Interesting Technique

A new movie is either due out very soon, or is just out (in the States at least), and it has to be said, I'm intrigued. A Scanner Darkly - based on the novel by Philip K Dick - that's the chap the wrote the original version of Blade Runner (aka, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck - anyways, it's another of his books turned into a movie. A Scanner Darkly was written in 1977, so he's done well to get it out there...

Anyways - it's not the fact it's being made into a movie, it's HOW. You've seen movie-movies - actors on sets/locations. You've seen animation - the characters and setting are drawn by hand or computer, and there's the mixture - Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and more recently, Looney Tunes Space Jam and Back in Action... Then there are the "fake" setting movies such as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City. Well A Scanner Darkly is a lot different BUT not new.

You can view the trailer at this site to see what I mean, but cast you minds waaaaay back to - ugh - the late seventies, when a chap took this little book and turned it into a movie called The Lord of the Rings. Ralph Bakshi wasn't new to this method of movie making, as I am sure I've seen it in his movie Wizards as well. Basically, live-action actors being animated over. Odd effect. But anyway - that seems to be what they've done with A Scanner Darkly, but with computers helping them. Check out the trailer and you'll see what I mean. Quite a few "names" in it, and spotting them through the movie is either easy in some cases, or not in others. The little pic up there is none other than Keanu Reeves...

The plot/premese sounds interesting enough:

In a futuristic society, "the war on drugs" has essentially been lost. The most dangerous narcotic, Substance D, causes split personalities in people who abuse it. A gifted detective (Keanu Reeves) who gets addicted to the drug while working undercover develops a personality that becomes a dealer, which leads to problems when he is basically assigned to investigate himself.
...but I'm not sure if I can handle watching that style of movie for... Hmmm one hour, forty minutes. If I get a chance, you'll see it here ;)

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3 Responses to “Interesting Technique”

Alan Fisher said...

interesting to see that the cartoon Keanu can't act either.

Minge said...

It's the same kind of animation as used in the Richard E Grant Doctor Who adventure. I don't know if I could sit through it for well over an hour, though.

Animation makes me feel uncomfortable.

Anonymous said...

It looks interesting - I'm not normally into sci-fi, but may well take a looky at this.