Philip K. Dick's "Flow My Tears" To Be Filmed

bowman9991 writes "Philip K. Dick's 1974 novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is being adapted for the big screen. A tale of altered reality, drug use, and the meaning of identity, the novel tells the story of TV celebrity Jason Taverner, who wakes up one morning to find that his very existence has been wiped from everyone's memories. Halcyon, the company behind the upcoming Terminator Salvation movie, decided the novel would be the first adaptation under a rights agreement with Philip K. Dick's estate. Hollywood has certainly taken a shine to Dick's work: Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, Impostor, Screamers and Next have all been based on his short stories or novels. Ubik is in development too. In some cases, as with Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Blade Runner, the adaptations are loose to say the least."

Comments

More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[eldavojohn]

Hollywood has certainly taken a shine to Dick's work: Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, Impostor, Screamers and Next have all been based on his short stories or novels.

Don't forget Paycheck and Confessions d'un Barjo ("Confessions of a Crap Artist"). As a longtime Dick fan it humors me to see his works start to explode into movies post-2000. Adding to the truth that an artist is never appreciated until he/she is dead.

The same producer (John Alan Simon) that made the purchase of "Flow My Tears" also purchased the rights to "VALIS" & "Radio Free Albemuth." These last two books are strangely related to The Man in the High Castle (kinda sequel-ish) and he may be thinking of merging the two stories into one movie?

It's also worth mentioning that "Time Out of Joint" rights have been purchased by Warner Bros.

Unfortunately for me, these movies are not really my cup of tea. Total Recall was pretty good when I was 12 ... never going to rewatch that again though. I didn't even find Blade Runner that great and honestly haven't bothered to watch Minority Report, Next or Paycheck. I got Scanner Darkly but just because it was more independent than the others. I just have an opposite opinion from the get-all-excited-it's-gonna-be-great folks I guess.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Spazztastic]

I didn't even find Blade Runner that great and honestly haven't bothered to watch Minority Report, Next or Paycheck.

HEATHEN! EVERYBODY, GET YOUR PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES!

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[eldavojohn]

I didn't even find Blade Runner that great and honestly haven't bothered to watch Minority Report, Next or Paycheck.

HEATHEN! EVERYBODY, GET YOUR PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES!

I'm right here waiting. I'm unarmed except for my imagination.

Which is more valuable to me than MICHAEL BAY'S "SPLOSIONS" (based on Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle").

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[pete-classic]

You probably saw the theatrical version of Blade Runner. Give one of the director's cuts a look. The lack of studio-mandated voice-over certainly makes the film more moody and atmospheric.

Minority Report was a decent movie, but wasn't based on the short-story beyond the kernel of the idea.

Next and Paycheck were both pretty craptastic.

-Peter

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking about "radio free albemuth", nobody knows exactly what happen to the movie adaptation that was supposed to be made ?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1129396/

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Incredible Elmo]

Total Recall is still relatively good when watching it when you're older. Not many people I know who saw this movie recognized that at the end, you still don't know if it is the virtual vacation you are watching and if he needs to be lobotomized after this, or not; everything that happens in the story is exactly what he wanted from his vacation. With that in mind, the red pill scene is pretty interesting, where the rekall team tries to give him a way out without damaging his brain, but he chooses to remain in his dreams instead.

The good thing of that movie is that it is filmed such that you don't have to think about it and enjoy it as an above average action film, but you _can_, and it makes it a bit more interesting.

I think that there is a hint of PKD's depth in that film if you bother to look for it. I didn't really notice this in Paycheck, for instance.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Maury Markowitz]

> The lack of studio-mandated voice-over certainly makes the film more moody and atmospheric.

Give me a break. It leaves frustratingly long periods of blank looks while the actors sit there and stare at each other during the periods that formerly held the dialog.

Maury

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[cblack]

I thought Paycheck was ok, if a bit cheesy. Next was absolute crap though. I reread the story before seeing it and was trying to figure out how they would make it into a movie.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[McNihil]

I definitely have my pliers and blow torch ready. Where is teh critter? I am really in a bug stomping mood right now.

On a more serious side note: "I didn't even find Blade Runner that great..." should by default make his post "Super Flamebait"

I guess one had to be living in the early 80ies to fully realize the Deal with the movie... but then again maybe it is about maturity too... I wonder how many of the younger crowd appreciates Citizen Kane and The Trial by Orson Welles?

But then again I didn't "like" the Reboot of Star Trek... (it was entertaining BUT not too thought provoking) IMHO it should have been called "Star Trek Ultra Light"

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Spazztastic]

But then again I didn't "like" the Reboot of Star Trek... (it was entertaining BUT not too thought provoking) IMHO it should have been called "Star Trek Ultra Light"

How many modern mainstream movies are thought provoking? Not many...

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[h4rm0ny]

 

Give me a break. It leaves frustratingly long periods of blank looks while the actors sit there and stare at each other during the periods that formerly held the dialog.

Ohhhhhh! That's what was going on. I got the recentish Blade Runner: Final Cut on Blu-Ray. I liked it, I thought it was good though the female characters looked ridiculously made up. But I didn't get the reason for some of the really long pauses. The interview between Deckard and his police superior, where they're looking at the pictures of the replicants, has whole stretches where the superior is just gawping at Harrison Ford. I thought afterward that it might be a hint toward... well I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it. The same thing the origami unicorn is a hint to.

But I guess it was just a lot of missing dialogue.

