The Story
Johnny Mnemonic is a short cyberpunk story written by William Gibson. It was originally released in Omni magazine in 1981.
Johnny Mnemonic is part of Gibson's collection Burning Chrome.
The story itself can be found here.
The Movie
The movie Johnny Mnemonic is based on the short story by William Gibson and directed by Robert Longo. It was published in 1985.
The movie takes place in Central Beijing and Newark (the free city) in the year 2021. NAS (nerve attenuation syndrome), a.k.a. the black shakes, is caused by technology overload and is running rampant.
Johnny Mnemonic (played by Keanu Reeves) is a data courier. His head and its implant are his livelihood. His head can carry up to 160 gigbytes of data, but his current assignment loads 320 gigs into his head.
The problem is, the data he carries in his head is the cure for NAS, the technological HIV, and Pharmakom, wants Johnny's head. Johnny's head will explode within three days if the data is not downloaded.
With the help on Jane, his bodyguard, and J-Bone (played by Ice-T), lest we forget James, the mechanical dolphin, and Pharmakom's dead CEO, Anna K., the resident ghost in the machine, Johnny saves all of the NAS sufferers, including Jane, and he and Jane live happily ever after.
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Links & References
- Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson
- The story itself.
- Johnny Mnemonic Movie Info
- Movie entry in Internet Movie Database.
- Johnny Mnemonic in Movieweb
- Movie review, production information, still photos, trailer.
