History Main / JohnnyMnemonic

-->"My little Japanese friend told me not to touch your ''head!'' Didn't say anything about the ''rest'' of ya!"

* InformedAbility: Jane is supposedly wired to the gills with cybernetic enhancements, but we never see her do anything superhuman, let alone extraordinary. Most {{egregious}} of all, when the two bumbling Lo-Teks [[CarFu drop a car]] on top of Johnny and Jane, Jane--who is supposed to have faster reflexes--never even seemed to notice this and had to rely on ''Johnny'' to quickly notice what was happening with enough time to allow him to '''push her out of the way of the falling car'''.

* SuperReflexes: Jane's cybernetic implants, allegedly, grant her this ability, [[InformedAbility but nothing she ever does makes any use of the skill]]. On one occasion, Johnny even had to [[WallBanger push her out of the way of a falling car that she didn't even notice]].

** [[ThisIsSPARTA "I WANT!]] '''[[LargeHam ROOOOOM SEEEEERVICE!]]''' [[FreakOut I WANT A CLUB SANDWICH! I WANT A COLD MEXICAN BEER! I WANT A TEN-THOUSAND-DOLLAR-A-NIGHT HOOKER!]] [[HeroicBSOD ...I want my shirts laundered... like they do... at the Imperial Hotel... in Tokyo.]]"

** Another Gibson novel features two towering club bouncers who are described as perfectly identical women, except that one is jet black, the other is stark white, and no one can remember which one was originally male. In the text it's pretty creepy. The film lifts these characters for Ralfi's bodyguards, but they come off as a bull dyke and a drag queen.

* InformedAbility: Jane is supposedly wired to the gills with cybernetic enhancements, but we never see her do anything superhuman, let alone extraordinary.

* {{Yubitsume}}: When we first see Takahashi, he tells Shinji, "I see you turned your shame into an asset," implying that at some point Shinji had to cut off the tip of his thumb to atone for a past mistake before replacing it with his [[RazorFloss molecuwire whip]].

* {{Yubitsume}}: When we first see Takahashi, he tells Shinji, "I see you turned your shame into an asset," implying that at some point Shinji had to cut off the tip of his thumb to make up for a past mistake before replacing it with his [[RazorFloss molecuwire whip]].

* CutLexLuthorACheck: [[MegaCorp PharmaKom]] [[spoiler: hides the cure for NAS because "treating the disease is more profitable than curing it."]] despite the fact that [[spoiler: the cure]] would still be very profitable in a world where [[spoiler: half of the global population suffers from the disease]]. Of course, if they went through all the trouble to research and develop it in the first place, they may as well have tried to sell it, anyway, seeing how all of that trouble would've cost them a chunk of their own money.

* CutLexLuthorACheck: [[MegaCorp PharmaKom]] [[spoiler: hides the cure for NAS because "treating the disease is more profitable than curing it."]] despite the fact that [[spoiler: the cure]] would still be very profitable in a world where [[spoiler: half of the global population suffers from the disease]]. Whether the risks they take in burying the cure are worth the extra profit they make by prolonging the treatment is debatable.

* ActionGirl: Jane, though her counterpart Molly Millions in the short story is far more BadAss.
** The fact that the movie turns Johnny into the BadAss who Saves The Day and [[DistressedDamsel Jane]] is effectively crippled from some kind of neurodegenerative AppliedPhlebotinum inverts the roles entirely from the short story.

* BadassPreacher: The monk assassin.

* CutLexLuthorACheck: [[MegaCorp PharmaKom]] [[spoiler: hides the cure for NAS because "treating the disease is more profitable than curing it"]], despite the fact that [[spoiler: the cure]] would still be very profitable in a world where [[spoiler: half of the global population suffers from the disease]] and would have greater demand than a treatment.
** This is {{YMMV}} - you can only sell a cure once, and humanitarian efforts would protest in the case of a global threat like NAS/cancer. Treatments have to be sold over and over, and eventually you might have entire countries lining up for the shots, letting you TakeOverTheWorld without a shot being fired.
*** [=PharmaKom=] is supposed to be a ''MegaCorp'', and that would already imply having, at least, near monopolistic control of the pharmaceutical industry and, therefore, [[FridgeLogic have full control over their domain in the first place]]. People would be giving [=PharmaKom=] their cash for any medicines they need, anyway. It's not like anyone would have any real ''choice'' in the matter; they either buy all their medicines from one company or they get nothing at all. Releasing a cure for a disease when one is the '''only''' provider for '''all''' pharmaceutical products would not hurt one's bottom line, especially when there are hundreds upon hundreds of more diseases in existence that people would be needing medicines for and they're the only company that can possibly provide them on any market. NAS would not be the be all, end all of a monopolistic drug company's profiteering even if the disease ''is'' an epidemic.

