WK 8 - P.K.D

Researching some of Philip K. Dick’s novels and short stories that have been turned into movie’s, I’ve found that 10 movies have been created and adapted by Philip K. Dick. These movies are:

Blade Runner (1982)                                                       Screamers  (1995)
Based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"         Based on "Second Variety"

Total Recall  (1990)                                                    Confessions d'un Barjo (French, 1992)
Based on "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"     Based on "Confessions of a Crap Artist"

Impostor  (2001)                                                              Minority Report  (2002)
Based on "Impostor."                                                        Based on "The Minority Report." 

Paycheck  (December 25, 2003)                                      A Scanner Darkly  (July 7, 2006)
Based on "Paycheck."                                                        Based on "A Scanner Darkly"

Next (April 27, 2007)                                                       The Adjustment Bureau  (2010)      
Based on "The Golden Man"                                            Based on "The Adjustment Team"

Out of all of Phillip K. Dick’s movies and books, admittedly I’ve only seen Scanner Darkly and read Man in the High Castle. Both in my opinion were really interesting, especially both the of the stories turning point. When I realised that in Scanner Darkly, Fred’s boss who he was always talking to in the scramble suite was actually Donna and what happened to him was intentional of letting Bob loose his identity through substance D, so that he goes to the farm where substance D is being grown. The turning point of Man in the High Castle was when Julianna went to see Mr Abendsen about his book 'The Grasshopper’s Lie Heavy' and realise that the Germans and the Japanese have lost the war. 

I also researched some people’s reviews of Scanner Darkly, one site called Rotten Tomatoes (by Flixters) section of top critics average rating gave Scanner Darkly a 6.6/10 saying:

“A faithful adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel, A Scanner Darkly takes the viewer on a visual and mind-blowing journey into the author's conception of a drug-addled and politically unstable world.”

If I were to give a rating out of 10 for Scanner Darkly I would probably give it a 6/10. I did like it but I think the graphics of the movie is what bothered me because I wasn’t used to seeing movie graphics like that. It was like it was between cartoon and real life because it wasn’t completely cartoon like. 

A central theme of ‘A Scanner Darkly’ that stood out to me from the movie was the use of drugs. Throughout the whole movie there was this drug called substance D. In the beginning we see Charles Freck hallucinating and we learn it is because he takes too much of substance D. Brown (2001) states that while investigating such major themes, Dick was populating his novels with a repertoire of fully-realised characters drawn from real life, composites of people he knew and versions of himself. At the end of Scanner Darkly in the list of names that Philip K. Dick dedicates the story to and he also includes himself in the list which says: “To Phil, permanent pancreatic damage” this could be because Philip K. Dick also took drugs himself. 

In the novel of ‘The Man in the High Castle’ like the movie ‘A Scanner Darkly’ there were some drugs that were taken in the novel (smoking marijuana) but I don’t think it was the focus of the novel. There was a part in chapter five when one of the characters, Wyndam-Matson says “I don’t have time to read popular fiction.” This could represent the struggles of when Philip K. Dick was writing because in 1930/1940 pulp fiction was considered trash. The character of Hawthorne Abendsen the author of ‘The Grasshopper Lies Heavy’ in the novel of ‘The Man in the High Castle’ could be seen as a version of Philip K. Dick. In the novel it explains that Abendsen lives in a high castle to protect himself from people who might want to kill him because of his book. Like Abendsen, Philip K. Dick was also quite paranoid that people were out to get him.

The use of the I Ching was also highlighted throughout the whole novel because every protagonist either had a copy or had heard of it. The I Ching was used to determine each of the characters futures and the outcomes of the decisions they make. Brown (2001) says that the use of the I Ching was Dick’s suggestion that the world in ‘The Man in the High Castle’ isn’t real, that there is a better world could exist.

The I Ching seemed to be a very important aspect of the novel in my opinion. I thought it was very interesting every time one of the characters would do a reading and whatever the I Ching would say it would happen. For Example when Frank Fink is missing Juliana and asks the I Ching whether or not he’ll see her again. The I Ching says that they will be reunited. Then at the end of the novel Juliana wants to go back to Frank. According to Mountfort (2006) Philip K. Dick used the I Ching as a ground-breaking experiment that has distinct cybertextual, as well as oracular, resonances.

It would be kind of cool if we could determine our futures and the outcomes of our choices but I think that knowing too much of the future would make life a bit boring. Our lives would be too predictable and there would have no surprises. 

Reference

Brown, E. (2001). Introduction. In Dick, P.K., The Man in the High Castle (p.v-xii). London: Penguin

Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle-text/Cybertext in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle.  Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta, 2006.

philipkdick.com. (n.d.).Philip K. Dick Films. Retrieved 21 September from http://www.philipkdick.com/films_intro.html

rottentomatoes.com. (n.d.). A Scanner Darkly (2006). Retrieved 21 September from http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/scanner_darkly/