Last I checked Deus Ex Human Revolution is all about the distribution of power and the role of government. It was just in the context of Transhumanism. What role does the government play in shaping the development of augments? What affect will augmentation have on the distribution and balance of power in the future?
How can you say that Deux Ex is about power and the role of government and then say DE:HR failed?
Last I checked Deus Ex Human Revolution is all about the distribution of power and the role of government. It was just in the context of Transhumanism. What role does the government play in shaping the development of augments? What affect will augmentation have on the distribution and balance of power in the future?
How can you say that Deux Ex is about power and the role of government and then say DE:HR failed?
Also, what mainly bugs me is the title: "Deus Ex will be a 'Cyberpunk Movie'". Deus Ex isn't about cyberpunk, it's about the nature of power and government (At least DX1 is, IW is about power and people and HR has no damn clue what it's about). The fact that the head honchos haven't grasped that has dashed my hopes. If you don't know what something is about when you are planning the project, what in the 7-9 hells makes you think you'll know what it's about at the end?
If you don't mind my asking, who the hell died and bequeathed the Cyberpunk Crown unto you?
Deus Ex ticks a lot of cyberpunk boxes. Oppressive atmosphere. Amoral mega-corporations with more power than governments. Artificial intelligences. Pseudo-fascist police force. Private military contractors with the power of armies. Oligarchic conspiracies. False-flag operations to justify repression of the poor. Transhumanism. Deconstructions of transhumanism. Vast gulf between the wealty elite and the impoverished masses. An intelligent, alienated, strong-willed protagonist, who rebels against the established order out of a mix of curiosity and personal investment but is nevertheless manipulated by outside parties through strict control of information until the very end of the plot, where he exercises his agency to determine the nature of the climax. A underlying theme that technological advancement alone cannot solve the flaws of human nature. Giant robots. You know; the basics.
You'll notice I'm not distinguishing between DX1 and DX:HR, because as far as I'm concerned, they both fit. But really - why isn't Deus Ex about cyberpunk? Because the best definition I ever heard of cyberpunk is high-tech, low-life. Deus Ex fits that bill pretty cleanly. The tech is beyond our wildest hopes, but the society using it is bleak and dysfunctional, and much of the action takes place in impoverished and run-down areas (New York and Hong Kong in DX1, Detroit and Hengsha in DX:HR).
I'm not really saying that you're necessarily wrong in your assessment of Deus Ex. Just that your opinion is is far from conclusive. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CyberPunk] If you want to go swinging it around the Internet like a baseball bat in the hands of an epileptic orangutan, You really have to provide more of an argument in support of it, instead of just...saying that it isn't cyberpunk, devoid of context or debate, and insisting that these people don't get it. I'm actually eager to hear your reasoning if you're willing to provide it.
Last I checked Deus Ex Human Revolution is all about the distribution of power and the role of government. It was just in the context of Transhumanism. What role does the government play in shaping the development of augments? What affect will augmentation have on the distribution and balance of power in the future?
How can you say that Deux Ex is about power and the role of government and then say DE:HR failed?
I'll assume you were quoting me, so I'll act like you were quoting me:
Jump to about 8:55 in the video, that's where the fun begins. Also, you're still wrong: Deus Ex wasn't about what the government does, it is about the nature of government, authority, and holding power over another.
Postscript: For more evidence, check the wikiquote pages of both games, then compare and contrast them.
Deus Ex ticks a lot of cyberpunk boxes. Oppressive atmosphere. Amoral mega-corporations with more power than governments. Artificial intelligences. Pseudo-fascist police force. Private military contractors with the power of armies. Oligarchic conspiracies. False-flag operations to justify repression of the poor. Transhumanism. Deconstructions of transhumanism. Vast gulf between the wealty elite and the impoverished masses. An intelligent, alienated, strong-willed protagonist, who rebels against the established order out of a mix of curiosity and personal investment but is nevertheless manipulated by outside parties through strict control of information until the very end of the plot, where he exercises his agency to determine the nature of the climax. A underlying theme that technological advancement alone cannot solve the flaws of human nature. Giant robots. You know; the basics.
