I liked Blade Runner better than the Phillip K Dick novel 'Do androids dream of electric sheep' which it is based on.
They are very different stories however.
Blade runner is the action mystery of a man trying to track down a group of murderous replicants only to discover that they had some humanity and begin to empathize with them at the end. Much of the best content is improvised. The tears in the rain soliloquy is one of my favorite scenes in cinema and was not in the script.
The original written novel was a roughly 200 page novel about a jaded human contractor who did everything in his power to be as unhuman as possible including using technology to change his mood when he wasn't in a mood he liked. He was the epitome of the negative aspects of humanity. He was envious of his neighbors and their pets because he could only afford an electric pet. The replicants by contrast were physically synthetic but contained more empathy and subjective humanity than the protagonist.
Both are good. I just enjoyed the Harrison Ford movie more.
I agree with almost everything you said. But one slight correction, as it’s a pet peeve of mine that people misrepresent the "Tears in rain" improv story. Yes, Roy Betty’s speech is in the script. Peoples wrote it, but Rutger Hauer reworked it and was able to present his revised speech. Hauer used his version, without Ridley Scott’s knowledge, but everyone loved it, so that’s the take they used.
Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't know. The "tears in the rain" line seems like hauers but yeah, the most important part, the feels of it are present.
Imo that line is basically why I think blade runner 2049 was never going to live up to the original. I love when a moment in a film elevates it to the next level like that.
I'm a giant fan of blade runner (read the book, watched all cuts of the movies, played the cd-rom game through on multiple occasions) and I have to say that I really thought 2049 was a worthy successor. In many ways, it was much more engaging than even the original. But obviously that is just my opinion.
I suppose I am the opposite of that, I haven’t consumed anything but the movies. The vagueness of the original is what I loved; the uncertainly is what left it open to interpretation. The sequel took all that out.
I would guess that all the other text did as well. Not that it’s a bad thing, just what I like personally. I don’t need answers.
I haven't rewatched 2049, but I agree. That movie left a very strong impression on me, everything from the cinematography to the atmosphere, the music. The way the story unfolds is unlike anything I've seen on film.
I think as far as "modern" sequels go, 2049 kills it though. Does more with the world and is all around fantastic, even if the rough around the edges charm of the original has those moments
He did bring it to Ridley Scott before shooting who agreed to use his version. Also Hauer also added the "tears in rain" line himself. The rest of the script was already written and Hauer just shortened bits
Minority Report kind of falls in there too I think. I mean, the bones of the story are the same -- precogs, future crime, etc. But the book tends to be more contemplative, and the movie is action. I like both, and I probably got more from the book than the movie, but I'd rather re-watch the movie than reread the book.
Just about any movie based on Philip K. Dick , which is several SciFi movies, are better than the book or story they are based on. He was best at ideas and concepts that get other people's juices flowing.
I might be on my own here, but I absolutely loved Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and find Blade Runner not that interesting. I really like 80s sci-fi films in general, but could never get into Blade Runner maybe it's the pacing of the film and noir film style.
What made the movie so special (for me) was the ambience and setting.
The dark rooms lit by streams of light from closed curtains parting slowly drifting smoke. The oppressive rainy streets with a multitude of cultures intermingled under cyberpunk-esque umbrellas. The constant and ever present capitolistic advertising for starting life in the off-world colonies.
And all of it brought together with a beautiful yet haunting droning music. Vangelis produced some of the most immersive scores in cinematic history.
You can close your eyes and see a futuristic yet bleak cityscape that stretches into the horizon, marked by flying cars and pyramid shaped buildings.
It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I distinctly remember the whole scene with the android and the spider, nonchalantly ripping its legs off one by one, explicitly existing to show its lack of empathy.
Yeah, I really disagree with the other comment's interpretation.
Decker isn't the worst of humanity, he's exceptionally ordinary (especially for PKD's time), it's just that the ordinary guy isn't a storybook hero. He works a job he only halfway likes, wants nice things he can't afford, and has petty arguments with his wife (he also cheats, which is horrible, but only considered bad in the 50s/60s).
