The Missing

Okay, so I shouldn’t be the only who noticed a lot of the great stuff that was missing from the novel. But from all of the things that they took out, they filled in the spaces with some awesome goodies, though I do dislike that most of the twists were taken out.

When Deckard was sent to the Tyrell (technically Rosen) Corporation headquarters, we get exactly what was taken out of the book except for the best part about the scene: When the company tried to trick him into thinking that the VK test didn’t work on the new Nexus 6 models. I mean, that was gold! People watching it would’ve been putting their hands on their head in awe of what happened.

Throughout the film, I’ve been waiting for my favorite part, and probably the biggest twist in Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep? So when I do get to 1:27:00 of the film, Rick Deckard is sitting in his car looking over a paper, when a police patrol comes down, and says that he was about to be arrested. At that moment, I was thinking to myself that this must be that fake Android police squadron scene in the book; the best scene ever (I’ve imagined it in my head at least 20 times). But then I hear the words, “checked and cleared,” coming from the patrol car… wait, what? How can you take such a huge twist like that out of the book?

Honestly, after seeing that, my 10 out of 10 movie rating went down to 8.5.

Also, something else I’ve noticed. There was no mercer or religious figure of any kind spoken about throughout the story. But to be honest, I am kind of happy about that. I think the movie editors concluded from the book that Mercer would be too confusing if introduced into the movie, so they just decided to simply not go along with it. I don’t think they made the wrong decision, because we all know that Mercer was hard enough to understand as he is in the novel.

The Replicants

In the film, I believe that the Replicants don’t just simulate emotion, they actually feel them. An example of this can be made with Roy Batty. During the film at roughly 1:36:00, as he breaks Deckard’s fingers, he says, “this was for Leon, this was for Pris…” and so on. After that, he proceeds to go to Pris’ body, kissed her dead corpse, and begins to tear up. This can’t be him trying to keep up a disguise of a human because Deckard already knows that he’s a Replicant, so why go on with it?

Then we have Rachael. Man, it is really, really hard to classify her. Throughout the entire film, it was difficult for me to keep thinking that she was a machine because if I was ever placed in Deckard’s position, it really could have fooled me.

Oh, and something I realized about our friend Roy Batty. He seemed more aggressive in the movie than what we’ve been described through Philip K. Dick’s novel. In “Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep?” Roy seemed weak when he didn’t put much resistance at the end of the story, but in Blade Runner, he was somebody you’d never want to mess with; he killed Tyrell by popping his eyes in, god dammit. That’s enough for me to be afraid of the guy. Then at the end, he turned into a pure psychopath. Fantastic.

And let’s end this with my rating: Out of everything I’ve seen from the movie Blade Runner, I’d give it an 8 out of 10.

Watching the movie i was happy to see some parts of the book come to life. I feel the ending was almost about the same on how the book ended it. I was left a little puzzled but i was less puzzled than when reading the book. The ending of the movie kinda matches up to what i had in mind for the ending of the book where rick and Rachel are the final characters. Some parts of the movie chopped out parts of the book, I did not see rick’s wife iran but then again it did not affect the main theme that badly. I dont know if i am the only one that caught it but in the beginning when the android i believe his name was Leon was getting questioned there was a foreshadowing on the book “do andriods dream of electric sheep” where in the question was the ending of the book if you listen carefully.

I see that they made john a little more intelligent then what i read in the book. It shows that he in involved in the development of the andys by the amount of toys he designed. I did not like how pris was introduced into the line up. The movie makes pris look less intelligent knowing that pris and Rachel are about the same.  Rachel in the movie does appear equivalent to a certain extent on how the book describes. Animal values still remained important in the movie but was not expressed heavily on how it was in the book. There was a twist in plot where rachel kills of an andy where as in the book she was bargaining to kill off her “replicant” Pris.

I caught a line in the movie that helps back up my point in previous post i wrote stating that the androids correlate to the times of slavery in early America. Rachel mentions what if she “goes north” meaning will it promised her more  time to live before she dies. The movie makes Rick a little more aggressive in showing his affection towards Rachel. The owl was often shown in the movie i guess to keep you in tact for the value of animals. Speaking of birds there was a dove released in the hand of roy before he died. I feel that he died in a very awkward way because he had rick beat and rick was going to fall to his death.

To add on i love the high climax before the end which matches the same speed of climax in the book. I feel there were more climactic parts in the movie verses the book. The movie i felt headed straight to the main points.

Hello everyone this past weekend i finally saw Blade Runner. This has been one of those movies i’ve been wanting to see for a long time now, but never had a reason to watch. After watching the film i have decided that i think the book is much better then the film. If i would have seen the film before the book i might have looked at it in a whole different way. while watching i wrote down somethings that i liked and things i didn’t liked while comparing it to the novel, so here we go.

