Next
The first of 9 Philip K Dick Stories featured, this one is an action film about a man who can see into the future, but only for 2 minutes. The one exception is a vision of a beautiful girl he sees will walk into a diner at some undisclosed time. What develops is some kind of messy Sci-fi action hybrid search for a nuclear bomb, with a romantic thread thrown in for good measure. It is only very very very very very loosely based on the story, The Golden Man, which has nothing to do with bombs or action, but is instead a grim look at a future of mutants with abilities
Blade Runner
A classic, this is the story of a man hunting down android 'Replicants' in a dystopian future. The director’s cut takes some licence with the story compared to the original book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but otherwise, it gets the tone about right. The key difference is the downplaying of the empathy boxes and the future religion Mercerism
Minority Report
Based on The Minority Report, this one features a Pre-crime division, which uses precognitives to detect crimes before they happen. When an agency member's name comes up in a future murder, he flees, and starts investigating a giant conspiracy, while calling into questions of predeterminism vs free fill. One of the better received of Dick's films, and back in 2002, the special effects were stunning
Total Recall
Whether its Farrell's CGI-heavy, political remake, or Arnie's paranoid, down and dirty original, both are based on the short story, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. The original involves a lot of more of the "is it a memory or real life" questions that were toned back for ease of plotting. Being a short story, both films had to flesh things out a bit, with the original film being much truer to the source, than the remake, which removed all references to Mars
A Scanner Darkly
Probably the most faithful adaption of any of his works, this one was a rotoscoped animation which comes directly from the book of the same name, The film focuses on a drug addicted cop , living with addicts whilst undercover in the hopes of finding the supplier. It’s almost hallucinogenic, and sometimes hard to follow, as much of what you thought was true keeps changing.... a bit like most Phillip K Dick storied to be honest.
Screamers
Screamers is a bit of cheap special effects, B-movie if I'm being honest. It’s about a civil war being fought on a mining colony, where robot soldier have adapted to look like humans. Again we get the classic Dick questions, of who is human, and whose a robot, a fact which Roger Ebert claimed was the films only saving grace. Based on a story from the 50s called Second Variety
Paycheck
Quite underrated in my opinion, this one is about a man who end a long classified contract, with his memory erased. When realising that he has declined his payment, apparently of his own free will, he begins investigating into the job, which reveals a time travel based conspiracy. Smarter than the average action film, if a little dumbed down. Based on Paycheck, written the same year as Second Varity incidentally
Imposter
Based on a very short story of the same name, this is a classic example of not having enough plot. The original story of a weapons designer accused of being a cyborg and going on the run, had to be modified to give it more substance, but all the padding in the world couldn't help it feeling too insubstantial
The Adjustment Bureau
Probably my favourite film on this list, it is based on another short story, Adjustment Team, and involves a politician whose career and potential love are affected by random men in hats who make small changes to the flow of life to ensure it follows some pre-ordained plan. Again, it is only a loose adaptation, taking the basic idea of the original, and creating a more fleshed out story from it.
No comments:
Post a Comment