Philip K Dick films

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o REWIIND o

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A thread that will probably sink without trace...
but
Inspired by the Total Recall Thread, what are your favourite Philip K Dick adaptations and why?

A list of them:

Blade Runner (1982)
Based on "Do AndroiRAB Dream of Electric Sheep?"

Screamers (1995)
Based on "Second Variety"

Total Recall (1990)
Based on "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"

Confessions d'un Barjo (French, 1992)
Based on "Confessions of a Crap Artist"

Impostor (2001)
Based on "Impostor."

Minority Report (2002)
Based on "The Minority Report."

Paycheck (2003)
Based on "Paycheck."

A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Based on "A Scanner Darkly"

Next (2007)
Based on "The Golden Man"
 
I love that film (and book).
It's the film that sticks most closely to the original story. I think there was only one change, and that was approved by PKD's daughter.
 
Blade Runner (1982) - 2nd Worst scifi movie ever made.

Screamers (1995) - This was ok.

Total Recall (1990) - My Favourite in this list.

Minority Report (2002) - Ok as well. Despite shorty.

Paycheck (2003) - Thoroughly enjoyed this one.

A Scanner Darkly (2006) - Absolute Garbage.

Next (2007) - Nice idea but dull as ditch water.


Haven't seen the others.
 
Blimey! That's an unusual analysis!

I would put them in this order:

A Scanner Darkly - perfect!
Blade Runner - doesn't really capture the spirit of PKD, but a superb film, and PKD himself was impressed with what he saw of it.
Screamers - reasonably faithful to the spirit of the story, and a good film.
Minority Report - deviates from the original plot in quite a good way I think.
Total Recall - Not a brilliant film, but great fun, and it does have some truly great PKD-ish moments in it.
Now the stinkers:
Paycheck - Quite a nice build up to a very very poor ending.
Imposter - Just awful.
Next - such a dull film. How could they make something so poor out of such a potentially rich idea?
I haven't seen Confessions d'un Barjo.

PS. I'm also interested to know what the worst scifi movie ever made is.
 
Am I the only one who finRAB the link between "Do AndroiRAB..." and Blade Runner very tenuous? The film is nothing like the book. It's borrowed a few small elements but it's a work of it's own.
 
I haven't read any of the books but these are my favourite PKD film adaptations:

Blade Runner (1982)
Just the whole feel of the film was amazing - so atmospheric and with lots of dark foreboding.

Minority Report (2002)
I wasn't so keen the first time I saw it but it's grown on me. It's the ideas of Orwell's 1984 taken to the nth degree - never mind Big Brother watching you, it's Big Brother knowing what you're going to do.

Paycheck (2003)
I love anything to do with time travel and no film has done better with the concept of reverse engineering.

Next (2007)
It's not as straightforward as you first think. At the end of the film when it all clicks into place, you realise just what a clever story it is.
 
I agree, but it's such a great film. The book is great as well, but they're two very different things. I think Ridley Scott wanted to make a classic film noir, and I heard somewhere that he never read Do AndroiRAB - I don't know whether that was a deliberate decision on his part.

A Scanner Darkly on the other hand is like seeing the book on screen.
 
I thought Minority Report was fantastic. The perfect mix of action, character and film noir/surrealism. It also has (probably) the most believable image of the future than of any other sci-fi movie.
 
Bladerunner was / is sci-fi noir at its finest. Still awesome.

Total Recall is super fun, one of Arnie's greatest. It's hammy, ridiculous and has VERY much of it's own artistic license over the book, sorry, very short story.

Minority Report had some great ideas, as a film in my opinion was just a little bit too over processed.

Imposter, i enjoyed it as Gary S. is a good actor but fell short.

As did Paycheck, and Next was lets face it pretty rubbish.

A Scanner Darkly was very decent. Perhaps the rotoscoping took you away from the essence of the story a little too much, nicely rounded though.

Screamers. 80's coddle. Must re watch.
 
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