I remember being at Summercon before this movie opened and Ericb addressing hotel conference room we were seated in talking about how Iain Softley had directed Backbeat and how happy he was that he was doing this movie and that you had to get in the right headspace to understand what it was going for.
(I think the movie is wildly overrated just as a piece of storytelling; the hacker fan-service in it is just fine, they clearly got some tfile kids to consult with the script.)
See, I can push back on that! Dazed & Confused barely has a plot. It knows what it's about. Hackers has one of those shake-and-bake 80s plots; it's like a Save The Cat movie. I get that people like the subculture stuff in it, but the movie was trying for something else and faceplanted.
Honestly I think Lawnmower Man might have had more cultural impact.
(I think the movie is wildly overrated just as a piece of storytelling; the hacker fan-service in it is just fine, they clearly got some tfile kids to consult with the script.)