Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep vs Blade Runner

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Blade Runner" is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott. It is loosely based on Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The book and movie explore the complexities of what it means to be human and the role of empathy in distinguishing between humans and androids. While the book and movie differ in their portrayal of humans and replicants, both ultimately raise the question of what truly defines humanity. The movie has become a cult classic and is often regarded as one of the greatest films in movie history, but it is recommended to read the book first to fully understand the story. One of the major differences between the two is the character of Rick Deckard, who is portrayed as a human
  • #1
eNtRopY
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" vs "Blade Runner"

The book is strange, but I suppose everything by Phillip K. Dick is. The characters had such goofy dialogue. I must confess I never really understood the significance of Mercerism. I suppose the point of the book was that the only true human element is empathy... empathy for all living (and non-living)things.

The movie was one of the greatest movies in movie history, but I think you have to read the book first in order to realize what is going on. It's strange how the story is so different than that of the book, however. Why did they make Rick Deckard an android in the movie? Did it make the story any better?

My favorite movie quote of all times is, and I'm typing this from memory, "... all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

eNtRopY
 
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  • #2
I read the book and it is quite different from the film. I liked the movie more than the book.
Some of the differences are probably due to making a "viable" movie from the film making perspective.

Here is the actual quote you mentioned, which I also like a lot:
 
  • #3
Philip K Dick wrote about soul. Who has one and why. Most of his books were related to this question. 'Bladerunner' the movie examined the question visually and had to change the story line from 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' the book.
Deckard became an android to drive home the point of who has a soul. We assume Deckard did because he was human. Did this change because we find he is an android?
This question plagued Mr. Dick his entire life and his final trilogy has to be considered a religious treatise.
 
  • #4
The thread here seems to be under the consensus that Deckard in Blade Runner was in fact an android. However, in my recollection of the film, whether Deckard was human or android was (intentionally) left ambiguous, so I don't think we should necessarily conclude he was not human.

The new Blade Runner film seems to suggest that Deckard might be human after all. Or if he was an android, that he was of a different form than the "replicants" that he was pursuing in the first film.
 
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  • #5
StatGuy2000 said:
The thread here seems to be under the consensus that Deckard in Blade Runner was in fact an android. However, in my recollection of the film, whether Deckard was human or android was (intentionally) left ambiguous, so I don't think we should necessarily conclude he was not human.

The new Blade Runner film seems to suggest that Deckard might be human after all. Or if he was an android, that he was of a different form than the "replicants" that he was pursuing in the first film.
I never got that from the film. Organic but engineered was the impression i got but I have not read the books
 
  • #6
Whether Deckard was a human or a replicant in the original BR depends on which cut you watch.
In the theatrical cut, the one with Ford's intentionally hammy voice-over and a happy ending, there's little reason to think he's not human.
In the 'final cut' released some years later, the one with the unicorn dream sequence, it's heavily implied he's a replicant.

I don't think it makes narrative sense for him to be other than human in the sequel (not that it ever did), but I suppose the film still works either way.
 
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  • #7
eNtRopY said:
Why did they make Rick Deckard an android in the movie?

As mentioned before, this is not clear in the movie. IIRC it was not even completely clear in the book. At least he refused to test himself.

The main diference between the movie and the book is the characterisation of humans and replicants. You are right that the point of the book was that the only true human element is empathy (in contrast to the cold and emotionless replicants). In the movie it is the other way around. The humans act like robots and the replicants like humans.
 
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  • #8
DrStupid said:
As mentioned before, this is not clear in the movie. IIRC it was not even completely clear in the book. At least he refused to test himself.
Coincidentally, I finally read the book recently, and that's the impression I got. I think even Dick is teasing us with that, it's important for the theme to be ambiguous, since "what does it mean to be human/alive?" is the entire point.
 
  • #9
When the movie was originally shot, Harrison Ford asked Ridley Scott whether Deckerd was an android. He was told (much to Ford's satisfaction) that no, he was not, and Ford developed the character accordingly. Apparently much later, Ridley Scott decided, and declared that Deckard _was_ an android, to Ford's apparent irritation.

