NEU ROMANCER:

championing the brave new world

of computer graphic imagery enhanced film art

in the twilit and allegorical literary art

of William Gibson

 

by Gary W. Wright

 

        How fitting that the allegorical literary art of William Ford Gibson appeared just as film artists began using computer generated imagery (CGI) to enhance film art.  For from his first allegorical short stories, Gibson implicitly addressed and roasted both the growing cybernetic enhancement of everyday life and New Hollywood film artists in his literary art.  This implicit interest in addressing New Hollywood took on greater significance after the fatal helicopter crash that killed child extras Renee Chen and Myca Le and actor/director/writer Vic Morrow around 2:20 am in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982 on the George Folsey jr. produced John Landis set of the Frank Marshall executive produced and Kathleen Kennedy associate produced allegorical Landis, Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller film TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983).  Indeed, Gibson implicitly became one of the most significant literary artists of the dread allegorical Zone Wars, along with Screamin’ Stephen King and Salman Rushdie.  However, unlike King and Rushdie, Gibson implicitly used his fiction and screenplays to promote the use of the “consensual hallucination” of computer generated imagery (CGI) in film art so that it would replace dangerous on set special effects and prevent more fatal disasters.  Indeed, Gibson’s twilit and allegorical short stories, novels and screenplays were written in such a way that the only way to realize them on film was with CGI enhancement, starting with his first allegorical and CGI enhanced indie tech noir short story “Fragments Of A Hologram Rose” (Summer 1977). 

 

“Roughly a quarter of all ASP users

are unable to comfortably assimilate

the subjective body picture of the opposite sex.”

 

        For the story revolved around a digital technology called apparent sensory perception (ASP) that recorded and played back individual sensory perceptions.  Curiously, this new technology was implicitly linked to literary art, for the story’s male protagonist, Parker, spent most of the story alone with his glum thoughts in his apartment unwilling to use the ASP cassette tape left by his ex-girlfriend, Angela, because he was not comfortable in a female sensory experience.  Thus, Gibson implicitly worried that he would not succeed as a literary artist as he would not be able to accurately convey the inner world or point of view (POV) of female characters in his fiction.  In fact, given that the name of Angela evoked Los Angeles, Gibson implicitly worried that he would not be able to create successful screenplays as well as narrative art, novels, novellas and short stories.

 

Indeed, Parker had a dull job as a continuity writer for an ASP station, openly linking him to writing and affirming that the story implicitly symbolized Gibson’s fear that he would never be able to break free from formulaic genre fiction and teleplays and write truly original and vital literary art and screenplays with fully fleshed female characters that might inspire the creation of CGI enhanced film art.  This implication was affirmed by the name of Parker, for it had six letters and two three letter syllables like Gibson, implicitly affirming that Gibson shared the fears of Parker.  At any rate, luckily for Gibson, his fears were groundless, for “Fragments Of A Hologram Rose” was a fine allegorical story that boded well for his future.  Curiously, many of the hallmarks of the tech noir fiction of Gibson-such as chrome, coffee, drugs, neon and new digital technology that transformed the world and its culture-were present.  The story was also prescient, with the ability of ASP to duplicate sensory experience anticipating the ability of CGI to duplicate reality.  Indeed, the bleak but technologically advanced world of Gibson was so well established, it was no surprise that Gibson would implicitly and sarcastically blast George Lucas and the Flash Gordon-style sly fi design seen throughout the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy and in the allegorical Mike Hodges film FLASH GORDON (1980), a campy allegorical roast of that trilogy, in his second published and eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie tech noir short story “The Gernsback Continuum” (1981).

 

“During the high point of the Downes age,

they put Ming the Merciless in charge  

of designing California gas stations.”

 

For the story revolved around an anonymous American photographer who was hired by British “pop-art” historian Dialta Downes of the London publisher Barris-Watford to travel the U.S. photographing  “…the odds and ends of “futuristic” Thirties and Forties architecture you pass daily in American cities without noticing; the movie marquees ribbed to radiate some mysterious energy, the dime stores faced with fluted aluminum, the chrome-tube chairs gathering dust in the lobbies of transient hotels” (Burning Chrome, pp. 25-6) for a “…big trendy ‘trade’ paperback”, allowing Gibson to implicitly mock this bright, shiny and hopeful “futuristic” architecture and scientifiction that inspired Lucas and Hodges.  Nothing summed up this implicitly dual purpose more than the gas stations that the photographer came across in California, whose look Gibson sarcastically noted was due to the fact that

 

…favoring the architecture of his native

Mongo, (Ming the Merciless) cruised up and down

the coast erecting raygun emplacements in white

stucco.  Lots of them featured superfluous central

towers ringed with those strange radiator flanges

that were a signature motif of the style, and made

them look as though they might generate potent

bursts of raw technological enthusiasm, if you could

only find the switch that turned them on

(Burning Chrome, p. 28).

 

As this potent burst evoked the planet annihilating death ray that poured out of the Death Star when its switches were turned on in the allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Spielberg roasting Lucas indie docufeature film STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE (1977), affirmed did Gibson his implicit Lucas roasting allegorical intent in “The Gernsbach Continuum”.  And his implicit Hodges roasting intent, as the implicitly John Huston linked Ming the Merciless was played by Max Von Sydow in FLASH GORDON.

 

This implicit interest in roasting Hodges and Lucas was reaffirmed by a vision of a bright and shining city of the future with soaring spires that shocked the anonymous photographer protagonist at the end of his travels around the United States and that evoked Cloud City in the allegorical, Lucas executive produced, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Spielberg roasting Irvin Kershner indie docufeature film STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980).  Intriguingly, however, while the photographer wanted to dismiss this gleaming futuropolis with its soaring spires so huge that “…you could hide the Empire State Building in the smallest of those towers” (Burning Chrome, 33), its lofty crystal roads that linked the towers and its darting air traffic, the futuristic visions of the hopeful Thirties and Forties refused to release him from their grip.  Thus, Gibson implicitly chided Hodges and Lucas for causing the world to be caught up in the hopeful retro grip of FLASH GORDON and the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, given that the hopes and dreams of the rebel Sixties and Skyrocking Seventies were being swept away by the rising cost of living and unemployment of the edgy Eighties like the hopeful futuristic dreams of the Twenties and Thirties were swept away by the horrifying nightmare of the Second World War and “…the rockets on the covers of the Gernsback pulps (that) had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming” (Burning Chrome, 28).  Indeed, the story ended with the photographer on the run from his Flash Gordon sly fi visions in San Francisco, the hometown of Lucas, implicitly affirming that Lucas was being roasted in “The Gernsback Continuum”.

 

Even more ominously, “The Gernsback Continuum” also ended with the photographer wondering if his heady and presciently CGI enhanced visions of the future meant that he had lost his marbles and “…checked out for a protracted season in the Twilight Zone” (Burning Chrome, 35).  Thus, Gibson ominously and presciently anticipated that audiences and film art would soon be broken from the cloying and irritating grip of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy by the helicopter falling on Chen, Le and Morrow in the dead of night, screaming, in another eerie memory of the twilit future that haunted fantastic fiction and film before the TZ disaster.  This creative, idiosyncratic and prescient style, commitment to succeeding as a literary artist and implicit interest in film art in general and roasting Lucas in particular returned that year along with the dark and decayed future of “Fragments Of A Hologram Rose” in the equally presciently twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie tech noir short story “Johnny Mnemonic” (May 1981).

