A Scanner Darkly - to be a movie

[jmilsom]

For the P. K. Dick fans here, "A Scanner Darkly" is being made into a film. His family are confident that it will be the first truly faithful adaptation of one of his works:<br /><br />http://www.philipkdick.com/films_scanner-061204.html<br /><br />This will be the eighth film based on his work. Others are:<br /><br />Blade Runner (1982)<br />Based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"<br /><br />Screamers (1990) <br />Based on "Second Variety"<br /><br />Total Recall (1992)<br />Based on "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"<br /><br />Confessions d'un Barjo (French, 1992) <br />Based on "Confessions of a Crap Artist"<br /><br />Impostor (2001) <br />Based on "Impostor." <br /><br />Minority Report (2002) <br />Based on "The Minority Report." <br /><br />Paycheck (Christmas 2003) <br />Based on "Paycheck." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[tom_hobbes]

I'm not getting too excited. I've seen what they've done to Dick in the past. If they pull it off it'll be marvelous.<br /><br />The comment "live action photography overlaid with an advanced animation process" in the link sounds ominous. And it stars Keanu. <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /><br /><br />Will wait and see. For back up of my pessimism, glance again at the list. One good, one not bad, six not so good/execrable. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

Yes. Keanu is not cause for optimism.<br />Blade Runner is the classic in the list, but which one do you think came in second?<br />I quite liked "Impostor" as I thought it departed less from the story than the others - but then maybe my memory is getting vague. I have not seen Confessions d'un bario or Paycheck. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[tom_hobbes]

Hi Zero,<br /><br />Nice to see you lurking round these parts again.<br /><br />If he could play one note very well, he might be another DeNiro. Unfortunately...<br /><br />Jmil - the one that's 'not so bad' IMO is Minority Report. Blade Runner is obviously the good one. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

The link I posted is quite interesting. It also mentions that rights to:<br /><br />- Time Out of Joint<br />- Valis<br />- Radio Free Albemuth<br />- Flow My Tears the Policeman Said & <br />- Ubik<br /><br />have been sold, and that producers had options on the four short stories:<br /><br />- King of the Elves <br />- The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford <br />- Adjustment Team <br />- The Golden Man <br /><br />One can only hope that film-makers are true to the spirit of his work. Those are great short stories one and all, but you can see them being made into gimmicky hollywood blockbusters. Like Total Recall, which simply took some of his ideas and made a completely different film bulldozing, the irony and subtlety of the work into dust.<br /><br />I loved Ubik, but it would take a brilliant screenplay writer to capture it on film.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[tom_hobbes]

Agreed. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

Sorry ZG, I see I didn't answer your question before. A Scanner Darkly is widely though to be one of Dick’s best (and most powerful) works. It is a dark semi-autobiographical delving into drug use and psychosis in a police state. It gives a powerful and compassionate insight into human nature, and the how and why of drug use. Its best not to give away too much – if you like PKD’s work, this one will leave its mark on you. This film, if done well, could be an important movie and statement on these issues, as relevant today as when written in the 1970s. <br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

Actually, I am just now remembering another work (not in the same league as PKD), but one I always wanted to ask others about. Has anyone ever managed to read Aldiss' "Barefoot in the Head?" What are your thoughts on it? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[tom_hobbes]

Tried to get through it two or three times but just couldn't manage it. In fact it's about time I gave it another try. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

I just learned that the scheduled release date for this movie is September 16, 2005. Only 303 days to go!!! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

Some good news and some bad news.<br /><br />1. What I am reading about "A Scanner Darkly" sounds pretty good. It seems the director Richard Linklater is doing all he can to be true to Dick's work and using "Blade Runner" as a mark to aspire to.<br /><br />2. However, I just learned the following:<br /><br />Nicolas Cage's "Next" Film Based on Philip K. Dick's "The Golden Man"<br />November 12, 2004<br />Revolution Studios has greenlit an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's short story "The Golden Man" entitled "Next" starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Lee Tamahori with production set to begin in summer 2005. The film is about a man who see a short distance into his own future and must use his gift to avoid capture by a government organization, win the love of the woman who will bear his child and prevent a terrorist attack. The screenplay was written by Gary Goldman, who will also Executive Produce along with Jason Koornick, who holds the rights to the short story. Goldman is no stranger to PKD, having written the screenplays for Total Recall and early drafts of Minority Report, on which he was also Executive Producer. Tamahori directed "Once Were Warriors," "Die Another Day," and the upcoming "XXX2" among others. Cage's most recent film is the hit "National Treasure" currently in theaters.<br /><br />"The Golden Man" is a great story but is nothing like what they are describing above. As we discussed above, this sounds like they are simply plundering a piece of his work of a few ideas for another boring, gimmicky hollywood action flick. "The Golden Man" was controversial in its day - it should convey the concepts Dick put in it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

Perhaps Keanu Reeves will be a good choice for the lead. He just got a star on the Hollywood walk of fame at age 40.<br /><br />http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050201/ap_en_ce/people_reeves_3<br /><br />I just decided to read “A Scanner Darkly” again – it’s a long time ago that I read it and I want to freshen my memory. More to come in due course!<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

OK. So I just finished reading it again. I posted a brief review on the book review thread here. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

I guess all these other exciting action space movies dominate our discussions - but I remain excited about the release of this film. It seems though that the release date has been postponed until March 2006 (which coincides with my planned return to civilisation!). There is a trailer for it now on Yahoo:<br /><br />http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/ascannerdarkly.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[5stone10]

On the other hand - How can you complain about Ridley Scott's screen adaptation ? <br /><br />I'm also not sure I'm buying into the PK Dick Trust argument of 'being trully faithful to the novel'. Sound like an overture for maintaining creative control.

