Androids, Blade Runner, Philip Dick

Philip Dick is, of course, the author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the book on which the movie Blade Runner is based.

I imagine there has been a fair amount written comparing the two. Blade Runner received - as I recall - middling or even poor reviews when it first came out in 1982, but its reputation has grown considerably since. Philip Dick (who died not long before the movie came out) has achieved cult-hero and eccentric sci-fi author status as well.

(Re the movie: some people seemed to particularly hate the voice-overs by Harrison Ford. I can't say I minded them.)

Blade Runner had fabulous special effects (for 1982), and a uniquely evocative 'feel' - the future as an endless grey, urban drizzle. It also has one of my all-time favorite, breath-catching movie moments: Rutger Hauer, as Roy Batty, letting Harrison Ford go - and then opening his hands, releasing a pigeon.

I don't complain that it isn't the book. You can't film an entire book (OK, except for Peter Jackson). But there are elements in Sheep - missing from the movie - that give it a unique feel as well, and are worth comment.

One example is the Penfield Mood Organ (dial up a mood at will).

"My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression," Iran said.

"Dial 888," Rick said as the set warmed. "The desire to watch TV no matter what's on it."


Another example: Wilber Mercer and the empathy box, and the associated belief system of Mercerism.


But the most unique aspect of the novel is Dick's description of his created future's attitude towards animals. As most of them are rare or extinct, the result of the devastating 'Word War Terminus', even the smallest animal - even a spider - is cherished. Instead of mega-inch wide-screen TVs as a status symbol, or granite kitchen countertops, real status is achieved when a family owns an animal:

"Graveson has that chicken over there . . . . I think Ed Smith has a cat down in his apt; at least he says so . . . "

At the end of the book Deckard has 'retired' Rachel (an android) and returned home with - against all odds - a toad. His wife shows him what he did not notice: the toad is artifical. Then, she finally convinces him to rest . . .

"Will you go to bed now? If I set the mood organ to a 670 setting?"
"What does that bring about?" he asked.
"Long deserved peace," Iran said.

. . . and as he sleeps, Iran searches the yellow pages for a business that sells animal accessories. And buys a pound of artificial flies.