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Comment by nonrecursive | Hacker News Reader

Over the last few months I've really gotten into Philip K. Dick. He wrote some of the best sci-fi I've ever read. Whereas a lot of sci fi is about cool stuff just to write about cool stuff, PKD used imaginative/futuristic settings, characters, and objects to explore the human condition.

"Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep" is a great book. One of its central questions is what makes humans, human. The book gives you plenty of ideas to mull over, and at the same time it's an exciting, plot-driven read.

I watched blade runner a month ago, a couple weeks after finishing Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep. The movie was nearly incomprehensible and the acting was terrible. It was too terrible and bizarre to even really be a disappointment.

All this is to say, I wonder how PKD would have felt after seeing the entire movie.

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> The movie was nearly incomprehensible and the acting was terrible.

Try watching it a third or fourth time, paying close attention. It’s a dense film, visually, narratively, and symbolically. It dumps you straight into a fully realized world, doesn’t stop much to explain how it works, and is full of rich and believable but extremely socially awkward characters (they’re a mix of utterly isolated engineers – who build robots to hang out with because they're so incapable of dealing with people – and killer robots). I think it’s one of Harrison Ford’s most impressive performances (not to mention Rutger Hauer). Especially if you watch the version without the voiceovers, the film does very little to help the reader out.

But I’ve found it one of the most rewarding films, raising all kinds of deep questions about modern society, the nature of cognition and consciousness, teleology... but it only gives back as much as you put into it.

"eXistenZ" is the only good PKD movie I know about, although it is not directly based on one specific book.

Also you've got to read all the short stories. They are better than the novels in my opinion.

From imdb: The truman show 8.0 Minority report 7.7 Blade runner 8.3 Total recall 7.4

And scanner darkly (7.7) - still eXistenZ is the one that really stands out for me. But I admit that there are other "good" movies out there that use PKD as a basis.

Scanner Darkly comes closest to capturing the spirit of PKD's written work.

eXistenZ was written by David Cronenberg, not adapted from a PKD book/story.

True, but it has many subtle and less subtle references to PKD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Days_of_Perky_Pat

Another Phillip K. Dick book turned movie that I enjoyed is 'Impostor' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160399/. When I first saw it I did not know it was written by Dick but could tell after an hour or so of watching that it was. Theme wise it is similar to Bladerunner but with a different plot.

Screamers is not terrible either. If you liked Impostor you'll like this too: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114367/

Also, this documentary - it has a cheesy framing device, but gives some good insight into PKD's life. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1461696/

> The movie was nearly incomprehensible and the acting was terrible. It was too terrible and bizarre to even really be a disappointment.

Go on.

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