You'll notice I'm not distinguishing between DX1 and DX:HR, because as far as I'm concerned, they both fit. But really - why isn't Deus Ex about cyberpunk? Because the best definition I ever heard of cyberpunk is high-tech, low-life. Deus Ex fits that bill pretty cleanly. The tech is beyond our wildest hopes, but the society using it is bleak and dysfunctional, and much of the action takes place in impoverished and run-down areas (New York and Hong Kong in DX1, Detroit and Hengsha in DX:HR).
I'm not really saying that you're necessarily wrong in your assessment of Deus Ex. Just that your opinion is is far from conclusive. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CyberPunk] If you want to go swinging it around the Internet like a baseball bat in the hands of an epileptic orangutan, You really have to provide more of an argument in support of it, instead of just...saying that it isn't cyberpunk, devoid of context or debate, and insisting that these people don't get it. I'm actually eager to hear your reasoning if you're willing to provide it.
You seem to be missing my point. I never said that Deus Ex isn't or was not cyberpunk, just that it was not about the things you listed in your first paragraph. As mentioned quite a few times before, DX1 uses those elements to provide context and flavor for the pervading question in the game: "What is the nature of power in relation to authority?" More specifically, "Is the abuse of power by those who wield it inevitable? Are human beings fit to govern themselves? Is entrusting power to only a few good individuals the safest way to avoid corruption and abuse?" I am not against cyberpunk and conspiracies in Deus Ex, but those contribute to the tone and themes of not the game; they don't replace it. The grand mashup the game provided of the Grey Death, Majestic 12, Illuminati, Templars, Echelon IV and Area 51 all serve the purpose of contextualizing the theme of power abuse, as they all signify a select group of people abusing the power granted to them in order to gain more power. Another good way they are used is by demonstrating the relevancy of the issues the game brings up, as the theories the game draws from are as real as the issues it presents.
Saying that Deus Ex should be about cyberpunk tones and conspiratorial plots is like saying that Gunther Hermann's defining attribute is that he prefers orange over lemon-lime soda.
Reagan's claim to the Cyberpunk throne was never valid!
deathbydeath said:
You seem to be missing my point. I never said that Deus Ex isn't or was not cyberpunk, just that it was not about the things you listed in your first paragraph.
You'll forgive me for being confused, as that distinction isn't made clear in this paragraph;
deathbydeath said:
Ugg, this makes me frustrated. Deus Ex was never about cyberpunk, Deus Ex was about power. You know why DX3 had a crappy story? It forgot what Deus Ex was about. Deus Ex 1 would work just as well in a fantasy, historical, or even Star Wars-esque science fiction.
Dear Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, please play Deus Ex 1 and 2. Study them, learn their themes, memorize their quotes and examine their characters. Then and only then will you know what Deus Ex is about, and Deus Ex is not about cyberpunk.
Although, now I'm interesting in what you think the difference is between a game about cyberpunk and a cyberpunk game. I don't know how you'd say a game is cyberpunk but not about cyberpunk, given that cyberpunk is really just a collection of related themes composed into a genre.
As mentioned quite a few times before, DX1 uses those elements to provide context and flavor for the pervading question in the game: "What is the nature of power in relation to authority?" More specifically, "Is the abuse of power by those who wield it inevitable? Are human beings fit to govern themselves? Is entrusting power to only a few good individuals the safest way to avoid corruption and abuse?" I am not against cyberpunk and conspiracies in Deus Ex, but those contribute to the tone and themes of not the game; they don't replace it. The grand mashup the game provided of the Grey Death, Majestic 12, Illuminati, Templars, Echelon IV and Area 51 all serve the purpose of contextualizing the theme of power abuse, as they all signify a select group of people abusing the power granted to them in order to gain more power. Another good way they are used is by demonstrating the relevancy of the issues the game brings up, as the theories the game draws from are as real as the issues it presents.
I think it's valid to say that Deus Ex is about abuse of power, but I have two general responses to that.
Firstly, is there anything stopping Deus Ex from simultaneously being about abuse of power and about cyberpunk? The abuse of power granted by technological advancement is a very common - I would say central - theme in the cyberpunk genre. It's hypothetically possible to do a narrative similar to DX1 in a non-cyberpunk setting, but I think it would lose much of its impact, given DX1's expert application of modern story elements such as government conspiracies and false-flag terrorism as well as cyberpunk story elements such as human augmentation, artificial intelligence and technological cynicism. And I don't see how arguing that Deus Ex is about abuse of power disproves the proposition that Deus Ex is about cyberpunk. The two aren't mutually exclusive - in fact, they complement each other harmoniously.