 

“I decided to stay up here. 

When I looked out across the Killing Floor,

before he came, I saw how hollow I was. 

And I knew I was sick of being a bucket.”

 

 

Curiously, the short story began with the eponymous and implicitly Spielberg linked Johnny Mnemonic meeting the unsavoury and implicitly Alfred Hitchcock linked Ralfi Face at 2300 hours in a bar called the Drome in a crime ridden area called Nighttown in Japan.  This meeting time again ominously anticipated the July 23, 1982 date of the TZ disaster in a Gibson short story, giving a twilit ambience to the tale of the embattled escape of Mnemonic and his mysterious and surgically altered guardian angel with the Hollywood evoking name, Molly Millions, from the sinister and deadly clutches of Face and a lone and implicitly Lucas linked razorwire thumbed assassin who sliced Face into a twilit trio of pieces and the implicitly Lucasfilm linked and Japan based worldwide crime organization, the yakuza, that sent the assassin after Mnemonic.  Indeed, the fact that the story ended with the assassin losing his razorwire thumbed left hand and falling to his doom from the Killing Floor high atop Nighttown after losing a fight with Molly affirmed his implicit link to Lucas.  For the assassin’s death reminded us that earnest young Jedi Knight, Luke Skywalker-played by Mark Hamill-lost his right hand and fell to his doom in Cloud City at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. 

 

        Significantly, after Molly beat the yakuza assassin, Mnemonic decided to stop acting as a human carrier for classified information for corporate clients worried that their data would be hacked by rivals if transmitted via computer, and to live up in the sky with the Lost Boy and Girl Lo-Tek rebels whose territory included the Killing Floor and start filling his head with only his own data, dreams and memories.  This decision reaffirmed the implication that Gibson was addressing Spielberg in “Johnny Mnemonic”, reminding us that Spielberg worked for executive producer Lucas that year on the eerily twilit, allegorical and implicitly William Friedkin roasting indie docufeature film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), and implying that Gibson was urging Spielberg to never work for Lucas or anyone else again and to create only his own film art from now on.  Indeed, a dolphin named Jones who was enhanced with a superconducting quantum interference detector (SQUID) and who helped out Johnny and Molly reaffirmed the implicit interest in that film, for the name of Jones evoked Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones jr.-played by Harrison Ford-in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

 

Of course, the victory of Mnemonic and Millions was not just an implicit victory for Spielberg and his film art, but also an important victory for indie literary and film artists like Gibson.  For the determined new beginning for Mnemonic reminded us that all artists, including literary artists like Gibson, had to stop imitating and regurgitating their favourite artists at some point and start creating their own art-with the help of a muse as calm, collected, determined, fearless, strong and supportive as Molly Millions-if they hoped to succeed and be respected as a distinct artist in their own right and survive the critical Killing Floor.  Thus, Gibson also implied that he was reaffirming his determination to do just that with his own allegorical literary art in “Johnny Mnemonic”. 

 

Indeed, the fact that Molly Millions was Gibson’s boldest and strongest female character yet and that she did not abandon Johnny in the end like Angela abandoned Parker in “Fragments Of A Hologram Rose” implicitly affirmed that Gibson was now more confident in his craft and in his ability to accurately create the female experience in his literary art.  “Johnny Mnemonic” also reaffirmed that Gibson had already achieved a distinct tech noir style, an iconoclastic and idiosyncratic vision which added biodigital technology, genetic engineering, the rivalry between the indie and implicitly Lucasfilm linked yakuza group the Sons of the Neon Chrysanthemum and implicitly Hollywood film studio linked global corporations like Ono-Sendai to the idiosyncratic mix already present in “Fragments Of A Hologram Rose”.  The creative powers of Gibson were also beginning to flow so freely that he began to predict more than just the TZ disaster in his writing.  For Gibson correctly foresaw “…an (Orwellian) information economy…(where) it’s impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of information.  Information that can be retrieved, amplified” (Burning Chrome, p. 17).  An amplification of creative literary confidence that continued when Gibson implicitly wrapped up his Lucas Trilogy in true tech noir style in his third allegorical and CGI enhanced indie tech noir short story of the Last Good Year before the TZ disaster, “Hinterlands” (October 1981).    

 

“In the meantime

 they had probed the area constantly,

the specific anomaly,

the irritant around which a theory might grow.”

 

        Intriguingly, the short story revolved around the desperate and often doomed attempt of a beleaguered American ‘surrogate’ named Toby Halpert on a space station located between Earth and Mars to welcome back and use drugs to soothe deranged and suicidal astronauts and cosmonauts returning to the Solar System after mindblowing trips across the galaxy via a hyperspace portal called the Highway located near the space station.  The sympathetic and soothing surrogates were created by the United Nations after most of the first overwhelmed Highway returnees committed suicide upon return to the solar system, including Russian cosmonaut Lieutenant-Colonel Olga Tovyevski, the first surprised Highway traveller to unsuspectingly set off the hyperspace portal while on a routine solo mission to a Soviet space station in orbit around Mars.  Significantly, as humanity’s obsession with carefully recreating the conditions that led Lt.-Col. Tovyevski to set off the hyperspace portal so as to send more astronauts and cosmonauts blasting down the Highway evoked the unimaginative obsession that the Hollywood film studios had at the time with creating a STAR WARS clone that would replicate the success of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, the implication was that Gibson was roasting that desperate and unimaginative Hollywood obsession in “Hinterlands” and perhaps even roasting the agents, handlers, managers and groupies that flocked to film artists like Lucas and supplied them with booze, drugs and sex to help them cope with the insanity of life when they hit the big time. 

 

Indeed, the names of Lt.-Col. Olga Tovyevski affirmed the implication, as her names evoked Leia Organna-played by Carrie Fisher-and the toys promoted by the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy.  The fact that an East German named Kurtz was the first to enter Lt.-Col. Tovyevski’s Alyut 6 space ship when it returned from hyperspace reaffirmed the implicit allegorical intent of “Hinterlands”, for his surname reminded us that Gary Kurtz produced STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  Another returnee named “Little Jorge” also affirmed the implicit interest in Lucas.  Of course, the elusive hyperspace portal also evoked the stargate that could be opened by the second and larger Tycho Magnetic Anomaly monolith (TMA-2) discovered in orbit around Jupiter at the end of the allegorical Stanley Kubrick docufeature artbuster 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968), implying that Gibson was also addressing that Lucas inspiring film in “Hinterlands”.  The Stanley Kubrick cadenced name of Toby Halpert and the “Hal-“ at the beginning of his surname that evoked the Heuristic Algorithm 9000 (HAL-9000) computer in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY affirmed the implicit interest in Kubrick in “Hinterlands”. 

