"Wired has a <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/philip_pr.html">long thoughtful article</a>
about Philip K Dick's posthumous Hollywood career. It has some
interesting tidbits in it (imagine Total Recall directed by Cronenburg
and starring William Hurt!), and does a good job of covering his
Hollywood history (though it overlooks <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6303002684/102-1920498-9607306?vi=glance">Barjo</a>), and it doesn't gloss over how PKD would have hated what Hollywood has done to much of his work."

Got it on /.

I always thought that Dick wouldn't be to happy with how his stories were ripped apart. Take the most recent tragedy of scifi, Minority Report. Instead of ethics or morals, we get scifi chases and cereal boxes that play music.

My main thing with dick is how he titles his books. "Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep" and "Flow My Tears, the policeman Said" are just a few that I can think of. Just great awesome titles.

I always thought that Dick wouldn't be to happy with how his stories were ripped apart. Take the most recent tragedy of scifi, Minority Report. Instead of ethics or morals, we get scifi chases and cereal boxes that play music.

You're so wrong about Minority Report. That movie kicked ass. It's just great scifi--you get new concepts, great acting, writing, directing, filmography, and effects.

I've never read any of him but I'm thinking that I should.

I htink theres four or five films based on his stories out there, few of them faithful to the originals. The book "do androids dream.. "is good, but different from the film, but the film did a good job of transferring most of the idea behind the book.
I do think he must have been on drugs a fair bit, and certaibly what ive read so far of his writing is often drug related. I need to read more.

Read more Polux, counsler coffee says the film comes off badly compared to the book.

Hey, ive jsut read the article. How the hell can you film "through a scanner darkly." ????? Theres way too much internal stuff and it is a boring book looked at from the everyday perspective.

From about 2/3 of hte way down:
"But then, so did Dick. In response to a 1969 questionnaire, Dick described SF's greatest weakness as "its inability to explore the subtle, intricate relationships that exist between the sexes," adding that as a result it "remains pre-adult, and therefore appeals - more or less - to pre-adults." "

You know, that is sort of correct, yet theres enough writers who have gone that little bit further, in the past 35 years, that I dont find it so much of a critiscism any more. Maybe he was thinking of heinlein at the time, re my link to alexei panshins website.

IMHO Minority Report was the best science fiction movie since Blade Runner (which was based on the PKD story: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).

Both of these movies actually dealt with what life might be like in the future, rather than simply taking today’s world and dressing it up with space ships and ray guns like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Andromeda and so many others.

I will give Minority Report it's due. I even own the DVD (For the special effects extras). Just compared to the original stories it's lacking.

Some of the movies based on PKD stories:

Imposter
Blade Runner
Minority Report
Total Recall
Screamers

Did I miss any?

A Scanner Darkly is going to come out kinda' weird, there's just no way around that. I don't think it's too internal to really make for a good movie, there's plenty of ways to work around that sort of thing, though judging by other adaptations of Philip K. Dick novels, I'm fairly certain it won't end up being handeld very well.

I'm just wondering how they will portray the setting, as even in the book it was painfully obvious that this supposid future world was in fact just some time in the 60s/70s only they had those need scramble suits, Substance D (which I hear is also a band, though I'm not up on music so don't quote me on that) and whatever a sephalascope (Sp?) is. Anyway, the fact of the matter is that there have been many amusing stoner movies in film history and if nothing else this will probably at least have a few nice moments of humor.

I thought Minority Report suffered a major morality crash...

Don't get me wrong! I have no problem with the idea that the pre-crime bureau might be made by people to secure their own power rather than anything petty like rid the world of crime.

However, I did have a couple of problems with the manner in which it was executed... being accused of committing a murder in the future was sufficient proof for life imprisonment without trial, even if the other circumstances surrounding the pre-crime were clearly suspicious, and yet they didn't seem to run across this problem until all of the premeditated killers in the world had already been wiped out.

The psychic girl was used just as badly by the main character as she was by the pre-crime bureau; it was interesting that they had no plan for kidnapping of the psychic people, even though they were apparently not able to predict kidnappings.

