For this month’s Book-To-Movie I thought I’d do something a little different. Instead of writing a new article for this monthly series, where I review a book and its movie adaptation, I decided to present a review that I did for the content website, Helium, back in 2009. Unlike Examiner.com, which closed up in 2016 (and that I used to write for regularly), Helium wasn’t as well known and so I doubt many of you have seen this review before.
I had published this review to Helium relatively not too long after I left grad school. So don’t be surprised if I’m using academic terminology that I often don’t use and if the language comes across in a scholarly manner. I guess I was still speaking and thinking in the foreign language of Scholarly when I wrote this review. Because of that, it is more of a literary analysis than a review. It compares, somewhat, Philip K. Dick’s dystopian sci fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? with its 1982 movie adaptation, Blade Runner.
Unlike most of my Book-To-Movies, this one doesn’t only review Dick’s book (comparing it to the film) but it particularly reviews a special edition of it: the 1992 25th Anniversary edition. So besides reviewing the story it also reviews the features unique to that edition, particularly the afterword. The afterword itself analyses the novel and film deeply and so that’s part of the reason my review is so analytical and comes across more as literary criticism than review. Therefore it takes into consideration several aspects of the novel and movie such as the social aspects, the historical, etc. Although I try to consider these subjects in my more simpler book and movie reviews of today, I often don’t go as far into them as I did years ago. I’m not a college instructor; that’s a career I left a long time ago. So hopefully this review won’t come across as too dry.
That said, I haven’t really re-written the article since writing it for Helium. One of the few the exceptions is replacing a few terms and phrases to reflect today’s trend in speculative fiction such as “dystopian sci fi” which Sheep and Blade Runner are. Many of these terms were not in wide use between the time the novel was published and the time that I wrote the review, and so they were not popularly applied to novels and movies of Sheep’s/Blade Runner’s type until fairly recently. And yes, I also inserted these terms and phrases for strengthening the SEO for those of you who are familiar with search engine optimization!
At the heart of the anti-establishment protest were young countercultural citizens many of who had been drafted into the war. The renegade androids that Deckard hunts down are similar to such citizens. Even though there is no draft to dodge in Sheep, the androids are rebelling against institutional authority by having fled the Earth colony planet of Mars they were forced to work on and settling on Earth to live as humans (120-21).
Similarly, Sheep contains the theme of disillusionment. By the late ‘60s people were realizing that an honest and fair government and the potential to achieve the American Dream were mere ideals. In a sense, the Dream collapsed; society discovered that our government officials were not the honest and fair leaders they had almost always been thought to be and that not all people could have access to the average goods of the nation such as a new car, a house and a good paying job to support a family. Therefore the traditional ideal of America being the land of opportunity and the free was disappearing more than ever.
The theme of disillusionment shows up in the scene where a low class citizen, John Isidore, discovers that what he and the rest of the human race had thought to be reality has all been a conspiratorial televised setup. A show host by the name of Buster Friendly on Isidore’s television screen says concerning a mass-wide religious/philosophy system called Mercerism, “’It has often been said by the adherents of the experience of Mercerism that Wilbur Mercer is not a human being, that he is in fact an archetypal superior entity [. . .]. Well, in a sense this contention has proven correct. Wilbur Mercer [. . .] does not in fact exist. The world in which he climbs is a cheap, Hollywood, commonplace sound stage [. . .]. Mercerism is a swindle!’” (206-7). At this point in the novel, the American Dream seems to literally collapse. The entire apartment building Isidore lives in is shown to cave in (210-11), suggesting the collapse of America’s traditional ideals and conventions that society had taken to be valid reality before the 1960s.
Elements of anti-establishment protests actually do come up in the film but more so in terms of individual expression versus capital ownership. In the 1980s (as is today) there was disloyalty on the producers’ parts toward the authors whose stories many of the movies were based on. This was the case with the conflict between Dick and Blade Runner’s producers. Sammon indicates in the afterword that Dick had not been told by the production companies that they had altered his story in the film’s script (248, 252). This reflects Hollywood’s emphasis of capital gain over respect for the rights of a writer as if the story was the producers’ own. Such an issue is suggested in the androids’ conflict of ownership which is a question of whether the androids own themselves or if their corporate creators do. This conflict is seen in the androids’ escape from the Earth colony where they had been put to work as slaves.