I think Minority Report was maybe better. Not as visually impressive or philosophical, but a clever plot and some neat ideas.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[smclean]

Given the lack of similarity between Next and The Golden Man, I was very surprised that they credited Dick at all.

If I'd seen that movie without knowing it was supposed to be based on The Golden Man, which I'd just read by coincidence a couple weeks before seeing Next, I'd never have even thought of it.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

With that in mind, the red pill scene is pretty interesting, where the rekall team tries to give him a way out without damaging his brain, but he chooses to remain in his dreams instead. ... or not, which is the point you were trying to make?

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

On a more serious side note: "I didn't even find Blade Runner that great..." should by default make his post "Super Flamebait"

I guess one had to be living in the early 80ies to fully realize the Deal with the movie... but then again maybe it is about maturity too... I wonder how many of the younger crowd appreciates Citizen Kane and The Trial by Orson Welles?

Huh? Blade Runner the movie was a POS compared to the book. Reading books is about maturity too. :P

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[dave562]

I agree with you about the dialog. The first version of the movie that I saw was the director's cut when it was in the theaters sometime in the mid-90s. A few years after that I saw the original with the voice-overs and it made a lot more sense. After that I saw the director's cut again and appreciated it more.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[vidarh]

You have to watch those movies under the assumption that they are not as much "adaptations" as they are "inspired by".

I loved reading Minority Report and Paycheck, and I liked the movies too, but they only really have the overall "in your face" part of the story/idea in common with each other - PKD's subtext and deeper stuff largely gets ignored (which makes sense - it'd be a nightmare to try to make something faithful to PKD's vision without making it unwatchable). They look similar if you read a blurb about them, but when you actually read them / watch them their character is very different.

Especially with the stuff being adapted from older PKD short stories that's probably resulting in better movies anyway. There's too little material in many of them to make a full length movie without changing the stories, and as many other writers of the era he had an obsession with nuclear war and various technological hangups that are now really dated. He also wasn't a particularly good writer early on - his ideas were fantastic, but it took him a while to start expressing them well.

By the time he wrote Flow My Tears..., though, his voice was well developed and it could be turned into something really interesting without changing the story all that much.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[wwphx]

I'd have to agree with you about Bladerunner. I don't know how many times I've seen it, saw the super deluxe director's cut last year. The thing that grabs me about the movie, though, is the visuals. Scott did such an amazing job with the visuals that I'm blown away every time that I see it, and since he was able to show some of the early footage to Dick before he passed, that's double-plus good.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Blakey Rat]

That's what I use to justify people not liking 2001: A Space Odyssey. "Oh, well, I guess he's just too immature to get it. Maybe in a few years..." I'll never accept that someone can simply dislike the film, damnit.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[jgrahn]

Given the lack of similarity between Next and The Golden Man, I was very surprised that they credited Dick at all.

I didn't know there was a movie based on that one. What a bummer that would have been, if any of the elements of the actual story made it to the movie. Just a bunch of depressed bureaucrats who know they're going to fail, complain loudly that they are going to fail, and eventually fail.

What's next? A movie based on that one where Jesus materializes in a spaceship, and eats the protagonist's face? Starring Jodie Foster?

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

"Blade Runner the movie was a POS compared to the book": total agreement here; I was explaining to my daughter just how cosmically bad a film Blade Runner is (when compared to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, that is)--and came up with: "There's no Mercer in it." Dammit, the Fake Fake Mercer is crucial to the point of the book!

I saw Blade Runner when it came out, and was expecting a lot, especially since I like Harrison Ford. The cruelest movie disappointment of my life. Worst. Ending. Ever. Totally HOLLYWOOD (I understand the Director's Cut changes the ending).

Total Recall and A Scanner Darkly are pretty good renditions of PKD--they nail the paranoid quality that marks most of his work.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[pete-classic]

That's not, in fact, what was going on. The voice-over wasn't conceived until after the film was shot.

Maybe we can assume that more breathing room was left in the scenes in the theatrical cut to allow for the after-the-fact voice-over, but I think Ridley Scott is an adequately skilled and conscientious director not to leave all that air in the scenes when he re-cut (or in the first cut, before the voice-over) if it wasn't for a purpose beyond the voice-over.

Blade Runner certainly wasn't paced the same way Minority Report was. I think that Blade Runner is the better film. But that's just my opinion. I thought that Benjamin Button would have been twice as good if forty more minutes of it had ended up on the floor. It's all very subjective.

-Peter

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[More_Cowbell]

... well I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Blade Runner. You don't want to give away any spoilers for Blade Runner. I'm not even going to touch the one about it coming out in 1982. Not going to ask you if know what site you posted that on, either... ;)

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[ucblockhead]

The female characters (one, in particular) looking ridiculously made up is also a hint.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Anenome]

I saw Blade Runner when I was young, with voiceovers. I actually prefer it that way. Nowadays it's nearly impossible to find the non-removed voiceover version from my childhood. There's nothing wrong with people liking different versions if you ask me. Personally, I prefer having more info rather than less, and the interior monologue worked for me. Similarly, I would hate to see a version of Dune with the voiceovers removed (thank god it doesn't exist). Dune used the VO's in a different way, as actual 1st person thought, whispered, beautifully done and I wish cinema would do more with it.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw Blade Runner when I was young, with voiceovers. I actually prefer it that way. Nowadays it's nearly impossible to find the non-removed voiceover version from my childhood.