Secondly, the filmmakers have said that they are building the film based off DX:HR, which had a coherent message about how practical human augmentation would affect humanity at a social and individual level. DX:HR isn't necessarily about abuse of power - it's more about how humanity has to come to grasp with the consequences of rapid technological change, using the Renaissance aesthetic as a metaphor - but I see no fault in having two works in a series with unique core themes. More importantly, I see no reason why the core theme of DX1 should have an impact on the development of a film based of DX:HR. In fact, I'd rather it didn't - DX:HR had its own distinct aesthetic and core theme compared to DX:1 while still feeling very much like a Deus Ex game, and I wouldn't want to mix the two in a misguided attempt to be loyal to the first game while adapting the third.
Saying that Deus Ex should be about cyberpunk tones and conspiratorial plots is like saying that Gunther Hermann's defining attribute is that he prefers orange over lemon-lime soda.
I understand you're being flippant, but it's more like saying that Gunther Hermann's defining attribute is his brusque German accent and brutish appearance. His soda preference is a comedic triviality, whereas his Ahnold-impersonation is the outside trappings that highlight his violent inner nature. In a similar way, I would say that DX1's use of cyberpunk themes is intended to coherently enhance the impact of its core message about the abuse of power by authority figures. I mean, if "abuse of power" is the centrepiece of the exhibit, cyberpunk is the exhibit itself.
Ah, clearly you never broke into his casket and found his second will, then!
bastardofmelbourne said:
You'll forgive me for being confused, as that distinction isn't made clear in this paragraph;
deathbydeath said:
Ugg, this makes me frustrated. Deus Ex was never about cyberpunk, Deus Ex was about power. You know why DX3 had a crappy story? It forgot what Deus Ex was about. Deus Ex 1 would work just as well in a fantasy, historical, or even Star Wars-esque science fiction.
Dear Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, please play Deus Ex 1 and 2. Study them, learn their themes, memorize their quotes and examine their characters. Then and only then will you know what Deus Ex is about, and Deus Ex is not about cyberpunk.
Although, now I'm interesting in what you think the difference is between a game about cyberpunk and a cyberpunk game. I don't know how you'd say a game is cyberpunk but not about cyberpunk, given that cyberpunk is really just a collection of related themes composed into a genre.
I think it's valid to say that Deus Ex is about abuse of power, but I have two general responses to that.
Firstly, is there anything stopping Deus Ex from simultaneously being about abuse of power and about cyberpunk? The abuse of power granted by technological advancement is a very common - I would say central - theme in the cyberpunk genre. It's hypothetically possible to do a narrative similar to DX1 in a non-cyberpunk setting, but I think it would lose much of its impact, given DX1's expert application of modern story elements such as government conspiracies and false-flag terrorism as well as cyberpunk story elements such as human augmentation, artificial intelligence and technological cynicism. And I don't see how arguing that Deus Ex is about abuse of power disproves the proposition that Deus Ex is about cyberpunk. The two aren't mutually exclusive - in fact, they complement each other harmoniously.
I forgive you, but I explicitly used the word about. Besides, what does it even mean to be "about cyberpunk"? Cyberpunk is an aesthetic design, not a theme or idea. Sure, you can have a story about "what makes someone human" or "the abuse of power" in a cyberpunk setting, but how do you have something that's about "class marginalization in urbanized environments built upon the foundation of prominent and advanced technology"?
bastardofmelbourne said:
Secondly, the filmmakers have said that they are building the film based off DX:HR, which had a coherent message about how practical human augmentation would affect humanity at a social and individual level. DX:HR isn't necessarily about abuse of power - it's more about how humanity has to come to grasp with the consequences of rapid technological change, using the Renaissance aesthetic as a metaphor - but I see no fault in having two works in a series with unique core themes. More importantly, I see no reason why the core theme of DX1 should have an impact on the development of a film based of DX:HR. In fact, I'd rather it didn't - DX:HR had its own distinct aesthetic and core theme compared to DX:1 while still feeling very much like a Deus Ex game, and I wouldn't want to mix the two in a misguided attempt to be loyal to the first game while adapting the third.
