Lucius reviewed Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner)
It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the …
Review of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' on 'Storygraph'
Pulled from my Letterboxd review of Blade Runner: The Final Cut—
I just finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and had to revisit the movie adaptation. They are nothing alike. I do not say this to diminish Blade Runner. It is a cyberpunk masterpiece regardless.
My first experience was the Director’s Cut; tonight’s the Final Cut. The visuals are breathtaking. It’s even more apparent how 2049 deftly expanded on the aesthetics and themes established here. But Blade Runner took the barest whiff of inspiration from the novel and ran in a completely different direction.
Do Androids Dream has none of the rain, or neon, or crime ridden streets. Instead it is set on a depopulated, irradiated, dying earth. A lonely earth. Murder is unheard of because, legally and religiously, all life is considered sacred. Down to the smallest ant. A strange spiritual movement called Mercerism even networks human consciousness through suffering to engender empathy for their fellow humans.
But exclusion and isolation are pervasive. One must put on appearances to fit in with society. Specials, those mutated by radiation or simply neurodivergent, are barred from emigrating to the space colonies. The colonies are revealed to be just as desolate as the earth they are urged to leave. Androids are banned from the home world, from autonomy, and from being considered life.
This is Deckard’s spiritual and emotional torment. Retirement has become murder to him. A revelation that isolates him completely from society.
The film is an aesthetic tour de force. The novel is a distressing rumination on broken and denied connection.
I just finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and had to revisit the movie adaptation. They are nothing alike. I do not say this to diminish Blade Runner. It is a cyberpunk masterpiece regardless.
My first experience was the Director’s Cut; tonight’s the Final Cut. The visuals are breathtaking. It’s even more apparent how 2049 deftly expanded on the aesthetics and themes established here. But Blade Runner took the barest whiff of inspiration from the novel and ran in a completely different direction.
Do Androids Dream has none of the rain, or neon, or crime ridden streets. Instead it is set on a depopulated, irradiated, dying earth. A lonely earth. Murder is unheard of because, legally and religiously, all life is considered sacred. Down to the smallest ant. A strange spiritual movement called Mercerism even networks human consciousness through suffering to engender empathy for their fellow humans.
But exclusion and isolation are pervasive. One must put on appearances to fit in with society. Specials, those mutated by radiation or simply neurodivergent, are barred from emigrating to the space colonies. The colonies are revealed to be just as desolate as the earth they are urged to leave. Androids are banned from the home world, from autonomy, and from being considered life.
This is Deckard’s spiritual and emotional torment. Retirement has become murder to him. A revelation that isolates him completely from society.
The film is an aesthetic tour de force. The novel is a distressing rumination on broken and denied connection.