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A Scanner Darkly Film Preview
Jason K writes "Hi, webmaster of PhilipKDick.com here. Thought that the Slashdot community might like to see this exclusive report that was just added to the official Philip K. Dick web site by his daughters about the 'A Scanner Darkly' film production. The film production of A Scanner Darkly is based on the classic PKD drug novel of the same name. It is directed by Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, School of Rock) and stars Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson. Linklater is using a more sophisticated version of the 'rotoscoping' animation technique that he debuted in 'Waking Life'. This is shaping up to be the most faithful adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel or story to date." Waking Life was a little odd.
Anyway, after the talk, I asked him about releasing it open source. He wasn't against it, but he wasn't interested in it, either. He mentioned that the open source development method 'worked somehow', but he just wasn't interested in becoming a project manager.
Now I see on the website they are planning some kind of release in June 2k6. Interesting!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Blade Runner (1982) based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" - A rather decent movie with not much to do with the book.
Total Recall (1990) based on "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" - A fun movie vaguely based on the short story.
Drug-Taking and the Arts (1994) based on "A Scanner Darkly" - Alas I've not seen.
Screamers (1995) based on "Second Variety" - An enjoyable movie but nothing special.
Impostor (2002) based on short story of the same name (at last). Okay, enjoyable and starting to get near to the fiction...
Minority Report (2002) - Again, enjoyable but deviating from the book in several critical respects.
Paycheck (2003) - My favourite short story ruined by the "joe scientist" suddenly being some sort of stick wielding stunt biker.
When are Hollywood going to realise the appeal of PKD is that these are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances?
Instead we keep getting movies aimed a dumb audience with a simple plot and an action hero.
Sigh.
[)amien
I'd like to see how any film can be more faithful than that one, because it pretty much reproduces the story word for word.
Games Workshop Petition
This is going to be the most untintelligible movie ever. No doubt. No question. Nobody's going to know what the hell is going on in the movie, especially not the cast.
Have you ever actually read a Phillip Dick book? That's just how most of his books go. Say your main character gets knocked out during a chase scene. You'd expect that he is captured by his enemies, or escapes and is running from his enemies, or his enemy just escaped from him. In a Dick book, that character is just as likely to wake up, lose at a VR game, or have been in a mental state experimenting with different realities. Oh, he doesn't give you or the character any sense of which reality is the real one either. Was that chase scene real, or was it just a very real VR game? Is this life real or is it a simulation? His books are really confusing.
Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair. The doctor told him there were no bugs in his hair. After he had taken a shower for eight hours, standing under hot water hour after hour suffering the pain of the bugs, he got out and dried himself, and he still had bugs in his hair; in fact, he had bugs all over him. A month later he had bugs in his lungs.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
It's a shame this means Charlie Kaufman's A Scanner Darkly script won't ever be turned into a film now, as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were all great. Hopefully this will be good in its own right though.