Letters to Logos
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
For those of you who don't know, Philp K. Dick's sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was adapted into the 1982 movie Blade Runner directed by the visionary Ridley Scott. More recently, a sequel to Blade Runner titled Blade Runner 2049 hit the theaters in 2017. It was a critical success like its predecessor despite being directed by the sci-fi up-and-comer Denis Villeneuve. Villeneuve's visually profound futuristic follow-up benefited from a movie industry saturated with mature CGI technology and effects, and skilled labor to utilize it - something that the revolutionary first film somewhat lacked in 1982, despite it's special effects still holding up relatively well today. Today, with modern movie effects, sci-fi classics can finally get the aesthetic treatment they really deserve. Philip K. Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in 1966 after all, when the imaginations of the day, and from decades past, far outpaced what could be produced on film. The notable exception, one could argue, is the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey directed by the late, legendary perfectionist, Stanley Kubrick. In the right hands, like Kubrick's, could a hypothetical 1968 Blade Runner hold a candle to the 1982 version or the 2017 follow-up? Surely, with Kubrick's talent, it would have been something memorable.
Whereas Kubrick was a methodical, thematic and visual perfectionist with film, Dick was an imaginative and prolific writer. One of Dick's stories in Kubrick's hand would have been enigmatic precisely because of their contrasting approaches to entertainment. Dick wrote dozens and dozens of books over his lifetime - 49 to be exact. Many of his books and short stories have been adapted into television shows and movies with critical and commercial success. Surely, you've also heard of movies like Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and Total Recall? Man in the High Castle, a brilliant Amazon television show (albeit with a rushed ending) was also based on his work. With all these choices, what is it about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? that made the final Letters to Logos Fiction list? The simple answer is this book was originally part of the Letters to Logos Philosophy list in the final section "Postmodernism, Postmodernism Critique, and Philosophical Science Fiction." Following some last-minute shuffling and additions this book was pushed out of the Philosophy section. I thought of dropping it altogether, but Blade Runner 2049 was an upcoming release a few months after my book lists finalization. Being an original Blade Runner fan, and a fan of Denis Villeneuve's prior work, I stuck with this story and moved it into Fiction, where it has remained to this day. Riding on the hype of Villeneuve's upcoming sequel, I wanted to experience the original inspiration for these movies.
Compared to Philip K. Dick's original novel, Blade Runner does capture the noir setting and many of the original beats within the text. Central to both versions are the philosophical questions on human existence, consciousness, and what it really means to be human. Can androids love the same as real people? Even if they can't, what does it matter if humans can’t tell the difference? Is killing a rogue android justified if it's committed a crime even though it’s mostly made of the same biological material as a human?
By the end of both the original novel and the movie - the latter ending on a more powerful moment with the poetic “…All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain…” - the reader and viewer are left with more questions than answers on the nature of being and existence. Considering what's being introduced into the modern mainstream, like ChatGPT, for example, or what is surely to come soon after that will push the boundaries of AI even more, these central questions on the nature of consciousness and humanity’s place in the world are more pressing than ever.