 

The implication that the story was addressing film art and film artists was reaffirmed by the many open allusions to film art in general and to that of Walt Disney in particular in the story.  The fact that most of the returnees-like the Leni Riefenstahl evoking Leni Hofmannstahl-killed themselves or went mad soon after they returned also implied that Gibson believed that the attempt to recreate the success of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy was not just a crazy and uncreative waste of time but dangerous.  Fittingly, given that Gibson played an implicitly significant role in the dread allegorical Zone Wars, he was also linked forever to the twilit and disastrous July of 1982 with the publication of his fittingly twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced indie tech noir short story “Burning Chrome” (July 1982).

 

“I’ve got a one-way ticket to Hollywood.”

 

Curiously, the story alluded to Kubrick and his film art-particularly the Zeiss Ikon cornea implants, which evoked the sensitive Zeiss film lenses that allowed Kubrick to create his allegorical and implicitly Landis roasting docufeature artbuster BARRY LYNDON (1975), with candle and natural light.  Thus, the implication was that the successful cracking of the personal internet database of an Evil woman named Chrome-perhaps implicitly linked to Lucas, given the implicitly anti-Lucas spirit of the three stories of ’81-and the stealing of all her illicit money by two of the world’s first computer hackers, the implicitly Kubrick linked console cowboy Bobby Quine and his traumatized and perhaps Arthur C. Clarke linked one-armed war veteran friend, Automatic Jack, in an area of the eastern United States called the Sprawl implicitly symbolized Kubrick returning to the Temple Theatre and beating another film artist-perhaps Lucas-with a successful film.  Fittingly, “Burning Chrome” also evoked Gibson’s success in cracking the established author ranks with the inspiration of writers like William S. Burroughs and Philip K. Dick whether the establishment-including the British Columbia literary establishment-liked it or not, given the “B.C” initials of “Burning Chrome”. 

 

Significantly, “Burning Chrome” was also the first allegorical Gibson short story to anticipate the consensual hallucination of CGI enhanced film art to prevent future film set disasters after 1982.  For part of the story’s action took place in a colourful and animated internet cyberspace matrix which was “…an abstract representation of the relationships between data systems…(filled with)…bright geometries representing the corporate data…towers and fields (which were) ranged in the colorless nonspace of the simulation matrix, the electronic consensus-hallucination that facilitates the handling and exchange of massive quantities of data” (Burning Chrome, pp.180-1).  This implicit commitment to CGI enhancement began on the first page of the story, when “…a silver tide of phosphenes boiled across (Automatic Jack’s) field of vision as the matrix began to unfold in (his) head, a 3-D chessboard, infinite and perfectly transparent” (Burning Chrome, p. 179).  Curiously, this implicit interest in developing CGI to prevent film set disasters was presciently anticipated by the fact that it took seven minutes and twenty-four seconds to burn through the Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics (ICE) security protecting the database of Chrome at the end of the story, for 7:24 already implied the post-TZ disaster hope of Gibson that film art would leave behind the 723 disaster with the help of CGI.  But not without a fight, as the beautiful and beguiling Rikki dumped both Bobby and Jack and fled to Chiba City in Japan at the end of the story, an abandonment that presciently foretold the abandonment of the Temple Theatre audiences outraged by the TZ disaster and the digitally enhanced battle to bring them back. 

 

Thus, it was fitting that the year of the publication of “Burning Chrome” was the year of the release of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Nicholas Meyer film STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982)-which exuberantly and literally celebrated the arrival of the brave new world of CGI enhanced film art with the creation of the CGI lunar world of Genesis-and the first feature length and CGI enhanced film, the twilit and allegorical Steven Lisberger film TRON (1982).  Alas, 1982 was also the year of the TZ disaster, which took place only weeks after the release of TRON and the publication of “Burning Chrome” in OMNI magazine in July of 1982.  A shocking and fatal disaster that touched off the dread allegorical Zone Wars and increased interest in CGI enhancement so as to prevent more fatal disasters on film sets.  Just as upsetting for True Fans such as myself, Lucas announced soon after the TZ disaster that he was still going to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg on a sequel to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, enraging fans even more and turning them against Lucas.

 

Curiously, the fatal and disastrous year of 1982 ended with the publication of the allegorical Clarke docufiction novel 2010: odyssey two (1982), just in time to make a great Christmas present for sadolescent geeks such as myself.  Fittingly, given that Gibson implicitly addressed 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in “Hinterlands”, Clarke implicitly addressed Gibson in the form of Victor Millson in 2010: odyssey two.  Alas, five months later, Gibson’s implicit dislike of Lucas and the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy proved all too knowing and prescient, as Lucas crashed and burned as executive producer of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed, Lucas executive produced and implicitly Spielberg roasting Richard Marquand indie docufeature film STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983).  Thus, it was no surprise that Gibson implicitly addressed Clarke and the TZ disaster, jeered Lucas and revisited many elements from “Burning Chrome” and “Johnny Mnemonic” like the decayed but hi-tech future where the wealthy who understood the new digital technology and the poor who did not both used natural drugs like marijuana or manmade drugs like LSD to escape from the stress, tension, loneliness, despair and embarrassment of their lives, turning drug dealers into the new middle class middlemen and women, and where paper books and money had been replaced by digital simulacrum; the cyberspace matrix; Chiba City; the multinational and implicitly Hollywood studio linked corporate “zaibatsu” Ono-Sendai; their nemesis, the implicitly Lucasfilm linked yakuza group the Sons of the Neon Chrysanthemum; simstim-simulated stimuli, the latest sensory perception recording technology that had replaced the ASP of “Fragments Of A Hologram Rose” and may have just symbolized television, as its main star was Tally Isham-as well as an interest in watches to add to an interest in chrome, coffee, drugs and neon plus the Finn to boot when Gibson returned with his first twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie tech noir novel Neuromancer (1984), fittingly published on Canada Day, July 1, 1984.

 

“He’d operated on

 an almost permanent adrenaline high,

a byproduct of youth and proficiency,

jacked into a custom cyberspace deck

the projected his disembodied consciousness

into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix.”

 

        Indeed, the novel started with the implicitly Dorothy linked Molly Millions-now simply referred to as Molly, though she also referred to herself by the Gale Dorothy evoking name of Rose Kolodny-saving another troubled and implicitly Scarecrow linked young man with the Philip Kindred Dick cadenced name of Henry Dorsett Case from his underworld associates in Night City, the new name for the Nighttown area of Chiba City in Japan.  However, instead of being implicitly linked to Spielberg like Mnemonic in “Johnny Mnemonic”, Case was implicitly linked to Landis by way of a twilit trio of two men and one woman that he had murdered while on the run in Night City.  Another twilit trio of two men and one woman with the Myca Le evoking name of Linda Lee that died when Millions rescued Case reaffirmed his implicit link to Landis.  Indeed, a pimp with the Twilight Zone evoking name of Lonny Zone who was met in a bar called the Chatsubo in Night City on the first page of the novel immediately implied Gibson’s interest in Landis and the TZ disaster. 

