A Scanner Darkly

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This is one of Philip K Dick's masterpieces, it is imo easily comparable to Trainspotting in that they both dealt directly and realistically with Hard Drugs. The addiction, the paranoia and it's effects on a person's life, wealth and mind. Now I find that Hollywood has made this book into a film with Keanu as Bob Arctor, has anybody seen it yet, know anything about it? All I can find are the gushy reviews etc who are praising it so that the money keeps coming from the studios, to keep them alive (yes I am a cynic).

I know that parts of the film are animated, I'm unsure as to whether that's when the characters are on Substance D or whether that's reality, beyond that not much.

So far there has only beem one good attempt at turning a Dick novel into a movie, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner; an adaptation of Do Androids dream of electric Sheep? There was the atrocious adaptation of We can remember it for you, wholesale as Total Recall. And now this, please someone tell me it has some redeeming features, other than making people look for and read the book.

 

As Philip K. Dick adaptations go, Minority Report wasn't half bad.

About A Skanner Darkly, I thought that the whole film was animated with that technique where you paint over the film, the same way Bakshi's Lord Of The Rings. No worries, the technique's been improved immensely.

It's a definite 'must see' however. Compared to many other movies, Philip K. Dick adaptations always have that special something that IMO makes them better than the rest of similar attempts at science fiction.

 

I enjoyed Screamers alot (sure, its a B-grade movie, but it was one heck of a good one! Imagine the wonders they would have done if they had the funding!). Its based on the short story Second Variety by Philip K.Dick. Check it out
And of course, the great Bladerunner.

Haven't watched A Scanner Darkly though. Hope it does him justice.

However, the others would include Total Recall (mediocre at best), Minority Report (somehow I didn't really like the movie), Paycheck (terrible).

 

I'd forgooten Paycheck, that's because they turned it into a chase me, chase me movie and put Ben Awfleck into it, not even Uma could rescue that one.

Bladerunner is simply one of the best adaptations of a Sci-fi novel ever, an excellent cast, a good script, Vangelis's most haunting and paced work as a soundtrack, and Scott's direction.

 

Scott screwed up with Bladerunner, it worked better the way the studio released it w/o all the voice-over explanation and added rigamaroll between two characters. The only better part was the ending was a "what do you think would happen next" thing like the book.

Anyways "Imposter" was my favorite Philip K. Dick adaptation, based on his short story of the same name. The movie was so good I searched the net for 13 hours before I found a copy to read.

 

Sorry but the studio released it with the voice-over because they didn't think people would understand it otherwise, and the cheerful driving into the sunset was also their idea, studios don't like "What If..." endings.

Ridley released the director's cut later without the voiceover, the unicorn dream and the final scene is the elevator doors closing on Deckard and Rachel. Also it's shorter than the studio version by a couple of minutes.

Both Harrison Ford and Ridley Scott objected strongly to the voiceover, but the studio would only release with it and the happy ending.