Prometheus - Part 3

[The Morningstar]

Indeed. But Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was only a short story. Scott expanded the whole thing and made one of the greatest movies ever.

Prometheus seems to be more along the lines of Blade Runner, is what I'm saying. Yea it might feature aliens (not the actual aliens btw, they're not in it), just like Blade Runner featured androids/replicants, but the movie isn't just about them. It's about the implications of mankind finding out that we were basically bio-engineered lab experiments. With Rapace's character being highly religious, it should show a pretty great conflict.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

Indeed. But Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was only a short story. Scott expanded the whole thing and made one of the greatest movies ever.

no, you're thinking of Total Recall, which was based on the ss, 'We can remember it for you wholesale'. DADOES was a novel. I read it in my late teens, and all the themes were in there already, and then some.

Prometheus seems to be more along the lines of Blade Runner, is what I'm saying. Yea it might feature aliens (not the actual aliens btw, they're not in it), just like Blade Runner featured androids/replicants, but the movie isn't just about them. It's about the implications of mankind finding out that we were basically bio-engineered lab experiments. With Rapace's character being highly religious, it should show a pretty great conflict.

Ok, but as i said, I don't really see that offering anything we haven't seen in the X-files, Scully was also very religious minded, and that was brought to bear on the similar type of revelations that her and Mulder unearthed as the series went on. So, what I am saying is, I don't think i'll get anything from it I haven't seen before in that regard, and even if I do get some kind of new dramatic kick, it will mostly be a monster movie thriller, hopefully anyway, I don't want it to get too ponderous.

 

[craigdbfan]

Indeed. But Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was only a short story. Scott expanded the whole thing and made one of the greatest movies ever.

Ha. Have you actually read DADOES?

If anything Scott cut some major parts from the book not to mention he completely got rid most of the wasteland visuals (not a futuristic colossus) that were present in the book and the complete sense of dread and apathy and peoples odd fetishes with real animals as a social marker in their rotting society. Buildings were corroding, people dying due to the radiation problem and most of earth being a deserted hell hole. Not an overpopulated skyscraper jungle.

The Mercer storyline was completely omitted as well which was an incredibly integral part of the story. Blade Runner is a great movie no doubt but saying it "expanded" anything is an insult to the book. BR did its own thing and so did the book.

But trying to cut the book short in saying it was a "short story" is nothing short of a disservice.

 

[redhawk23]

Seriously, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep has about 200 pages.

How is that a short story?


Blade Runner did different things with the skeleton of the story.

Personally I think the two works, the film and book, compliment each other well.

 

[CelticPredator]

Alright, so he didn't know that it wasn't a short story.

We're all negating the facts here, Bum is wrong.

 

[The Morningstar]

Expanded was the wrong word, more like adaptation. Similar to how Coppola did Apocalypse Now based on Heart of Darkness. But 200 pages is still a short story, it's not a full blown novel.

Scott's movie still asked the key questions of the story.

Without characters using spoon feeding dialogue :P

 

[Valaquen]

Expanded was the wrong word, more like adaptation. Similar to how Coppola did Apocalypse Now based on Heart of Darkness. But 200 pages is still a short story, it's not a full blown novel.

Technically, that constitutes a novella.

Though it has little to do with Prometheus anyway.

 

[redhawk23]

Expanded was the wrong word, more like adaptation. Similar to how Coppola did Apocalypse Now based on Heart of Darkness. But 200 pages is still a short story, it's not a full blown novel.

Scott's movie still asked the key questions of the story.

Without characters using spoon feeding dialogue :P

Not to keep beating a dead horse but Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep is no shorter than Dick's Man in the High Castle, which won the Hugo for best Novel, not novella, novelette, or short story.

Also, just so folks remember, Alien was written by Dan O'bannon, not Scott.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

Also, just so folks remember, Alien was written by Dan O'bannon, not Scott.

And Ronald Shusett.

 

[cherokeesam]

Ha. Have you actually read DADOES?

If anything Scott cut some major parts from the book not to mention he completely got rid most of the wasteland visuals (not a futuristic colossus) that were present in the book and the complete sense of dread and apathy and peoples odd fetishes with real animals as a social marker in their rotting society. Buildings were corroding, people dying due to the radiation problem and most of earth being a deserted hell hole. Not an overpopulated skyscraper jungle.

The Mercer storyline was completely omitted as well which was an incredibly integral part of the story. Blade Runner is a great movie no doubt but saying it "expanded" anything is an insult to the book. BR did its own thing and so did the book.

