(ED.after a number of other directors had been unsuccessfully
approached), but I think he got the true meaning of my story.
It would have been fun if he stayed on. (ED.he eventually quit.
"Alien3" was finally directed by David Fincher)
You seem very detached from your previous experiences in movies.
"Johnny Mnemonic", on the other hand, seems very personal to you.
Why is that ?
I wrote the original story in 1980. I think it was perhaps the second
piece of fiction I ever wrote in my life. It held up very good after all
these years. "Johnny" was a start for many creative processes:
it was in fact the root source of "Neuromancer" and "Count Zero".
It is only fair that the first script of mine that goes into production
should come from that, from my early career.
The world of "Johnny Mnemonic" takes for granted the Berlusconi
completion process, I mean the media baron becoming one of the
Country's leaders. I think the distinction between politicians and
media is gonna disappear. It already has, in effect. It is very sad.
It's like saying that the theories you imagined in your science fiction
stories are becoming real...
Yeah, but people shouldn't look at science fiction like they look at
"real" fiction. They shouldn't expect that this is what the future
is gonna look like. We (ED. science fiction writers) are sort of
charlatans: we come up with a few ideas and we make a living out of that.
When I wrote "Neuromancer", I would have never imagined AIDS
and the collapse of the USSR. We never get the future right.
I always thought that USSR was this big winter bear that would
always exist. And look at what happened. In 1993 I wrote an
afterword for the Hungarian version of "Neuromancer". I wrote that
nothing lives forever, and that it's time that the winds of democracy
blow over the East. But now, after the arrival of people like
Zhirinowsky, I have second thoughts again and I fear for them.
Now you also write "geo-anthropological" reports...
That's right. I did a portrait of Singapore for "Wired Magazine".
That place gave me the creeps.
You are considered the true father of cyberpunk. What do you think
of how this word has spread in the world and has gained new meanings ?