Lastly, I'm sure ol' Mr. Dick would have found the end really heartwarming and all, those poor psychic kids getting a house in the country, but I'm not sure if that's how I would have ended the story.

Minority Report was the worst sci-fi movie I'd ever seen, until 11.05.03.

On the other hand, I'd have to say that Blade Runner will hold up forever.

An odd cover, but an interesting story...


Divine Invasion (http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0679734457/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-4380222-8544705#reader-page)

I objected to the basic premise change. In the short story Minority report, doesn’t Anderton end up committing the murder out of a desire to prove that pre-crime is infallible? And he does and it is, and its a real ominous end. In the movie they change the future and yay, destiny is not pre-determined and everyone is happy. They Spielberg it out. Can the man PLEASE make a movie that ends on a real downer?

I thought AI ended on a downer.

Originally posted by Pollux V
You're so wrong about Minority Report. That movie kicked ass. It's just great scifi--you get new concepts, great acting, writing, directing, filmography, and effects. I have to disagree; I thought Minority Report was a deus-ex-machinca crap fest. Tom Cruise was constantly getting into seemingly impossible situations, then escaping through ridiculously contrived plot devices. I mean, come on - a giant bathtub drain? The writers obviously weren't able to come up with reasonable resolutions to the problems they had created, so they resort to the sort of thing that one would expect from Saturday-morning cartoons. It's like Spielberg was so busy creating the nuances of his futuristic society that he didn't stop to realize that his story didn't make any god-damn sense.

Insultingly retarded plot elements aside, you could argue that the movie Minority Report was basically good sci-fi. The problem is that it completely perverted Philip Dick's original story. The original 'Minority Report' was about fatalism and how people are powerless to escape their destiny. Spielberg decided that this was too 'dark' for most audiences, so he decided to turn it into a fluffy feel-good story. It's like making a movie out of 'Animal Farm' that promotes communism, or making a movie out of '1984' that encourages unquestioned obedience to the government. I think that if you want to use an author's story ideas you have a basic obligation to not completely reverse his message.

yeah, what nasor said.

The movie has to be accepted or rejected on its own merits and not on how closely it stuck to the original book. Compared to most of the spaceship and ray gun stories that pass for science fiction these days Minority Report was a masterpiece. If anything, the weakest parts of the movie were those that were taken from PKD’s original story, namely the stuff about the pre-cogs. It would have been better had Spielberg had dealt with the more realistic applications of biotechnology in the future. Of course then the movie would have needed a different title altogether.

It would have been better had Spielberg had dealt with the more realistic applications of biotechnology in the future. Of course then the movie would have needed a different title altogether.

AI was close enough to free rein that Spielberg would have been able to do whatever he liked... the result was those crappy aliens that didn't understand math.

Whereas I agree that Minority Report is a decent flick relative to the other crap in the theatres I hesitate to claim that that makes it a good movie. I liked the battle in the car factory because it was a well-realized action scene, but I don't think that Spielberg's visions of technology are particularly compelling. The most hyped technological cinematics in the movie were:

1) The paw-screen computers.
This was okay, yeah, but as far as control systems are concerned we can make one of these now. Do we? No. This is because the control system is unwieldy and pointlessly expensive, and is difficult to put down; the movie even addressed this point.

2) The elevator cars.
Woo, a car that's also an elevator! That's so original that, well, Asimov probably though of it in 1929. These were added for cinematic effect, like a stage in a video game; as a futuristic vision their value is zero.

3) Organ replacement surgery.
Uh huh, whatever. Carrying around your eyes in a bag made for a minor narrative effect, but that's it.

4) Spideybots.
Again, old and uninteresting idea. I believe they had these in Space Quest I, and that Runaway movie with Tom Selleck.

5) Creepy poison vines.
Not bad, but still a cliche from every fantasy story ever made. As an example I shall draw Augrah's creepy grabber vines from the Dark Crystal.

6) Wind-up sonic guns.
Sort of a neat idea - the only piece of relatively original technology I could find in the entire film.

As a film about the technology of the near future, Minority Report was pretty flat.