Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ridley Scott to Produce Philip K Dick's The Man In the High Castle

Posted by timothy on from the it's-all-in-your-head dept.

hawkinspeter (831501) writes Amazon has given the green light to produce the Hugo award-winning "The Man in the High Castle". This is after the four-hour mini-series was rejected by Syfy and afterwards by the BBC. Philip K Dick's novel takes place in an alternate universe where the Axis Powers won the Second World War. It's one of his most successful works, probably due to him actually spending the time to do some editing on it (most of his fiction was produced rapidly in order to get some money). Ridley Scott has previously adapted PKD's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" as the film Blade Runner, so it will be interesting to see how close he keeps to the source material this time. This news has been picked up by a few sites: International Business Times; The Register and Deadline.

25 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Considering his history... by Cragen · · Score: 2, Insightful
    in Blade Runner, he essentially only kept the title character and the title and

    in Prometheus, he essentially just re-gurgitated "Alien", what could go wrong?

    1. Re:Considering his history... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Making a movie from a novel is rather hard. They are different experiences, rely on different cues, have different timings and often play to different audiences.

      Yes, Blade Runner isn't Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Aliens is just Giger and Dan O'Bannon and bog knows what Prometheus was about aside from Charleze Theron in a tight fitting flight suit, but it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

      Beats Transformer movies and the sad fall of Joss Whedon.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Considering his history... by uCallHimDrJ0NES · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People who reject content based off of arbitrary genre preferences are a burden to themselves and others. I don't believe that prior to Firefly, you would have said, "I'm really wanting another Western." You don't like superheroes you say, and I call bullshit. You just don't want to be lumped in with liking something that's become mainstream. Get over it.

      --
      Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
    3. Re:Considering his history... by 91degrees · · Score: 2

      I don't think it's that controversial a view. There are some nice ideas in the book, but Dick was a bit of a hack, more keen on getting the book out than perfection, and it shows.

  2. Re:is it me or is it 30 years too late? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not everyone is 14 years old.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  3. Blade Runner's script had little to do with Ridley by tekrat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What Ridley Scott brought to the table was an art-director's viewpoint. I believe it was his call that the world be dystopian rather than utopian. Syd Mead was brought in to realize that vision from Ridley's sketches.

    Blade Runner was a magical coming-together of quite a few artists while they were at the height of their careers, Scott, Mead, Ford, Hauer hell, even Vangellis never was better. Blade Runner was Scott's attempt to bring back Film Noir in a sci-fi setting -- something that seems common now, but was a radical breakthrough then.

    It's a tough act to follow. And as much as I like Ridley's visual style, his latest films have suffered badly from too much money lavished on sets and effects, and not enough on script and acting.

    I can also say that, having read "Man in High Castle", that's not an easy book to put to film. It's a huge, complicated story that's not easy to follow. I just hope that they put the work into making the story work, and not gloss over it just to work in explosions and effects.

    I had heard that Ridley was interested in Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War" -- not *that's* a movie I want to see. That book blew my mind, and I really, really, really want a good movie of that.

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  4. Syfylys passes on an actual classic by BenJeremy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is why you put an executive in charge of a channel that actually likes the genre. Bonnie Hammer only saw SciFi Channel as a stepping stone to a more mainstream network (USA), and installed another idiot who didn't really care for the shows they were peddling when she left.

    They should be funding movies based on classics, whenever possible, instead of the crappy creature-of-the-week and pseudo-reality crap they shovel out every week. These days, its possible to deliver quality science fiction programming without busting your budget, too - but somebody at the top has to be motivated to deliver this to the fans (the network's viewer base), rather than dump garbage none of the fan base wants to see in order to draw more "mainstream" viewers.

    1. Re:Syfylys passes on an actual classic by MrTester · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Hell yes.
      They have a couple of good properties now, but for the most part its crap.
      And where is the classic SciFi appreciation? Forbidden Planet, Them, The Day the Earth Stood Still (without Neo). When is the last time they showed a black and white program other than Twilight Zone?