But trying to cut the book short in saying it was a "short story" is nothing short of a disservice.

Have you actually watched Blade Runner?

BR very much includes the concept of real animals being a complete rarity and luxury item; real animals versus genetically engineered ones plays an important role in several instances.

Also, where do you get BR being "overpopulated?" Yes, LA 2019 is a megalopolis, but it's an *empty* megalopolis. That's one of the key themes in the whole movie, that the *biological* humans are pretty much loners who keep to themselves, while the skinjobs are the ones who experience genuine human emotions and togetherness, something humanity has seemed to have lost along the way. That's very much in keeping with PKD's original vision.

Ok, but as i said, I don't really see that offering anything we haven't seen in the X-files, Scully was also very religious minded, and that was brought to bear on the similar type of revelations that her and Mulder unearthed as the series went on. So, what I am saying is, I don't think i'll get anything from it I haven't seen before in that regard, and even if I do get some kind of new dramatic kick, it will mostly be a monster movie thriller, hopefully anyway, I don't want it to get too ponderous.

Prometheus is an "X-Filesque" monster movie thriller in the same sense that Star Wars and Star Trek are. In other words: it ain't. X-Files pussyfoots around the concept of alien genetic modification, and always keeps the aliens in shadows (very rarely do you even see any glimpse of what the aliens actually look like, because they're always Skrullin' it up in their human guises). Prometheus, OTOH, is a straight-up hard sci-fi movie about first contact. The aliens here are an actual spacefaring civilization, *not* barely sentient man-eating megavores or body-snatcher infiltrators.

 

[craigdbfan]

Have you actually watched Blade Runner?

BR very much includes the concept of real animals being a complete rarity and luxury item; real animals versus genetically engineered ones plays an important role in several instances.

Also, where do you get BR being "overpopulated?" Yes, LA 2019 is a megalopolis, but it's an *empty* megalopolis. That's one of the key themes in the whole movie, that the *biological* humans are pretty much loners who keep to themselves, while the skinjobs are the ones who experience genuine human emotions and togetherness, something humanity has seemed to have lost along the way. That's very much in keeping with PKD's original vision.

I like how you conveniently leave out all the big omissions (Mercer/Mercerism subplot, mood organ, complete different visual representation of Earth, not LA but SF, Buster Friendly, Sloat & J.R Isodore, Iran etc). Scotts representation of the "future" of Earth can hardly be called deteriorated and visibly affected by a giant war like WWT something Philip made sure to reinforce plenty of times in his novel.

The concentration of real animals vs fake ones is incredibly in depth something BR only briefly skimmed by. So while that aspect is there it isn't anywhere near as looked into as in the novel which is to be expected as a movie can cover only so much.

Blade Runner is a great movie as I said but it has a very bare bones coverage of some of the themes explored in DADOES?. The novel will always do a much better job for me at least in going into multiple themes and weaving them in such a way only PKD could of done.

That's not to say BR isn't great in its own right it's arguably one of the best sci fi movies ever made.

I love both but I personally happen to enjoy DADOES? a lot more.

 

[cherokeesam]

I like how you conveniently leave out all the big omissions (Mercer/Mercerism subplot, mood organ, complete different visual representation of Earth, not LA but SF, Buster Friendly, Sloat & J.R Isodore, Iran etc). Scotts representation of the "future" of Earth can hardly be called deteriorated and visibly affected by a giant war like WWT something Philip made sure to reinforce plenty of times in his novel.

The concentration of real animals vs fake ones is incredibly in depth something BR only briefly skimmed by. So while that aspect is there it isn't anywhere near as looked into as in the novel which is to be expected as a movie can cover only so much.

Blade Runner is a great movie as I said but it has a very bare bones coverage of some of the themes explored in DADOES?. The novel will always do a much better job for me at least in going into multiple themes and weaving them in such a way only PKD could of done.

That's not to say BR isn't great in its own right it's arguably one of the best sci fi movies ever made.

I love both but I personally happen to enjoy DADOES? a lot more.

JF Sebastian is clearly meant to represent JR Isidore, and that whole subplot. And I think a dystopian future gives the same effect as a post-apocalyptic one: they're both indicative of the virtual collapse of human civilization. I think the Mercerism and Friendly subplots were left out of the film because they're very esoteric and frankly unnecessary to reinforce the theme of human empathy...it's already there in the rest of the novel. Plus, giving Deckard a wife would've really changed the noir element in BR; noir (anti-)heroes are almost required by law to be lone wolves.