* {{Discontinuity}}: see AdaptationDecay
* DolphinsDolphinsEverywhere: The film features a cybernetically-enhanced dolphin computer hacker. This was actually taken from the original short story.
** Deleted scenes also reveal the dolphin to be a drug addict.

* [[FingerTwitchingRevival Finger Twitching.....oh, well,]] [[SubvertedTrope guess not.]]

* InformedAbility: All of Jane's body modifications and upgrades; nothing she does in the course of the movie makes any use of them.

** And, honestly, to write up every single instance of {{Narm}} in this movie could take all night.
*** '''[[{{Narm}} WE GOT ALL NIGHT ASSHOLE!!!!!!]]'''

* SexyBack: Jane.

* TechnologyMarchesOn: in 1995 320Gb was massive. In 2010... most laptops can handle 360gb.

*** The implant itself aged well, though. Random images acting as a download code is pretty secure. Faxing the code, as well as the entire idea of using a "courier" make perfect sense in today's obscene "security" environment - governments are demanding more and more control over encryption technology; excessively encrypted E-mail and torrent sites tell the cops that there's valuable information contained within, whereupon they raid the buildings, kill everything in sight, seize the servers and plant weapons, drugs and kiddy-porn on the premises. If we could undetectably store encrypted information in people's brains, we'd do it all the time. And Fed Ex would be delivering a lot of cold, head-sized boxes to the FBI. Substitute corporate security teams / Yakuza for cops and you get the film.

* WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture: The Evil Drug Company is called [=PharmaKom=]; an abbreviation of Pharma(Latin for "drug") Kombinat(Russian for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_%28enterprise%29 "combine"]]) Industrie(German for "industry") - and ''[[JapanTakesOverTheWorld run by the Japanese]].''

* {{Yubitsume}}: When we first see Takahashi he tells Shinji, "I see you turned your shame into an asset," implying that at some point Shinji had to cut off the tip of his thumb to make up for a past mistake before replacing it with his [[RazorFloss molecuwire whip]].

* IJustWantToBeNormal: Johnny's entire focus throughout the entire movie is to see that his [[NeuralImplanting neural implant]] is removed and his childhood memories are recovered. He also just wants [[{{Narm}} a club sandwich and a hooker]], but that's another story. Regardless, he's never all too happy about having the fate of the entire world on his shoulders, and, frankly, doesn't care all that much.
* ImpliedLoveInterest: Jane is apparently supposed to be one for Johnny, but he proves that he'd be willing to abandon her in a second [[spoiler: when he decides to ditch her her in a pile of trash ''while she was having a seizure'']] [[JerkAss just so he could focus on his own interests]]. Johnny only changes his mind after Jane makes a desperate effort to convince him that her contact could help him. Jane falls in love with him, anyway. Even after Johnny [[{{Narm}} rants]] about how much he'd prefer [[spoiler: a $10,000 hooker]] to holding [[IJustWantToBeNormal responsibility]] for [[spoiler: the cure to NAS, which Jane suffers from]] and makes it clear that he doesn't give a damn about her or the rest of the world at all, [[VoodooShark this somehow earns Johnny Jane's sympathy]].

* VirtualGhost: Anna Kalmann, the founder of [=PharmaKom=]. Takahashi explicitly calls her "A ghost in the machine."

** Another Gibson novel features two towering club bouncers who are described as perfectly identical women, except that one is jet black, the other is stark white, and no one can remember which one was originally male. In the text it's pretty creepy. The film lifts these characters for Ralfi's bodyguards, but they come off as a bull dyke and a drag queen.

