PKD's novel is misunderstood as a result of the movie. This novel and his work in general were less interested in trying to know ascertain who's a robot, and more interested in why one thinks he's human.
The movie was made to play in Peoria, so it was written with a Cartesian conceit of "replicants" as others in the Baudrillard sense of simulacra: the story was designed to reinforce the idea that humanity is a stable fixed point of reference upon which cleverly designed machines are intruding. This was calculated to be assimilated my audiences (the movie functions as a memory implant) who are upon arrival to the theater were already operating under the delusion of thinking they're free because they have endless choices for consumption, including which movie to watch. The love story between Deckard and Rachel seems calculated as a somatic device to inhibit introspection that might further trouble and arouse viewers to the point of rejecting a challenging product.
My recollection of Deckard in the novel was that he wasn't much concerned with what constituted androids outside of narrow technical dimensions—though maybe I mis-recall my own reading? The character had his own problems. He was quintessentially American, preoccupied with status, possessions, work-a-day worries, televangelism, and somatic distractions, like the mood organ.
Stepping up a level, the open question of the story being who is building us as the robots we find ourselves to be? Of course there's no answer to this question: it begs a god a patriarchy, an orthodoxy.
That the movie took on a adoring following which is overly invested in particulars is typically ignorant fan fetish: Robots (fans) touching robots for pleasure. The cusp is the awareness that civilization is robotic.
Lucas's THX 1138 seems well informed by the ideas of PKD's Androids.
The uncanny and nihilistic aspect of the beast-machine was the central theme of Kubrick's 2001; the monolith illustrating a realm of authenticity inaccessible to us, no matter the power and complexity of the garments we attire as tribute to our uncanny of our self awareness. Kubrick's epic comes off as a depressive's longing for an extinction event that would result in a rebirth of the species (self) on some other plane of existence.
Tarkovsky's adaptation of Lem's Solaris tried to go further than Kubrick, with the observation that everything we feel is real is a regress of a universal mind, and our views of ourselves play out in some kind of Klein bottle of nature.
Blade Runner feels trite, but I truly enjoyed Villeneuve's sequel as just stomping ahead with the pre-suppositions of Scott's movie and continuing to build out its world of increasing alienation with some kind of an attractor of family and self-sacrifice in the midst of a gruesomely overdeveloped world: the star child has no immune system and so must live in a hygienic bubble with nothing to do but create memories for everyone else.
I think you recall wrong, and miss what's great about Bladerunner.
Who's human is a key overt point in the novel, with Deckard wondering about the indefatigable anti-android DJ, and a subtle point, with Deckard being incapable of emotionally connecting to some common 'human' things; he is not emotionally engaged with animal care, and doesn't like the weirdo emotional gestalt device I can't recall the name of. It's right in the title -- what is different about a human, an android, and an android that thinks it's a human?
To my eyes, launched the same year ET was launched, to the same audiences, Blade Runner is right at the edge of what could have been successful. And, it is full of these fundamental questions of humanity. Unfortunately the cinema release dumbed it down with Harrison Ford's narration -- a result of the studio thinking the movie was too arthouse to play widely.
Visually and narratively, the implications are strong that Deckard is a replicant, including the weird questions about what police station is real, his ability to match Roy Batty physically, Edward James Ulmos' uncanny ability to find Deckard, and know what he's dreaming about -- it's all there in the original.
I follow your thoughts towards ET, and offer that Spielberg has already realized an epic treatment of the theme: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which he develops the idea of corporate society and daytime TV being indistinguishable from an extraterrestrial incursion. That he invited the founder of Auteur Theory and savant of the French New Wave, Francios Truffaut to emcee projects the high awareness Spielberg had of his conceits. To my mind ET merely revisited the scenario of CE3K as something that could be cross-marketed in Happy Meals, exploiting the success of Lucas' Star Wars licensing.
Ridley Scott's Alien is also trenchant commentary on the corporate/TV zeitgeist with an attack by an unstoppable libidinal force of life (Zizek referred to this idea as "lamella") that lives beneath all the levitating signifiers of the "capitalist real" (Mark Fisher).
