a scanner darkly

[morwen]

just found this trailer for A Scanner Darkly (a philip k dick adaption). been following the progress of this one for a while. shooting finished a couple of years ago, and you can see what they've been busy doing sensesince. very pretty rotoscoping indeed. really does look like sophisticated hyper-realistic graphic novel art come alive. which is a bit odd.

PKD adaptions are variable things: compare the big three of Blade Runner (classic), Total Recall (fun but ultimately brainless romp) and Minority Report (which i liked, but dust hasn't settled on yet), so we shall see if it is any good. it seems it will be pretty faithful, at least. released August 18th in the UK!

Comments

[foibey.livejournal.com]

In all fairness "We can remember it for you wholesale" wasn't all that much cop before the adaptation. Never read Minority report so can't compare it really. Really enjoyed Blade Runner, and miss owning it.

I couldn't get any audio on that trailer (probably my mplayer plugin pissing around), but it looks fascinating. The cartoonesque rerendering of the footage has a cool sense of being just on the edge of hallucination (especially with the lines of people's features wobbling slightly almost constantly). The rendering of the multi-image suits (can't remember their proper names from the book) is pretty cool too. I'm rather impressed. Wish I still had my copy of the book somewhere to reread.

[lilgreendave.livejournal.com]

That's some very pretty rotoscoping indeed! Reminds me a little of what they used in "Waking life" (http://www.wakinglifemovie.com/). You've got me looking forwards to this now too ^_^

[stacis-leak.livejournal.com]

Actually it's EXACTLY the same method used in Waking Life, and I think some of the same people to....

[lilgreendave.livejournal.com]

Ahha, excellent! Explains why I thought one of the actors was the same :)

[thatmakesmemad.livejournal.com]

same director.
2 other philip k dick adaptations in the form of Screamers and Paycheck but these are all short stories except Blade runner and A Scanner Darkly so hardly taking on major adaptations so much as starters for a longer story.
Harrison Ford is the nearest they've got to casting a dick hero properly as they were usually 40+ with poor health and not hero material at all whereas all the rest cast have been square jawed and in good health to suit a market that generally wouldn't read Dick due to being too confusing and without coherent endings to his stories.
Total recall was an action film whereas we can remember it for you wholesale was a paranoia story probably more suited to say Hitchcock

[feuermaus.livejournal.com]

Blade Runner was sheer excellence.

I'll certainly check out this one though.


"Wake up! Time to die-e-e-e-e-e!"

[elfbiter.livejournal.com]

Blade Runner was above-average movie in its own right even if it was not a faithful adaptation of the "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". Others, however, were basically chase-and-action movies where Dick's original ideas were little else than MacGuffins. So I am not optimistic.

[darkstream.livejournal.com]

yeah i've been following the progress on this one for a bit too. scores highly on eye-candy and interesting cast, so I'm looking forward to it.