So I recently finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, bu Phillip K Dick. As you may or may not know, the cult classic Blade Runner by Ridley Scott is loosely based on it.
Loosely is kind of winging it in this case.
Both book and movie are about a bounty hunter that is on the tail of androids that escaped back to earth from the slavery they are built for among the colonies in space. That's pretty close to where the similarities end, though, except for some of the names.
The book has a bunch about empathy boxes that people "dial" to feel a particular way, and much more about how Earth was ravaged by war and only a small percentage of the population remains, slowly being poisoned by radioactive dust. It deals with religion, the essence of humanity, and what happens when someone feels remorse against those without empathy themselves.
If you haven't read it, you should. Also, if you think you don't need to because you saw Blade Runner, you'd be doing yourself a great disservice. Ridley Scott built his own story around the main characters and completely made it his own, for good or bad.
The more I think about it, I'm torn on which story I like better. I have a hard time thinking of the two tales as cut from the same cloth, really.
I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to decide to thank Ridley Scott for Blade Runner, or curse his name for the changes.
While Ridley is a genius (ohmygod so excited for Prometheus -praying I'm not hugely disappointed), that particular book and it's 'corresponding movie' should be viewed as separate stories entirely.
ReplyDeleteP.S. My captcha word was 'ngamer'. Hahahahahahaha.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty excited about Prometheus, too. It'd better be good.
ReplyDeleteYes, well, I'm trying not to be too excited. Cause...you know.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I hate it when I accidentally put ' in its. Feh.