The Final Cut boxset I have on Blu-ray (not sure about the DVD release) includes all versions of the film, including the version with voiceovers.

Re:More Information on Philip K. Dick Movies

[Thing 1]

That's what I use to justify people not liking 2001: A Space Odyssey. "Oh, well, I guess he's just too immature to get it. Maybe in a few years..." I'll never accept that someone can simply dislike the film, damnit.

Watch it a few times; it gets rather boring quickly.

Other movies that I recalled fondly, then resolved to never, ever re-watch again (i.e., after the second viewing), were Contact and Heat.

On the contrary, Pulp Fiction had a long walking scene where he's going to get his watch, but the music made up for it, in that case.

It's probably for the best.

[gnarlyhotep]

In some cases, as with Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Blade Runner, the adaptations are loose to say the least.

Given the nature of most of Dick's work, a direct 1:1 film adaptation of his writing would be at best nonsensical. Adapting the theme of the work, and leaving leeway with the details is generally the best approach.

Hell, even with other author's works it's the best approach. They are completely different media after all, and require completely different approaches to storytelling.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, I thought A Scanner Darkly turned out pretty damn well(casting of Keanu and Winona not withstanding) and was the most direct translation of a PKD book to date in my estimation.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[gowen]

I remember reading "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" after having seen Total Recall and ... well, I love PKD, and Total Recall is way more entertaining than WCRIFYW. "Flow My Tears..." is amongst my favourites, and probably among the more cinematic, but like Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, there's are all the druggy psychedelic passages that may not translate well.

Of his classics, probably only Man In The High Castle and Radio Free Albemuth [the coherent Ubik] would be filmable. Lots of the schlock would be filmable, crap like Vulcan's Hammer would be pure B-movie).

Re:It's probably for the best.

[gowen]

Radio Free Albemuth [the coherent Ubik] -- oops, I mean VALIS, of course.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[goombah99]

Blade runner I suspect was really a merger of the plot line of "do androids dream of electic sheep" with the thematic asian dominated backdrop of the man in the high castle.

I regard blade runner as one of the few movies that is substantially better than the book ("androids dream" ) it is based on.

Most of Philip Dicks' work seems to me to be wonderfully inspired plots and concepts that get at the nature of perception but executed with cardboard characters and loads of quirky descriptive artifacts. I note that for it's period, sci-fi in general tended to lack real characterization and larded in lots of gee-whiz artifcats. PKD endures because of those timeless themes and questions. Hence they make great sources for movies cause after you distill all the dated parts of his work, the stories really are pretty short and snappy.

Also one other comment: could there be a better production company name than Halcyon given that the drug names that promotes the dream state.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Mister Whirly]

I have the same opinion. I hate Keanu and Ryder but love Robert Downey Jr, and thought the stuff between him and Woody Harrelson was priceless. They gave a much needed comic aspect to the pretty dark material. Overall I thought the film was done well, and stayed relatively faithful to the story - especially considering some of the other "adaptations" of his work on film.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[northernboy]

There are two rules for making a good movie.

1. Find a good story.
2. Tell it well.

Philip K Dick is my favorite science fiction author. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (um, the source for the Blade Runner screenplay) is among his very best books. And I thought Blade Runner was amazing, even though they had to leave out far more of the book than they left in.

In an aside to the audience on her Miles of Aisles live album, Joni Mitchell says to the audience, "Nobody ever said to Picasso, 'Paint A Starry Night again, man!' ..." Different instantiations of a good story are different. Try to keep an open mind.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Anonymous Coward]

And nobody ever said to Van Gogh, "Paint a Guernica again, man!" for a reason...

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... having seen the movie first (at least a half dozen times) and then reading the book, A Scanner Darkly is pretty damn close to a 1:1 adaption. In many parts I noticed the dialogue in the movie had been taken verbatim from the book. And yes, the movie can appear somewhat nonsensical at first, but that seems to be a hallmark of PKD's work and part of what makes it so good. You keep comprehending new things every time you read one of his books.

Blade Runner, for example... changed around the story so much that it no longer had the characteristics of a PKD novel. The Scanner Darkly movie, on the other hand, gives you very much the same experience as reading the book.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[PhantomHarlock]

Wholeheartedly agree with poster. I read "Sheep" and it came off like a Hunter S. Thompson work. Pretty bizarre. Blade Runner the movie script was much more suited to moviemaking, it eliminated a lot of the unnecessary detail and focused on the core elements of the story. By then it was barely recognizable, but that's a very good thing. I think this is the best way to adapt a lot of sci fi work.

When you take books literally, you end up with Lord of the Rings, which is paced very slowly, and kind of drones on like an HBO miniseries with a bigger budget.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[MrHanky]

Well, the main difference between Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is the theme: one is mainly about man (or android) revolting against God (or death) in a godless universe, the other is about the authenticity of emotions and empathy in a modern society of drugs & media. The story is basically the same, though (apart from the film's more spectacular ending, of course).

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Hell, even with other author's works it's the best approach. They are completely different media after all, and require completely different approaches to storytelling.

