It seems like I’ve been ranting and raving about this film since I first started blogging a little over a year ago. So yeah, you can safely assume I am eagerly waiting for it to come to theatres. Maybe because it brings together one of the coolest filmmakers today with a science fiction legend. A Scanner Darkly was conceived by Science Fiction genius Philip K. Dick in 1977 who wrote some of the most phenomenal tales that were naturally ahead of his time. He left behind a vast body of work some of which many of you may be familiar with their film adaptations such as “Paycheck”, “Minority Report”, “Blade Runner” and “Total Recall”. Till today when you watch these films or read these stories you can see just how far in to the future Philip K. Dick could see and this was a man who died in 1982.
Despite coming up with futuristic concepts his stories dealt with broader concepts; about the problems that could develop from technology, which added the touch of realism to each story. The ability to stop murders from happening in Minority Report was a story about the faith and trust we have in technology always working right as the perfect system, when in reality all systems are naturally flawed.
For A Scanner Darkly the story goes into a future where America has lost the war on drugs and a drug sub-culture becomes dominated by a particularly addictive drug called Substance D, which causes the two hemispheres of the brain to function independently: split personalities. The main character, a policeman, becomes unable to distinguish between which persona he really is.
But I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t read it. In fact I won’t talk about it again until it comes out and I can review it. In the meantime, check out the trailer above.
“…what does a scanner see?”
Don’t the movie “Screamers” which was based on the short story “Second Variety”.