We will start with the things i didn’t like first. I did not like that Rick’s wife was not involved in the film, he actually divorced her so she was not seen or mentioned that much. This took away from the whole story presented in the book like rick fighting with her about there emotions or the support she shows him at the end. This also leads to another problem there is no empathy box which was so important to the story and between Rick and Iran. No empathy box also meant to Mercer either and there was also no buster friendly which is what the novel was ultimately built on. Another missing piece connected to this was no mood organ, taking this out changes the whole story because this story is supposed to be about feelings and the mood organ producing fake feelings was a big part.

I did not like how Rick was technically an ex blade runner, it made it seem like he was doing all of this because he had to opposed to it being his job were he kind of wants to do it. I hated how the first two replicants were killed with in min of each other. I felt it was to quick, for me to realize what happened and it made those two replicants mean nothing in my mind. Speaking of replicants Roy Baty did not have a wife in the film and instead he was in live with Pris. This made the story feel weird because i didn’t like the chemistry between Roy and Pris and that took away from Pris and Sebastian. The missing of Phil Resch also took away from not just the story but the character development of Rick. Also making Pris here own character and not a copy of Rachel seemed wrong and useless again making her mean nothing to the story. The last thing that bothered me was the lack of attention on animals, even though they were shown and mentioned they were not as big as they are supposed to be like in the book. some might say the whole book is based off of the animals in some ways.

Now to the things i liked, First thing is the setting. I thought the setting was almost perfectly visually to what i imagined from the book. I thought it would look almost like Total Recall and it did, the only problem to many people outside. I kind of like the love between Rick and Rachel because it showed the emotion they had for one another, however i don’t like the story was kind of built off of that making the story a love story and about the characters while the book was about everything going on behind the characters. I liked that Sebastian worked for the Tyrell corporation this way he did have some connection with Roy and Pris, he even says that some of himself lives inside them. OK a big difference from the book was The replicants in the film actually had emotions, i honestly believe they had more emotion then any other characters. It was truly interesting to see them like that, which leads to rick being the most emotionless character of the entire story, i think he might have been worse then the androids in the novel. I think the fight scene between Roy and Rick was absolutely great, it was interesting, funny and violent. I think that is the fight scene everyone was expecting while reading the book. The last thing that got me was when Roy saves Ricks life and shows empathy for him, this in my mind was great almost showing that the replicants were better then the humans in that society at that moment. The quote he gives i think is great he says “I’ve… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser  Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like [small cough] tears… in… rain. Time… to die…” I feel like him telling rick this shows that replicants understand the world and the people in it almost if not better then the humans and that even though he will die some part of him will live on.

Blade Runner was an OK film even though it was not better then the novel it had certain things that made the film good. I defiantly would recommend this film to any sci fi fan, but i would tell them they have to read the book too. Also i thought it would be cool to show everyone this, After watching the film i was on website I’m a lot called IGN. This website shows movie and TV reviews and things about gaming etc….. After i watched the film there was an article about Blade Runner 2 finding a director and that it is going to happen with Harrison Ford returning as Rick Deckard. Here is the link if you guys wanna check it out. http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02/27/blade-runner-sequel-finds-a-director-ford-to-return

Blade Runner is a movie that had been on my “to-watch” list for a while, so I’m glad I finally had an excuse to make time to watch it. Given that I have now read the source material beforehand, I wonder if my experience would have been different if I hadn’t read Electric Sheep prior to watching the movie.

Though there are many, many differences between DADOES and Blade Runner, I find that the most significant deviation from the source material is the complete omission of Mercerism. Empathy is no longer the sole distinguishing characteristic between humans and androids. In fact, the difference between humans and replicants is very hard to pinpoint on a personal level, as the replicants we encounter seem to have developed some sort of emotion to a certain degree, Roy Batty being the one that displays the widest range throughout the movie, especially approaching the climax. Regardless, the Voight-Kampff test is still featured, but I got the feeling that it was not as relevant as it was in the book.

Although animals (and the relationship with and possession of them) have a secondary role, they still make a prominent appearance in the movie. I think this is one of those things that I would have found odd if I had not read the book first. Almost all the animals we encounter are ersatz versions, such as Eldon Tyrell’s owl and Zhora’s snake, with her claiming that she wouldn’t be working as an exotic dancer if she could afford a real one (54:24). This is the first and only mention of real vs. artificial animals in Blade Runner. We can also see a man walking with a huge bird on his shoulder at 45:46, and T.F. Sebastian is shown to possess a mouse or rat, although there is no way to tell if they are real or artificial. Neither is relevant to the overall plot anyway. I found it interesting that although animals were such a “human thing” in the book, it is the replicants that seem to have some sort of affinity with them in the movie. Zhora possesses an artificial snake, and during his deranged persecution of Deckard, Roy howls and pretty much behaves like a wolf stalking its prey.

Speaking of Deckard, I found myself not really caring about him as I kinda did in the book. His character seemed somewhat dry and impersonal, which is by no means Harrison Ford’s fault, it’s just the way the character was supposed to be. One of the few times I felt he experienced some sort of emotion was after retiring Zhora. Zhora’s retirement scene was very emotionally charged, with the way she was running away and basically gunned down from behind, crashing into a glass display, even Deckard himself was shaken up. The scene really humanized her and you could sense her distress and feel her pain. I guess this is how book Deckard must have felt when Resch shot Luba Luft in cold blood. Luba was a singer, Zhora an exotic dancer and they just wanted to live their life but had to die just because of what they were.

