On Sunrise talking about Keanu Reeves’ 1995 cyberpunk movie “Johnny Mnemonic”

For lovers of Keanu Reeves’ early work (which I assume is most of you) this will not be news to you. For others, Keanu’s 1995 cyberpunk masterpiece “Johnny Mnemonic” was set in the year 2021. The good people at Sunrise quizzed me on what the filmmakers got right in the movie about 2021 & what they got wrong. Shows what high regard they hold me in intellectually that they would think of me for this important part of their morning news coverage 😀

In summary:
Got it right about 2021
– There is a global pandemic
– Data is the most important asset
– The world runs on the internet (not bad given the internet was not much in 1995)
– Data is not safe as hackers are running riot

Got it wrong about 2021
– No mobile phones but they got virtual reality headsets right. Oddly the VR headsets are called “eyephones” – 10 years before the iPhone
– No cybernetically-enhanced dolphins – [SPOILER ALERT – but you have had 25 years to watch it] Jones the Dolphin (think Flipper as a hacker) saves the world.

Have a watch of the whole movie. Keanu smiles once during the whole movie (final scene) – magnificent work