Think Johnny Mnemonic pretty much sank any other Gibson adaptation - and the Matrix 'borrowed' so much from Neuromancer they'd be very similar.

Though I'd love to see a series based on the Bridge trilogy. And his version of Alien 3 would have been fascinating.

Speaking of the Matrix, years ago I stumbled upon The Animatrix which was a surprisingly good set of animated shorts set in the world of the Matrix. My favorite one provided backstory on the robot holocaust (inflicted by humans on their sentient silicon-based slaves), that led to the collapse and reversal found in the main series. Highly recommended!

Fun fact: the sequels were supposed to be experienced by first watching The Animatrix, then playing the video game Enter the Matrix, then watching the 2nd and 3rd films. Try it sometime (if you can still find the game): it results in a much better experience.

There's a lot of weirdly introduced characters in the 2nd film especially that leave you thinking "wtf was that there for?" but were actually the continuation / conclusion / intersection of storylines started in one of the animatrix shorts (e.g. the kid) or the game (the other crew).

Also The Animatrix soundtrack was fire to my middle school ears. That specific robit revolution one definitely opened me up to anime-style stuff for the first time. There was also a book called "zen and the matrix" or something similar that had a bunch of essays which blew my 12 year old mind. I dropped out of my catholic confirmation course due to it! Forgot how much that influenced me.

You should read some Alistair Reynolds (sci-fi) and Daniel Dennett (philosophy). You'd get a lot out of it I think.

Wow, this would explain why the second and third movies made so little sense to me.

Yup. The first film was the beginning. The Animatrix and Enter the Matrix were the middle. And the final 2 films the two-part conclusion. Just watching the films is like watching Act 1 of MacBeth, then skipping Acts 2-4 and going straight to Act 5. Not going to be the best viewing experience.

That said, they did make sure the films had enough injected explanation that movie-going audiences weren't totally lost, but unless you watched it the way the Wachowskis intended, it would come off as disoriented and exposition-heavy, nowhere near the quality of the first film.

Not that they are masterpieces on the level of Shakespeare. But having gone back and watched the first film, then Animatrix and played Enter the Matrix, before re-watching the final films as a two-parter, it does make sense as a consistent, coherent story with a beginning, middle, and end, and even quality throughout.

Thanks for the explanation. I haven't re-watched parts 2 and 3 in a very long time, now you made me curious to watch (or somehow read) those two missing parts and then try again :)

I really don't see Matrix borrowing that much from Neuromancer and both would be very different stories (in Neuromancer's case, a machine trying to hack itself out of its designed-in constraints), but I still believe Neuromancer is almost impossible to film.

I'll never forgive The Matrix for dumbing down the idea of running the AIs on the organic brains (Agent Smith's disgust is evident) and turning it into using humans as power generation devices.

Also, there is no way Neuromancer can be made into a 90 minute script. It's miniseries material, at least.

After reading Johnny Mnemonic I saw the movie and liked it so much that I bought it on DVD. We all have different tastes. I liked the mood of the movie, thought it worthy of being a cult classic.

I'd like to see Snow Crash!

edit: Apparently Amazon is making Snow Crash: https://www.avclub.com/amazon-is-making-a-snow-crash-tv-show...

Apparently a movie has been in development hell for about 10 years now, can vaguely remember Colin Farrell being attached to it.