Movies based on Philip K. Dick works

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I myself happen to be a huge Philip K. Dick fan-- I happen to own almost FIFTEEN of his novels and a large collection of his short stories. Sadly, they seem to have mixed results when it comes to being successful on the silver screen. I'll give you a list of examples, and my opinions on some of the films.

-Blade Runner, loosely based on Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, needs absolutely no introduction. It flopped upon its release in 1982 (screw you producers and your "happy ending"!), but went on to become critically acclaimed upon its release on home video. I just love Blade Runner; in many ways, it is what every science fiction film should be. Great story, character development, and overall, a great movie. And by the way, the theatrical version was just a bad dream.
-Total Recall, "inspired" by the short story "We Can Remember it For You Wholesale", was much more commercially successful, given the fact that Arnie was cast as Douglas Quaid (a far cry from the story's wimpy Quail, don't you think?). I know what you're thinking: "Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Philip K. Dick movie? Are you joking?" Well, you're kinda wrong. Recall was a rare breed of Schwarzenegger, a thinking man's action movie! It's very entertaining, contains interesting ideas about the nature of reality and is nicely directed to boot, but eventually succumbs to Arnold-itis. Still, it is a good movie.
-I haven't seen A Scanner Darkly, but I heard it was good, despite its poor box office performance.
-Minority Report was okay; it was better than most Spielberg and Cruise vehicles, but a big budget, good box office returns and big special effects does not equal a good movie.
-Never seen Screamers, nor do I plan to. It strays too far from "Second Variety" in my opinion.
-I just didn't care for Imposter, which flopped.
-Paycheck and Next come from my anus.

Is it really worth it to put Dick's work to the big screen? I mean, in some cases it's like having Multiple Miggs from The Silence of the Lambs be allowed near the Mona Lisa. Hollywood just might not know Dick.

scanner darkly is fairly okay, if u don't mind a little rotoscoping here n there.

I like Philip K. Dick's work.
From the movies inspired from his work, I saw : Total Recall, Minority Report and Blade Runner (from this I liked most to this I less liked). I read the three texts who inspired them ; I also read A Scanner Darkly and Second Variety but I didn't watch the movies.
To my opinion, Blade Runner was a little disappointement from what I imagine from the novel, which is one of the Philip K. Dick work I liked much.

Did you know that the first idea for the Minority Report movie was to make a Total Recall 2 ? It would occured on Mars, the precog were Human mutants affected by Martian atmosphere and the hero wouldn't be John Anderton but Douglas Quaid (Total Recall hero).

As I said, the purpose of this thread is to discuss how Dick's work has been treated by Hollywood in general, and whether or not they're worth being made into movies.

From what I've heard, the Halcyon Company (the guys who currently own the rights to the Terminator franchise) is in line to produce an adaptation of Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. They'd better not screw it up.

A Scanner Darkly is an excellent movie. The rotoscoping works great for the subject matter and its one of the few films where Keanu Reeves actually does a good job.

Blade Runner is one of my favorite films. I thought Total Recall and Minority Report were okay.

Total Recall is one of my favorite movies. They made an action movie that also has an interesting story. I like when they say that Douglas Quaid is just a schizoid trapped inside the fantasies created by his own mind! However, I didn´t like A Scanner Darkly in fact I think that it is a pretty bad movie. The only good thing about the movie is the animation techniques that they used which is cool. As for the Screamers there are two "The screamers" movies one from 2009 and one from 1995 but I haven´t seem any of them because they more like sci/horror and I don´t like that much. There are 2 more Phillip K. Dick movies considered in development on IMDB they are "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" and "Ubik". There is this short description of the movie "Ubick" here at the sci fi movie page: ( http://www.scifimoviepage.com/upcoming/ ... /ubik.html ).

So far I haven´t read any Philip K. Dick´s books so far. (shame on me, shame on me!) but I would read some of them if I just wasn´t stucked in this depression that I am now!

When I read the Surrogates graphic novel in the back cover it was said that the comic bears a resemblance with Phillip K Dick´s work beacuse in story technology is developed and it is not used to improve human lifes. I liked the comic book and the movie.

There are other sci fi books that apper to be going to the big screen like Joe Haldeman´s "Forever War".

Thanks for the Post!

I have to say, A Scanner Darkly was a good adaptation of the book, while Blade Runner was a decent film, if not a very true adaptation. Those are the only two Philip K Dick books I have actually read, A Scanner Darkly and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?