Heh, you make me larf. Jump the video ahead to 8:55. DX3 never really discusses transhumanism in a meaningful way. It only stumbles over a handful of relevant instances and forgets they exist.
bastardofmelbourne said:
I understand you're being flippant, but it's more like saying that Gunther Hermann's defining attribute is his brusque German accent and brutish appearance. His soda preference is a comedic triviality, whereas his Ahnold-impersonation is the outside trappings that highlight his violent inner nature. In a similar way, I would say that DX1's use of cyberpunk themes is intended to coherently enhance the impact of its core message about the abuse of power by authority figures. I mean, if "abuse of power" is the centrepiece of the exhibit, cyberpunk is the exhibit itself.
I intentionally used Gunther Hermann and the soda quote because everybody remember him for the "I wanted orange" quote even when he was an utterly fantastic character. People remember Deus Ex for great level design, conspiracies, and cyberpunk while often missing the great interplay of ideas.
Besides, what does it even mean to be "about cyberpunk"? Cyberpunk is an aesthetic design, not a theme or idea. Sure, you can have a story about "what makes someone human" or "the abuse of power" in a cyberpunk setting, but how do you have something that's about "class marginalization in urbanized environments built upon the foundation of prominent and advanced technology"?
I don't know if cyberpunk is exclusively an aesthetic. As I've understood it, cyberpunk is a genre defined by its use of a collection of related themes, many of which I listed in my first post, with a common focus on a cynical interpretation of transhumanism.
And secondly...yeah, I think you can have a story about "class marginalization in urbanized environments built upon the foundation of prominent and advanced technology," as you put it. I don't see a reason why not you couldn't make that the central theme of your work if you wanted to, perhaps as a commentary on the failings of the modern economic system. DX1 and DX:HR touch on it in a peripheral, world-building fashion, but I think it's entirely possible to make that a core theme in the same way you could use "abuse of power" or "what makes someone human."
deathbydeath said:
Heh, you make me larf. Jump the video ahead to 8:55. DX3 never really discusses transhumanism in a meaningful way. It only stumbles over a handful of relevant instances and forgets they exist.
I watched the video when you linked it earlier. I think the guy raises some good points and I wouldn't call his opinion unfounded, but I would emphasise that it's an opinion, and not sufficiently persuasive that I'd call it conclusive.
For one, his primary criticism seems to be that DX:HR can't decide on what real-world issue human augmentation is supposed to metaphorically represent - private health care, superhumanity, homosexuality, or abortion. He then cherrypicks small segments of environmental dialogues or minor conversations to support his sometimes-tenuous connection (for example, inferring that a reference to control over one's own body is a reference to abortion).
My response to that is that augmentation isn't a clear metaphor for any of those issues. Augmentation is meant to be its own issue. The writers attempted to characterise the controversy that they imagined would ensue from the introduction of practical human augmentation by parroting the boilerplate rhetoric used by modern talking heads in discussion of any number of controversial modern issues. The intent was not to make augmentation a parallel to a real-world controversy, but to convincingly portray augmentation as an issue itself.
If you went in expecting to interpret human augmentation as a metaphor for one issue solely, you're going to be disappointed, because it doesn't clearly fit any of them. How could it? It's meant to be an unprecedented change that society is having trouble coming to grips with.
The Errant Signal video says that all DX:HR had to do was present the pros and cons of human augmentation, but it does that. The heavy antagonists are mercenaries with military-grade augmentations; the prologue establishes that human augmentation can be used to help the disabled and improve lives, but is also being used to develop weapons like the Typhoon. The game shows people whose lives are improved by augmentation, and people who it can't help - the first antagonist, Zeke Sanders, is a military veteran who was put back into service, but his augmentation didn't cure his PTSD, which eventually ruined him. It shows that augmentation comes with the necessary drawback of dependency on an expensive drugs with severe withdrawal symptoms, and posits the existence of a lethal black-market trade in second-hand augmentations ripped from human victims. There's a side quest in Hengsha where a female lawyer tells you that she took loan from a crime boss to get a CASIE aug because she needed it to be competitive.