Anyway, that's the story that I heard.

diogenesNY
 
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  • #10
I would not put it past a director telling Ford that he wasn't an android in order to get acting in support of that, thereby making his performance (and the movie) more ambiguous on the subject.
 
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  • #11
eNtRopY said:
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" vs "Blade Runner"

The book is strange, but I suppose everything by Phillip K. Dick is. The characters had such goofy dialogue. I must confess I never really understood the significance of Mercerism. I suppose the point of the book was that the only true human element is empathy... empathy for all living (and non-living)things.

The movie was one of the greatest movies in movie history, but I think you have to read the book first in order to realize what is going on. It's strange how the story is so different than that of the book, however. Why did they make Rick Deckard an android in the movie? Did it make the story any better?

My favorite movie quote of all times is, and I'm typing this from memory, "... all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

eNtRopY
After reading Dick's very own words in collected essays PLUS a psychiatrists take as well I realize the director of the original movie created a great story not in the book. In fact Dick thought-insisted we are all -the world that is living in AD70 and somehow an EVIL ROMAN EMPIRE has hijacked Earth history. He thought he was some sort of paraclete. His books he claims were messages of what really is in-sane. The hyphen is my idea from a sci fi novel I am writing which makes this distinction because until the information going into a brain before taking over keeps the person sane. But when it takes over one is insane. Dick was close. He flipped in he flipped out. It depended who he talked to and what he wanted to get across. So yes the story is better in the movie. I've read a few of Dick's novels. The premise is often excellent but the execution defeats itself. If he had not been so obsessed with his religion he may have soared cosmically as had Arthur C. Clarke.
 
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  • #12
almostvoid said:
After reading Dick's very own words in collected essays PLUS a psychiatrists take as well I realize the director of the original movie created a great story not in the book. In fact Dick thought-insisted we are all -the world that is living in AD70 and somehow an EVIL ROMAN EMPIRE has hijacked Earth history. He thought he was some sort of paraclete. His books he claims were messages of what really is in-sane. The hyphen is my idea from a sci fi novel I am writing which makes this distinction because until the information going into a brain before taking over keeps the person sane. But when it takes over one is insane. Dick was close. He flipped in he flipped out. It depended who he talked to and what he wanted to get across. So yes the story is better in the movie. I've read a few of Dick's novels. The premise is often excellent but the execution defeats itself. If he had not been so obsessed with his religion he may have soared cosmically as had Arthur C. Clarke.
It's on my to watch list. The original not the remake, never seen that.
 
  • #13
I enjoy the dystopian society created always raining to a backdrop of loud adverts. However i am interested in the issue of the limits of AI. Roger Penrose has used godels incompleteness theorum to illustrate limits of computer/machine intelligence but there have been many challenges to thag view. In the film we see Ford carrying out the replicant test when questioning a possible replicant involving a series of questions and a close up study of the eye. This is a nice reworking of the turing test. A great book and film. Rutger Hauers tears in the rain allude to persistance of memory and the idea of replicant enotion and our empathy. Enjoying this thread.
 
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  • #14
edmund cavendish said:
I enjoy the dystopian society created always raining to a backdrop of loud adverts. However i am interested in the issue of the limits of AI. Roger Penrose has used godels incompleteness theorum to illustrate limits of computer/machine intelligence but there have been many challenges to thag view. In the film we see Ford carrying out the replicant test when questioning a possible replicant involving a series of questions and a close up study of the eye. This is a nice reworking of the turing test. A great book and film. Rutger Hauers tears in the rain allude to persistance of memory and the idea of replicant enotion and our empathy. Enjoying this thread.
Yeah the end scene is beautiful. He saves him. Roy was not without emotion though. Remember when Roy had Rick's hand? 'This is for Zhora (breaks Rick's finger) and this is for Pris.' (Breaks another) Would a replicant carry those feelings of loss and subsequent revenge? I thought NO? That's the whole point isn't it?
 
