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A Scanner Darkly Film Preview

Posted by michael on from the purple-haze dept.

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.

4 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. 'Most faithful adaptation' is subjective... by brainstyle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I actually became more impressed with Blade Runner after reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - because as much as I liked the latter, it's not terribly filmable as written. Roger Ebert's said a number of times that all a movies adapted from a book owes is to be a good movie; whether or not it's line-for-line identical is irrelevant.

    --
    "Why can't everyone just be straight with me?"
    "Because we live in a bendy world, dear."
  2. Waking life WAS a little odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In that it was thoughtful and interesting and totally willing to have scenes as simple as an interesting person saying interesting things. Hardly the typical crapfest that slashdotters seem all too willing to gush over.

  3. "most faithful adaptation"? by bookemdano63 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Think that is a good thing? The Minority Report and Total Recall books were ridiculously antiquated and would have made terrible movies if they hadn't been changed. In Minority Report punch cards were a major plot point.

    1. Re:"most faithful adaptation"? by Trurl's+Machine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Think that is a good thing? The Minority Report and Total Recall books were ridiculously antiquated and would have made terrible movies if they hadn't been changed. In Minority Report punch cards were a major plot point.

      You seem to confuse Philip Dick with Arthur C. Clarke. Dick never wrote science-fiction to anticipate the future. He was more interested in exploring the inner space of human mind. And he was great doing that. You can't credit him as "the guy who predicted satellite TV relays", but you can credit him as "the guy who predicted the atmosphere of corporate paranoia of the late twentieth and early twenty first century". Take a contemporary realistic novel about the corporate world, like Joseph Finder's "Paranoia". It's so phildickian you could mistake it for a lost PKD manuscript. Dick was one of the rare SF writers of 1950's and 1960's who understood that human race will enter the world of powerful future technologies keeping their minds as fragile as ever, and was quite accurate in predicting the outcome (paranoia, drug addiction, escapism, the rise of omnipotent corporate moguls - both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are like characters from PKD novels!). So yes, he thought that punch cards will survive. But he also predicted Microsoft. His books will be antiquated only after a succesful antitrust action against MS, which means when hell freezes over.