      If I was in charge of SyFy:
      1) Classic movie of the week with a Turner Classic Movies style intro talking about the movie, its impact, roots and the making of the movie.
      2) Guest hosts introducing their favorite SciFi
      3) Put together a stable of actors, authors and directors and host a weekly 90 minute-3 sketch late night program modeled on Saturday Night Live, but focusing on scifi story telling instead of comedy. Some of the sketches could be one offs, others a mini-series. Probably not live, although that might be fun too...
      4) Get some real scifi lovers to look for classic works that they could get the rights to produce as movies. They dont have to be high budget. Take the same budget they spend now on their monster of the week movies, spend less on special effects and throw it at the scripts. I know thats not a lot, but give me a day and $500 and I can improve the hell out of their scripts.
      5) No wrestling
      6) Change the name back to SciFi

  5. Producing, not Directing by Sockatume · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Scott's producing the series, not directing. David Semel's actually in the chair. He's directing experience across a lot of serial shows, which bodes well for his ability to respect established characters and storylines. So between the two of them, if nothing else it should be a smooth production.

    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm078...

    --
    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  6. Back then... by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From TFS: "[Man in a High Castle is] one of his most successful works"

    Back in 1962 (when it was published) maybe... but by the time of my generation of SF readers (coming of age in the late 70's, early 80's) it was largely passed over in favor of Electric Sheep. With WWII much further in the past than when it was published, and the Red Menace having been replaced by MAD... it's foriegn dictatorship wasn't as relevant as the overcrowded overpolluted post apoplyptic dystopia of Sheep was to a generation that was influenced by the social chaos of the late 60's and had lived through the shocks of the early 70's. Stories involving the Nazi's (High Castle, Rocket Ship Galileo, even the (then) more recent Iron Dream) were seen largely as quaint anachronisms not classics. Which, in a large way, is also why Cyberpunk emerges in the same era...

    1. Re:Back then... by Strange+Quark+Star · · Score: 2

      I think the 5 volumes of his collected short stories was a good book purchase.

      After having read almost all of PKD's novels I started reading his short stories as collected in the 5-volume series. I really enjoyed the author's comments on a lot of these, some of which he's written decades after a story's publication.

      Reading his novels -- first the well-known ones like Ubik, Androids, High Castle, etc., then going through all the rest of them, chronologically -- made PKD my "kind of" favorite SF author, along with Isaac Asimov, William Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson. At first I was a bit skeptical of his writing style and recurring themes, but then it really grew on me. But when I read all his short fiction (again, chronologically as presented in the collection) over the course of the last year-and-a-half he became my absolute favorite author, period.
      His short fiction is that much better than even his acclaimed novels, many of which are in fact merely expanded versions of his stories. His ideas are more suited to that format, where he is less bound by conventions and expectations, as he explained in the snippets provided in the short story collections.

      Through his writing, PKD to me comes across as a very knowledgeable, educated and deeply philosophical person who lived through trauma and fear and yet does not take himself or anything else, really, too seriously. His style is as enjoyable to read as Hemingway and also close to that of Dostoevsky, who was Dick's favorite author.

      If you've read any of his novels and like the style and story, do yourself a favor and start reading his stories! He really is a "consistently brilliant" SF writer, as John Brunner put it.

      And if you're near Fullerton, CA you can check out his personal archive of manuscripts etc. which he donated to CSU Fullerton. I had the perfect opportunity while staying there for a week with a friend who was a student then, but did not know about this at the time... one of my greatest regrets.

      --
      There is no sig.
    2. Re:Back then... by Boronx · · Score: 2

      Stanislaw Lem thought that P. K. Dick was the only S. F. writer whose work had any literary merit.

      --
      Play Command HQ online
  7. It's not fair by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 3, Informative

    It really sucks that Philip K Dick died at 53, broke, after cranking out 44 novels and 120 short stories. Between Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, and A Scanner Darkly, he deserved to have some financial reward while he was still alive.

    1. Re:It's not fair by hawkinspeter · · Score: 2

      Incidentally, the Radio Free Albemuth film is almost available (for certain values of available) now. I'm kind of bummed that I paid $70 for the Kickstarter campaign, but as I live in the UK and it hasn't been released here yet, I can't get my hands on a legit copy of it yet. In case you didn't know, Radio Free Albemuth originally started as a sequel to Man in the High Castle, but then ended up becoming a first-draft of what became VALIS.

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
    2. Re:It's not fair by Strange+Quark+Star · · Score: 2

      From Wiki:

      Dick wrote all of his books published before 1970 while on amphetamines. "A Scanner Darkly (1977) was the first complete novel I had written without speed", said Dick in the interview. He also experimented briefly with psychedelics, but wrote The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, which Rolling Stone dubs "the classic LSD novel of all time", before he had ever tried them. Despite his heavy amphetamine use, however, Dick later said that doctors had told him that the amphetamines never actually affected him, that his liver had processed them before they reached his brain.