I don't know how you can say DX:HR isn't really about transhumanism when the entire plot is set in motion because of an old, crippled man was so bitter about the fact that his body was rejecting cybernetic prosthetics that he tried to halt worldwide augmentation research, so that no-one else could enjoy the fruits of the future that he was denied. The main antagonist is a guy who is trying to stop transhumanism because he can't take part in it. The protagonist is a man who was resurrected with a body full of technological implants who is entrusted with making the decision as to whether that was a good thing.
I mean, the ES video doesn't even discuss that. It instead focusses on a few snippets of poorly-scripted conversation from around the game to support his claim that DX:HR can't decide on whether human augmentation is homosexuality or abortion, then picking a brilliant quote from DX1 as a "fair" comparison. The guy even mentions X-Men in the video, which is curious, because X-Men as equally "guilty" of mixing metaphors as he claims DX:HR is. I mean, he's entitled to his opinion, and it's far from a bad review, but I don't necessarily agree with his criticism of the plot.
Here's a good quote [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X43i8NQ--_s&lc=SMbM701Aq-8HioBMIAxIEJwfH7P1s-bC5-G2nKIOgsU] from Youtube (of all places!) in response to that video;
Interesting - you commend the game for allowing multiple approaches in the gameplay, but criticise it when it decides to explore multiple points of view regarding the story/augmentation issues. I see no reason why it should be focused on just one opinion, I actually liked how it just threw all the possibilities at you, basically saying "all of this would be valid and happening at the same time".
But really - why does the fact that DX:HR tries to present human augmentation as a multifaceted, unique, unprecedented issue by not slotting it nicely into a metaphor for a single real-world issue undermine its message? If you see the game's objective as trying to depict what would happen in society if practical augmentation was introduced, I think that approach was highly successful. If you think the game was just trying to make a metaphor for homosexuality or abortion, you're not going to take much away from it. But do you even want that? Would DX1 have been better if it was written as a metaphor for a single modern issue instead of as a multifaceted concept with multiple interpretations?
I should mention - in case you were unaware, as the Errant Signal reviewer was - that the excreble and forgettable boss fights were designed by an outside studio, hence the severe and jarring shift in tone. Not one of the dev team's best decisions, really. The studio developed its own boss fight in the Missing Link, and it's much better.
deathbydeath said:
I intentionally used Gunther Hermann and the soda quote because everybody remember him for the "I wanted orange" quote even when he was an utterly fantastic character. People remember Deus Ex for great level design, conspiracies, and cyberpunk while often missing the great interplay of ideas.
This is actually a little wierd. See, Jaron Namir - the rarely-named mercenary with the full-body, muscle-coloured augmentation - is actually an interesting character, and a convincing foil to Jensen. He's just not fleshed out inside the game itself - which was a major fucking misstep, if you ask me. It's all in the supplemental material or hinted at in emails, and eventually covered in a so-so novel tie-in.
Basically, Namir is a former Israeli security agent who is implied to have lost his younger sister in the same incident that injured him so severely as to require augmentations. Her name is the password to his personal computer in-game. Like Adam, he's lost a loved one (adding context to his final lines that is missing from Adam's perspective) and like Adam, he was heavily augmented to seek revenge. Like Adam, he's barely human, being essentially a head on a robot body; like Adam, he's used as a pawn by more-or-less amoral corporations to facilitated their squabbles. He's basically a darker representation of what a lethal Adam Jensen might become if he simply stayed Sarif's personal enforcer.
But the game doesn't fucking tell you any of that, which is a fair criticism. Though, in the interest of being even-handed, much of Gunther Hermann's characterisation is similarly subtle - an inattentive player would only see him as a generic brute, with most of his defining attributes (his fear of obsolesence, his relationship with Anna Navarre, his jealousy of Denton) told to the player in emails or side conversations.
More on point, though - I don't think it's fair to say that DX:HR has no message, or that it contains no meaningful discussion of an issue. You can consider the discussion in DX1 superior - it's certainly more high-brow - but then you're just talking about how DX:HR could have been better and forgetting that it's a miracle it even exists, much less exists as a good and playable Deus Ex game. And if I was going to pick which one to adapt into a movie, I'd pick DX:HR. It's more recent in the audience's mind, it has a superior visual aesthetic, and its plot is more easily adapted to a conventional three-act structure associated with Hollywood films.
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