 

        Then it was back to the Sprawl, so that the Quine trained Case could burn the database of the Sense/Net corporation to help Molly and her Lo Tek evoking Panther Modern buddies steal some hardware containing the ROM digital ghost “construct” of a legendary, recently deceased hacker named McCoy Pauley-his legendary status and recent death implicitly linking him to Lucas given that the Skyrocking reputation of the equally legendary Lucas had just died with the release of the anti-trimatic STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.  Soon Case and Millions were off to Freeside, a vacation satellite that orbited Earth that evoked the spinning Earth satellite and the Discovery I spaceship in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and 2010: Odyssey Two, affirming that Gibson was implicitly addressing Clarke in Neuromancer. 

 

Indeed, Case and Millions hunted down, confronted and killed a tall, old, wealthy and implicitly Clarke and Great Oz linked character named Ashpool during their time on Freeside, affirming the implicit Clarke roasting intent of Neuromancer.  The name of Ashpool affirmed the implicit interest in Clarke, for his name evoked that of Frank Poole-played by Gary Lockwood-in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.  The fondness of Ashpool and the rest of the cloned members of the Tessier-Ashpool clan for cryogenic respites also affirmed the implicit interest in Clarke in Neuromancer, for it evoked the cryogenic astronauts on the Discovery I in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and the fact that 2010: Odyssey Two was a cloned sequel of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.  The battling Artificial Intelligences (AIs) Neuromancer and Wintermute reaffirmed the implicit Clarke roasting intent of Neuromancer, for they recalled the two AIs HAL-9000 and SAL-9000 in 2010: Odyssey Two.  

 

Significantly, while on Freeside, Case and Millions also triumphed over the implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked 3Jane Tessier-Ashpool in the fateful and twilit 23rd chapter, implying a triumph over the TZ disaster and the ushering in of a brave new world of CGI enhanced fiction and film art.  Indeed, the novel’s Coda conclusion in the twenty-fourth chapter and the return of Molly and the Skyrocking spirit of the Last Good Year to the literary art of Gibson affirmed his implicit hope that he could reboot film and literary art out of the twilight and into a sobered but sunlit and CGI enhanced new era with Neuromancer.  The ease with which Case was able to enter the consciousness of Molly and share her experience of the world through a simulated stimulation “simstim” hookup throughout the novel also implied that Gibson was now more confident that he could capture the female POV in his literary art.  Curiously, however, this implicit interest in exorcising the TZ disaster and ushering in a whole new CGI enhanced era of art was put on hold that same July of 1984 in the allegorical and CGI enhanced tech noir short story “New Rose Hotel” (July 1984).

 

“The blood of a zaibatsu is information,

not people.

The structure is independent

of the individual lives that comprise it. 

Corporation as life form.”

 

        Significantly, as the story saw a mysterious Eurasian woman named Sandii whose name and mixed heritage evoked the Fremen warrioress, Chani-played by Sean Young-and the sands of the desert world of Arrakis in the twilit and allegorical David Lynch moving painting DUNE (1984), Gibson implied that he was addressing Lynch in “New Rose Hotel”.  Indeed, the Arrakeen evoking Moroccan city of Marrakech figured prominently in the short story, affirming the implication that Lynch was being addressed in “New Rose Hotel”.  Thus, the fact that Sandii betrayed the short story’s unnamed but implicitly Lynch linked corporate headhunter narrator and his partner, Fox, and helped a callous corporate zaibatsu with the Los Angeles cadenced name of Maas Biolabs GmbH use a meningeal virus to kill Moenner and the Akira Kurosawa cadenced Hiroshi Yomiuri, two defectors from the zaibatsu with the Mexico cadenced name of Hosaka, and leave a third defector, Chedenne, with permanent brain damage, implied that Gibson believed that the Mexico created DUNE would not impress audiences but would kill the reputation of Lynch.  Literally, as the short story ended with a vengeful Hosaka helicopter targeting its anonymous male protagonist for termination at a Tokyo coffin hotel. 

 

For his part, W.P. Kinsella implicitly addressed Gibson in his “Burning Chrome” evoking allegorical short story ‘The Baseball Spur”, part of the allegorical short story collection The Thrill Of The Grass (1984).  Indeed, the story’s main characters, Jack Clarke and Stan, reminded us that Automatic Jack and Bobby Quine and were implicitly linked to Clarke and Kubrick in “Burning Chrome”.  Curiously, Kinsella soon reaffirmed his implicit interest in Gibson in his “Burning Chrome” and Neuromancer evoking allegorical short story “King Of The Street”  in his allegorical short story collection The Alligator Report (1985).   Indeed, Ginny, the drug addicted prostitute “girlfriend” of the eponymous King of the downtown Eastside of Vancouver, not only had a first name that evoked that of Molly Millions, but also reminded us that Gibson was born in Conway, SC, but raised in Wytheville, Virginia, affirming the implicit Gibson addressing intent of “King Of The Street”.  As for Gibson, he also walked the symbolic streets of Vancouver that year in his intriguing, twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced tech noir short story “The Winter Market” (November 1985). 

 

“I grinned, thinking about that,

and suddenly it hit me that it really was over,

that I was done with Lise,

and that now she’d be sucked off to Hollywood

as inexorably as if she’d poked her toe into a black hole,

drawn by the unthinkable gravitic tug of Big Money.”

 

Significantly, given that “The Winter Market” had the same syllable cadence as the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and righteously furious James Cameron Zonebuster THE TERMINATOR (1984), one wondered if Gibson was addressing THE TERMINATOR in “The Winter Market”.  If so, the cautionary tale of an ailing woman named Lise who was kept alive by a cybernetic exoskeleton and whose success as a neurorecording star led to her death was perhaps Gibson’s way of warning Cameron to be careful lest the success of THE TERMINATOR lead to him becoming so obsessed with fame and fortune that he would die as an indie film artist.  Or in the death of Lise and her rebirth as a digital Hollywood avatar did Gibson implicitly warn film artists in general that the TZ disaster had ended a human era of film art and kicked off a new era of CGI enhanced film art?

 

Then more corporate defectors implicitly linked to Hollywood film artists and genetic engineering firms like Maas Biolabs and Hosaka that were implicitly linked to the movie star creating Hollywood and Mexican studios both returned with an implicitly renewed commitment to exorcising the TZ disaster and ushering in a brave new era of CGI enhanced film art in what turned out to be the second tale in the Sprawl Trilogy, the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed novel Count Zero (1986).

 

“…You should pretend

 that we are talking two languages at once. 

One of them, you already understand…

But at the same time, with the same words,

we are talking about other things.’

 

        Indeed, the return of another and more elaborate corporate defection from         Maas Biolabs to Hosaka that was not only foiled again by Maas but included a character named Lynch affirmed that Gibson was implicitly addressing Lynch again in the novel.  Significantly, however, this time the Maas Biolabs defector who failed to make it to Hosaka, one Christopher Mitchell, was implicitly linked to David Cronenberg, implying that Gibson disapproved of Cronenberg abandoning Canadian indie film art to work with Hollywood on the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lynch addressing indie docufeature film THE DEAD ZONE (1983).  The teenaged daughter of Mitchell reaffirmed that implication, for the implicitly Dorothy linked Angela “Angie” Mitchell had been surgically transformed by her father into a superwoman straight out of the eerily and prescient twilit and allegorical Cronenberg indie docufeature film SCANNERS (1980).  The name of Angie Mitchell also affirmed her implicit link to Canadian artists, for it evoked that of Joni Mitchell.

