Absolutely, most of the Cyberpunk genre is meant to entertain. The dystopian setting is used as a foil to a hyper-individualistic power-trip main character fantasy.
Nothing inherently wrong with that, but it’s good to be aware of. You don’t want to live in night city, you want to be the invincible god-like merc that lives in night city. You don’t want to live in the matrix, you want to be the bullet time kung fu Neo.
I read Snowcrash when I was twelve and super wanted to live in that world. Then I read it again when I had twelve year old kids. Boy did it hit different.
Actually the Matrix whole point was that life in the simulation, is pretty good.
I’d say it’s opposite, you want to be anyone BUT Neo in the Matrix series. Neo is the one who gets hounded in the matrix, doesn’t get to enjoy the cushy life of simulation and gets to deal with existential crisis.
The one downside to the Matrix is that one rogue program, who wants to wipe out humanity. But that guy isn’t even inherent to the Matrix.
Iirc at the end of the final film, the Matrix in fact gets portrayed as a good thing but with the new addition that now people can willingly enter and leave the matrix.
TL,DR: the matrix was never bad or evil. The rogue program Smith was the true antagonist.
A problem the entire cyberpunk genre has
Absolutely, most of the Cyberpunk genre is meant to entertain. The dystopian setting is used as a foil to a hyper-individualistic power-trip main character fantasy.
Nothing inherently wrong with that, but it’s good to be aware of. You don’t want to live in night city, you want to be the invincible god-like merc that lives in night city. You don’t want to live in the matrix, you want to be the bullet time kung fu Neo.
It’s for fun, it’s a fantasy.
I read Snowcrash when I was twelve and super wanted to live in that world. Then I read it again when I had twelve year old kids. Boy did it hit different.
Actually the Matrix whole point was that life in the simulation, is pretty good.
I’d say it’s opposite, you want to be anyone BUT Neo in the Matrix series. Neo is the one who gets hounded in the matrix, doesn’t get to enjoy the cushy life of simulation and gets to deal with existential crisis.
The one downside to the Matrix is that one rogue program, who wants to wipe out humanity. But that guy isn’t even inherent to the Matrix.
Iirc at the end of the final film, the Matrix in fact gets portrayed as a good thing but with the new addition that now people can willingly enter and leave the matrix.
TL,DR: the matrix was never bad or evil. The rogue program Smith was the true antagonist.