** Honestly, to write up every single WallBanger in this movie could take all night.
*** '''[[{{Narm}} "WE GOT ALL NIGHT ASSHOLE!!!!!!"]]'''

* FridgeLogic: Why did [=PharmaKom=] create the cure to NAS if they were just going to suppress it?
** FridgeBrilliance: Because they wanted a ''treatment'', something they could make people pay for on an extended basis. That's what they're making a killing on.
*** FridgeLogic: But if a treatment is more profitable to a cure, [[WallBanger why in the world is PharmaKom wasting those profits on creating a cure that they have no intention to use in the first place?]] Moreover, it's not like a cure for the disease wouldn't [[CutLexLuthorACheck reap tremendous economic benefit for the cure's creator]], anyway.

* WallBanger: The OpeningScroll explains that in 2021, [[MegaCorp corporations "rule,"]] and [[LaResistance a resistance movement]] emerged to take down the [[CorruptCorporateExecutive corporations]]. The corporations' response to the growing resistance? Use their immense power and influence to [[strike: bribe and win over government and law enforcement to work for the corporate interest]] [[FlatWhat hire the yakuza]].
** The Lo-Teks fight their enemies with crossbows and falling cars, in accordance with their low technology values. They also hijack satellite television signals to broadcast their own messages '''globally''' and use a cyborg dolphin to [[HollywoodHacking hack]] into human brains.
*** Well, yeah. The corporations implicitly own the cops and the army, but contract out ''really'' dirty tricks to the guys who do dirty tricks for a living. And the Lo-Teks could be more appropriately known as {{Schizo Tech}}s - they steal any weapons they can and kitbash the rest. After they rescued Jones from the U.S. Navy, he became the core of their hacking system. Guerrilla warfare at its most basic.
** Johnny points a gun at J-Bone and demands J-Bone tells him who he is. J-Bone immediately tells Johnny (a total stranger to him at this time...who could be ''anybody''...and who is [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment pointing a gun at him]]) that he is the leader of the underground resistance that fights the corporations, and then J-Bone ''points to where his base of operations is''. In a bit of FridgeBrilliance, however, this particular act of stupidity eventually does lead to all of the resistance movement's enemies finding out the location of their headquarters from Johnny.
** Shinji's molecuwire whip can cut through anything you can think of...except for a chain-link gate for some reason.
** One of Ralfi's bodyguards helps Shinji chase down Johnny and Jane [[spoiler: after Shinji killed Ralfi]]. Why would she want to help the person who [[spoiler: killed her own employer and the person she was supposed to bodyguard]]? Your guess is as good as mine.

* WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture: The Evil Drug Company is called [=PharmaKom=]; an abbreviation of Pharma(Latin for "drug") Kombinat(Russian for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_%28enterprise%29 "combine"]]) Industrie(German for "industry") - and ''[[JapanTakesOverTheWorld run by the Japanese]].''

* CutLexLuthorACheck: [[MegaCorp PharmaCom]] [[spoiler: hides the cure for NAS because "treating the disease is more profitable than curing it"]], despite the fact that [[spoiler: the cure]] would still be very profitable in a world where [[spoiler: half of the global population suffers from the disease]] and would have greater demand than a treatment.

*** [=PharmaCom=] is supposed to be a ''MegaCorp'', and that would already imply having, at least, near monopolistic control of the pharmaceutical industry and, therefore, [[FridgeLogic have full control over their domain in the first place]]. People would be giving [=PharmaCom=] their cash for any medicines they need, anyway. It's not like anyone would have any real ''choice'' in the matter; they either buy all their medicines from one company or they get nothing at all. Releasing a cure for a disease when one is the '''only''' provider for '''all''' pharmaceutical products would not hurt one's bottom line, especially when there are hundreds upon hundreds of more diseases in existence that people would be needing medicines for and they're the only company that can possibly provide them on any market. NAS would not be the be all, end all of a monopolistic drug company's profiteering even if the disease ''is'' an epidemic.

* CutLexLuthorACheck: [[MegaCorp PharmaKom]] [[spoiler: hides the cure for NAS because "treating the disease is more profitable than curing it"]], despite the fact that [[spoiler: the cure]] would still be very profitable in a world where [[spoiler: half of the global population suffers from the disease]] and would have greater demand than a treatment.