All of these movies are first and foremost entertainment products, which so happen to code a surprising amount of reflection on the part of their auteur creators on US/UK corporatism and existential angst.
Recognizing the power of the movies on the collective mind, I'll repeat my thesis that the central consideration for PKD is "why do you think you're human?", not "how do humans distinguish androids from themselves?"
PKD created his works un-beholden to the idioms of popular culture, and I regard his oeuvre as profoundly more intellectually free than any Hollywood adaptation can be. The arrow of artist progress goes from books to movies, not the other way around, so beware of reading the movie's themes into the books. He helped carve out a place for science fiction in literature, and the popularity of cinematic adaptations of his work reveals the resonance of his themes, so read the story then look for how the movies hew to the writing.
There's a strange reversal of books adapted from movies, but even in the case of Arthur Clarke's 2001 (vs. The Sentinel) these read as fan fiction.
Back at you! I appreciate your points, and agree with your take on Dick, generally on Spielberg, and Scott; all well said.
I guess I believe film is an independent art form, but I'm generally a reader first, so I don't mind your proposed flow book -> film for analysis. In reality, we have directors/producers/studios/actors who may or may not want a lot to do with any given book; Dune's history stands out to me here.
If I think about films that have tried to do more than the source book, Bladerunner is the only one that's even a candidate to me. I guess I just really like it!
I think the movie is definitely set up with the premise that humanity is a stabled fixed point of reference, with Deckard representing that viewpoint. But once you had Deckard falling in love with Rachel, and then the ending with Deckard and Batty, I think the movie is asking viewers to question this initial premise.
Within the context of a big budget Hollywood sci-fi actioner, I think it's about as reasonably deep as you could expect. None of its ideas are profound or new, but the cinematography and set design were.
The movie was made to play in Peoria, so it was written with a Cartesian conceit of "replicants" as others in the Baudrillard sense of simulacra: the story was designed to reinforce the idea that humanity is a stable fixed point of reference upon which cleverly designed machines are intruding. This was calculated to be assimilated my audiences (the movie functions as a memory implant) who are upon arrival to the theater were already operating under the delusion of thinking they're free because they have endless choices for consumption, including which movie to watch. The love story between Deckard and Rachel seems calculated as a somatic device to inhibit introspection that might further trouble and arouse viewers to the point of rejecting a challenging product.
My recollection of Deckard in the novel was that he wasn't much concerned with what constituted androids outside of narrow technical dimensions—though maybe I mis-recall my own reading? The character had his own problems. He was quintessentially American, preoccupied with status, possessions, work-a-day worries, televangelism, and somatic distractions, like the mood organ.
Stepping up a level, the open question of the story being who is building us as the robots we find ourselves to be? Of course there's no answer to this question: it begs a god a patriarchy, an orthodoxy.
That the movie took on a adoring following which is overly invested in particulars is typically ignorant fan fetish: Robots (fans) touching robots for pleasure. The cusp is the awareness that civilization is robotic.
Lucas's THX 1138 seems well informed by the ideas of PKD's Androids.
The uncanny and nihilistic aspect of the beast-machine was the central theme of Kubrick's 2001; the monolith illustrating a realm of authenticity inaccessible to us, no matter the power and complexity of the garments we attire as tribute to our uncanny of our self awareness. Kubrick's epic comes off as a depressive's longing for an extinction event that would result in a rebirth of the species (self) on some other plane of existence.
Tarkovsky's adaptation of Lem's Solaris tried to go further than Kubrick, with the observation that everything we feel is real is a regress of a universal mind, and our views of ourselves play out in some kind of Klein bottle of nature.
Blade Runner feels trite, but I truly enjoyed Villeneuve's sequel as just stomping ahead with the pre-suppositions of Scott's movie and continuing to build out its world of increasing alienation with some kind of an attractor of family and self-sacrifice in the midst of a gruesomely overdeveloped world: the star child has no immune system and so must live in a hygienic bubble with nothing to do but create memories for everyone else.
21st century Hollywood eating itself.