Another scene where Deckard shows emotion is when he was coming on to Rachel in his apartment. As a person watching this scene in 2015, and with all the controversy surrounding date rape culture and the emphasis of giving explicit consent, this scene seemed to portray Deckard as a lonely horny detective taking advantage of the young, virginal Rachel. However, as I thought about it, these issues were not as public back when the movie was made as they are now. Still, it was a little awkward to see in the movie, since in the book it was basically Rachel that was coming on to him and we also had Rick’s internal dialog the whole time where he had conflicting emotions regarding “loving” an android.

Two of the characters that stood out to me regarding their motives and behavior were Leon Kowalski and Roy Batty. As I was rewatching clips of some of the scenes, I realized that they both made similar comments while beating Rick up. During their fight at 62:30 Leon says:

Painful living in fear, isn’t it?

Similarly, during the final confrontation Roy says at 105:16

Quite an experience, to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it feels like to be a slave.

Based on these two quotes we learn that replicants experience fear, a very human emotion. According to Roy, this fear stems from them being slaves, not having freedom to choose their own path, something most of us humans take for granted. In what is one of the best quotes of the movie, during his physical breakdown as his body starts to perish, Roy tells Deckard that he has seen things that humans could never imagine, and that all his memories will be lost like tears in rain. In the end, Roy’s goal, and presumably the rest of the replicants’, was to preserve his memories by extending his life, seeing as replicants cannot reproduce and pass on their memories or their genes to future generations.

Finally, one of the things that I missed from the book was that there was no Buster Friendly. I was a bit curious as how he would be fleshed out on screen. I was imagining that he would be a kind of loudmouth public figure seen on screens everywhere, somewhat like Stanley Tucci’s Caesar Flickerman in the recent Hunger Games movies. However, without the Mercerism subplot there was no need for Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends, nor for Iran Deckard now that I come to think of it.

Overall I enjoyed Blade Runner, and I can see why it has become a Science Fiction classic film. I wouldn’t say it was better or worse than DADOES because, even though they share the same general premise and similar cast of characters, they are different enough that I can easily think of them as separate works, each with their own positive and negative sides.

Well I have just seen Bladerunner for the first time. Whew, what a weird movie. This film is definitely one like no other. It’s a lot different then any other film i’ve ever seen. Yet very interesting. I’ve read the book first so it really helps a lot because you already get the idea about what’s going on or whats going to happen next. Obviously not everything is the same for example, they don’t call them Androids or Andy’s like they do in “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, they call them Replicants. Also how the city is so crowded but in the book they seem so isolated.

I think if i would’ve saw the movie before reading the book , I probably would have enjoyed it more. I would’ve been more into it and more surprised at the things that happened, but the fact that I read the book already makes it boring. Nonetheless, the movie was pretty good but there are some questions that came to my mind. Like, why do I feel like the movie is just a love story between Rick and Rachael? In the book it was more too it then that. Also , I really like how the movie showed more passion within the people on what is it to really be human.

The scene where Rick shoots the girl in the back is where I said to my self , okay now he’s really feeling for Rachael. Plus, at 33:37 , there was a pretty sad scene where Rick tells Rachael that she isn’t a replicant and that he made a bad joke. She starts to tear because he says that she has no real memories and they are just implants. He really starts to feel bad that he said that. He also states that Replicants aren’t suppose to have feelings and that they had photos because maybe they were like Rachael and needed memories.

Even in the scene where Leon tries to kill Rick which was pretty interesting to me. Leon asks Rick, “how many years I got” and Rick answers with 4. That’s when he started going bananas and tries to kill him while out of no where Rachael shoots Leon in the back of the head (which by the way the sound effects and the way it looked was pretty cheap)! Rachael must really care for Rick.

As for Pris, she’s just a nutcase. She has all this make up and what not on her face looking like the Joker or Robin and acts so weird towards Sebastian. The scene where Rick kills Pris was so sick and frightening for me. She just starts to go crazy like a dead fish out of water and really creeps me out. She was always a bit of a creep by the way she acted and looked anyways so good for her.

I love the Roy Baty character. Especially in the movie because they really show his passion. He was like the only one that wanted more life. The scene where Roy meets Tyrell and tells him “I want more life, fucker” was so great. It was very intense and the fact that he really took his eyes out was pretty sick but awesome. As for the ending, where Roy is trying to kill Rick and says “4, 5 how to stay alive”, it was pretty awesome. That was a lot of action where I didn’t really get from reading the book. I prefer the visual side of things. I disliked Roy until I started feeling bad him when he tried to save Rick. Which was a sick little twist that I wish happened in the book. The way that the book ended was like how we all discussed, a disappointment. I got the same feeling after watching the movie because it ended with just Rick and Rachael leaving you confused on to what happened after.