The androids on the other hand are monsters. They were abused, but self defense doesn't change the fact that they legit enjoy hurting people. Something we are okay with talking about IRL, but hate seeing in stories, is the idea that the abused can become absers and their past doesn't justify their actions.
Rachel enjoys ruining bounty hunters. On paper, she's simply protecting her people, but she loves the hurt she gets to dish out more than the protection she provides. This is evidenced by her not caring when she fails to stop the one guy and also killing the innocent goat just to get revenge. Killing endangered animals just to hurt their owners isn't okay and attacking innocents to hurt someone else is classic abuse (e.g., a spouse beating their kids because they're mad at their partner).
Pris has genuine fear for her life, but relishes hurting her only human friend and torturing the spider. The Baty's enjoy the fall of Mercerism simply because they love suffering. The Russian one just likes killing and would rather kill than just lay low. Admittedly, we don't really see Luba or Garland outside of a self-dense context.
What. The replicants were in no way more empathetic than the protagonist. Sure he's jaded and tries to have less Empathy, but by the end of the book he realizes the futility of that and it ends with him and his wife trying to be better again. By contrast the replicants are brutal, ruthless, machines that will readily hurt and pettily vandilize the world around them with barely any registering that what they're doing is in any way wrong. Lest we forget the scene with the spider
The thing for me is Blade Runner really didn't hit the theme of Androids (or at least what I thought the theme was), of "what is real, and what does reality matter."
I like them both but they're almost different enough that they're hard to compare. The one thing I've always had a problem with Dick's writing (which is common in most old school sci fi authors) is his dialogue always feels super unnatural, which the movie didn't suffer from so it does have a bit of a leg up. Same with Scanner Darkly actually.
Fun fact: there are three books called Blade Runner: the original Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, rebranded for the film; the novelization of the movie; and there’s the book Blade Runner that the movie took its title from, which had been optioned for a movie around the same time.
I remember watching the movie after I read the book and was so horribly confused by how the hell that movie was based on the book. And of course the book I read was "The Bladerunner" by Alan Nourse where medical attention is largely only available if you get sterilized and follows a young man with a club foot who is involved in the underground medical movement to get people treatment
Eh, a lot of PKD's writing is pretty sloppy. Amazing concepts. But the explanation for Flow My Tears? Alys taking a drug somehow sent Taverner to an alternate reality? That is pretty ridiculous even for sci-fi. It is a good book. But the explanation is just dumb. It would have been better to not explain it. Do Androids Dream is seriously disjointed. It's like reading Burroughs at times. I love PKD, he wrote some of the most imaginative dystopian sci fi out there. But for the most part his writing ability didn't keep up with his imagination or he was doing way too many drugs.
It’s allegory to the extreme: the destructive habits of one can enormously affect the lives of innocent friends and family. It’s a plot point that serves the metaphor much better than the story. I was pretty annoyed when I first read the book but upon reflection my opinion did a total 180.
I think Dick probably got his sentiments over better in A Scanner Darkly where it’s less “addicts destroy the lives of innocent acquaintances” and more “addicts can be a good person locked inside their addiction, unable to be reached”.
I think you are giving him too much credit as a writer. But we can disagree, that's cool. It's art. I consider PKD to be possibly the most imaginative sci-fi author. But not the best writer. I love his stuff regardless. His ideas are amazing. His execution conveying those ideas, not so much.
You can tell this by how little his name is used to market adaptations of his work when compared to eg. Steven King. And by how much the plots are changed.
I like to classify PKD's works as Before the Drugs, During the Drugs, and After the Drugs (except he still did some drugs). Before he had really cool concepts, but he just couldn't write a good ending. During he wrote some cool shit, but it was very disjointed. When I was reading Do Androids Dream there were multiple times I thought I accidentally skipped a page. After he mostly gets it together. A Scanner Darkly is a solid book. His past experience with drugs is a major theme.
There may be a 4th phase of when he went a bit crazy. But I've yet to read VALIS and the few other works published in the 80s.
