Do Androids Dream of Purloined Unicorns?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Sunday, February 1, 2009 04:48
VIEWED: 3955
PAGE 5 of 7
Quote:Well, while I have ya, what did you think of A Scanner Darkly?
Originally posted by Storymark:
Ya got me.
The whoah Chrisisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:Quote:Well, while I have ya, what did you think of A Scanner Darkly?
Originally posted by Storymark:
Ya got me.
The whoah Chrisisall
I very much liked it. However, the first time I saw it, thought it was DVD, it was projected on a 70-in screen.... and I was on mushrooms (so, ya know, I was viewing from a thematically appropriate state of mind... yeah).
So, it was an intense experience. That opening scene in the shower was a rough way to start, under the circumstances.
Re-watched it again the next day, partially becuase I really liked it, and partially because I wanted to be sure I saw what I thought I saw. Liked it the second time, too.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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Quote:I hear it was rather faithful to the book, as PKD adaptions go.
Originally posted by Storymark:
That opening scene in the shower was a rough way to start
It freaked me out, and I was just drinking beer!!!
In fact, I bought it (just wanted ya to know I enjoy a good non-happy ending now & then).
The omega Chrisisall
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I'm going to go with Ford on this one: No Voice Over. He said he hated the idea, he thought it was too hammy, and detracted from what was groundbreaking sci-fi.
My reasons are slightly different: I think it's too much exposition, and correct me if I'm wrong, was not written by Dick, who I think was dead at the time. It was the idea of the producers.
But the text of the voiceovers also contradicts the subtext of the story. My only objection to the directors cut besides the core problems of "never flash back to 15 minutes ago" and "Masterminds with IQs of 220 don't end their schemes in fist fights," was the unicorn scene. It creates a secondary meaning not intended in the original script to Gaff's last action. It also gives away what was intended to be ambiguous.
From wiki
Apart from friction with the director, Ford also disliked the voiceovers: "When we started shooting it had been tacitly agreed that the version of the film that we had agreed upon was the version without voiceover narration. It was a f**king [sic] nightmare. I thought that the film had worked without the narration. But now I was stuck re-creating that narration. And I was obliged to do the voiceovers for people that did not represent the director's interests. I went kicking and screaming to the studio to record it."
[edit] Deleted scenes? Drool.
Must have more!
Philip K. Dick wrote the story for the movie, he loved ambiguities, he intentionally wanted to make it different from the book. In the book, he's definitely human.
More on this later.
How many versions? Which contain more original scenes?
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When did it flashback to 15 minutes ago....?
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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Early on. Flashing back to Leon's interview.
Is Deckard a replicant?
Watch it without voice over, look for clues. Two possible stories. But you need to watch it without the naration, and ignore the unicorn dream. Dick made the story, and he planned it one way. Scott is a good director, but he's not the genius Dick was.
[edit] I disagree: It's much more noir without voice-over. With it, it's classic 40s detective noir. But silence and absence of explanation are the essence of noir, and if you follow noir through hitchcock and through french noir to sci-fi noir, there's this evolution towards keeping you in the dark. The ulitmate noir should not leave you with a definite answer.
Both initial versions fail at this:
Theatrical, which I saw when it came out* says no. Director's cut says yes with the damned unicorn taken from legend. And please, that scene after the doors close, which I think was stolen from the Shining? That doesn't even exist on the same world. Also, the immortal Rachael, p-h-lease.
I'm not even considering the extra ending in my comparison: Even when seeing it in the theater, we all realized it was a tack on ending.
* I saw it in a group of six people the day it came out. It was easy to talk girls into harrison ford, easy to talk guys into sci fi, this was 1982, right?
3 of us loved it, three of us hated it.
3/4 girls hated it, 2 guys and a girl loved it. The break: World view. The one girl who loved it said "Yep, that's how it's gonna be, tellin' like it is." I thought about that, it's the skeptics who love it, and the pollyanna optimists couldn't stand it.
The other night I was talking with my mom about the film. I brought it up because she was talking about Agatha Christie. She said she couldn't get into stories that made you like the victims. This is probably true of much of the audience for anything.
The fact is, leon is not likeable, but we get to know him. Then later, we get to know and sympathize with zora. After that, we get to know and like the characters, depending on who you are.
The book is a totally different story and worth reading. There are many possibilities here. But the construction of Deckard's status, specieswise, is meticulously constructed, something which the voice over rips to shreds.
As far as strenth goes, we see Deckard get beaten up, but not die. Every replicant vs. Human combat we see is a one round combat: Human dies on the first hit.
Strength and characteristics of models are inconsistent. This I think is intentional, to show that Rosen/Tyrell is f^&king with things they don't understand. So the screw up. Pris, a basic pleasure model, is a far more deadly combatant then Zora, a typical soldier model.
The entire story can be seen as Nexus 7 taking out Nexus 6, and maybe being given the task, and following it blindly.
As for what characters, employers, tell Deckard?
Characters never ever lie right?
Oh, and how about this one:
See, Pris here doesn't have much time...
Check the incept dates, this isn't true, but he's playing on JF's sympathies. It turns out, she doesn't.
I like her curiosity, it's true in the book too, where she's a more minor character, but it makes her a more interesting character. It's also what makes Cameron in T:TSCC an interesting character.
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Was that a flashback? I thought Deckard was watching video (god, for as many times as I've seen it, you'd think I'd have a better memory of it...). Which granted, isn't that far off in application, but it fits contextually.
I've not read the book, and I'm honestly not that concerned with what was changed. The book is the book, the movie's the movie.
I think the movie works best without a definitive answer. The speculation is what's fun.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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He was, but then there was an audioplayback in his brain, but both are flashbacks. Filmmakers forget that just because you might have shot something 6 months ago, the audience only just saw it. The film is not flawless, probably ensuring that no film is.
Oh, another thing to watch for if you see it enough times: Scenes taken from other films. Tributes I mean, refs, not stolen footage from the Shining and Legend.
Quote:
I think the movie works best without a definitive answer. The speculation is what's fun.
Absolutely, that's why I don't like the unicorn, dream as it gives you the definite yes, and the voice over gives you a definite no. The book is a definite no.
Quote:
I've not read the book, and I'm honestly not that concerned with what was changed. The book is the book, the movie's the movie.
Yes, it's still a worthwhile read. It's not that a few things changed. It's an entirely different story.
[edit]
Questions are more intersting than answers.
In the middle of total Recall, the guy who claims he's still in the chair tells him everything that has happened, and everything that will happen for the rest of the film :)
[re-edit]
Pris, a basic pleasure model. Where do I order one?
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
He was, but then there was an audioplayback in his brain, but both are flashbacks. Filmmakers forget that just because you might have shot something 6 months ago, the audience only just saw it.
I don't really consider that a flaw, nor a flashback, really. It's the nature of his job, and I would have thought it came of as something missing were he not to review that stuff. It was his starting point.
I wasn't about reiterating the point to the audience (which is when the flashback to 15 minutes ago is superfluous), it was watching him work through the info, which I felt was nessesary, and flowed naturally with the story.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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Come to think of it, I can't remember if the payback in his head is in the director's cut.
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