logoalt Hacker News

sreanyesterday at 10:35 AM1 replyview on HN

> And ironically the Philip K Dick original was... very different.

True. Ridley Scott and Philip K Dick collaborated very closely to tell it like they wanted it to. Studios liked it ... not so much.


Replies

atombenderyesterday at 5:28 PM

No, Dick did not collaborate with Scott at all. He was not formally involved in the development of the film. He didn't write anything and wasn't given any say.

Dick actually hated the first drafts of the script, which deviated even more from the novel. He was also upset that he was asked to write a new novelization of the script that would essentially replace DADoES in print. He made comments in the press about how Hollywood was ruining his book.

He really only changed his tune after his agent persuaded the producers to invite Dick to the set in 1981. He was basically coddled by Scott and his team (who was told Dick was creating bad publicity and needed to be assuaged) for a whole day, shown around the set and given a rough cut preview that included several major sequences and unfinished VFX by Douglas Trumbull.

After that, he not only spoke highly of the screenplay (which had evolved with the help of David Peoples, though it didn't exactly get more faithful to the novel), he wrote enthusiastically about how the film was going to change the science fiction genre for ever. Unfortunately, he never got to see the finished film.

show 1 reply