Philip K. Dick was a massive influence on the world of nerddom, and to celebrate the release of Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, Mike Calabro is here with a look at two other excellent adaptations.
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In 2017, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams is shining a light on some of the prolific science fiction author’s lesser-known short stories, and the Amazon anthology series is the latest in a long line of Philip K. Dick adaptations. When it comes to Philip K. Dick adaptations, works based off of his Philip K. Dick novels have become stone cold classics like Blade Runner, based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle TV show. When it comes to the short stories of PKD, the track record is a lot more mixed. That’s because, as an author, Philip K. Dick is an idea man first and foremost. His work is filled with brilliant concepts, but it takes more than that to make an awesome sci fi movie. It’s up to talented directors to fill in the gaps where Dick is lacking, namely character and action, and add their own unique strengths to Dick’s own genius.
The 1990 Total Recall movie by Paul Verhoeven is based off Dick’s short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. It borrows the premise, but adds a dose of Arnold Schwarzenegger inspired action and spectacle to Dick’s much smaller story. Total Recall 1990 is an all time action movie classic, but a lot of that comes from the influence of Robocop director Verhoeven. He turned his film into a rollicking war movie, far from the simple thought experiment of the original story. Just like Steven Spielberg did with Minority Report. Based on the Philip K. Dick story The Minority Report, Minority Report takes the intriguing premise from the book and turns it into a taut thriller starring Tom Cruise. As an adaptation, it takes a lot of liberties with the source material, but as a film, it’s pumped full of Spielberg’s trademark human emotion and vivid characters, something that’s never been a strength of Philip K. Dick. PKD strange career and even weirder life has provided the seed for a ton of significant sci-fi, but it takes a rare talent to elevate the original source material above its pulpy origins.
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16 янв 2018
