You’ve noticed that there have been an increasing number of malfunctions and failures in the bunker’s systems. This is due to the organic computer that runs the bunker is slowly “dying,” as its protein source is running low. The RAT program that was created was actually a test to find someone able to use the droids to free humanity before the computer dies completely, taking the trapped humans with it as the bunker’s life support systems fail.
Ovine also has a news archive where pre-war news provide more background, and maybe a hint or two. I’d recommend reading everything before diving into the game so you have a better chance as freeing humanity.
Conclusion: While not the easiest puzzle to solve, Cholo is bound to give the adventurous a good reason for playing. Some might consider the visuals rather primitive even by 2005 standards (they must have never played the original version), but that doesn’t seem to deter from the atmosphere. Cholo is one city you should consider visiting, especially if you need a break from your standard FPS blast-a-thons.
This post has been filed under Cyberpunk Games by Mr. Roboto.
SSJKamui gives you retro gamers something to consider from our forums. In 2006, indie developers Ovine by Design remade this classic for modern Windows systems. The screencaps you’ll see will be from the Ovine remake.
Overview: Paradroid is a videogame for the C64 computer, created by the English programmer Andrew Braybrook, where the players play a robot who has to fight other robots who have overtaken a spaceship. If the player wants to, he is also able to hack the robots to control them.
Story: The robots of an unknown spaceship (the Paradroid) rebelled against their masters and took the ship into their control, but one small Robot fights them.
Like all older computergames, the story is extremely thin and only contains a few cyberpunk elements. The elements present in the story are a focus on the underground (the game centers around the robot servants of humanity and the player is playing one of the weakest robots. This can be seen as the “Underground of the Underground”.). The Information Access theme is present through the hacking parts.
The negative impact of technology is also present, because the robots attacked the humans on the ship and possibly even killed them. Because, in the game, there are no humans, there is obviously no “Fusion of Man and Machine” element.
The Visuals: The Visuals of the game are abstract labyrinths, mixing metallic looking borders with a cyberspace like environment. (Because of this, the Visuals are very cyberpunk.)
The robots on the grid are represented as abstract circles with a registry number in the middle. During the hacking, you see the actual physical shape of the robots. The hacking interface is a circuit diagram like representation of the ports of the robot. (This is also very cyberpunk like.)
The abstract visuals are among the coolest aspects of the game, although they are extremely simple.
Gameplay: The player moves his robot through the ship and is able to attack hostile robots with his lasers or he can dock and try to hack them. The hacking is a more hardware hacking, where the player has to gain control over the ports of the enemy robot. (In fact, this is extremely complicated and requires a high amount of dexterity. Because of this, I never succeeded in it.) When the player fails, he is destroyed. Else, he controls the enemy robot and can use him in turn to hack other robots. The higher the registry number of the robot, the more complicated is hacking him. In some aspects, the game is a kind of “Hacking arcade game”. The gameplay is fun, but personally, I think it’s a little bit too hard.
If you’re familiar with hacking in Nercron, this should look familiar.
In the game, nearly nothing about the game mechanics is explained, so, a look in the manual is often needed.
Conclusion: Paradroid is a very interesting game, but not a very good game for long term play. It’s more a game for short sessions. The graphic is simple, but indeed interesting. Because of it’s high difficulty, I can’t recommend it for people who don’t play very often. For hardcore gamers, it can be indeed a very entertaining game.
Postscript from Mr. Roboto: If you want to play Paradroid, but don’t have your C64 anymore, head over to Ovine by Design and download their remake, Project: Paradroid. It’s Paradroid with updated graphics. See if it brings back any fond memories of your Commodore days.
If the MPAA has its way, bill S.3804 will be shoved through Congress so fast that they won’t notice that it mimics tactics used by China and Iran.
Congratulations, America! You have become the enemy you fight.
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. (Neitzsche)
The “Bill” is currently “in committee,” meaning that some congressional members are reviewing the “Bill” to see if it is something that can easily pass, if some tweaking is necessary, or if it should be dumped altogether. If you want to see this “Bill” for yourself (you need some bathroom material or a cure for insomnia) you can find the full text on GovTrack.us where you can also track its progress.
Many bills do die in committee, so the odds are against this one surviving. But if it does survive and becomes law…
The bill creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. The first can be added to by a court, the second by the Attorney General. Internet service providers (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the government’s gratitude) for blocking domains on the second list.
Which sites would be tagets? Anyone “dedicated to infringing activity.” But read on…
Well, it means sites like YouTube could get censored in the US. Copyright holders like Viacom argue that copyrighted material is central to activity of YouTube. But under current US law, YouTube is perfectly legal as long as they take down copyrighted material when they’re informed about it — which is why Viacom lost their case in court. If this bill passes, Viacom doesn’t even need to prove YouTube is doing anything illegal — as long as they can persuade a court that enough other people are using it for copyright infringement, that’s enough to get the whole site censored.