I think this is a very good comment. A currently popular Sci Fi author is scheduled to have the first (to my knowledge) film made from one of his books in the next year or two. This author is not universally liked, so I'm not naming him so as to avoid starting an endless thread on his works. Anyway, he said that once you agree to sell the rights to a movie from something you wrote, you give up all rights to how the movie comes out. Maybe you get lucky and it turns out like Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings. Or maybe you end up like Isaac Asimov and arguably none of the movies based on your books are very good. But you agree, as an author, once you take the money that control is gone from you to Hollywood. If you can't live with the chance that it might not turn out like you want, he said you shouldn't sell the rights.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem is a great example. The late great Andrei Tarkovksy directed a film based on this in the early 1970s in the USSR. Many people, including me, consider this film to be a classic, but Lem hated it. Tarkovsky changed a lot of things from the book (I think for the better) and Lem was bitter about it for all of his life. The 2002 film starring George Clooney was a big failure and many hate it, but Lem himself loved it because he considered it to be true to his original story. Go figure.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Beyond Opinion]

If you're referring to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, they deviated from the books in a few major ways to make it more exciting and film-able.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[DeepHurtn!]

I think the critique of Dick's characterization is off the mark; that just wasn't what he was *doing*. Dick wasn't writing a 19th century psychological novel; if you want that, go read someone Russian. But to attack Dick for his lack of characterization would be like doing so to Kafka or Pynchon. They're just not playing that genre.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[vidarh]

Describing "Sheep" as "bizarre" is pretty funny, considering it's overall one of PKD novels that are most "mainstream". I don't agree with you that Blade Runner eliminated "unnecessary detail" - it fundamentally altered the story. Doesn't mean it's a bad movie, just not the same story.

I want to see a "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" movie. You could make one with most of the mainstream audience not even realizing it had anything to do with Blade Runner.

And if you take PKD books literally, you don't end up with something "paced very slowly" - in most cases you'd end up with something that to most viewers would be impossible to follow because of the often non-linear story lines and large number of inter-vowen ideas. If anything, "sheep" is one of the simple ones.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Anonymous Coward]

In an aside to the audience on her Miles of Aisles live album, Joni Mitchell says to the audience, "Nobody ever said to Picasso, 'Paint A Starry Night again, man!' ..."

Be kind of hard. "Starry Night" is Van Gogh. Oh, and he actually did a later version of it as a pen drawing.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on, everybody knows it's a parody. It's Peter Jackson after all.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[mobby_6kl]

I'm not a big fan of Keanu either, but his "Whoa, I don't know what the fuck is going on" talent works perfectly for the completely confused/high/mental Bob Arctor.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[jgrahn]

I remember reading "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" after having seen Total Recall and ... well, I love PKD, and Total Recall is way more entertaining than WCRIFYW.

I disagree. Both are very cool, but in different ways. I read the short story when I was like thirteen, and I still remembered it when I picked up the short story collection twenty years later.

"Flow My Tears..." is amongst my favourites, and probably among the more cinematic, but like Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, there's are all the druggy psychedelic passages that may not translate well.

I don't know about that ... druggy passages can be good on film, Case in point: Beavis and Butthead do America.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[jgrahn]

I think the critique of Dick's characterization is off the mark; that just wasn't what he was *doing*. Dick wasn't writing a 19th century psychological novel; if you want that, go read someone Russian. But to attack Dick for his lack of characterization would be like doing so to Kafka or Pynchon.

And the same could be said about the grandparent's critique of 1950s--1960s SF in general. Not that they were all doing what Dick did, but there are things which need to be written about which are neither "real characterization" nor "Cool! My STAR CRUIZER runs on URANIUM!".

Re:It's probably for the best.

[snuf23]

Even for one of Dick's "simple" stories they had to completely take out the religious element (Mercerism) and barely eluded to the almost total extinction of animals and the resulting psychological effects on people. If I recall correctly the replicants in the book were also generally not sympathetic characters but utterly cold and inhuman. The one exception I recall being the singer (opera star in the book/stripper in the movie).

Re:It's probably for the best.

[smithmc]

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem is a great example. The late great Andrei Tarkovksy directed a film based on this in the early 1970s in the USSR. Many people, including me, consider this film to be a classic, but Lem hated it.

So did I. BOOOOO-RING. That ridiculous half-hour montage where Kelvin is being driven to meet with the council? What was that supposed to be, propaganda for great new clean beautiful Soviet Russian highway? Holy cow.

The 2002 film starring George Clooney was a big failure and many hate it, but Lem himself loved it because he considered it to be true to his original story. Go figure.

I loved it (well, I liked it a lot), not only because it was closer to the original story, but because it's simply a much better piece of film - better paced, much more beautiful (to be expected, I know), and 'cause Natascha MacElhone's in it. ;-)

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Coryoth]

That ridiculous half-hour montage where Kelvin is being driven to meet with the council? What was that supposed to be, propaganda for great new clean beautiful Soviet Russian highway?

Presumably not, since it was shot in Tokyo. I recall reading about how Tarkovsky battled to be allowed to do some filming in Japan, but, for one reason or another, most of the shooting done there couldn't be used and the extended highway scene is all that he could get from it all (and hence presumably was as long as it was because he wanted to use as much material as he could).

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Edmund Blackadder]

Good point but in regard to Lem and Tarkovsky you have to keep in mind that there has been a flame war going on between Polish and Russian writers for hundreds of years.

See for example, Dostoevsky (whose every Polish character is a cheap swindler), or Nabokov (ditto) or Conrad (who wrote an entire book about how the Russian government sponsors terrorists, being careful to note that the Russians are really asiatic and not european people). I think Lem was simply bound by centuries old tradition to give Tarkovsky the finger.

Re:It's probably for the best.