The 25th anniversary edition of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? will help readers see that Dick’s dystopian sci fi novel is one that transcends its era of publication. It is the afterword unique to this edition that helps readers see that. Because the afterword indicates how the basic themes and concepts reflect both the novel’s own era’s issues as well as those of its movie adaptation’s, readers will see that the novel also reflects many issues of the present. If every well-made science fiction classic contained an intelligent afterward like Sammon’s in its anniversary editions, then more people may read older science fiction. On top of that, the science fiction genre as a whole may even be taken more seriously.
Have your read Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric?? Have you seen Blade Runner? Do you think the novel/movie, besides anticipating a dystopian future, still has relevance to today’s social issues for example fake news?
Until next time . . .
I had published this review to Helium relatively not too long after I left grad school. So don’t be surprised if I’m using academic terminology that I often don’t use and if the language comes across in a scholarly manner. I guess I was still speaking and thinking in the foreign language of Scholarly when I wrote this review. Because of that, it is more of a literary analysis than a review. It compares, somewhat, Philip K. Dick’s dystopian sci fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? with its 1982 movie adaptation, Blade Runner.
Unlike most of my Book-To-Movies, this one doesn’t only review Dick’s book (comparing it to the film) but it particularly reviews a special edition of it: the 1992 25th Anniversary edition. So besides reviewing the story it also reviews the features unique to that edition, particularly the afterword. The afterword itself analyses the novel and film deeply and so that’s part of the reason my review is so analytical and comes across more as literary criticism than review. Therefore it takes into consideration several aspects of the novel and movie such as the social aspects, the historical, etc. Although I try to consider these subjects in my more simpler book and movie reviews of today, I often don’t go as far into them as I did years ago. I’m not a college instructor; that’s a career I left a long time ago. So hopefully this review won’t come across as too dry.
That said, I haven’t really re-written the article since writing it for Helium. One of the few the exceptions is replacing a few terms and phrases to reflect today’s trend in speculative fiction such as “dystopian sci fi” which Sheep and Blade Runner are. Many of these terms were not in wide use between the time the novel was published and the time that I wrote the review, and so they were not popularly applied to novels and movies of Sheep’s/Blade Runner’s type until fairly recently. And yes, I also inserted these terms and phrases for strengthening the SEO for those of you who are familiar with search engine optimization!
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| Credit: Pixabay.com |
The Review
The problem that many of today’s readers of science fiction have is that the genre’s literature from several decades ago is “outdated”. However, I enjoyed reading Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and not because I, a vintage sci fi and ‘60s pop culture nerd, am biased for its decade of publication. This novel is exemplary of high quality science fiction that spans beyond its own era and to understand how this is so I suggest reading a copy of the 25th anniversary edition. It contains an intelligently written afterword by Paul M. Sammon that not only shows how the novel is of a high quality that transcends its time, but it also discusses the novel in relation to the 1982 movie adaptation, Blade Runner. In doing this, this edition helps readers put Dick’s tale of a dystopian future into its 1960s historical context that it was born from as well as its movie adaptation’s 1980s historical context and even today’s own social context.The Question of the Morality of ‘Duty’
Sammon’s afterword in the 25th anniversary edition of Sheep presents a brief but sufficient historical account of the novel and its culmination into a film. It explains the 1960s social reform movements’ influence on Dick’s novel. Sammon says, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was first published in the late 1960s, during the height of the Vietnam War. This was a period, according to its author, ‘When I thought we had become as bad as the enemy’ [. . .]” (253). During the Vietnam War many liberals protested the draft which legally required young men to go to war, a war they felt the U.S. unjustly got involved in. This protest was known as the draft dodge which police-hired bounty hunter Rick Deckard’s attitude toward the killing of very human-like robots suggests. In one scene Deckard thinks to himself, “What a job to have to do [. . .]. [. . .] I am required to do wrong.” (223-24). Such an attitude is indicated in the afterword when Sammon refers to this novel “as a literary anti-establishment protest” (243-44), the establishment being the U.S government.At the heart of the anti-establishment protest were young countercultural citizens many of who had been drafted into the war. The renegade androids that Deckard hunts down are similar to such citizens. Even though there is no draft to dodge in Sheep, the androids are rebelling against institutional authority by having fled the Earth colony planet of Mars they were forced to work on and settling on Earth to live as humans (120-21).
