Comments on: “But then again, who does?” http://blog.voyou.org/2009/06/30/but-then-again-who-does/ Lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:46:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Ian Mathers http://blog.voyou.org/2009/06/30/but-then-again-who-does/comment-page-1/#comment-36889 Ian Mathers Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:53:46 +0000 http://blog.voyou.org/?p=720#comment-36889 This is another case where I seriously wonder whether the person arguing that Deckard is a replicant ever read <i>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?</i> Not because the book tells us in any definite way what's going on in the film (and god, Ridley Scott's recent new versions have just confirmed the notion that the director also shouldn't be taken as the arbiter of what's going on in the film), but because it is background/context whether Žižek wants it to be or not, and it becomes clear pretty damn early that any film adaptation of (part of) <i>DADoES?</i> that doesn't leave Deckard unresolvedly human is doing a great deal of violence to the issues, themes and conclusions that Dick was working with. He loved the rough cut of the movie, of course, and he was perfectly fine with the fact that the movie missed large parts of the book because, as he said, "These matters don’t translate to the screen. And why translate them, since a novel is a story in words, whereas a movie is an event that moves?" But while PKD also doesn't get to be an arbiter of what the movie 'should' be, I think it's telling that the version he enjoyed so much didn't have the stupid fucking voiceover. This is another case where I seriously wonder whether the person arguing that Deckard is a replicant ever read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Not because the book tells us in any definite way what’s going on in the film (and god, Ridley Scott’s recent new versions have just confirmed the notion that the director also shouldn’t be taken as the arbiter of what’s going on in the film), but because it is background/context whether Žižek wants it to be or not, and it becomes clear pretty damn early that any film adaptation of (part of) DADoES? that doesn’t leave Deckard unresolvedly human is doing a great deal of violence to the issues, themes and conclusions that Dick was working with.

He loved the rough cut of the movie, of course, and he was perfectly fine with the fact that the movie missed large parts of the book because, as he said, “These matters don’t translate to the screen. And why translate them, since a novel is a story in words, whereas a movie is an event that moves?” But while PKD also doesn’t get to be an arbiter of what the movie ‘should’ be, I think it’s telling that the version he enjoyed so much didn’t have the stupid fucking voiceover.

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