[Thing 1]

Yeah, some hilarious moments in "A Scanner Darkly", like: they got a great deal on an 18-speed bicycle, which upon analysis only has 3 gears in the front and 6 in the back -- that only adds up to 9 gears, so they got ripped off!

Roog!

[Anonymous Coward]

Roog

Re:Roog!

[Incredible Elmo]

That one was awesome! It would be pretty psychedelic to film it without giving the actual point of view away. Done well (as animation perhaps?) it could really be good!

Re:Roog!

[Mursk]

Whoever marked this off-topic obviously doesn't know Dick.

Re:Roog!

[niktemadur]

It'd be really cool to have it done as a short film leading in to the main feature, sort of like the 007 teasers. That way, when the proper film begins, the audiences' minds are already blown and in the mood.

Re:Roog!

[scotsghost]

or how about "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford"?

Catchier title?

[jd2112]

How about "Nowhere Man - The Motion Picture"

Re:Catchier title?

[HTH NE1]

How about "Nowhere Man - The Motion Picture"

I thought about that too, but then was Nowhere Man really about a man who was erased or about a man whose own memories were fiction?

Re:Catchier title?

[Joe Tie.]

Wow, now that's a blast from the past. I used to love that show when I was a kid. Thanks for the reminder, added dvds to netflix.

You know it'll happen...

[hal2814]

I'm just waiting for the average moviegoer to start complaining about how these upcoming Dick movies ripped off ideas from films like the Matrix, Truman Show, The Net, etc.

Re:You know it'll happen...

[H0p313ss]

I'm just waiting for the average moviegoer to start complaining about how these upcoming Dick movies ripped off ideas from films like the Matrix, Truman Show, The Net, etc.

I was thinking similarly... just wait for the "in popular culture" references!

Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Botched]

I know, he's an entertaining writer. But his ideas are about as interesting as the ramblings of a stoned college freshman-philosophy major. Is the sort of drunken, glassy-eyed speculation presented to us in his movies, the Matrix, Gattica, etc really the best that can sold in a movie? What about some of John Barne's work, or Ian M Banks, or Robert Forward, or Vernor Vinge, or Neil Stephenson... where thoughtful authors weave fantastic tales?

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[plover]

Do you really think Neal Stephenson's books would do well on the big screen? Part of me would expect the movie to be about six hours long, with the entire plot wrapped up in a hasty, four-minute expository lump at the end. I can almost hear the cameraman whispering to the director "I've only got 100 feet of film left, can you get this done?"

Another part of me thinks it would be completely awesome to see Snow Crash on the big screen. But my brain has already filled in what I think the metaverse looks like, what the rat-things look like, smart spokes, all those ultra-cool ideas; and then I think of what other filmmakers have shat out trying to portray cool sci-fi toys. The wrong director could easily destroy a great story.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Anonymous Coward]

On average, his ideas had at least as much depth and he exhibited a shit-ton more prescience and focus than Neil Stephenson in my opinion. I can't comment on the others you listed as I've never read any of their stuff.

Dick did crank out a high volume of "pot boilers" and B-movie grade pulp sci-fi (and admitted as much himself), but I find that the body of his thoughtful work was just as prolific as his less lofty but still fun to read stuff.

Not sure how much of his stuff you've read, but if you haven't checked out Man in the High Castle, Eye in the Sky, Ubik, Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, A Scanner Darkly, The V.A.L.I.S. trilogy, etc., I would recommend them highly.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Bieeanda]

No, but I am embarrassed for all of the geeks out there who seem to be under the misapprehension that Stephenson can write effectively.

And if you want to see Banks' Culture on the big screen, just imagine the Star Wars prequels without Yoda-- it's space opera, and to Hollywood that means nothing but CGI spectacle.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[cblack]

PKD lover says: screw you. But seriously, have you read more than one of his books or few short stories? Your description of "drivel" seems a very limited view of his works. So many common themes that are beyond just "which reality is real" (which he does very well). Pervasive surveillance/advertising. The meaning of living an authentic life. Effects of modern societies/cultures on lower "cog in the machine" type individuals. Ordinary people fighting struggling whether to accept or fight against large organizations/systems. Mental illness. Alternate history. War. Love/Obsession. Religion.
Belittling his whole body of work as "stoner ramblings" is pretty indefensible in my opinion.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[vidarh]

I *love* Banks, but his ideas are nowhere as revolutionary as PKD's were when he wrote them. I'd love to see them turned into movies, too, and they'd overall be far easier to turn into successful movies - the problem with Banks' stories is that they'd be expensive (the scale), while with PKD's it's that his stories are too complex. I mean, with adaptations of PKD's short stories they've still consistently stripped away layers to simplify.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[dave562]

Snow Crash would make a great movie. The Diamond Age? Nope. Cryptonomicon? Hell no. Even Snow Crash would need some narration. Otherwise you'd miss on the greatest parts of the book, like the rant about how, "Every guy thinks that they can be a bad ass, if their family was killed, and they went to live in a monastary..."

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Attila Dimedici]

I don't really care for John Barne's or Ian Banks' books, but they might translate well to film. Vernor Vinge and Neil Stephenson (if they pick the write stories) could make some really good movies. None of Robert Forward's books ever interested me enough to try and read them.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Harik]

I quit reading Stephenson because the operative word in "Snow crash" is "Crash" - the book is speeding along then WHAM hits a brick wall. All the important ends are wrapped up in a 2 page epilogue. It really reads like "Oh good I hit the pagecount they paid me for, I'm done now."

