JJ Abrams to do "Steampunk Robot Movie"

[Gluteus Maximus]

Insiead of my waffle, just have a look here:

http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010/07/30/jj-abrams-goes-steampunk/

Could be very interesting if he does it properly.

We can but hope 

[Grimjack]

An interesting idea, gamed something similar a long time ago as part of a Space:1889 campaign. Could be quite an interesting movie if done with plenty of steampunk flavour.

[Bako]

Interesting. Will certainly have to see how it pans out.

[Viper]

Could be cool...doesn't strike me as "steampunk" or even very VSF but then I guess the whole "-punk" thing is starting to get popular with the media so it was bound to get called that.
 

[Gluteus Maximus]

Well it's about a robot built in 1893, so that would certainly qualify it as "VSF" (for want of a better term). 
Even though it looks like being set in the Americas, C19thSF isn't quite as snappy, so VSF seems the best catch-all for the genre 

As to "steampunk" it's a term I never really understood or ever use. The steampunk in the title was merely referring to the film's publicity description.

Whatever, if it's done properly it will certainly be just what I'd like to see 

[Tacgnol]

Hooray! I remember being one of the many people taken in by the original Boilerplate website (at least until about half way through) and I'm looking forward to the film.

[Viper]

Ooops...yes it's obviously in the realms of VSF I dunno what I was talking about.
 

The whole "-punk" thing is just a weird topic, I have kind of a love-hate relationship with steampunk (mostly concerning the name itself), while I feel the growing number of other "-punks" are just rediculous.

Cyberpunk is about the only one I actually fully like...well appart from the whole media and fasion side of the genre all but killing it during the 90s.
 

[Gluteus Maximus]

Yes, I can see the point of Cyberpunk and I agree it was a great genre until it was done to death 

[Connectamabob]

I'm a little confused about the "punk" thing too. I mean, with Cyberpunk it meant a dystopian or pessimistic setting, but that definition hasn't seemed to have carried over to the other "punk" genres. Steampunk isn't usually any more or less dystopian than anything else, as far as I've seen. Splatterpunk is dadaist gore porn (I guess you could call that "punk" in the sense that it's intended to flaunt standards), and Dieselpunk is just Steampunk with the anachronism bumped forward a century or so.

I'm also a little unsure what the difference between Steampunk and VSF is. I used to think that Steampunk meant VSF-ish stories written in the modern era, while VSF meant SF written in the Victorian era, but nowadays I see VSF referred to anything set in the Victorian era regardless of when it was written. Some people seem to be sticklers about the "steam" part of steampunk (i.e. if it's not steam powered or prominently featuring steam power, it's not Steampunk, even if the era and style is right), others define it as anything with the right sort of pulpy Victorian-ish super-science flair. These days I kinda suspect it's like the argument over "S-F" vs. "Sci-Fi".

[Gluteus Maximus]

As a descriptive term, Cyberpunk works, but the rest don't.

I suspect adding "punk" on the end of something is a lazy journalist thing. In the UK after the Watergate scandal errupted we now have "gate" stuck on the end of every scandal. For example should anyone think the Tellytubbys were getting away with something illegal, it would be called "Tellytubbygate".

I could never understand why, using lazy-journo logic, it's not Watergategate 

It's just an example of the media (and others who should know better) not being bothered to either find an original description or realising you don't need to pigeonhole most things in the first place.

[Steve F]

I've always taken the "-punk" suffix in SF sub-genres to indicate an attitude of "do what the hell you please and never mind the rough edges".

[Connectamabob]

I suspect adding "punk" on the end of something is a lazy journalist thing. In the UK after the Watergate scandal errupted we now have "gate" stuck on the end of every scandal. For example should anyone think the Tellytubbys were getting away with something illegal, it would be called "Tellytubbygate".

That sounds about right. US journalists do the "(noun)gate" thing too. Has a very tabloid lingo feel, IMO, and makes it that much harder to take the news seriously (not easy to begin with: US journalism these days is like watching five year olds argue over whether or not Gi-Joe could kick Optimus Prime's butt).

[Viper]

I've always taken the "-punk" suffix in SF sub-genres to indicate an attitude of "do what the hell you please and never mind the rough edges".

I've seen that view a lot, and also the view that the "-punk" is a nod to Cyberpunk and the creativity it allowed for. That latter one is the only description that has ever appealed to me as it makes a lot more sense than some kind of non-existant "punk" mentality that isn't present in the other "-punks."

The problem is that it just doesn't work that way in practice at least not with the newer random words with "-punk" at the end. They are pretty much all driven by the kind of insular media savvy clique's that almost killed Cyberpunk. All the new sub-genres from "-punk" being added on to everything are to try and make it sound cool and edgy but they lack any real substance.

Steampunk, and Dieselpunk aswell, though are a renaming of things which already existed. Steampunk is mostly covered by VSF, and branching out into a few other things, while Dieselpunk is covered pretty much entirely by Weird World War and Pulp. These two actually have substance with those name seeming to have basicly started out as a term for Cyberpunk fans who liked other eras too.

The names don't work so well as genre names on their own but we are stuck with them and the many bastard offspring they have now spawned. Things would be so much easier if some people hadn't been so obsessed with pigeonholing and giving labels, these names and the misunderstanding of them can only cause problems for the creative circles that have interests in the subject, which is silly seeing as they had perfectly acceptable names to begin with.

That said the media and the people who just want to sound "cool and edgy" don't care about any damage to creative circles.
 

Man I just realised how badly I derailed the thread, I'm so sorry, I just get a little carried away with the whole "-punk" thing as it has cropped up in so many things I like and it's a topic I've looked into from a lot of different angles.
 

[SBRPearce]

To me, "steampunk" means "Victorian-era dystopia", rather than the meaning most folks have assigned to it, which is "Now with more clockwork added!" (cosplayers, I'm looking at you!)

So, basically, "steampunk" begins and pretty much ends with the novel The Difference Engine, pretty much the way cyberpunk begins and ends with Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. William Gibson strikes again.

(There was a throwaway bit in Snow Crash in which the hero points out the cliques of newer, more specialized 'punks' to his pal:
"Those guys are net-hackers from Northwest Pakistan - very cutting edge."
"You mean-"
"Yeah, Khyber-punks." etc)

[Viper]

Yes it does tend to be the cosplayers/fashion centric groups that seem to warp the meanings somewhat, and as they are often the most visually striking it is those people who the media reports on and whos word they take when asking about what the "culture" is or means.

It was these people who caused cyberpunk to collapse, the vocal fashion minority's views got taken up by the media, which led to a lot of misconceptions and people really not knowing about the true scope and creativity of cyberpunk.

These people resulted in it being seen as only goggles and hacking, much like steampunk is already becoming nothing but goggles and cogs to the wider world...and the other minor "-punks" simply start off with such simplistic creatively stillborn meanings.

"Yeah, Khyber-punks."
That made me smile I've been meaning to read Snow Crash for a while now.