      He dedicated Scanner to all his friends and people close to him who suffered/died from drug addiction, even listing his own name among them.

      What really pushed him into "craziness" was the episode he had in 1974, when he started having visions and revelations after receiving a dose of sodium pentothal at the dentist's. A good account of that can be read here: New York Times article

      --
      There is no sig.
  8. Still waiting for Ubik by AmIAnAi · · Score: 2

    If I had to pick one PKD story to turn into a film it would be Ubik, there were rumours a few years back, but nothing ever came of it.

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
    1. Re:Still waiting for Ubik by hawkinspeter · · Score: 2

      There's still rumours about that. Michel Gondry has declared that he's "still working" on it. Ubik is supposed to be the most unfilmable of all of PKD's work, but Michel Gondry has a unique style that could work really well (I'm thinking of Eternal Sunshine - definitely not Green Hornet).

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
  9. Re:Actually read the book! by lgw · · Score: 2

    SF is the abbreviation for "real science fiction". SciFi is the abbreviation for action/horror movies with futuristic explosions. Harlan Ellison suggests "skiffy" as the pronunciation of the latter, and some have taken to writing it that way too. I hear Edge of Tomorrow was actually good SF, but I haven't seen it yet - but 1 a year is lucky for SF films.

    Plus you have films like Gravity, which wasn't even SciFi, but instead a historical period piece. Remember when we had shuttles, and the will to build vehicles that could launch men into space? Good times; good times.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  10. Re:Blade Runner's script had little to do with Rid by reve_etrange · · Score: 2

    I can also say that, having read "Man in High Castle", that's not an easy book to put to film. It's a huge, complicated story that's not easy to follow. I just hope that they put the work into making the story work, and not gloss over it just to work in explosions and effects.

    I think it's my favorite work by Dick, and one of my favorite books period. I would love to see a good film adaptation (and the miniseries format is probably well suited to it). The complicated story (with all of its bizarre, but essential, elements) does pose a challenge. I'm also worried about how Imperial Japan will be handled. Contrary to some other comments here, the Nazis are basically a non-presence in the book, and the relations between the Californian characters and Japanese occupiers are racially fraught. I think there's a risk they might swap Nazi Germany for Imperial Japan, which to my mind would be a huge mistake.

    I believe it was [Scott's] call that the world be dystopian rather than utopian.

    The book seems pretty dystopian to me, but in retrospect Dick probably wished for things like the emotion controlling device. The Wikipedia article makes it sound even more dystopian than I remember. Does your comment only apply to the movie script?

    I had heard that Ridley was interested in Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War" -- [now] *that's* a movie I want to see. That book blew my mind, and I really, really, really want a good movie of that.

    Yeah, me too. The message has only become more relevant in the decades since the war in Vietnam, and the interlude on crime-ridden future Earth and commentary on human sexuality could resonate with mainstream audiences now. Plus there are plenty of opportunities for explosions and effects in the original story (unlike "High Castle").

    --
    .: Semper Absurda :.
  11. Re:Yeah right... by hawkinspeter · · Score: 2

    It is on the very verge of release now. It's been shown in several US cities and is now invading Canada. I'm a backer of the Kickstarter campaign to get it released: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elizabethkarr/radio-free-albemuth-theatrical-release/posts/ . Hopefully the DVDs and Blu-rays will not be too long away and I'm waiting for a UK release so that I can get my hands on a legit copy.

    --
    You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
  12. Re:Actually read the book! by preaction · · Score: 2

    Amen. Deckard had the Voigt-Kampf test performed on him. He is demonstrably _not_ a replicant (if you trust the Voigt-Kampf test, of course).

  13. Re:Blade Runner's script had little to do with Rid by ShakaUVM · · Score: 2

    Phillip K Dick wrote the novel by using the I Ching to randomly create plot points. The I Ching features pre-eminently in the novel.

    I'm not sure how well that will translate to the big screen.

    Certainly the whole "The Axis Won WW2!" thing will translate over easily, but the book really isn't about that.

  14. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  15. Re:Actually read the book! by SweetDrake · · Score: 2

    With Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, Ridley Scott has already proved himself a great revisionist anyway.

  16. Re:Actually read the book! by rjgill · · Score: 2

    The other interesting part of the book is that the i ching is used extensively as a source of knowledge for the main characters, but it gives answers based on the actual reality (the allies won the war) and not the reality that the book lays out before you where the germans/japanese won.