 

        In addition, Gibson implicitly addressed Kubrick again in the implicit form of the implicitly Tin Man linked Bobby “Count Zero” Newmark and again implicitly hoped that Kubrick would return to the Temple Theatre with a film that would free film art from the Twilight Zone and return harmony to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre given that Newmark helped saved the day, in the end.  Throw in a parallel quest by Marly Krushkhova to discover the identity of a mysterious artist who created boxes that evoked those of Eddie Cornell, and Gibson openly affirmed his commitment to higher art triumphing over the blockbuster film art of fortune and glory obsessed Hollywood zaibatsu gangsters.  This implicit interest in exorcising the TZ disaster and saving film art returned along with an implicit interest in addressing Clarke again and his latest twilit and allegorical novel 2061: odyssey three (1987), when Gibson wrapped up the Sprawl Trilogy in style in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed novel Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).

 

“I’m an indie.”

 

        Indeed, the return of the implicitly Kubrick and Scarecrow linked Newmark, the implicitly Glinda linked Millions-under the nom de guerre of Sally Shears-and the ghosts of the implicitly Clarke and Great Oz linked Ashpool and the implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked 3Jane Tessier-Ashpool affirmed the implication that Gibson was addressing Clarke again in the novel.  Significantly, as Mona Lisa Overdrive ended with Newmark and his implicitly Cronenberg linked girlfriend Angela Mitchell-now an open symbol of film art as a world famous and Continuity AI assisted simstim star-dying in reality but leaving behind their mortal shells to live forever in a daylit cyberspace, Gibson implied his hope that film artists would become one with the new world of CGI enhanced film art, in the end.  Indeed, the rescue of Mitchell’s double, Mona Lisa, and the implicitly Dorothy linked Kumiko Kanaka affirmed the implicit hope of Gibson that CGI enhanced film art would triumph, in the end. 

 

        Curiously, Gibson’s growing popularity was affirmed by his implicit link to Rekall Incorporated technician, Ernie-played by David Knell-in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Lucas toasting Paul Verhoeven film TOTAL RECALL (1990), released on May 31, 1990 and inspired in part by the allegorical Dick short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” (April ’66).  Curiously, not long after Allan Moyle implicitly linked Gibson to the computer luvvin’, despondent and suicidal Malcolm Kaiser-played by Anthony Lucero-in the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Coppola addressing rant ‘n’ roll docufeature indie film PUMP UP THE VOLUME (1990).  Making it fitting that Gibson’s implicit hope that CGI enhanced film art would triumph over the TZ disaster was reaffirmed when he teamed up with Bruce Sterling on the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced novel The Difference Engine (1990), released in September of ‘90.

 

“The techniques employed here tonight

are of some special interest! 

While the screen’s resolution is quite modest,

and the refresh-rate positively slow,

remarkable effects have been secured, one presumes, through algorithm compression-

but I fear that is all a bit technical.”

 

        For the battles that raged throughout the novel between neo-Luddites and technophiles and their primitive cinema evoking kinotropes run by computer evoking Babbage Machines in this allegorical novel set mostly in London in 1855 in an alternate Earth evoked the real life battles raging between non-CGI enhanced film art purists and CGI embracing film art futurists and their primitive CGI enhanced films in the real world by 1990, implicitly affirming that Gibson and Sterling were optimistically addressing the emerging world of CGI in The Difference Engine.   Indeed, the fact that a tiny steam racing machine called the Zephyr driven by the implicitly Spielberg linked Henry Chesteron beat five larger steam racing machines in a London race in the Second Iteration: Derby Day, part of the second of the novel affirmed the implicit hope of Gibson and Sterling that CGI enhanced film art would prevail, for the tiny steam racer implicitly symbolized Pixar, the equally tiny company that at the time was working hard to perfect CGI so as to beat the five equally big live action Hollywood studios by being the first studio to release an all CGI allegorical film, a mission Pixar accomplished five years later with the twilit and allegorical John Lasseter film TOY STORY (1995). 

 

This implication was implicitly affirmed by the name of the creator of the Zephyr, for Michael Godwin evoked Edwin Catmull, the creator of CGI and the head of Pixar-particularly if Godwin’s names were reversed so that Godwin Michael looked and sounded like Edwin Catmull.  The fact that the novel’s main savant protagonist, one Edward “Ned” Mallory, made a lot of money betting on the Zephyr to win the big race, reaffirmed the implicit link of Godwin to Catmull.  For Mallory’s winnings reminded us that Lucas made a lot of money betting that Catmull’s early CGI work would enhance the success of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, implicitly linking Mallory to Lucas in a way that implied that Gibson was beginning to warm up to the embattled film artist.  The implicit link of flash dressing Evildoer William “Captain Swing” Collins to Landis, and of Lucien Arslau, Jean Beraud, Lord Charles Darwin, Benjamin “Dizzy” Disraeli, Harriet “Hetty” Edwardes, King of the Bill-Stickers, Michael “Mick” Radley to Luc Besson, Jean “Moebius” Giraud, Frank Herbert, Stan “the Man” Lee, Kathryn Bigelow, Alfred Hitchcock and Sir Ridley Scott reaffirmed the implicit film, literary and narrative artist addressing intent of the novel.  In fact, given the implicit links of the novel’s main characters to film artists, the implication was that London, the epicentre of a world empire, symbolized Hollywood, the epicentre of a world wide and increasingly and confidently CGI enhanced film art empire.  At any rate, this implicit interest in CGI enhanced film art and more positive outlook on Lucas returned when Gibson went solo again with his twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and “Johnny Mnemonic” and Neuromancer evoking novel Virtual Light (September 1993).

 

“Then they caught me watching VIDEODROME.

You ever see, uh, Deborah Harry, Rydell?”

 

Significantly, the novel began on a smoggy day in Mexico City in a future only slightly more advanced than the present of 1993, with citizens jacking into the net with virtual headsets and gloves rather than headjacks, immediately distancing itself from  the Sprawl Trilogy.  Of course, the smog of Mexico City evoked the stinking pollution that plagued London in The Difference Engine, implicitly affirming that Gibson was continuing twilit kinotropic themes from that novel in Virtual Light.  Indeed, allusions to the presciently twilit and allegorical Harley Cokliss film BATTLETRUCK AKA WARLORDS OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (1982), openly affirmed the novel’s implicit interest in the TZ disaster and the dread allegorical Zone Wars.  The implicitly Cowardly Lion linked but intrepid and determined Japanese sociologist, Shinya Yamazaki, also openly linked the novel to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982 via Kiyoshi Yamasaki’s immortal Sword Master in the eerilty twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lucas roasting John Milius film CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982).  Thus, Gibson finally and openly confirmed that the TZ disaster and the film art of the dread allegorical Zone Wars had indeed been on his mind since 1982 and was the implicit target of the Sprawl Trilogy.

