First, a general overview of the two media. Often times one might hear from someone, "The book was much better than the movie," but in reality the compaison should be made about what you are trying to get out of either one. Text allows readers to learn more about characters through thoughts, yet film allows the art of sound and visual imagery come through which books can't offer.
Even though this film was unanimously considered a terrible film by the class, I think it was made to visually show how cyberspace might look and feel if it was something that could be seen or touched.The movie contained a scene in which Johnny searches and makes a long distance call through the internet. Johnny is using a computer that is sort of a virtual reality machine that allows him to see and touch different aspects of the net. With visor and gloves on he grabs objects, pushes buttons, and searches the world for information. The amazing part of this scene is that it appears as though he is speeding through cyberspace, passing electronic cities at super high speeds of which he has total control over. If today you can imagine the vastness of the internet and all of the communicating computers then it might be possible to imagine the vastness of the internet that Johnny had to travel through. Yet he did it at enormous speeds all controlled by his hands.
Could this be a possibility in the future? I like to think that anything is possible, but this kind of technology is hard to imagine. I found the internet sceens to be amazing. The person who had this thought of what the workings of the internet might look like and feel like wanted to pass that idea on to movie goers. This kind of visualization is something that could not be accomplished in a book. Words can only say so much and then the mind must take over. On the other hand, a movie provides colors, images, movements, lighting, etc. that would probably never be thought of in such detail from reading the same scene.
I recently saw a show on The Discovery Channel called "Movie Magic" and one of the items they covered was the making of Johnny Mnemonic. All of the scenes that took place inside the net were produced all by a computer. Enormous amounts of computer time was logged to create the imaginary world. Such detailed and precise scenes could only have been portrayed through film.
Another important aspect of the film that the book could never reveal is the importance of sound. The program "Movie Magic" displayed the final action scene in Johnny Mneumonic with and without sound effects and music. This scene is one in which fighting is occuring within Lo Tek headquarters and as expected it had music and effects that heightened the scene. Many people take sound effects in a movie for granted because I know I never realized it was there until it was taken away. The activity didn't have the impact on me like it did when the sounds were put back in.
Visual and sound effects are infinitely important in many ways to making a movie better than the book.
Johnny Mnemonic Pics
Johnny Mnemonic Sounds