Philip K. Dick Previews Blade Runner: “The Impact of the Film is Going to be Overwhelming” (1981)

PKD Blade Runner

Click the image to view larg­er ver­sion

Last week we fea­tured stu­dio-exec­u­tive notes on Blade Run­ner. “This movie gets worse every screen­ing,” they said. “Dead­ly dull,”  they said. “More tits,” they said. These remarks now offer some­thing in the way of irony and enter­tain­ment, but they only give even the most avid Blade Run­ner enthu­si­ast so much to think about. For a more inter­est­ing reac­tion, and cer­tain­ly a more artic­u­late one, we should turn to Philip K. Dick, the pro­lif­ic writer of psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly inven­tive sci­ence fic­tion whose Do Androids Dream of Elec­tric Sheep? pro­vid­ed Blade Run­ner’s source mate­r­i­al. Dick, alas, would not live to see the film open in the­aters, much less ascend to the top of the canon of sci-fi cin­e­ma decades lat­er, but he did get a good look, before mov­ing on to oth­er realms, at the script and some of the footage. With just those, he man­aged to out­guess every­one — audi­ences, crit­ics, and espe­cial­ly stu­dio exec­u­tives — about the film’s fate.

“This indeed is not sci­ence fic­tion,” Dick wrote in a let­ter avail­able on his offi­cial site. “It is not fan­ta­sy; it is exact­ly what [star] Har­ri­son [Ford] said: futur­ism. The impact of Blade Run­ner is sim­ply going to be over­whelm­ing, both on the pub­lic and on cre­ative peo­ple — and, I believe, on sci­ence fic­tion as a field. [ … ] Noth­ing we have done, indi­vid­u­al­ly or col­lec­tive­ly, match­es Blade Run­ner. This is not escapism; it is super real­ism, so grit­ty and detailed and authen­tic and god­dam con­vinc­ing that, well, after the seg­ment I found my nor­mal present-day ‘real­i­ty’ pal­lid by com­par­i­son.” 32 years on, many of us fre­quent Blade Run­ner-watch­ers feel just the same way, and Dick wrote that after catch­ing noth­ing more than a seg­ment about the pic­ture on the news. “It was my own inte­ri­or world,” he lat­er told inter­view John Boon­stra. “They caught it per­fect­ly.” And, at this point, all of our inte­ri­or worlds look a lit­tle more Blade Run­ner-esque.

H/T to Mar­i­anne for the lead on the PKD let­ter.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Blade Run­ner: The Pil­lar of Sci-Fi Cin­e­ma that Siskel, Ebert, and Stu­dio Execs Orig­i­nal­ly Hat­ed

The Mak­ing of Blade Run­ner

The Blade Run­ner Sketch­book: The Orig­i­nal Art of Syd Mead and Rid­ley Scott Online

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­lesA Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.


by | Permalink | Comments (4) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Comments (4)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
  • PKD was pleased as you say with his view­ing of the uncut footage of Scot­t’s work. How­ev­er, as not­ed by the edi­tors of DIck­’s “Exe­ge­sis of Philip K. Dick” …“Left on the cut­ting room floor was the nov­el­’s fic­tion­al reli­gion, “Mer­cerism” whose adher­ents tech­no­log­i­cal­ly and empath­i­cal­ly merge with Wilbur Mer­cer as he climbs a hill, is stoned to death, descends into a tomb world, and aris­es, in an end­less cycle.”

  • Con ate dog says:

    Of every­one I’ve ever asked, this is the most quot­ed as Best Movie Ever.

    It’s clear­ly the most heart­break­ing ever.

  • ubikchip says:

    great­est film ever made

  • ultramanjones says:

    By miles and miles. No mat­ter what movie is named the next best, they are all mere enter­tain­ment, moral­i­ty tales, or “inspi­ra­tional” sto­ries of hope, bla bla bla. Blade Run­ner is par­a­lyz­ing in its relent­less­ly hon­est pen­e­tra­tion into the true real­i­ty of our inner thoughts and fears, not some dile­ri­ous sur­ren­der into the denial of ton­ics and balms like ALL the rest, whose entire mes­sages dis­solve into plat­i­tudes or advice: “there’s always hope!”, “Rev­el in your vices”, “have faith!”, “Be strong like our hero!”, “Love will find a way”, “it’s a won­der­ful life!”, “Nev­er give up!”, “The truth will set you free”, etc… ad nau­se­um. Unlike all the oth­ers, when it comes to human­i­ty, Blade Run­ner just plain REAL. It is Roy Bat­ty alone and dying, crying,“Pris!?…” AND it is an absolute mas­ter­piece of cin­e­ma; a PERFECT blend of visu­als, style, tone, sound, music, pac­ing, hyp­no­tism, beau­ty, ugli­ness, thought invi­ta­tion, and mag­nif­i­cence. Add to that the bril­liant cast­ing and myr­i­ad of career pin­na­cle act­ing per­for­mances, the incred­i­ble art, the unpar­al­leled spe­cial effects pre­sen­ta­tion, and final­ly the VISION of what we all know, whether we like it or not, IS our future. There is no com­par­i­son. There is no “close” sec­ond run­ner up. Blade Run­ner is the GOAT, the life­time sup­ply of GOAT milk, AND a GOAT kick in the face to wake you from your fan­tasies and snap you back to real­i­ty. Enjoy.

Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.