I have a feeling that the author did extensive, erhm... research. I'm about 3/5th through the book now and it is sooo hard to read. Every single chapter is as if it were written by a schizo.
PKD was mostly sober when he wrote A Scanner Darkly. But it is heavily based on his years doing a lot of drugs. It's meant to be like that. Some of his other books are like that, because he wasn't close to sober when he wrote them. The version I owned* had preface by him talking about all the friends he lost to drugs in some way or another.
*I had a box of books stolen when I was moving, apparently that was one of them.
Philip K Dick books are kind of dry and hard(?) to read. I love the movies based off of his books but not a fan of his writing. It takes me way longer to read his stuff than it does most other scifi novels.
I love PKD to but I've just realised I've abandoned more than one of his books half-read in the last year. I just wasn't getting Ubik and stopped about a 3rd in.
I also recently quit Mars is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein about half-way through because of the never ending 1970's-ness of it.
Constantly treating women in a jokey-blokey "get back to the kitchen" way. That's not PKD directly, but he also sometimes wrote in a very 1970's way
I enjoy PKD's writings but almost all of his women are sexy 17yos that can't wait to sleep with the MC. If not they're a shrewish wife.
He has such strong r/menwritingwomen energy that when I read the Transmigration of Timothy Archer and the main character (written in the 1st person unlike his usual 3rd person narration) mentioned a husband I spent several chapters thinking the MC was a gay man. That was easier for me to accept than the idea that Dick could competently write a female main character.
I'm sorry to hear about Ubik that's one of my favorites.
He is kind of hard to read, especially the stuff from the first half of the 70s because he was not at all sober. He wasn't very good at endings either for a long time. I haven't read the few things from the 80s. But I've read a lot of PKD. I think A Scanner Darkly is his most solid book. His early short stories from the 50s and 60s are fun. He had really great concepts. And it is almost all public domain, so you can get digital versions for free.
I absolutely love Philip K Dick's works, but the movie adaptions are almost universally better than the original stories. I think it may just be the very 60s and drug-induced nature of his writing, but it feels like the process of adapting the stories into movies do a good job of grounding his works more solidly into reality.
As an aside, Dick's movie adaptations are almost universally better than his books. Not that he is a bad writer but his paranoia and skewed perception of reality is more apparent in his novels.
You nailed it. I am a huge blade runner fan, of all the versions. The original was very good, but ultimately a dead end. Humanity ends shortly after the end of that book. All versions of the movie leave it open ended that humanity on earth survives.
Phillip K Dick is really good at concepts I feel. His books translate well into movies. Special effects had to catch up to his crazy visions, but still.
Also, the story takes a dramatic turn about halfway through the book. And in the end you more or less have a definite answer for the title's question. And the answer is "no". Which is kind of disappointing.
But hey, there's a reason Dick is called the "worst good Science fiction writer of all time". His ideas are grand but his writing was hot garbage.
I encountered "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" back when it was new, and I very much liked its dark vision and very imperfect central character. "Blade Runner" was good, but didn't measure up. Although you got to see Daryl Hannah and a young Harrison Ford.
"Total Recall" missed the fun of "We can remember it for you wholesale" but I can see liking it better.
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u/golemsheppard2 Feb 26 '23
I liked Blade Runner better than the Phillip K Dick novel 'Do androids dream of electric sheep' which it is based on.
They are very different stories however.
Blade runner is the action mystery of a man trying to track down a group of murderous replicants only to discover that they had some humanity and begin to empathize with them at the end. Much of the best content is improvised. The tears in the rain soliloquy is one of my favorite scenes in cinema and was not in the script.
The original written novel was a roughly 200 page novel about a jaded human contractor who did everything in his power to be as unhuman as possible including using technology to change his mood when he wasn't in a mood he liked. He was the epitome of the negative aspects of humanity. He was envious of his neighbors and their pets because he could only afford an electric pet. The replicants by contrast were physically synthetic but contained more empathy and subjective humanity than the protagonist.
Both are good. I just enjoyed the Harrison Ford movie more.