A Scanner Darkly
Jul. 18th, 2006 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariI saw A Scanner Darkly tonight, along with Other Kenjari, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sen_no_ongaku and sigerson. I really enjoyed it, and thought it was a very good adaptation of the book.
First of all, I was pleased with the way the movie handled the look and atmosphere of the book. I thought that Linklater's overpainting animation technique was a good match for PKD's novel. I also liked the fact that the setting retained the grunginess it had in the book. In most of the PKD I've read, the future is not clean and slick, or even necessarily an improvement over the present, despite technological advances. PKD's future is more often than not kind of dirty and somewhat dilapidated around the edges. More mainstream film adaptations of PKD's work all too often make the future too shiny and polished (I'm especially thinking of Minority Report). A Scanner Darkly is also one of his least "futuristic" books, and I was also gald to see that the film-makers kept it that way. I had horrible visions of studio execs insisting on making it more futurustic in order to appeal to the mroe traditional sci-fi market.
The storyline and even the dialogue kept pretty close to the novel, so no complaints there. The film also kept with the same themes and issues. Most of the differences I saw were more along the lines of legitimate differences of interpretation. I remember the book version of Fred/Bob being much more aware of his bifurcated self than he is in the book. Also, I didn't get the impression that Donna was a narc, but then again, there may well have been subtle hints that I completely missed in the book. My only criticism, and it's a minor one, is that the movie makes the true nature of New Path (a corporate entity that provides drug rehab services) glaringly obvious, while the book is very subtle about it. However, I can understand that the film makers may have viewed this point as so crucial that they felt they had to make sure that it would not be missed, and I can happily support that.
The performances were in general spot-on. Even Keanu Reeves does a decent job - his style of acting (so to speak) worked well for a character whose psyche is disintegrating. Robert Downey Jr. is particularly good as Barris, giving the character a charismatic menace and malice.
sen_no_ongaku and sigerson. I really enjoyed it, and thought it was a very good adaptation of the book.First of all, I was pleased with the way the movie handled the look and atmosphere of the book. I thought that Linklater's overpainting animation technique was a good match for PKD's novel. I also liked the fact that the setting retained the grunginess it had in the book. In most of the PKD I've read, the future is not clean and slick, or even necessarily an improvement over the present, despite technological advances. PKD's future is more often than not kind of dirty and somewhat dilapidated around the edges. More mainstream film adaptations of PKD's work all too often make the future too shiny and polished (I'm especially thinking of Minority Report). A Scanner Darkly is also one of his least "futuristic" books, and I was also gald to see that the film-makers kept it that way. I had horrible visions of studio execs insisting on making it more futurustic in order to appeal to the mroe traditional sci-fi market.
The storyline and even the dialogue kept pretty close to the novel, so no complaints there. The film also kept with the same themes and issues. Most of the differences I saw were more along the lines of legitimate differences of interpretation. I remember the book version of Fred/Bob being much more aware of his bifurcated self than he is in the book. Also, I didn't get the impression that Donna was a narc, but then again, there may well have been subtle hints that I completely missed in the book. My only criticism, and it's a minor one, is that the movie makes the true nature of New Path (a corporate entity that provides drug rehab services) glaringly obvious, while the book is very subtle about it. However, I can understand that the film makers may have viewed this point as so crucial that they felt they had to make sure that it would not be missed, and I can happily support that.
The performances were in general spot-on. Even Keanu Reeves does a decent job - his style of acting (so to speak) worked well for a character whose psyche is disintegrating. Robert Downey Jr. is particularly good as Barris, giving the character a charismatic menace and malice.