*** [=PharmaKom=] is supposed to be a ''MegaCorp'', and that would already imply having, at least, near monopolistic control of the pharmaceutical industry and, therefore, [[FridgeLogic have full control over their domain in the first place]]. People would be giving [=PharmaKom=] their cash for any medicines they need, anyway. It's not like anyone would have any real ''choice'' in the matter; they either buy all their medicines from one company or they get nothing at all. Releasing a cure for a disease when one is the '''only''' provider for '''all''' pharmaceutical products would not hurt one's bottom line, especially when there are hundreds upon hundreds of more diseases in existence that people would be needing medicines for and they're the only company that can possibly provide them on any market. NAS would not be the be all, end all of a monopolistic drug company's profiteering even if the disease ''is'' an epidemic.

*** It's unadulterated YourMileageMayVary - there are accusations that ''all'' drug companies suppress cures in favor of distributing treatments.

* CutLexLuthorACheck: [[MegaCorp PharmaCom]] [[spoiler: hides the cure for NAS because "treating the disease is more profitable than curing it"]], despite the fact that [[spoiler: the cure]] would still be very profitable in a world where [[spoiler: half of the global population suffers from the disease]] and would have greater demand than a treatment.

*** [=PharmaCom=] is supposed to be a ''MegaCorp'', and that would already imply having, at least, near monopolistic control of the pharmaceutical industry and, therefore, [[FridgeLogic have full control over their domain in the first place]]. People would be giving [=PharmaCom=] their cash for any medicines they need, anyway. It's not like anyone would have any real ''choice'' in the matter; they either buy all their medicines from one company or they get nothing at all. Releasing a cure for a disease when one is the '''only''' provider for '''all''' pharmaceutical products would not hurt one's bottom line, especially when there are hundreds upon hundreds of more diseases in existence that people would be needing medicines for and they're the only company that can possibly provide them on any market. NAS would not be the be all, end all of a monopolistic drug company's profiteering even if the disease ''is'' an epidemic.

* FridgeLogic: Why did [=PharmaCom=] create the cure to NAS if they were just going to suppress it?

*** FridgeLogic: But if a treatment is more profitable to a cure, [[WallBanger why in the world is PharmaCom wasting those profits on creating a cure that they have no intention to use in the first place?]] Moreover, it's not like a cure for the disease wouldn't [[CutLexLuthorACheck reap tremendous economic benefit for the cure's creator]], anyway.

* MegaCorp: [=PharmaCom=]

*** [=PharmaCom=] is supposed to be a ''MegaCorp'', and that would already imply having, at least, near monopolistic control of the pharmaceutical industry and, therefore, have full control over their domain in the first place. People would be giving [=PharmaCom=] their cash for any medicines they need, anyway. It's not like anyone would have any real ''choice'' in the matter; they either buy all their medicines from one company or they get nothing at all. Releasing a cure for a disease when one is the '''only''' provider for '''all''' pharmaceutical products would not hurt one's bottom line, especially when there are hundreds upon hundreds of more diseases in existence that people would be needing medicines for and they're the only company that can possibly provide them on any market. NAS would not be the be all, end all of a monopolistic drug company's profiteering even if the disease ''is'' an epidemic.

*** [=PharmaCom=] is supposed to be a ''MegaCorp'', and that would already imply having, at least, near monopolistic control of the pharmaceutical industry so people would be giving them money for any medicines they need, anyway. It's not like people have any real ''choice''. Releasing a cure for a disease when one is the '''only''' pharmaceutical provider would not hurt one's bottom line, especially when there are hundreds upon hundreds of more diseases out there that people would be looking for medicines for and one company is the sole provider for them. NAS would not be the be all, end all of a monopolistic drug company's profiteering even if the problem ''is'' an epidemic.

*** [=PharmaCom=] is supposed to be a ''MegaCorp'', and that would already imply having, at least, near monopolistic control of the pharmaceutical industry so people would be giving them money for any medicines they need, anyway. It's not like people have any real ''choice''. Releasing a cure for a disease when one is the only pharmaceutical provider would not hurt a company's bottom line, especially when there are hundreds and hundreds of more diseases out there that people would be looking for medicines for and one company is the sole provider for them.