  • #15
Comes back to the issue of whether machine intelligence can develop "human characteristics pacè 2001 by kubric. If so at what point do machines have rights?
 
  • #16
edmund cavendish said:
Comes back to the issue of whether machine intelligence can develop "human characteristics pacè 2001 by kubric. If so at what point do machines have rights?
Machine rights? Turing always claimed if one cannot tell the difference then the machine has consciousness equal to us sentient entities. But a set of laws for a processor seems rather extravagant. However I read a very clever expert [forgotten of course] who wrote: [sort of] intelligence can never be artificial. It is an excellent point. The mystery of evolved bio-mass in our analogue brain with neural webbing for ever in restlessness. Reconfigured continually depending on the reality perceived. Fascinating stuff. However [I know I am zero value here] I doubt artificial computational dynamics will ever make the transition across into bio-evolved-meta-mental-consciousness. Because we can also go into more than one state of consciousness as well. Such diverse complexity is what will keep us ahead of the machineMind generations. The singularity is like the horizon. [And it is a bad metaphor as well. 'Event horizon' might be more suitable if the machines begin to self transcend. Big if though]
 
  • #17
pinball1970 said:
It's on my to watch list. The original not the remake, never seen that.
It is visually an endless orange fog. The story is tame. Similar to the remake of -Ghost in the Shell- -Stand Alone Complex- which the Japanese said: go for it we don't mind. That too went into a single story about the -major- trying to find her origins. As if she cared! She said in one episode where she decided to get herself a new persona, being asked by one of the team about how she would handle it and she replied in that as a new person the past was now irrelevant. Asked if a team member when recognizing her? what would she do? And she basically said: nothing. She was ready to discard the past totally. Embrace the new. That was the point the remake missed completely.
 
  • #19
That's sad. I was a fan of his.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000442/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
Very prolific with 172 TV/Film credits to his name via imdb.

He had quite a professional range. He played everything from Albert Speer (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084140/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_145) to the lead (opposite Joan Chen) in a personal favorite, if lesser known, post apocalyptic sci-fi film The Blood of Heroes (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094764/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_130),,, and an astonishing range of other stuff... an action hero who was also an actor with a subtle touch.

He will be missed,

diogenesNY
 
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  • #20
Rutger Hauer just passed away.
"All these moments lost in time...like tears in rain..."
 
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  • #21
Vanadium 50 said:
Rutger Hauer just passed away.
"All these moments lost in time...like tears in rain..."
I just watched it and forgot about the final line from him.
The dove is also a nice touch.
 
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  • #23
EIRU3JFW4AEr1YZ.jpg
 
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1. What is the main difference between "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and "Blade Runner"?

The main difference between the two is that "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is a novel written by Philip K. Dick in 1968, while "Blade Runner" is a film directed by Ridley Scott released in 1982. However, "Blade Runner" is loosely based on the novel and has significant differences in plot and characters.

2. Are the themes in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and "Blade Runner" similar?

Yes, both the novel and film explore themes of artificial intelligence, the nature of humanity, and the blurred lines between reality and perception. They also both touch on the idea of empathy and what it means to be truly human.

3. Which one is considered to be more influential, the novel or the film?

The film "Blade Runner" is generally considered to be more influential, as it has gained a cult following and has had a significant impact on the science fiction genre and popular culture. However, the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is also highly regarded and has had a lasting impact on the genre.

4. Is it necessary to read the novel before watching the film or vice versa?

No, it is not necessary to read the novel before watching the film or vice versa. Both can be enjoyed separately as they have distinct storylines. However, reading the novel may provide a deeper understanding and appreciation for the themes and messages in the film.

5. Are there any major differences in the ending between the novel and the film?

Yes, the ending of the novel and the film are significantly different. Without giving away any spoilers, the novel ends on a more ambiguous and open-ended note, while the film has a more definitive and action-packed conclusion. This has been a point of debate and discussion among fans of both the novel and the film.

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