If you could see one PKD novel filmed right

[nmorin]

I'd love to see Martian Time-Slip or A Scanner Darkly (I don't have much hope about the upcoming one).

[Jazzmoose]

Either A Scanner Darkly, or for some strange reason, The CounterClock World. But any would be nice, filmed right.

[jazzbo]

The Man Whose Teeth were all Exactly Alike.

Or UBIK.

Or The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

Any of those three would be a trip!

[ejp626]

I wonder if Man in the High Tower would work. I think there are some good dramatic moments, and lots of opportunities to show the alternative war history.

On a side note, did anyone pick up Counterfeit Unrealities, which is a special anthology published by the Science Fiction Book Club (but is usually available used on the web)? It is comprised of four complete PKD novels: Three Stigmata, Do Androids Dream, UBIK and A Scanner Darkly. A pretty good starting point to build a PDK collection. I'll be doing a lot of flying in April, and I'll probably take this with me.

[Swinger]

I would like to see The Man Whose Teeth and all of his other mainstream novels filmed.His mainstream novels are all alike but I really like them.

If only I could find his his mainstream novels that are missing from my collection for reasonable price (In Milton Lumky Territory,The Man Whose Teeth,Broken Bubble and Humpty Dumpty In Oakland).My father bought over 90% of his novels in the 80s (he's a PKD nut as well) but he couldn't find those mainstream novels mentioned before just because they were sold out already.

I recall they published only 3000 copies of The Man Whose Teeth for example back in the 80s.They must have gone really fast.

Edited March 22, 2005 by Swinger

[Dr. Rat]

  ejp626 said:

I wonder if Man in the High Tower would work. I think there are some good dramatic moments, and lots of opportunities to show the alternative war history.

On a side note, did anyone pick up Counterfeit Unrealities, which is a special anthology published by the Science Fiction Book Club (but is usually available used on the web)? It is comprised of four complete PKD novels: Three Stigmata, Do Androids Dream, UBIK and A Scanner Darkly. A pretty good starting point to build a PDK collection. I'll be doing a lot of flying in April, and I'll probably take this with me.

I think Man in the High Castle could work--you could steal more details about perverse Nazi politics and atmosphere from Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy, and you could evoke a lot of strange parallels by playing off the LA setting so familiar from Chandler.

The tough part would be getting across (or sacrificing) the stuff on aesthetics and the sublime.

--eric

[jazzbo]

You're right Eric, that one could work out more plausibly than some others.

I just like other novels MORE and since we're dreaming, I'm dreaming BIG!

Actually, since Hollywood seems to like to bend and shape the short stories more than anything else, how about a really well done "In the Days of Perky Pat"!

Edited March 22, 2005 by jazzbo

[nmorin]

  jazzbo said:

Actually, since Hollywood seems to like to bend and shape the short stories more than anything else, how about a really well done "In the Days of Perky Pat"!

What's the story in which a guy realizes he's an android and decides to punch a hole in the tape that provides his reality--"The Electric Ant"?

"Frozen Journey/I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" would be cool, too.

[nmorin]

  Swinger said:

If only I could find his his mainstream novels that are missing from my collection for reasonable price (In Milton Lumky Territory,The Man Whose Teeth,Broken Bubble and Humpty Dumpty In Oakland).My father bought over 90% of his novels in the 80s (he's a PKD nut as well) but he couldn't find those mainstream novels mentioned before just because they were sold out already.

Yeah--you see these running for over $100 nowadays.

[nmorin]

  jazzbo said:

Or UBIK.

I have PKD's UBIK sceeenplay, which is awesome. As time regressed in the movie, he wanted to have it filmed on progressively older film stock. So the part in Des Moines would be that old black&white and slightly speeded-up style.

[jazzbo]

I forgot about that screenplay, I'll bet it's very interesting.

Now that you mention it (and you did in the first post) I'd really like to see a movie of "Martian Time Slip" . . . What a powerful novel!

[Scott Dolan]

Excellent topic.

Personally I'd like to see Ridley Scott go back and do the entire story of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? I really dug Bladerunner, but the full story would have made for such an eerie and disturbing movie.

Has anyone seen the preview for A Scanner Darkly yet? Can't really tell if it's going to be any good, but it's going to have an interesting look. It's on the Apple Quicktime Movie Trailors site.

I also think that ANY PKD books done correctly would make great movies. I think Lies Inc. would make for one hell of a movie.