Gibson has his faults as well. His imagery is amazing, and the Decking of Neuromancer fame is firmly enshrined in conciousness - but when he starts writing AI poetry towards the end the whole thing just falls apart. Or maybe I didn't do enough drugs to really enjoy the ending...

Personally, I'd love to see someone do a decent adaptation of Foundation, or an I, Robot that wasn't just a name drop. Asimov wrote so many amazing works, and they're sorely underrepresented in film.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[edremy]

As a huge Iain Banks fan, his stories are pretty unfilmable without massive adaptations. The basics of the entire Culture are vastly different than our own, and without understanding that most of the plot lines don't make much sense. This is assuming you can even represent the action- Player of Games couldn't be done (how do you represent a game in a movie?) and most of the characters in Excession are 100 kilometer long starships.

Stephenson would need major rewrites to simplify as well as write actual endings, Vinge usually has too much backstory on the space opera stuff (although something like Rainbow's End might be doable) and you'd need a degree in Physics to really understand most of Forward's stuff.

One that I'd like to see tried is Mieville's stuff. You'd need some serious simplification/rewrites/backstory fill to understand New Crobuzon, but the scale is a little more human than some of the others.

The other I'd *love* to see are Stross' Laundry series. That's totally doable today- they're basically Bond films with added monsters, although the humor is so geeky I'm not sure 95% of the population would get it.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Botched]

actually, everything he has written. As I said, he's an entertaining author much like Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, and other small-minded buffoons. And there were far too few of those when I was growing up for me to pass them by. I used to hunt down old analogue magazines just to read the good old stuff. Speaking of authors of whom I've read every word, Rodger Zelazny needs a hell of a lot more movie time. 9 princes in amber, jack of shadows, changeling trilogy, and damn near all of his scifi stories (man, This Immortal! Lord of Light!) ... wow, if there is a more unexploited scifi moneymaker than him I'd be shocked.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Botched]

I'm not a big Robert Forward fan, but try Dragon's Egg and the sequel (Dragon's Egg first) and you might see what I see in him.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[snuf23]

If Snow Crash ever gets done by Hollywood it will end up being directed by Michael Bay and resemble a "reboot" of the movie Hackers. With Megan Fox as YT and the Rock as Raven and yes of course Keanu Reeves as Hiro (with bad makeup asianification).
The Metaverse will be recast as "Web 3.0".

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[gmuslera]

Things always can be worse. Heroes's Hiro could be Snow Crash's Hiro in a trip to the future in a crossover/remix/reboot between both. Considering the alternatives, is almost as bad as anything else they could do to it.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[ucblockhead]

Have you ever read any PK Dick novels?

My suggestion is that if you ever meet any of those authors you admire, you ask them what they think of PK Dick's work.

No movie has even remotely done justice to his work, even Bladerunner, and no one has attempted to film any of his truly great novels. (Ubik, Martian Timeslip, The Three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, The Man in the High Castle, etc.) With the exception of A Scanner Darkly and, to a lesser extent, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the PK Dick works that have been filmed are the forgettable ones, usually the pulp short stories he did in the fifties, and not even remotely his best work.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Edmund Blackadder]

I know, he's an entertaining writer. But his ideas are about as interesting as the ramblings of a stoned college freshman-philosophy major.

Is the sort of drunken, glassy-eyed speculation presented to us in his movies, the Matrix, Gattica, etc really the best that can sold in a movie? What about some of John Barne's work, or Ian M Banks, or Robert Forward, or Vernor Vinge, or Neil Stephenson... where thoughtful authors weave fantastic tales?

Really? Have you considered that you may be simply too stupid to get it. Have you actually read any of his books?

I can agree that Matrix and Gattaca are kind of simplified and dumbed down sci-fi, but none of these were written by PKD and they only borrow some of the most superficial of his ideas.

PKD is one of the very very few truly brilliant writers to emerge in the twentieth century, so sorry I have to flame you for calling his writing drivel. He has the most rare ability to see society and human nature clearly and to describe it and show it in a compelling manner. In don't see much of this in the movies, as the movies mostly borrow his more superficial sci-fi plot devices than the main themes of his books, but you will see it in his books.

Of the writers you mentioned I have only read Stevenson, and while he does offer a good read, he cannot be compared to PKD. Stephenson merely makes up interesting fantastic tales as you mentioned, but his writing does not have a ring of truth to it. You do not learn more about yourself, human nature, etc., after reading a Stephenson book. So yeah, PKD is in a whole other category.

So please do not talk shit, you can say you do not understand it, but by calling it drivel you only reveal your own ignorance.

Oh, and btw I did not major in phillosophy, I graduated almost 10 years ago and I do not do any drugs.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[the donner party]

Consider Phlebas would probably make a good action film, and Use of Weapons has the potential to be made into a terrific film, or an absolute stinker.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Botched]

heh, thanks for the flame. Saying you have not read much at all makes it mean very little and supports my point. Too stupid to get it, lol. It's infintile, like the essay of a student (perhaps like yourself?) who has had a basic philosophy class and thinks they know the secrets of the universe.

Re:Is anyone else tired of PKD's drivel?

[Provocateur]

Damm you may have a point there about unexploited sci fi writer/moneymaker waiting to be 'ploited.

What do we have now? Seems they're only browsing comic books for ideas, mostly. Please, look further and read more, Hollywood!