BR took the basics of DADOES and did a damn fine job of adapting the story arc and themes, but it left out a lot of the subplots and extraneous characters. Still, you can't single Ridley Scott out for that --- *every* PKD adaptation has done the same. I think A Scanner Darkly might've been the only one I've seen that remains fairly "faithful to the source material," and that faithfulness meant a lot of head-scratching amongst critics and audiences alike.

 

[redhawk23]

Didn't dick praise the effects reels of the city that he screened a few months before he died?


Blade Runner is an adaptation. Despite omitting many of the elements I think it still got to the heart of many of the same themes as the original story.

This opposed to something like say, The Shining where most of the thematic content of the original work is rejected and replaced.

 

[redhawk23]

JF Sebastian is clearly meant to represent JR Isidore, and that whole subplot. And I think a dystopian future gives the same effect as a post-apocalyptic one: they're both indicative of the virtual collapse of human civilization. I think the Mercerism and Friendly subplots were left out of the film because they're very esoteric and frankly unnecessary to reinforce the theme of human empathy...it's already there in the rest of the novel. Plus, giving Deckard a wife would've really changed the noir element in BR; noir (anti-)heroes are almost required by law to be lone wolves.

BR took the basics of DADOES and did a damn fine job of adapting the story arc and themes, but it left out a lot of the subplots and extraneous characters. Still, you can't single Ridley Scott out for that --- *every* PKD adaptation has done the same. I think A Scanner Darkly might've been the only one I've seen that remains fairly "faithful to the source material," and that faithfulness meant a lot of head-scratching amongst critics and audiences alike.

A Scanner Darkly is great. Also its not as if its critical reception was all that bad. Furthermore I think a great many people are just put off by the roto-scoping.

 

[Soapy]

I just thought it was really boring. :/

 

[redhawk23]

A great many people say the same of Blade Runner. :/

 

[chaseter]

I am not a fan of Blade Runner. Watched it a couple years back after hearing so many great things about it and it is boring, full of holes, and all of the characters suck. The only amazing thing about that movie was the visuals. I thought the writing was mediocre and I think it's only exploded in recent times due to the following of Ridley Scott, who has made terrific movies and hopefully Prometheus is another one for that list.

 

[The Morningstar]

I respect your opinion on it being boring, I can get that. But holes? What holes? And how in the hell does Rutgar Hauers character suck?

 

[chaseter]

I had a write up about it somewhere in these forums and I haven't seen it in a couple of years but I remember my biggest gripe was that the replicants, knowing they had literally days left to live, come to Earth to find their maker and get their lives extended because they want to be human. What does one of them do after barely escaping with her life from the planet she was kept one? Become a stripper.

And...the whole detective follow the clues story is muddled and Ford's character actually runs into 2 or 3 of the replicants accidentally.

 

[The Squirrel]

I get flak because I enjoyed the Theatrical version more than the Final Cut/Director's Cut/Cut#32012.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Just bought the 4 disc version of Blade Runner. Haven't seen it in many years, and then it was the theatrical version, I guess? The one with Ford voiceover. Should be interesting to compare.

 

[Marvolo]

I had a write up about it somewhere in these forums and I haven't seen it in a couple of years but I remember my biggest gripe was that the replicants, knowing they had literally days left to live, come to Earth to find their maker and get their lives extended because they want to be human. What does one of them do after barely escaping with her life from the planet she was kept one? Become a stripper.

And...the whole detective follow the clues story is muddled and Ford's character actually runs into 2 or 3 of the replicants accidentally.

What does that have to do with anything? It pays well, and no one would suspect her in that profession. Shes blending in. Honestly, I never even thought about her being a stripper cause it has no bearing on the plot, and its a non issue. And I have no recolection of Dekkard running into any of the replicants by accident.

 

[chaseter]

- Escape prison planet where you work until you die young. - CHECK!

- Come to Earth to find your maker and have your life extended before you expire.

- Become a stripper. - CHECK!

 

[Destructus86]

This isn't Blade Runner............................

 

[Whiskey Tango]

- Become a stripper. - CHECK!

Doubtful they had kind of ID or personal papers which might make it difficult to just saunter into Best Buy and start working a register. Stripper is one of a few jobs that could allow one to work for cash/tips while keeping a low profile.