What technothrillers—popular films that center advanced technology—can tell us about ourselves, and how they ignite our imagination in technologically supercharged times.In Technothriller, Soraya Murray reveals how popular American films after the 1960s, in which technology assumes a central role—mainly biotech, military, and computational—channel our cultural anxieties, dreams, and convictions about the power and meaning of advanced technology.Along with iconic adaptations from technothriller novels by Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton, such as The Hunt for Red October and The Andromeda Strain, Murray considers Westworld, Rollerball, Demon Seed, WarGames, Ex Machina, Tenet, M3GAN, and The Creator, as well as the Terminator and Mission: Impossible franchises. Through these films and others, she traces deeply embedded popular beliefs about technology and innovation—and then asks what this tells us about the mechanics of power within our technological lives. Exploring how popular culture negotiates political and cultural attitudes toward innovation and difference, her work finds in technothrillers a new way of thinking about the troubled, sometimes catastrophic, relationships between humans and their inventions.

Today over half of all American households own a dedicated game console and gaming industry profits trump those of the film industry worldwide. Soraya Murray's insightful study examines issues of gender, race, and space in relation to a range of popular contemporary games. She explores blockbusters including The Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid, Spec Ops: The Line, Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed to show how they are deeply entangled with American ideological positions and contemporary political, cultural and economic conflicts. As quintessential forms of visual material in the twenty-first century, mainstream games both mirror and spur larger societal fears, hopes and dreams, and even address complex struggles for recognition. Murray examines the elaborately constructed characters and densely layered worlds of these popular games, tracing how their social and environmental landscapes reflect ideas about gender, race, globalization, and urban life. In this emerging field of study, Murray provides novel theoretical approaches to discussing games and playable media as culture.

Today over half of all American households own a dedicated game console and gaming industry profits trump those of the film industry worldwide. In this book, Soraya Murray moves past the technical discussions of games and offers a fresh and incisive look at their cultural dimensions. She critically explores blockbusters likeThe Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid, Spec Ops: The Line, Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed to show how they are deeply entangled with American ideological positions and contemporary political, cultural and economic conflicts.As quintessential forms of visual material in the twenty-first century, mainstream games both mirror and spur larger societal fears, hopes and dreams, and even address complex struggles for recognition. This book examines both their elaborately constructed characters and densely layered worlds, whose social and environmental landscapes reflect ideas about gender, race, globalisation and urban life. In this emerging field of study, Murray provides novel theoretical approaches to discussing games and playable media as culture.Demonstrating that games are at the frontline of power relations, she reimagines how we see them - and more importantly how we understand them.

Today over half of all American households own a dedicated game console and gaming industry profits trump those of the film industry worldwide. In this book, Soraya Murray moves past the technical discussions of games and offers a fresh and incisive look at their cultural dimensions. She critically explores blockbusters likeThe Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid, Spec Ops: The Line, Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed to show how they are deeply entangled with American ideological positions and contemporary political, cultural and economic conflicts.As quintessential forms of visual material in the twenty-first century, mainstream games both mirror and spur larger societal fears, hopes and dreams, and even address complex struggles for recognition. This book examines both their elaborately constructed characters and densely layered worlds, whose social and environmental landscapes reflect ideas about gender, race, globalisation and urban life. In this emerging field of study, Murray provides novel theoretical approaches to discussing games and playable media as culture.Demonstrating that games are at the frontline of power relations, she reimagines how we see them - and more importantly how we understand them.

What technothrillers—popular films that center advanced technology—can tell us about ourselves, and how they ignite our imagination in technologically supercharged times.In Technothriller, Soraya Murray reveals how popular American films after the 1960s, in which technology assumes a central role—mainly biotech, military, and computational—channel our cultural anxieties, dreams, and convictions about the power and meaning of advanced technology.Along with iconic adaptations from technothriller novels by Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton, such as The Hunt for Red October and The Andromeda Strain, Murray considers Westworld, Rollerball, Demon Seed, WarGames, Ex Machina, Tenet, M3GAN, and The Creator, as well as the Terminator and Mission: Impossible franchises. Through these films and others, she traces deeply embedded popular beliefs about technology and innovation—and then asks what this tells us about the mechanics of power within our technological lives. Exploring how popular culture negotiates political and cultural attitudes toward innovation and difference, her work finds in technothrillers a new way of thinking about the troubled, sometimes catastrophic, relationships between humans and their inventions.

Today over half of all American households own a dedicated game console and gaming industry profits trump those of the film industry worldwide. Soraya Murray's insightful study examines issues of gender, race, and space in relation to a range of popular contemporary games. She explores blockbusters including The Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid, Spec Ops: The Line, Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed to show how they are deeply entangled with American ideological positions and contemporary political, cultural and economic conflicts. As quintessential forms of visual material in the twenty-first century, mainstream games both mirror and spur larger societal fears, hopes and dreams, and even address complex struggles for recognition. Murray examines the elaborately constructed characters and densely layered worlds of these popular games, tracing how their social and environmental landscapes reflect ideas about gender, race, globalization, and urban life. In this emerging field of study, Murray provides novel theoretical approaches to discussing games and playable media as culture.

Today over half of all American households own a dedicated game console and gaming industry profits trump those of the film industry worldwide. In this book, Soraya Murray moves past the technical discussions of games and offers a fresh and incisive look at their cultural dimensions. She critically explores blockbusters likeThe Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid, Spec Ops: The Line, Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed to show how they are deeply entangled with American ideological positions and contemporary political, cultural and economic conflicts.As quintessential forms of visual material in the twenty-first century, mainstream games both mirror and spur larger societal fears, hopes and dreams, and even address complex struggles for recognition. This book examines both their elaborately constructed characters and densely layered worlds, whose social and environmental landscapes reflect ideas about gender, race, globalisation and urban life. In this emerging field of study, Murray provides novel theoretical approaches to discussing games and playable media as culture.Demonstrating that games are at the frontline of power relations, she reimagines how we see them - and more importantly how we understand them.

Today over half of all American households own a dedicated game console and gaming industry profits trump those of the film industry worldwide. In this book, Soraya Murray moves past the technical discussions of games and offers a fresh and incisive look at their cultural dimensions. She critically explores blockbusters likeThe Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid, Spec Ops: The Line, Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed to show how they are deeply entangled with American ideological positions and contemporary political, cultural and economic conflicts.As quintessential forms of visual material in the twenty-first century, mainstream games both mirror and spur larger societal fears, hopes and dreams, and even address complex struggles for recognition. This book examines both their elaborately constructed characters and densely layered worlds, whose social and environmental landscapes reflect ideas about gender, race, globalisation and urban life. In this emerging field of study, Murray provides novel theoretical approaches to discussing games and playable media as culture.Demonstrating that games are at the frontline of power relations, she reimagines how we see them - and more importantly how we understand them.