Adaptations are loose

[Aladrin]

I think it's important to note why the adaptations are loose: PK Dick wrote short stories. Very, very good stories, but short. The main idea in the story is told in few words, but well.

A movie also has an obligation to fill 90 minutes of screen time, at least. Some of the actual concepts can be described in under a minute. The rest of the time in the short story or movie is spent exploring the concept.

PK Dick is definitely one of my top 5 favorite authors.

Re:Adaptations are loose

[cblack]

Just to be clear, most of the movies that have been made from PKD's works are indeed based on his short stories, but that is far from all he wrote. A Scanner Darkly was a regular length book as is Flow My Tears.

Re:Adaptations are loose

[MozeeToby]

Another reason the adaptations are loose: PK Dick was arguably insane.

No, seriously, I don't know if it was from the drugs or what, but anyone that thinks we're living in ancient Greece and that our world is being projected onto our consciousness by benevolent aliens/gods has got to be at least a little bit crazy. Especially if that belief is based in large part on an incident where he helped a Black guy stranded on the side of the road; all because a similar story takes place in Acts in the bible.

Re:Adaptations are loose

[cblack]

You forgot the pink laser beams.

Re:Adaptations are loose

[h4rm0ny]

and that our world is being projected onto our consciousness by benevolent aliens/gods has got to be at least a little bit crazy.

href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true.

I just find it amusing how odd beliefs can line up with the latest scientific theories.

Re:Adaptations are loose

[jgrahn]

Just to be clear, most of the movies that have been made from PKD's works are indeed based on his short stories, but that is far from all he wrote. A Scanner Darkly was a regular length book as is Flow My Tears.

Most of his later works were novels. He basically stopped writing short stories, because he got paid better to write novels (read: didn't have to physically starve).

Re:Adaptations are loose

[Criceratops]

... but anyone that thinks we're living in ancient Greece and that our world is being projected onto our consciousness by benevolent aliens/gods has got to be at least a little bit crazy.

Yeah, like that lunatic Plato. What a schizo!

Re:Adaptations are loose

[itsdapead]

I think it's important to note why the adaptations are loose: PK Dick wrote short stories. Very, very good stories, but short. The main idea in the story is told in few words, but well.

I don't think that's it - I suspect that its easier to dream up a few subplots to pad a short out to feature length than it is to condense a full length novel into two hours without messing up the plot.

Anyway - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was a full length novel, but Blade Runner was still a very loose adaptation of that. The book is so different from the film (and the message so totally different) that one doesn't really detract from the other.

I think part of the success of the PKD-derived films is that they haven't even pretended to adapt the original stories - just taken the (great) premises and written pretty good action/adventure films around them (well, except Paycheck which was completely "meh" and "Scanner..." which was good but took the arthouse route).

Actually, call me a heretic, but I only read "We can remember it for you wholesale" (Total Recall) and "Minority report" after seeing the films and I actually think that the films told better stories. They certainly told better film stories. In the original, "remember..." had a jokey denouement which could only really be delivered as a big wodge of exposition at the end of a film, and "Minority..." was a logical conundrum as to how a false prediction could arise rather than an exploration of the ethics of "pre-crime".

And I love the "were you paying attention in the first reel" twist in "Total Recall".

Sigh

[iluvcapra]

Hollywood has certainly taken a shine to Dick's work...

...ever since he died.

Great, call me when it's done

[orkybash]

Adaptations of Philip K Dick books are notorious for being put in development hell. Scanner Darkly, IIRC, went through several attempted treatments before we got the rotoscoped version. And there's been attempts off and on to bring us Ubik on the big screen, though the last I heard of that was a few years ago and it was just being written.

...not to say that I'm not still cautiously excited!

Re:Great, call me when it's done

[ChienAndalu]

Adaptations of Philip K Dick books are notorious for being put in development hell. Scanner Darkly, IIRC, went through several attempted treatments before we got the rotoscoped version. And there's been attempts off and on to bring us Ubik on the big screen, though the last I heard of that was a few years ago and it was just being written.

Dick even wrote the screenplay for Ubik himself - though it probably won't be used.

Alfred Bester

[zoomshorts]

When will this author's works make it to the big
screen? The Demolished Man was a masterpiece.

Heinlein's, Stranger in a Strange Land ,would also rock.

Slow down cowboy? WTF? It took me 60 seconds to write
this post without using the word 'nigger'.

What do you want?!?!?! Waits 2 minutes before submitting.

Re:Alfred Bester

[Remus Shepherd]

Phillip K. Dick's works were weird and surreal.

Alfred Bester's works were weird and hyper-real. You couldn't get away with hazy camerawork and plot elements that were forgivably nonsensical in a Bester film. You'd need to show how people can jaunt, you'd need to show small-craft space combat, and you'd need to show that glowing guy who shorts out robots near him. In other words, you can paper over many of the images in Dick's work, but with Bester you'd have to show them. And that would cost money. Demolished Man would cost $200 million to produce, and Hollywood isn't desperate enough (yet) to take a chance like that.

Re:Alfred Bester

[Old Grey Beard]

When will this author's works make it to the big screen? The Demolished Man was a masterpiece.

The Stars My Destination, too. ("Tiger, Tiger" in the UK). Too complex for a big screen movie; possibly doable as an HBO miniseries.