And even without a court order, sites can get blacklisted just by order of the Attorney General — and the bill encourages ISPs to block those sites as well. ISPs have plenty of reason to obey a government blacklist even when they’re not legally required.
The US Constitution says that we’re supposed to have “due process” in the courts before a site gets its plug pulled, but in our post-9/11 security-surveillance state, due process can now be bypassed and a site can be shut down even though it never did anything wrong. If a person has a problem with a website, all they need to do is complain and … 404: Site not found. Imagine WikiLeaks, or even our own Cyberpunk Review site, being on someone’s shit-list. WikiLeaks can be considered a site “dedicated to infringing activity,” and Cyberpunk Review’s media and news about a genre that is inherently anarchistic and criminal in nature…
History Never Repeats… unless they didn’t study. I remember hearing something about Australia’s attempt at blacklist censorship failing. If someone down under can let us know what the status of that attempt. In the mean time, US citizens can sign an online petition to help stop S.3804.
Better still, let’s try this: Find out the congress-critters supporting this “bill” and the members of the MPAA and follow them around in speaker-packed cars or large boom-boxes set to continuously play FSR’s “Fuck the MPAA” to get our message across.
To be honest, I don’t think any of those corporate whores will ever get the message unless they’re raped in public.
Another gem from the forums. I actually watched the series when it first came out on TV. Never really thought of it to be cyberpunk, but Intel not only believes it to be, but also thought it to be very good as well, and responders agree with him. I’m going to see if I can acquire the series, so let’s see what intel Intel has…
List of some cyberpunk themes:
Distopic future
Megacorporations
Man-machine interface
AI
Genetic engineering
Hackers
Etc…
Story: 20 years after the last batman episode, Batman now has an advanced exoskeleton-type suit, but is suffering from age. While fighting a group of kidnappers, he has a heart attack and is forced to use a gun to fend of the criminals. He then give up his batman identity and the story jumps ahead 20 more years to year 2039.
Bruce knows he can’t be the Batman forever. Sooner or later, he needs to pass the torch… and the suit.
Now we shift over to Terry McGinnis, an athletic 16-year-old high school student and ex-troublemaker with a sense of justice. In the pilot episode, Terry saves a fellow passenger on a commuter rail from a member of the Jokerz gang, and then takes on an entire gang of Jokerz to defend his girlfriend, resulting in a high-speed motorcycle chase. The chase ends on the grounds of Wayne Manor, where Terry runs into the elderly Bruce Wayne. Bruce and Terry fend off the Jokerz together, but the fight causes Wayne’s heart condition to act up. Terry helps Bruce back to the manor and, while staying there, he discovers the entrance to the Batcave. Chased out by Bruce, Terry comes home to discover that his father had been murdered by the vengeful Jokerz, and later returns to “borrow” the Batsuit to avenge the death of his father. As crime and corruption are beginning once again to rear their ugly heads in Gotham, Bruce ultimately allows Terry to assume the mantle of Batman.
Overview: We now find gotham to be a huge, sprawling metropolis of skyscrapers, metro-rails, and hover-cars. the wealthy live in the penthouses and crime a poor are left to the ancient alleyways. criminals are now high-tech assasins, genetically-engineered low lifes, CEO’s of megacorporations, and even a few rampant AI.
Click the pic to visit LegionsofGotham.org to see more Batman Beyond background images like this one.
Visuals: the show is full of grungy buildings, neon signs, and power cables. It also has an interesting mix of japanese and english written on many of the signs. The hover cars and metro rails add a nice touch to the scenes. The show usually takes place at night, adding to the mood, and shows lots of scenes of batman soaring through the skyline with his new flight capabilities.
Conclusion: It is by far one of the darkest shows to ever run on a daytime children’s cartoon channel,
“Dark” might be an understatement…
and had surprisingly complex themes for its young viewers. If you’ve never heard of it, just watch the opening video here to see what I mean:
Postscript from Mr. Roboto. A couple of things to watch for while watching this series. First off, some of the old enemies reappear in some form, either as “aged” forms or as “trophies” Bruce keeps.
Mr. Freeze shows he’s ahead of his time. [rimshot.wav]
Second, there’s a season two episode called “Project: Zeta” which lead to a spin-off series, The Zeta Project. It’s about a killer robot who chooses not to kill and runs away with a girl who teaches it how to be human. This series I have got to acquire to review… unless I see it in our reviewer forum first…
Overview: With the upcoming anniversary of 9/11, one has to wonder how far our security-surveillance panopticon prison planet has come. Britons have seen a rise in the Orwellian nightmare, while Americans have had something of a reprieve from the “Patriot” Act, although other forces may be taking over that role. Eyeborgs breeds 1984 with The Matrix to create a new form of high-tech overlord scenario.
