Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick) / Blade Runner (Fancher - Peoples)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (DADOES?) poses many questions: What makes us human? Could androids become more human than human? Would it be ethical to use these androids as we please? Could we reach a society in which it is acceptable to segregate people for being "biologically unacceptable"? (people classed as specials) Are our memories real or have they been altered? Are there things we could metaphorically classify as kipple in our own lives? What things or people are we classifying as killers influenced by our prejudices and/or the society we live in? Are these things or people truly harmful to us or is it our imagination playing tricks on us? Do we value life forms as we should? What is a life form?...the list goes on, such is the depth of Philip K. Dick's work (Minority Report, The Adjustment Bureau, A Scanner Darkly).

Before the story starts, there is a quote from Yeats's Song of the Happy Shepard and a piece of news:  a turtle named Tu'i Malila has just died. At first, these two texts may seem incomprehensible or totally unrelated to the book that you're about to read, but after you've finished it, you can go back to the first page, read these texts under a different perspective and understand why Philip K. Dick decided to place them there; it's a detail which is appreciated once you've grasped some of the questions that the novel presents; the book is filled with details that could be further developed, that's part of its genius. 

Blade Runner, based on DADOES?, definitely changed science fiction history and it is one of the most beautiful movies ever made, in my opinion. Vangelis plays a fundamental role in achieving its greatness, his music fits the scenes wonderfully and the movie wouldn't be the same without it.

I think of these two works of art as independent; there are some core questions that are present in both the movie and the book and there are also certain characteristics of the book that are also present in the movie; but I think that even though some of the characters are called the same, there is not one character which could be described as having completely the same characteristics in both the book and the movie; Rachael Rosen, as portrayed in the movie, is not exactly the same Rachael Rosen we read about in DADOES?; I think the same could be applied to Rick Deckard, which is not entirely the same man (with the same story and the same environment) in both stories.

Some of the main elements of DADOES? are missing in the movie, for example, Buster Friendly's never ending tv show, Deckard's electric sheep and real goat, Mercerism, among others. There are also elements in the movie that aren't present in the book; it's impossible for me to see them as two versions of the same story, I think of them as two different stories that share certain elements and, most importantly, share the same essence. I like both stories and I think they're both great.

When comparing the book to the movie, I wondered if Philip K. Dick liked all of the changes that Ridley Scott was making to the original story or if he felt angry at Scott for modifying the story so much, I found a very interesting article that states that he got to see the first 20 minutes of the movie and after watching them he said: "The opening sequence is simply the most stupendous thing I have ever seen in the way of a film", he also said: "The book had about 16 plots going through it and they would have had to make a movie lasting 16 hours, and it would have been impossible…this is not how you make a movie out of a book.” Is Blade Runner a betrayal? Philip K. Dick passed away before the movie premiered, but he also commented on the changes made: “If you start off with the book. Then you can go to the movie, and then you get more material…The book and the movie do not fight each other – they reinforce each other." 

Blade Runner, just as DADOES?, makes us think about the possibility of Rick Deckard being a replicant; I think the question is solved in the book (he is not a replicant), whereas the movie leaves the question unanswered, even though it gives us hints for us to discover the truth. Click here to watch a short documentary that solves the puzzle completely.

There's a DADOES? comic book adaptation that was published  a few years ago, some of the elements of the book and scenes that we didn't get to see in the movie are presented in the form of drawings, for example, the Penfield Mood Organ, which wasn't used in the movie, and the exciting Polokov/Kadalyi scene, which is one of my favourite scenes in the book! I posted some pictures I took below.

There is also a comic book adaptation of Blade Runner and several documentaries about the film have been made. Also, Blade Runner's Sketchbook was published online. Is it possible for a city to look like Blade Runner's Los Angeles in the future? There's an island that currently looks a lot like that, it's Hong Kong; it's quite possible that many cities will look like this in the near future.

I made a Prezi Presentation with some of the characters featured in the movie and in the book; in order to select pictures for all of them, I took pictures of the characters as portrayed by the artist of the DADOES? graphic novel I mentioned before, not all of them are exactly as I imagined them, you might have imagined some of them differently too, but I thought it was fun to see how the artist represented Philip K. Dick's descriptions, I think Tony Parker did a great job; the presentation is here.

In an essay on DADOES? and Blade Runner, Richard Starkings said:

"Somehow the interpersonal issues featured in the book refused to leave the screenplay and were translated into a romance that underscored the action adventure storyline sought by the movie's producers. As Blade Runner's Deckard considers Roy Batty's final poetic words and watches him die, something has changed inside him. Rachael will eventually die, but he doesn't have to be the one who kills her. Batty's compassion for Deckard becomes Deckard's compassion for Rachael and when he discovers the possibility that he may be a replicant too, he has compassion for himself." 

I could not finish this post without honoring Roy Batty's (Rutger Hauer) famous and moving words: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."