Hey folks Harry here, and I am here to introduce this review of Neuromancer. This script has been floating around for seemingly forever, but remains unmade. Great novel, great ideas and story... Will it ever equate a good movie? Personally I'm happy with having the book... But a film would be waaaay cool. Here's MovieMan on this old draft he found...
I'm a huge Neuromancer fan. I'm the Neuromancer equivelant to a "Treker" or "Trekie". I suppose you could call me a "Mancer". Anyway, I recently got a chance to go over a copy of the script for William Gibson's Neuromancer. Bottom line: I loved it. The draft I read was dated 5/19/90 and was around 130 pages long.
The Plot
Case is a hacker in the year 2015 (a date they might want to change). It opens up with Case having his nerves fried by Sense/Net (a private company that serves as a police force who protect corprate intrests on the matrix). A year later he's running drugs in Chiba City (Japan) looking for a black clinic who can cure his fried nerves. He gets setup by someone named 'Wintermute' and his girlfriends killed by the Yakuza. Case then meets the street-wise leather-clad Molly. Molly takes Case to Armitage, the leader. Case is recruited into a team who's mission is to "burn" (kill) an A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) called Wintermute.
Characters
This is what makes Neuromancer different from other Sci-Fi flicks of it's kind. The characters in Neuromancer are well written and have more deapth then say those in Johnny Mnemonic. Case has real motivation to carry out this mission. There's a great scene where he explains how he became a hacker to Molly. Molly is another well written character. She's an intresting character because she's the one kicking-ass, not Case. Some of my favorite dialouges have been left out, like the one where she talks to Case about "Johnny" and how he was killed ny the Yakuza. Unfortunatly, because this is only a two hour movie, the other supporting characters are simplfied a bit. Armitage's backround is pretty basic. Malcome and Aerol aren't much different. They're still outer space rastafarians. Rivera's a little different, but he's still really creepy. And Wintermute could be a great villian in the tradtion of HAL 9000.
The Action
Well, written and exciting. The action in the script gets your blood pumping but also doesn't overshadow the story. I can't wait to see some of these scenes on the big screen.
The Changes
In the book cyberspace "cowboys" are rampent but in the script all but a few have been "retired" by sense/net security inc. (including Case). The ending is also slightly different, I don't want to spoil it here but it should please both movie-goers and fans of the book.
Overall
This one is a winner. This could be the next great sci-fi flick like Blade Runner, Alien, Metropolis, or Forbidden Planet. If any of you reading this have read the book and have a question about the script or if you've read a different draft of the script and would like to share your thoughts, e-mail me at MuvieMan7@aol.com.