I probably would have missed this one if it wasn’t for my DVD club. While the “borgs” of Eyeborgs caught my initial attention, the description of the story is what sold me on it. After watching it, I was glad I had a chance to see it, even if it was direct-to-video. While not up to Terminator or Robocop standards, this is one of the better movies to come down the wires in some time.
That’s no punk, that’s President Hewes’s nephew.
The Story: The on-going threat of terrorism has led to the adoption of the “Freedom of Observation” act. This gives the Department of Homeland Security new weapons in their surveillance of US citizens. Among them are the “Eyeborgs,” cameras with robotic legs that allow them to move around. Coordinating them, and the millions of already existing stationary cameras, is the Optical Defense Intelligent Network… “O.D.I.N.” for short.
DHS agent R.J. “Gunner” Reynolds (Paul) is observing a gun sale to a possible terrorist whose targeting President Hewes. The person gets away, but is later caught when eyeborgs see his bike at a punk show where the President’s nephew, Jarett, is playing with his band. The person is captured for targeting Jarett and interrogated at a DHS office. Leaving the man alone for a few minutes, he manages to escape when the eyeborgs in the room attack him. He dies later when the eyeborgs force him over a railing and causing him to fall six stories to his death. It was determined via surveillance cameras that Reynolds left the door unlocked allowing the man to escape, but Reynolds did lock the door. He begins questioning the integrity of O.D.I.N. as other people involved with the investigation die in mysterious ways while the eyeborgs give a very different version of the truth.
“See with your own eyes… not theirs.”
O Say Can You See? Just when you the plot is pretty much cut-and-dried, the big twist comes when Reynolds tries to get Jarett from the Presidential Debate. That’s when Reynolds, and the viewers, figure out what the truth is. O.D.I.N. has been manipulating reality, or whoever is manipulating O.D.I.N. to manipulate reality, for their own end.
“Everybody knows that videos can be faked. Regardless of the motives of the people, they’re designed to confuse you, so you must ask yourself, each and every citizen of this country, ask yourself one question and one question only - Who do you believe? A government that is sworn to protect you, or a ratings-hungry media beholden to no one?”
For the most part the movies works well, but you might see a problem with some of the eyeborgs late in the movie. The colors reflecting from the machines feel “off,” and some of the eyeborgs appear to be two-dimensional sprites instead of 3D during the rescue scene. Probably a result of being rushed to video.
Conclusion: Given the current state of terrorism-generated paranoia, Eyeborgs seems like just the ticket to stoke those tin-foil hat fires. While it may have avoided theatrical release (and competition from Iron Man 2), it shouldn’t be left out of your home video collection, especially with recent disappointments from Hollywood.
“I ACTUALLY think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” said the search giant’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, in a recent and controversial interview. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.”
“G” as in God? Whether you found it online yesterday (31-Aug-2010) or in today’s dead tree edition (or just hearing about it now), cyberpunk’s godfather William Gibson gives his op-ed about Google’s want of playing god in telling us what to do.
OK, it’s not because of Google’s want of telling us what to do, but the apparent need of anyone who uses the big “G” to decide what they want to do. Those who use G’s services actually contribute to the search giant’s ability to make decisions for us. Gibson likens G to a genie that can grant our wishes:
We would all very much like to be sagely and reliably advised by our own private genie; we would like the genie to make the world more transparent, more easily navigable. Google does that for us: it makes everything in the world accessible to everyone, and everyone accessible to the world.
Of course, the “everyone accessible to the world” part is what some balk at as we find our personal information being more and more exposed online.
The inmates run the prison. The idea of Google being a sort of panopticon prison, with G as the proverbial omnipotent warden and us as the inmates, but Gibson argues that is only half-true:
In Google, we are at once the surveilled and the individual retinal cells of the surveillant, however many millions of us, constantly if unconsciously participatory. We are part of a post-geographical, post-national super-state, one that handily says no to China. Or yes, depending on profit considerations and strategy. But we do not participate in Google on that level. We’re citizens, but without rights.
As said before, it’s the people who use Google’s services who actually contribute to the building of the panopticon, and the real problem comes in when those people (over)expose themselves on social network sites. Gibson sees possibilities in a fake identity industry for such carelessness since Google doesn’t seem interested in protecting users from their own stupidity.
Don’t blame the government. It would be easy to do so IF the advances in technology wasn’t so quick. But when the only law Google follows is Moore’s Law, technology will always stomp a mud hole in legislation’s face and walk it dry:
We also seldom imagined (in spite of ample evidence) that emergent technologies would leave legislation in the dust, yet they do. In a world characterized by technologically driven change, we necessarily legislate after the fact, perpetually scrambling to catch up, while the core architectures of the future, increasingly, are erected by entities like Google.
Then again, Google is “a very large and powerful corporation to boot.” Too big to fail, and far too big to give a fuck.
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