Before the end of the first page, we know that Rick has a wife named Iran, who sleeps in a separate bed to his, both are hooked up to electric shock alarms that are known as mood organs, they have a heated relationship, which is brought to our attention at the same time that we find out what it is that Rick does, when Iran says to him “Get your crude cop’s hand away”. Ah, so he’s a cop, turn the page, no he’s not, he’s a hit man working for the cops, who kills andys. Andys? What on earth is an andy? I knew the answer to this question, as I knew what this book was about, the first time I read it, but I made a point to read it as though I had no idea what it was about, and I realised that by an eighth into the second page, I was really wanting to know what was going to happen, who these people were and what their lives were about. The more I read, the more curious I became. This was not so with the film adaptation of the book.
While the mood at the beginning of the book was a light one, that gave us information about the hero, through his dialogue and interaction with another character, the film stirred far less curiosity for the viewer, due to the way are instantly thrown into the thrones of a story, that is so obviously set in the future. There is no room for questions, or pondering, it’s just smack, bang, in your face.
The film begins with a black screen and in large white letters we see: LOS ANGLES, NOVEMBER 2019. Okay, so we’re going to be taking a journey into the future. Not the most creative way of introducing us to that idea, but straight forward. Next we open with an aerial shot of a dark, dark city. It looks deserted, except for the fact that there are lights on everywhere, which almost sounds like a contradiction, but there is no evidence of life or any form of activity, at first. From the tops of some of the tall buildings, flames shoot out into the air. Suddenly a hovercraft zooms past the screen, and so we know that we are definitely looking at an inhabited city. By this stage one has already forgotten that they are supposedly looking at L.A. in the future, and are starting to wonder what planet we they are looking at. All the while the camera has been slowly zooming in on this dark city. Lightening strikes in the background, as a large flame erupts right in front of the camera lense. It is approximately twenty seconds into the film, and I have already lost interest. I can’t believe that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner are the same story. I decide to give the film the benefit of the doubt, maybe the director is just setting up the environment, surely he is heading into Rick Deckard’s bedroom, with the camera, and we’ll meet him and Iran any moment now.
Unfortunately that is not where the director, Ridley Scott, was going with the camera, or the film’s story for that matter, at all. We are suddenly confronted by an extreme close up of a bright blue eye, the reflection of the shooting flames can be clearly seen in the eye, cut back to a closer shot of the city. We can no see more clearly the almost deserted state of L.A. in the future. But why? What has happened? This scene now drags on for about thirty seconds, while the audience STILL waits to be introduced to a character of some form. Flash back to the eye, surely this is the eye of a character that we are about to meet, no, we get put back into the city, only this time we have a close shot of a building, a very futuristic looking one, in fact I would swear that I was watching Star Wars at this point. By now I’m thinking that this is actually a really great build up to meeting Rick and Iran. We see their world first and then we get to meet them, actually that would make it clearer as to why they would be talking about items that don’t exist in our time, like the mood organ. How wrong I am. These scenes of cutting from the views of the city to the close up of the blue eye, go for two minutes. Surprisingly, it isn’t until more than five minutes into the film that we actually meet Deckard, and there is no Iran.
While the beginning of the book is full of dialogue, life and has a subtle way of giving us information about our whereabouts and the character’s, the film is dark and incredibly obvious. As well as being very much in the audience face with the futuristic setting, the film leaves no room for one to use their imagination nor does it stir up any of the curiosity of who, or what, these people and this place that they live in, are, the way the book does. I enjoyed the subtle way that the author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? threw in curiosities about the characters and their way of life, without actually writing large paragraphs of description, but rather by creating moods, settings, emotions between Rick and Iran, and their environment, through dialogue. I did not, in the least bit enjoy, or maybe I should say, appreciate, Ridley Scott’s way of starting the story of Blade Runner.
Over all, as I mentioned earlier, individually the book and the film are really very good. As an adapted pair, there is little to be desired. These two stories are nearly nothing alike, and I am hugely disappointed by this, as I strongly believe that a director has the responsibility to stay as faithful as possible to a book that he/ she is adapting.
WORD COUNT: 1442.
Dick, Philip, K Blade Runner Clays Ltd, St Ives plc, Great Britain, 1999. Page 1.
Dick, Philip, K Blade Runner Clays Ltd, St Ives plc, Great Britain, 1999. Page 1.
