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Philip K. Dick's 'Ubik' To Be Filmed
bowman9991 writes "Could this be the new Blade Runner? SFFMedia reports that Celluloid Dreams has obtained the movie rights to Philip K. Dick's science fiction masterpiece 'Ubik.' First published in 1969, Ubik's central character is Joe Chip, a technician for a telepathic organization that employs people with the ability to block certain psychic powers so they can secure other people's privacy. In the novel, the dead are kept in 'half-life,' a form of cryogenic suspension, with limited consciousness and communication ability. A mystical substance called Ubik, available in spray-can form, is the only thing stopping reality from disintegrating before Joe's eyes. It'll be hard to film, but fantastic if they get it right!"
From The Summary: "A mystical substance called Ubik, available in spray-can form, is the only thing stopping reality from disintegrating before Joe's eyes"
From Wikipedia: "This substance, whose name is derived from the word "ubiquity", has the property of preserving people who are in half-life."
Draw your own conclusions about what chemical properties it may have.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is largely set in a potentially realistic dark future setting, some things more advanced, others decaying. Most of the environment is easy to make real without making it look silly, not to downplay the great work done by Ridley Scott and everyone else involved. The one aspect of the novel that would be difficult to reasonably translate to the silver screen is Mercerism, the animal worshiping cult/religion of the future. So, they dropped it from the film, which takes a slightly different view anyway. (The only reason it would be difficult is because the way in which one tries to become one with Mercer is very abstractly represented throughout the novel.)
Ubik on the other hand is almost entirely abstract stuff. In fact, it is more abstract than the Mercerism stuff. There is some great imagery in Ubik that would be easy to translate, but by and large, making the novel come to life without making it look ridiculous would be very difficult. The way I picture Ubik, the scenes would have to appear incomplete for most of the novel, from the standpoint of anyone in cold-pac, and that would be much harder to pull off. I doubt anyone that the current Hollywood industry is likely to pull it off. The best they could hope to do is to make something reminiscent of The Thirteenth Floor.
Insert self-referential sig here.
This, of course, is totally distorting the scene to make it sound more shocking than it actually was. When you phrase it accurately, "shooting the enemy agent who was pretending to be his wife", it sounds a lot less shocking.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
You all know that Dick already wrote a script, don't you?
From wikipedia:
"Attempts to produce an Ubik film
In 1974, French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin commissioned Dick to write a screenplay for an Ubik film. Dick completed the screenplay, turning it in within a month, but Gorin never filmed the project. The screenplay was published in 1985 as Ubik: The Screenplay (ISBN-13: 978-0911169065)."
I have. I have not read it. Anyone knows if it is any good or do i have to have my own judgement -.-