 

Significantly, in addition to a general implicit interest in the film art of the dread Zone Wars, Gibson also implied that he looked on the twilit and allegorical film art of Cronenberg in particular more favourably than he did in Count Zero.  For the novel openly referenced Cronenberg and his eerily prescient and twilit allegorical indie docufeature film VIDEODROME (1982).  Gibson also openly alluded to one of the first cinematic salvoes in the dread Zone Wars, the twilit and allegorical Lamont Johnson film SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (1983), whose studio scenes were shot in a warehouse in Vancouver.  Thus, Virtual Light was openly linked to the year of the TZ disaster, the year of the release of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, the film art of Cronenberg in particular, and the film art of the dread Zone Wars in general. 

 

Making one wonder if the ultra-indie arts and tek community found living on the remains of the Golden Gate Bridge in post-earthquake apocalypse San Francisco symbolized indie film artists who were crafting their CGI enhanced celluloid film art in a Nineties that was itself an era that was acting as a bridge between celluloid film art and fully digital film art.  And if the triumph of the accident and dismissal prone and implicitly Quentin Tarantino and Scarecrow linked ex-police officer and security guard, Stephen Berry Rydell, over the implicitly Tin Man linked San Fran bigwig, Lucius Warbaby, and the implicitly Cameron and Wicked Warlock of the West linked Cody Harwood that got Rydell back into the good books of the implicitly Bigelow and Glinda linked L.A. lawyer, Karen Mendelsohn, and proved his love for the abandoned and implicitly Dorothy and Cronenberg linked indie San Fran bike courier, Chevette Washington, in the end, symbolized the hope of Gibson that Tarantino would triumph again with another CGI free indie docufeature film like his first twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film RESERVOIR DOGS (1992), in the end.

 

 

Curiously, Yamazaki referred to useless junk-gomi-in the novel as a “Thomasson”, which took its name from an American baseball player traded to Japan in 1982 who was inexplicably unable to perform as expected in the land of the Neon Chrysanthemum.  Given the Kinsella cadence to Thomasson and Kinsella’s famous love of experiencing and writing about baseball, Gibson implicitly roasted Kinsella in the form of Thomasson in the novel, implicitly affirming that Kinsella had addressed Gibson in such allegorical short stories as “King Of The Street” and “The Baseball Spur”.  At any rate, Chevette Washington was not only boldly and confidentially realized in a way that implicitly affirmed that the confidence of Gibson in his creative abilities was still high, but noticeably a San Fran bike courier who safely transferred valuable data between corporations worried about hacking if they transmitted that data over the internet.  This courier job evoked the biodigital courier service of Johnny in “Johnny Mnemonic”, making it fitting that Gibson should next write the screenplay for an expanded and reworked cinematic version of “Johnny Mnemonic” that fused the original story with elements of the Sprawl Trilogy and Virtual Light, openly affirmed his long implicit support for CGI enhanced indie film art and implicitly reaffirmed his support for Kubrick and his film art again in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Robert Longo indie docufeature film JOHNNY MNEMONIC (1995), released on May 26, 1995. 

 

“Send it out!”

 

Indeed, the film opened with a full colour and mindbending CGI journey through the internet that evoked the geometrically kaleidoscopic vision of the internet that Gibson presented to readers in the Sprawl Trilogy, immediately affirming the implicit support of Gibson and Longo for the consensual hallucination of CGI.  As this kaleidoscopic journey as also evoked the equally kaleidoscopic journey across the universe experienced by Commander David “Dave” Bowman-played by Keir Dullea-after the opening of the stargate at the end of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, Gibson and Longo also implicitly reaffirmed their support for Kubrick and his film art in JOHNNY MNEMONIC.  When this kaleidocyber journey ended, we found ourselves waking up in a bed in a room in the New Darwin Hotel in Beijing like Cdr. Bowman at the end of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, thus implicitly linking its young male occupant, the digitally enhanced data carrier Johnny Kalmann aka Johnny Mnemonic aka John Smith-played by Keanu Reeves-to both Kubrick and the Scarecrow.

 

After being abandoned by his beautiful, black clad and perhaps Kathryn Bigelow and Wicked Witch of the East linked lover-played by Robin Crosby-in typical Gibson tech noir fashion, Mnemonic accepted one last data courier job from the duplicitous and implicitly Roland Emmerich linked Ralfi Face-played by Udo Kier-so as to earn the money to pay for the operation to remove the data cache in his brain and return his childhood memories lost to the implantation of the wet wired data storing implant in his head.  Significantly, this job took place at the Beijing Hotel in Beijing, where Mnemonic came across two twin girls-played by Caitlin and Erin Carmondy, respectively-in the hotel lobby, evoking the ghostly girls-played by Lisa and Louise Burns, respectively-in the eerily twilit, allegorical and implicitly Cronenberg roasting Kubrick film THE SHINING (1980), reaffirming the implicit link of Mnemonic to Kubrick.  Curiously, this last job saw two implicitly Lucas and Spielberg linked PharmaKom defectors-played by Arthur Eng and Ron Flores, respectively-at the Hotel Beijing upload into the data cache in the head of Mnemonic an ominously twilit 320 gigabytes of top secret PharmaKom data that revealed the cure for the dreaded Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (NAS) aka the Black Shakes plaguing the angry and disaffected world of 2021, a syndrome implicitly linked to the TZ disaster blues given the Twilight Zone cadence of PharmaKom.

 

Taking the data to the Free City of Newark, New Jersey, the far more able, confident and two-fisted Mnemonic than the one met in “Johnny Mnemonic” joined forces with the implicitly Dorothy and Christiane Kubrick linked bodyguard Jane-a tough and combative but watered down version of Molly Millions played by Dina Meyer-the shrewd, knowing and implicitly Tin Man and Screamin’ Stephen King linked Spider-who reaffirmed the film’s interest in Kubrick as King wrote the allegorical, inspirational and ironically and implicitly Kubrick roasting novel The Shining (1977), and played by Henry Rollins-and heavenly LoTek rebels who lived on another bridge community and were led by the implicitly Cowardly Lion linked J-Bone-played by Ice-T-and triumphed, in the end, over the implicitly Landis and Nikko linked psychotic razorwire thumbed thug Shinji-noticeably taken out by Mnemonic instead of Jane/Molly as in “Johnny Mnemonic”, and played by Denis Akiyama-his boss, the implicitly Sir Ridley Scott and Wicked Warlock of the West linked PharmaKom man Takahashi-played by Takeshi Kitano-and the callously violent and implicitly James Cameron linked cyborg messiah Karl the Street Preacher of the Church of the Retransfiguration-played by Dolph Lundgren-implying the hope of Gibson and Longo that indie film artists like Kubrick and their higher minded and lightly CGI enhanced indie film art would triumph over both Landis and the TZ disaster and more commercial film artists like Cameron and their more extensively CGI enhanced film art. 

