A scanner Darkly

[Queso]

Alright,

there's a new movie that's out in certain theatres called a scanner darkly.

 

It has sir Keanu reeves, whose name I'm not exactly sure how to spell.

 

It's a strange film with an amazing filter put on all of the video, making real video look like a cartoon, or something.

Like Waking Life, if any of you have ever been drenched in the beauty of that hour and a half.

 

Has anybody else seen this movie?

It was STRANGE~

 

I'm going to need to see it another few times to grasp what was all happening . .

 

A question for anyone else who has seen it:

 

Substance D...

 

at the end of the film, it was said to be dedicated to friends who have died, and are in a state of permanent psychosis from some drug,

but I'm not quite sure what drug they were talking about.

 

The drug in the movie was called substance D, and I'm not sure if it was methamphetamines they were talking about, or Heroin.

 

Whatever it was, it was and is destroying peoples' lives, fiction and non-fiction.

[IDMclean]

That happens to be the name of a piece of music I have.

[Queso]

strange. You should go see it.

 

who composes the piece?

[CraigD]

there's a new movie that's out in certain theatres called a scanner darkly.

The movie (which I’m hoping to see in a theatre soon) is supposed to be a very faithful adaptation of Philip K Dick’s 1977 novel of the same name. If you liked the movie, and like reading, you’d likely like the book even more. If you like I Dick novel, you’ll likely like them all.

It's a strange film with an amazing filter put on all of the video, making real video look like a cartoon, or something.

Like Waking Life, if any of you have ever been drenched in the beauty of that hour and a half.

It’s animated, using the rotoscope technique. In this technique, you film or video the actors going through the motions you want, then transfer it into lined images, which you can add to and color however you want.

 

A lot of famous animated films, like “Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs”, used rotoscope. In the old days, everything had to be done by hand – you project the video frame-by=frame onto a drawing table, trace the images onto cell, then add details and color. These days, there’s software to capture the outlines, and everything else, but the new computer-generates stuff still looks a lot like the old hand techniques – software hasn’t so much changed rotoscope, as made it faster and much, much cheaper to produce.

 

Richard Linklater did both “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly”, using the new, computer-based techniques.

The drug in the movie was called substance D, and I'm not sure if it was methamphetamines they were talking about, or Heroin.

In the book, it’s revealed that substance D is not a synthetic at all, but derived from a flower by a cult intent on redirecting human culture.

 

On several occasions, Dick was asked about substance D, and insisted it’s completely fictional.

[Queso]

wow!

 

thanks for all the information, I MUST check out his books.

[Pyrotex]

...I MUST check out his books.

Philip K. Dick was an odd bird, who suffered off and on from depression and substance abuse. Many of his stories share variations on the theme that what we experience as reality may not be entirely real.

 

He wrote "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" which was mogrified into the movie "Blade Runner".

[Queso]

Philip K. Dick was an odd bird, who suffered off and on from depression and substance abuse. Many of his stories share variations on the theme that what we experience as reality may not be entirely real.

 

He wrote "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" which was mogrified into the movie "Blade Runner".

 

havn't seen that flick, but sounds like i could relate.

 

I wish there were more bookstores here in FL (ugh...this smelly swamp)

 

I used to aquire books on a daily basis "back home"

[InfiniteNow]

{Re:Blade Runner}havn't seen that flick, but sounds like i could relate.

OMG, orb, you would enjoy it. It's a great film... funny, dark, thought provoking... Seriously, when you want to kick back, go rent this one. :cup:

 

 

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.

 

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

[CraigD]

I read A Scanner Darkly and a lot of Dick’s short stories in the early 80s, and was a bit turned off my his tendancies toward tearfully unhappy endings. Then, a few years ago, I read one of his earliest, ”The Man in the High Castle”, and reconsidered.

 

Now I’m reading VALIS, and am amazed – Dick may have been crazy – by his own admission, many of his stories are strongly autobiographical - but he was also profoundly thoughtful, very broadly knowledgable, and a masterful writer.

[TheFaithfulStone]

I've always wondered what exactly the Tannhauser Gate was. So mysterious...

 

TFS

[Pyrotex]

I've always wondered what exactly the Tannhauser Gate was. So mysterious...

Yes!!

That was what attracted me to SF in the first place. Casual references to things and places and concepts totally beyond my understanding, the planting of seeds of mystery that would wake me up in the black of night, and have me rolling the words on my tongue silently, wondering. Visions of worlds that had no history, no cause, no rational basis, except for that brief and vivid vingette of the story--visions that made me yearn to be there, visions that burned inside me and would not be quenched.

[TheFaithfulStone]

I know! It's why I loved Lord of the Rings and HATED all that Sword of Shannara crap.

 

Beren and Luthien? The Kin Slaying? That was the stuff that intrigued me more than plot - the idea that there was a whole world out there that was waiting to be discovered, and all I needed to do was open a different book and all of the answers would be revealed.

 

TFS

[UncleAl]

I've always wondered what exactly the Tannhauser Gate was. So mysterious...

The reference comes from a poetic piece written by Rutger Hauer prior to the filming of his monologue in Blade Runner. It traces to Richard Wagner's three act opera Tannhäuser in 1845, thence from

 

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/swinburne/harrison/3.html

Man, that'll tan your lederhosen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannh%C3%A4user

 

The singular theme running through Philip K. Dick's work is that nobody and nothing can be trusted. Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and Total Recall (We Can Remember It for You Wholesale) arrive at no definitive conclusion. Was Deckard a replicant himself? Was Quaid's adventure real or implanted?

 

Dick's masterwork is A Scanner Darkly. He eloquently puts forth that you cannot trust yourself, either. Through whose eyes do you look? (Hence the theoretical effectiveness of Official Truth and the real dangers of uncontrolled communication.)