Oh boy… now we’re getting into the deep discussions. Here comes a long rambling response.

This is something I’ve been thinking about before; there seems to be two different “brands” of cyberpunk. There’s the “hard-boiled detective in neon-lit rainy streets” and there’s “literally anything involving cyberspace”. Either one of those things can be considered cyberpunk and yet they rarely overlap. Also, there’s the American version of cyberpunk which is more “punk” and anti-authority/anti-conformity while simultaneously the Japanese version of cyberpunk which relies more on law enforcement and preserving the status quo (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, Psycho Pass, etc.). And yet both of those are considered cyberpunk too. And that doesn’t even touch on the “what does it mean to be human?” brands of cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is such a broad term that it almost encompasses any story with high-technology that excludes space travel.

I’ve tried having this discussion before, asking things like is Demolition Man cyberpunk?, is The Fifth Element cyberpunk?, is Super Mario Bros (1993) cyberpunk?, is They Live cyberpunk?, is Alien cyberpunk? because it’s fun to see where people draw the line. I’m not trying to gate-keep, it’s just that cyberpunk is such a nebulous genre that it almost comes down to personal preference.

One argument I’ll make (that is more pedantic than most people care to discuss with me) is that I personally believe rebellions do not belong in cyberpunk works. The one exception is if the rebellion is destined to fail. One fact in cyberpunk fiction is that the megacorps are too big to bring down. If Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2077 wants to blow up Arasaka he’s welcome to try, but he’s doomed to fail. Same with David in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. I believe the “optimism” in cyberpunk comes from finding your place in the world, accepting it as it is, and not trying to change it. That’s the difference between a “punk” and a “rebel” to me. A punk might be pissed off at authority, but it’s aimless, directionless. There’s no attempt at systemic change. Yet I would define a rebel as someone who does want to institute systemic change. That’s why I would say movies like Equilibrium and Hunger Games aren’t cyberpunk. They’re actually trying to bring about systemic change. I’d say this stems from cyberpunk’s roots in hard-boiled detective novels where the detective knows the police force is ineffective and corrupt. But he’s not trying to fix that problem, he’s trying to find his place in the world despite that problem.

Anyway, good luck with your attempt to watch everything on this thread! There’s a lot of obscure weirdness described here.