 

Last but not least, Gibson and Longo implied their hope that another film from Kubrick would finally bring daylit peace, health and harmony back to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre.  For after defeating Shinji and the Street Preacher, Mnemonic was able to jack back into the CGI realized virtual reality enhanced version of the internet called VRT Online and crack some powerful black ice with the help of a digital version of the implicitly Great Oz linked Jones the dolphin and the implicitly Glinda the Good linked internet ghost of Johnny’s mother Anna Kalmann-played by Barbara Sukowa.  Once this black ice was cracked, Mnemonic downloaded free on the internet for everyone on Earth all 320 twilit gigabytes of the PharmaKom Industries data he was carrying in his brain, priceless data that revealed the cure for the information overload that led to the dreaded Black Shakes, a dread disease that evoked the TZ disaster blues that had engulfed the Temple Theatre since 1982.  Thus, when health and happiness returned to all of the angry and riotous people of Earth at the end of the film, daylit health and harmony was also implicitly returned to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre, in the end. 

 

Curiously, given the thrashing the implicitly Cameron linked Street Preacher received in JOHNNY MNEMONIC, it was ironic that Bigelow and Cameron also affirmed their interest in the literary art of Gibson later that year in their very similar twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed film STRANGE DAYS (1995), an implicit interest affirmed by the film’s allusions to “Fragments Of A Hologram Rose”, “Johnny Mnemonic” and Neuromancer.  Bigelow and Cameron also implied that they had been on the same wavelength as Longo, for STRANGE DAYS featured another luvvable and memory haunted loner lunk in the form of the implicitly Lucas and Scarecrow linked SQUID playback peddler Lenny Nero-played by Ralph Fiennes-who needed a tough female bodyguard in the form of the implicitly Dorothy linked Lornette “Mace” Mason-played by Angela Bassett-to protect him from the bad guys and the equally disaffected and riotous mobs in the streets of fire.  An implicit interest from Cameron that Gibson implicitly addressed when he returned with Yamazaki in his next twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and Count Zero evoking novel Idoru (September 1996).

 

“Her husband was a jeweller,

and he’d died of that nerve-attenuation thing,

before they saw how to fix it...

(but) he has told me that we will not be understood,

not at first,

and there will be resistance, hostility.”

 

An intriguing novel that saw the Cowardly but intrepid Yamazaki return and team up with the scar-faced and implicitly Scarecrow linked convicted murderer/bodyguard, Keith “Keithy” Blackwell, the implicitly Kubrick and Tin Man linked Colin Laney, the implicitly Dorothy linked Chia P. McKenzie and, ironically, the implicitly Wicked Witch of the East linked Zona Rosa to triumph over the implicitly Cameron and Nikko the Monkey King linked Eddie and the implicitly Linda Hamilton and Wicked Witch of the West linked Maryalice so that the implicitly Great Oz and Steve Jobs linked rock star, Rez, and his “lover”, the implicitly Glinda the Good linked and all CGI “synthespian”, Rei Toei, the eponymous idoru, could unite in marriage, a successful marriage of human artistry and CGI that perhaps symbolized Gibson’s admiration for the marriage of human artistry and CGI that led to the equally successful creation of TOY STORY. 

 

Indeed, this implication was affirmed by the fact that the implicitly Jobs linked Rez was a member of the Pixar cadenced pop band Lo/Rez, and by the fact that the name of the all CGI Rei Toei evoked that of the equally all CGI TOY STORY.  The prominent ads for Apple Shires Authentic Fine Fruit Beverage that were featured throughout Idoru reaffirmed the novel’s implicit intent, reminding us that Pixar was owned and supervised by Apple Computers at that time before its purchase by Disney.  Significantly, 1999 brought with it the release of the Gibson influenced, JOHNNY MNEMONIC alluding and evoking, twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Lana and Lilly Wachowski indie film THE MATRIX (1999), a film released on March 24, 1999 which truly welcomed the world to a neo eon of Zonebusting CGI enhanced film art.  Given the film’s allusions to JOHNNY MNEMONIC, it was fitting that Gibson’s implicit commitment to a brave new world of CGI enhanced film art returned that year when he turned to Blackwell, Fontaine, Harwood, Laney, Maryalice, Rydell, Toei, Washington and Yamazaki again to wind up his second trilogy-perhaps best called the Yamazaki Trilogy, given that the diffident but intrepid sociologist was the only character who appeared in all three novels-with the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and Mona Lisa Overdrive evoking novel All Tomorrow’s Parties (October 1999).

 

“Light over the hatch turns green,

and the hatch slides up and out crawls,

unfolds sort of, this butt-naked girl,

black hair, maybe Chinese, Japanese, something...

(and) when he sees her walk past the screens there,

he sees her on every last screen,

walking out of every Lucky Dragon in the world,

wearing that same smile.”

 

Curiously, the novel saw the Dorothyish Washington, the Scarey Rydell, the Tinny Fontaine, the Great Laney and the Cowardly Konrad unite with the implicitly Glinda the Good linked hologram idoru Rei Toei to prevent the nefarious implicitly Cameron and Wicked Warlock of the West linked Cody Harwood from succeeding with his nefarious plan to allow Lucky Dragon worldwide convenience store customers to use Nanofax boxes to send exact recreations of any object they put in the Nanofax box to family and friends at other Lucky Dragon stores around the world by having a jubilantly naked Rei Toei, the implicit embodiment of CGI enhanced film art for film art’s sake, appear simultaneously in every Lucky Dragon Nanofax box instead, which was Gibson’s implicit way of preventing film artists and studios from flooding the Temple Theatres of the world with lookalike CGI enhanced film art.  Then an implicit interest in Cronenberg and in helping to usher in a higher minded CGI enhanced film art era that continued in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and Neuromancer evoking novel Pattern Recognition (February 2003).

 

“It is as if she participates

 in the very birth of cinema,

that Lumiere moment,

the steam locomotive

about to emerge from the screen,

sending the audience fleeing,

out into the Parisian night.”

 

Indeed, the novel revolved around the brandophobic and implicitly Dorothy and Cronenberg linked Cayce Pollard, whose name evoked crashophile James Ballard-played by James Spader-in the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Lynch and Spielberg roasting Cronenberg film CRASH (1996), implicitly affirming that Gibson’s interest in Cronenberg continued in the novel.  As Pollard spent the entire novel trying to unravel the mystery of a film that was slowly released in pieces on the internet for her mysterious and implicitly Great Oz linked and Blue Ant heading Belgian boss, Hubertus Bigend, and fighting off the implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked and ironically named Dorotea Benedetti, Gibson also implicitly affirmed his commitment to the consensual hallucination of higher minded and indie CGI enhanced film art in Pattern Recognition-though not necessarily in the Temple Theatre. 

 

Pattern Recognition also did its best to come to grips with the shock of 911, a shock so great that it knocked Gibson out of his usual sly fi world and back into the real world.  A real world in which, however, technology had changed so much since the publication of Neuromancer that everyday digitally enhanced reality seemed like a Gibson novel.  Pattern Recognition also anticipated the switch from volatile Middle Eastern oil to Russian and even Canadian oil as a result of 911 in yet more prescience in a Gibson novel.  At any rate, the novel implicitly reaffirmed Gibson’s commitment to a brave new world of higher minded and CGI enhanced allegorical film art that was not necessarily mainstream feature film art.