Maybe The Penultimate Truth..............

[Scott Dolan]

  nmorin said:

  jazzbo said:

Or UBIK.

I have PKD's UBIK sceeenplay, which is awesome. As time regressed in the movie, he wanted to have it filmed on progressively older film stock. So the part in Des Moines would be that old black&white and slightly speeded-up style.

that would have been pretty sweet.

[jazzbo]

You're right about Androids, a closer adaptation of the book would have made quite a different movie!

Here's a thread about the upcoming Scanner movie:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=17970

[BruceH]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It would be great to see that done RIGHT!

Three Stigmata would be interesting, too. Hell, a majority of his novels and stories, would make for a strange, intriguing film if the director was faithful to the source material. So far they haven't tried that even once. I've read a lot of PKD, and I don't recall a single story of his that was mainly concerned with chases and explosions.

[Scott Dolan]

  BruceH said:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It would be great to see that done RIGHT!

Three Stigmata would be interesting, too. Hell, a majority of his novels and stories, would make for a strange, intriguing film if the director was faithful to the source material. So far they haven't tried that even once. I've read a lot of PKD, and I don't recall a single story of his that was mainly concerned with chases and explosions.

Exactly.

Although Ridley kept that kind of thing to a minimum, every replicant that Deckard killed in the movie died only at the end of some convoluted chase. I thought it really cheapened it a bit and made it seem hokey.

The most chilling part about DADOES is how the replicants are killed. There's never any wild chase, not even many struggles or fights. Just *blam*, dead. I mean, the way he describes them killing the singer in the elevator, man, that gave me goosebumps because of how quickly and coldly he described it.

Really excellent stuff!

[jazzbo]

Yes, and not to mention the Mercer cult and the mood organs and the alternate police station etc. not in the film. . . .

[7/4]

  jazzbo said:

Yes, and not to mention the Mercer cult and the mood organs and the alternate police station etc. not in the film. . . .

The Mercer cult was very funny. Rocks!

[Scott Dolan]

Yep.

And the whole real vs. artificial animal thing in general. What a disturbing look at the emotional degredation of human beings in the future.

I think that thing that Deckard had that froze all subjects around him within a certain distance was pretty cool. And the overall effect from that would be so easy to create visually these days.

[nmorin]

Man, Lon sure hit it on the head with his list from DADOES--the Penfield mood organ, Mercersim, alternate cop station, artificial animals. PKD tossed off sweeeet ideas left and right, any one of which other authors would use as the basis for a whole novel.

And I loved how he had ordinary folks--tire regroovers, electronic repairman, etc--dealing with and obsessing about their own shit at the same time the world is crumbling around them.

Time Out of Joint would make a great film, even after films like The Truman Show, er, borrowed the twist.

Has anyone seen the French version of Confessions of a Crap Artist--called Barjo, or something like that? It was a more faithful rendering than the other PKD-based movies.

[Scott Dolan]

Even though The Running Man "borrowed" quite a bit from Lies Inc., I'd still like to see Lies made into a motion picture.

I also have to say that the only part about Bladerunner that really disappointed me was how Rachael was portrayed. She was no sympathetic little lady!

[7/4]

  Jazzmoose said:

Either A Scanner Darkly, or for some strange reason, The CounterClock World. But any would be nice, filmed right.

The CounterClock World was the first one I read.

Let's see how they execute the concept of sogum. Special effects, no doubt.

[mjzee]

"We Can Build You." I can still picture the Civil War being reenacted by androids.

[Scott Dolan]

  mjzee said:

"We Can Build You."  I can still picture the Civil War being reenacted by androids.

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale

Edited March 23, 2005 by Scott Dolan

[mjzee]

  Scott Dolan said:

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale

Already filmed as "Total Recall" (as I'm sure you'll recall). After I saw the movie, I went back and reread the short story...was fascinated to note that the story never left a few city blocks. No planets, fighting, etc. That's how cinematic Dick's mind was; he suggested all these grand scenes with just a few words.

Anyway, though nobody's asked, these are my favorite PKD novels (in no particular order); any one of them would satisfy as a movie:

Galactic Pot Healer

Ubik

Our Friends From Frolix 8

Clans of the Alphane Moon

We Can Build You

The Crack In Space

The Game Players of Titan

The '50's novels were a little too simple, and by the '70's he was just cracked... But in the '60's he was ripe, and produced sheer genius.