Fantasy Vs. Reality
The other characteristic of the ‘60s rebellion that this dystopian sci fi novel contains is the confusion of reality with fantasy, particularly through hallucination. In the ‘60s there was the issue with hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD which was used by counterculture as a means of escape from the every day realities of a corrupt social system. In Sheep, the characters have their hallucinatory trips with VR-like devices called empathy boxes.Similarly, Sheep contains the theme of disillusionment. By the late ‘60s people were realizing that an honest and fair government and the potential to achieve the American Dream were mere ideals. In a sense, the Dream collapsed; society discovered that our government officials were not the honest and fair leaders they had almost always been thought to be and that not all people could have access to the average goods of the nation such as a new car, a house and a good paying job to support a family. Therefore the traditional ideal of America being the land of opportunity and the free was disappearing more than ever.
The theme of disillusionment shows up in the scene where a low class citizen, John Isidore, discovers that what he and the rest of the human race had thought to be reality has all been a conspiratorial televised setup. A show host by the name of Buster Friendly on Isidore’s television screen says concerning a mass-wide religious/philosophy system called Mercerism, “’It has often been said by the adherents of the experience of Mercerism that Wilbur Mercer is not a human being, that he is in fact an archetypal superior entity [. . .]. Well, in a sense this contention has proven correct. Wilbur Mercer [. . .] does not in fact exist. The world in which he climbs is a cheap, Hollywood, commonplace sound stage [. . .]. Mercerism is a swindle!’” (206-7). At this point in the novel, the American Dream seems to literally collapse. The entire apartment building Isidore lives in is shown to cave in (210-11), suggesting the collapse of America’s traditional ideals and conventions that society had taken to be valid reality before the 1960s.
Civil Rights for All Humans and Androids
Another social revolutionary event of the ‘60s that Sheep reflects is the Civil Rights Movement. The androids in the novel are a feared minority subordinated to living human beings. Because of this, they rebel for the same rights as those of humans. Although the androids violently revolt against the human majority and the Civil Rights Movement was mostly a peaceful one, both the androids’ protest as well as the Civil Rights activists’ are rebellions for human rights nevertheless.The Movie
In addition to discussing the historical elements of Sheep’s decade of publication, Sammon’s essay also discusses the ones of the film adaptation’s. Sammon says that fourteen years after the novel’s publication, “what began as a literary anti-establishment protest metamorphosed into Blade Runner, a thoroughly capitalistic enterprise” (243). I find this statement to be only partly true.Elements of anti-establishment protests actually do come up in the film but more so in terms of individual expression versus capital ownership. In the 1980s (as is today) there was disloyalty on the producers’ parts toward the authors whose stories many of the movies were based on. This was the case with the conflict between Dick and Blade Runner’s producers. Sammon indicates in the afterword that Dick had not been told by the production companies that they had altered his story in the film’s script (248, 252). This reflects Hollywood’s emphasis of capital gain over respect for the rights of a writer as if the story was the producers’ own. Such an issue is suggested in the androids’ conflict of ownership which is a question of whether the androids own themselves or if their corporate creators do. This conflict is seen in the androids’ escape from the Earth colony where they had been put to work as slaves.
A Dystopian Sci Fi Novel of Social Commentary For All Times
Sheep’s afterword also helps readers see how this dystopian sci fi novel can serve as a social commentary even to contemporary times. This is suggested when Sammon quotes Dick saying “’Although [Sheep is] essentially a dramatic work, the moral and philosophical ambiguities it dealt with are really very profound’” (243-44). Because the issues in the novel are so profound and therefore centered around “the themes of alienation, paranoia, and perceptual (un)reality” (243), themes that many of today’s social issues involve, its meaning spans our own time.The 25th anniversary edition of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? will help readers see that Dick’s dystopian sci fi novel is one that transcends its era of publication. It is the afterword unique to this edition that helps readers see that. Because the afterword indicates how the basic themes and concepts reflect both the novel’s own era’s issues as well as those of its movie adaptation’s, readers will see that the novel also reflects many issues of the present. If every well-made science fiction classic contained an intelligent afterward like Sammon’s in its anniversary editions, then more people may read older science fiction. On top of that, the science fiction genre as a whole may even be taken more seriously.
Have your read Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric?? Have you seen Blade Runner? Do you think the novel/movie, besides anticipating a dystopian future, still has relevance to today’s social issues for example fake news?
Until next time . . .
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