Re:Alfred Bester

[lanthar]

Actually, The Stars My Destination (Tiger Tiger) has had the movie rights recently purchased. I'm frightened that it will almost certainly fail to live up to the book... but one can always hope for some goodness from it. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117940125.html?categoryid=13&cs=1(variety.com)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783588/Here's the imdb link but it's locked to Pro only... It used to say 2010... now it says 2012. Guess Jumper sort of messed up the jaunting storyline.

According to the Variety article, it's being produced by http://www.variety.com/profiles/people/main/47298/Lorenzo%20di%20Bonaventura.html?dataSet=1Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Variety) who brought us Doom, Transformers (1 and soon 2), and GI Joe... so it might have enough special effects to look cool at least.

Re:Alfred Bester

[smithmc]

Heinlein's, Stranger in a Strange Land ,would also rock.

Yes, it would. Meanwhile, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress would rawwwwwwk. I can already picture the trailer in my head, ending with a grain vessel (filled with rocks) being launched off the catapult, pan the camera to a view of Earth, where an earlier launched vessel is exploding on Cheyenne Mountain...

A tortilla, meat, beans, cheese.

[mgabrys_sf]

re:"A tale of altered reality, drug use, and the meaning of identity"

Which book of his WASN'T a tale of "altered reality, drug use, and the meaning of identity"? Seriously? Guy had as much variety as Mexican food.

What's a burrito? A tortilla, meat, beans, cheese. What's a taco? A tortilla, meat, beans, cheese. What's an enchilada? A tortilla, meat, beans, cheese. What's a tostada? A tortilla, meat, beans, cheese.

Re:A tortilla, meat, beans, cheese.

[cblack]

Most fiction and certainly most Sci-Fi can be considered about "altered reality" where something or someone that is not true/doesn't exist in our reality is described in a book. That is what makes it fiction.
As for drug use and meaning of identity, I'd say most of his books DON'T have drug use as a major theme. Meaning of identity is fairly common though. Still, you come off as a hater. The idea of someone being tricked into helping a war effort he doesn't know exists is a pretty cool plot idea and he has many others.

TANSTAAFL

[camperdave]

Personally, I'd like to see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress done up as a film.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen looser...

Sounds good, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I could go for some Flo my Nase right about now. ::sniff::

Public domain shorts

[Anonymous Coward]

How about one of the PKD shorts that are in the public domain. Project Gutenberg has four of them.

Re:Public domain shorts

[sowth]

A link would be nice.

The question you were hoping someone would ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok - keys at the ready....GO!

"Which is the SF writer's works you would most like to see made into a film who hasn't already been done?"

That rules out James Blish (Star Trek), Asimov, Clarke, Ballard, Heinlein, Verne, Bradbury, H G Wells (multiple!), Wyndham... Even Zelazny. There can't be many left.

I think I vote for Harry Harrison's Bill series...

Isn't it a shame that so many writers get their worst works filmed? Where is Blish's Doctor Mirabilis? Or Zelazny's Lord of Light?

Twilight Zone Episode

[Nom du Keyboard]

This sounds more like Twilight Zone episode material than a complete movie.

My deepest regret is that PKD never got the benefit of this fame -- or that his estate simply sold out when he had held out.

Re:Twilight Zone Episode

[Edmund Blackadder]

Well, the tagline maybe but the book itself is much more complicated than that. The book is actually mostly about a totalitarian society and the way they keep control.

PKD picked up on the hatred and fear that is always bubbling under the surface in US (and for that matter all other countries') politics and imagined a very possible totalitarian society that could grow out of it.

You see the problem with the main character is not that much that nobody remembers him or knows of his existence, but that all records of his existence have disappeared. Once the government discovers a living adult person that is not listed once in any existing database, they decide he is very dangerous. The book is actually a very eerily current political horror story considering how it was written so long ago.

john dowland anyone

[trinity93]

They should use Stings version of John Dowlands "Flow My Tears" for the soundtrack theme song

Next != The Golden Man

[Eric Pierce]

> In some cases, as with Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Blade Runner, the adaptations are loose to say the least.

You want loose? 'Next' was loose!

EP

As long they don't put Josh Friedman on it

[Master of Transhuman]

That idiot ruined "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" so badly he should be banned from ever doing broadcast TV or movie science fiction ever again.

Impostor, mysteriously ignored.

[Criceratops]

The movie "Impostor" really never even gets mentioned, and it was pretty damned faithful to the original story. Dunno why certain movies, that are no less bad than the rest of Hollywood's ... um... output... get passed over in the Public Attention Lottery. (i.e. the film version of Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions"... all-star cast, fun performances, pretty close to original novel, and no press / attention whatsoever)

Deja Vu All Over Again

[westlake]

A tale of altered reality, drug use, and the meaning of identity, the novel tells the story of TV celebrity Jason Taverner, who wakes up one morning to find that his very existence has been wiped from everyone's memories

With all due respect - I have to say that this plows what has become some very familiar ground.

Really want to see a biopic

[lawpoop]

I like some of the movie adaptations of his work, but to me, his real life outshadows all the ideas presented in his work.

Check out Robert Crumb's The Religious Experience of Phillip K. Dick . Basically Dick began to have visions of a past life in ancient Rome as a crypto-Christian. These visions literally saved his son's life when he rushed him to the hospital. Turned out the boy had a hernia and would have been dead in hours. Other most interesting events, too.

I heard a few years ago there was supposed to be such a film with Paul Giamatti as Dick, but you know how these things go. I think it might be merged with V.A.L.I.S.

Hooray! But now let's hope....

[Viree]

for either Keanu or Will Smith to be busy that week.