 

[jmilsom]

? Isn't Keanu usually amazingly normal looking ? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

Thought I'd bump this with the latest news. The release date for this movie has slipped six months and it is now scheduled for a March 2006 release. Here is the latest from the official site. This page has been changed and updated since my original posting:<br /><br /> A Scanner Darkly <br /><br />I am still very much looking forward to seeing this film. It should be out just after I finally return to civilisaiton early next year. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kalbadia]

I've liked very much the dialogues and the sub-stories in the main plot of the novel... This is the best one of PKDick, the 'mainstream' one, even if the very typical touch of his mind have shaped it<br /><br />I must have read it 3 or 4 times before understand that this novel seems to end well - this time, we, readers, may hope for ours characters a better life-after-the-end <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <br /><br />Look, Bob is lost at the end, his thinking about his friends<br />and he's picking up a flower - and we understand that he is NOT alone, and may be rescued later. <br /><br />It's a piece of the very art of PK Dick that makes you mind work different. This simple act may be a koan, giving you a psychic shock of understanding if it make you do a flashback ("a few pages before, this was a clue!") and a jump in the future, after the end - the post-ending afterlife of our characters <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[jmilsom]

Glad to hear from another fan of this book. I am still very much looking forward to the film. If they do it right it should be very powerful and the message may be even more relevant today than at the time it was written. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

It looks like the release date has slipped to July 2006. I hope these delays mean hard work on being true to the spirit of the work. This review by Scott Macauley has appeared on www.filmmakermagazine.com. It sounds really promising:<br /><br />An excerpt from the article:<br /><br />"In adapting Dick’s novel, director Richard Linklater nails its ideas, characters and tone. (He even ends the film with that same Author’s Note scrolled on the screen.) He gives Philip K. Dick fans a film that finally captures the author’s cosmic humor and mind-bending reality games. Gone are the action-movie tropes grafted onto previous Dick stories like “Minority Report” and “Total Recall,” and, unlike Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, which was based on Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Linklater’s natural sensibility, which celebrates ordinary characters and the oddities of everyday life, is very much aligned with the human heart that lies within Dick’s fiction."<br /><br />Full Review Here <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

A Scanner Darkly will be showing at the 2006 Melbourne International Film Festival - and I just booked my ticket. I'll finally see it on Saturday 29 July after starting this thread in late 2004! Can't wait. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[calliann]

<font color="orange">The comment "live action photography overlaid with an advanced animation process" in the link sounds ominous. And it stars Keanu.</font><br /><br />Okay, about Keanu -- point well taken. But I saw Richard Linklater's "Waking Life," done in rotoscope and I really liked it. (I highly recommend "Waking Life" though it's not SciFi. Heh! It'll raise your IQ 10 points just by watching it.)<br /><br />In fact, I think the rotoscope animation will lend itself nicely to science fiction, giving it an extra science fictiony dimension.

 

[jmilsom]

Here is the write up from the Melbourne International Film Festival. I have high hopes for this film. From what I have read in earlier reviews, it sounds like the most careful adaptation of a PKDick book since Blade Runner:<br /><br /><font color="yellow"> Adapted from a Philip K. Dick novel, Richard Linklater's strikingly animated and trippy sci-fi film, <i>A Scanner Darkly</i>, couples an eclectic cast with the filmmaker's extraordinary inventiveness in new animation techniques. <br /><br /> Furthering the same labour-intensive animation process pioneered in <i> Waking Life</i>, Linklater effectively creates a graphic novel come to life, the actors performing their scenes then the film footage painstakingly animated, requiring up to 500 hours to create just one minute of screen-time.<br /><br /> Starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder, <i>A Scanner Darkly</i> follows an undercover drug agent who becomes a little too acquainted with the drug he's meant to be policing. So begins his hallucinogenic journey, where identities and loyalties are impossible to decode. The cops, his supposed friends, and even the walls are closing in on him.<br /><br /> Says Linklater, "In '77 when the book came out, it was seen as a conspiracy, paranoia. This is a science fiction movie but we all looked around and said, 'We are living in science fiction right now.'"</font><br /><br />- Source: the Melbourne Age MIFF Guide. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[calliann]

This is too funny! The first line of Associated Press Jake Coyle's review says --<br /><br /><font color="yellow">With rotoscoping, anything can be made animated, even Keanu Reeves.</font>/safety_wrapper>

 

[jmilsom]

Ha Ha. Poor Keanu. I must admit that I have been worrying a bit about his being cast in the lead on this, but then again he is not bad at vague doped out characters. If he is animated x 2 then it may be OK. Was the overall review good, bad or mediocre? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>