 

Significantly, the year of the release of Pattern Recognition saw the Wachowski Sisters bring the Matrix Trilogy to a trimax with the release of THE MATRIX RELOADED (2003) and MATRIX REVOLUTIONS (2003).  Then an implicit interest in non-traditional and CGI enhanced film art that returned along with an everyday reality that resembled a Gibson novel and a newfound interest in the secret operations unleashed by 911 when he partly returned to London in his next twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed, CGI enhanced and Count Zero evoking novel Spook Country (August 2007).

 

“He found a favorite chapter:

“An Elite of Amoral Supermen (2).””

 

Curiously, with a female lead named Hollis Henry, a supporting character named Milgrim, a French architect named Philippe Starck, a New York street called Bleecker and a Vancouver street called Clark, Gibson also implicitly addressed the rise of the CGI enhanced super satirical film in the novel.  For they evoked Stan “the Man” Lee’s love of alliterative superhero names like Peter Parker, Ben “the Thing” Grimm and Tony “Iron Man” Stark, the Bleecker Street address of Doctor Stephen Strange and the Canadian link of Clark “Superman” Kent, co-created by Toronto born and raised Joltin’ Joe Shuster and fond of escaping it all at his Fortress of Solitude at the Canadian North Pole.  Thus, the fact that Spook Country ended with the novel length indie A-Team secret op literally succeeding with a money shot that contaminated one hundred million dollars with radioactive cesium reaffirmed Gibson’s implicit hope that indie film artists and their film art would triumph over the CGI enhanced blockbuster beast, in the end-particularly any CGI enhanced super satirical films that implicitly roasted Cronenberg in the form of Peter “Spiderman” Parker-played by Tobey Maguire-in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Sam Raimi films SPIDER-MAN (2002) and SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004).

 

The implicit link of Hollis Henry to Dorothy, of the elusive Sino-Cuban Tito to Toto, of Heidi Hyde to the Wicked Witch of the West and the return of the mysterious and implicitly Great Oz linked Bigend-his first name Hubertus also evoking Galactus-also implicitly affirmed that Spook Country was another Ozian themed novel.  Curiously, Milgrim liked reading paper books rather than digital books, an unusual interest in the world of Gibson which was usually and ironically dismissive of the printed page.  Just as curiously, Gibson was linked to engineer Francois Moraneu-played by Nick Blake-in the pseudo-documentary segments of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Neill Blomkamp film DISTRICT 9 (2009), a film released on August 13, 2009 that warned Disney that their embrace of all CGI film art with the purchase of Pixar in 2006 could rob them and their film art of their vital humanity as surely as the implicitly Walt Disney linked Wikus Van De Merwe-played by Sharlto Copley-lost his vital humanity over the course of the filml and transformed into an all CGI alien refugee derisively called a “prawn”, in the end.  Then an interest in the printed page, post-911 secret indie ops and an everyday reality that evoked a Gibson novel that continued when Gibson wrapped up his Blue Ant trilogy with the twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and CGI enhanced and Mona Lisa Overdrive evoking novel Zero History (September 2010).

 

“Designers are taught to invent characters,

with narratives,

who they then design products for,

or around.”

 

Indeed, with the implicitly Dorothy linked Henry, the implicitly Glinda linked Pollard, the implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked Hyde and the implicitly Great Oz linked Bigend, the Ozian theme just kept on goin’.  An implicit interest in CGI enhanced film art that returned when Gibson implicitly roasted Cameron again in  an alternate future London where advanced technology was indeed indistinguishable from magic in an ironic nod to Clarke and that evoked the alternate London past of THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE in his most over the top, twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced novel to date THE PERIPHERAL (October 2014).

 

“All this shit’s like a movie to me’, Leon said,

and belched softly.”

 

Curiously, the novel revolved around a young and implicitly Disney or Sofia (SCC) Coppola linked woman named Flynne Fisher and her ex-Marine brother, Burton, and their friends who lived in a possible present and interacted via remote controlled and mobile peripheral devices with the implicitly Cronenberg linked Wilf Netherton and his fellow humbed mates who lived in a possible post-ecological apocalyptic future London of the late 21st century.  Soon the murder of a young woman named Aelita witnessed while Flynne did peripheral security for Netherton in the future dragged the present into a murder mystery investigation led in London by the all seeing and all knowing 21st century Miss Marple, Detective Ainsley Lowbeer, an investigation that led, in the end, to a triumph of Lowbeer and the Fishers over the implicitly Cameron linked Sir Henry Fishburne, implying that Gibson wanted Coppola or Disney to triumph over Cameron in the dread allegorical Zone Wars.  Indeed, the novel’s time travelers evoked the time travelers of THE TERMINATOR and the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Cameron Zonebuster TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991), while the remotely accessed android Avatars known as peripherals evoked the humanoid avatars of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Cameron Zonebuster AVATAR (2009), affirming the implicit Cameron addressing intent of the novel.  Ironically, however, with Disney gobbling up Lucasfilm/ILM, Marvel Comics and Pixar by the publication of THE PERIPHERAL and later 21st Century Fox and morphing into the ultimate CGI enhanced blockbuster cinematic beast, the world of film art had more to fear from the Dixarvelass than from Cameron by 2014.  Thus, reaffirmed in the end a commitment to CGI enhanced film art did Gibson, making him, indeed, an indomitable Neu Romancer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Clarke, Arthur C.  2010: odyssey two.  New York: Ballantine

        Books, 1997.

 

-----.  2061: odyssey three.  New York: Del Rey Books, 1989.

 

Gibson, William.  Agency.  New York: Berkley, 2020.

 

-----.  All Tomorrow’s Parties.  New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,

        1999.

 

-----.  Burning Chrome.  New York: Eos, 2003.

 

-----.  Count Zero.  New York: Ace Books, 2006.

 

-----.  Idoru.  New York: Berkley Books, 1997.

 

-----.  Johnny Mnemonic.  New York: Ace Books, 1995.

 

-----.  Mona Lisa Overdrive.  New York: Bantam Books, 1989.

 

-----.  Neuromancer.  New York: Ace Books, 1984.

 

-----.  Pattern Recognition.  New York: Berkley Books, 2004.

 

-----.  Spook Country.  New York: Berkley Books, 2008.

 

-----.  The Peripheral.  New York: Putnam, 2014.

 

-----.  Virtual Light.  New York: Bantam Spectra, 1994.

 

-----.  Zero History.  New York: Berkley Books, 2010.

 

Gibson, William and Bruce Sterling.  The Difference Engine. 

        New York: Bantam Spectra, 2011.

 

Gibson, William, et al.  William Gibson’s Archangel.  San Diego:

        IDW Publishing, 2017.

 

Kinsella, W.P.  The Alligator Report.  Toronto: Totem Books,

        1986.

 

-----.  The Thrill Of The Grass.  Markham: Penguin Books, 1984.