(no subject)

[the_benj]

Happy Birthday, malinari86!

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I've had the car window replaced. They were really very good: I got out of there in an hour and it was only $155, which is about $200 less than last time this happened.

I got called in to work unexpectedly, yesterday. That was good.

Did a little more present shopping. I still have a little more to do, but not much.

Today, I've done very little of the things I'd intended.
I have finished reading Paycheck and started reading the Man who japed, though.
And ate cashews.
And done stuff online.
So it hasn't been a complete loss.

Tomorrow:
Work, then James' (sim_james) Ghostwalk campaign in the evening.

Comments

[andywyatt.livejournal.com]

John Woo did a version of Paycheck with Ben Affleck. I think it was awesome - but that could be in part because the engineer is the hero :P

[thebenj.livejournal.com]

He certainly did make such a movie; a fact which this edition of the book proudly proclaims.
Indeed, it proclaims that particular point so energetically that it neglects to mention that the book is in fact a collection of short stories, of which Paycheck is simply the first.
Seriously, it says nothing about this, either on the cover or in the copy on the inside of the jacket. You just have to figure that out by noticing that the "novel"'s "chapters" don't, in fact, have anything whatsoever to do with one another.

When I started reading, I was rather perplexed at how quickly events from the movie were turning up. I thought to myself "Did he just leave a whole lot of the novel out? The movie's halfway done by this point, and I'm only twenty pages in!".
As it turns out, I was just halfway through the story.

Weird.

Another case of turning a short story into a feature film, it would seem. In a lot of ways, it's really something of an improvement, as the resolution of the story is less satisfactory.
Then again, I think the whole idea was to play with "how do you use your knowledge of the future to help your future self, when you know you won't have this knowledge later?", which is exactly what it does.

[andywyatt.livejournal.com]

One of my friends is a screenplaywright (if that's a word). He pointed out to me once (referring to Paycheck) that novels generally don't make good movies, and short stories make better ones. I think he has a valid point.

[deonon.livejournal.com]

I find the whole industry of converting Philip K. Dick short-stories and novels to film quite interesting. There has been a few commercial and critical successes (Total Recall as commercial, Blade Runner as critical, Minority Report straddling the gap (imo)). There are also a few bombs we don't really hear about, as well ("Screamers" and "Imposter").

Still, the modus operandi seems to be: take one or more elements from the short story, some of the names, then throw the rest away.

I guess a film is like a short-story: one good idea is all you need to hang both of them on.

[thebenj.livejournal.com]

Of the big three you mention above, I've only read the original of one, Do androids dream of electric sheep?. Given the critical and artistic acclaim which Blade runner has garnered, I was surprised at just how staggeringly different the two are. The exploration of themes is vastly disparate.

Yes, definitely interesting how his work gets converted.

[deonon.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the thing that interested me most about Blade Runner/Do Androids... They are the closest in plot, but as you say, the themes are so different between the book and the film.

I'm looking forward to "A Scanner Darkly" which is one of the Dick films due out in 2006. From the trailer and reviews it seems similar plotwise, but it will be interesting to see whether it carries the underlying message of the novel.