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Revok And Hobbes Differ On A SCANNER DARKLY!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
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In response to yesterday’s reviews, Darryl Revok and Hobbes sent in two more reviews from the recent Brandeis screening of A SCANNER DARKLY.
One review is generally positive, the other is…less-than-enthusiastic.
We’ll start off with Revok’s more positive assessment…
Here are some of my first impressions, as a Philip K. Dick fan and someone who
has read the book, but only once.
The Look
The animation style does not detract from the film. If anything, it adds to
the fundamentally trippy nature of the book. While it isn't perfect, it's
done quite well. This screening was, from what I heard, of a version about
95% done, so one or two shots weren't fully animated yet; it's weird to see
live action in an animated movie, but in one or two places the animation
hadn't been completed.
The scramble suits are animated wonderfully. They're
not exactly what I had imagined, but end up being perfect for the movie.
People have complained about the decision to animate it in the first place,
and here's what I have to say about that, after having seen the film: The
animation works, simple as that. It adds a touch of unreality, a touch of
strangeness, to the whole affair that is signature of Philip K. Dick, and in
that I applaud the creators.
The Acting
The acting is surprisingly better than I had expected. Keanu Reeves still
isn't a good actor, but he shys away for the most part from the dreadful
overacting that he's prone too. He actually gets less screen time than you
would expect; Linklater has made this into something of an ensemble movie.
Robert Downey Jr. is incredible as Barris. Talkative, loud-mouthed, arrogant,
and exactly as I imagined the character in the book. He gets completely into
the role (something I imagine isn't so hard for him), though the
motormouthing part of it is slightly reminiscent of Johnny Depp's Hunter
Thompson in Fear and Loathing. Winona Ryder as Donna is actually a small
part, but well-acted, and I had no complaints about her. Woody Harrelson
plays his part very well, and I enjoyed his character a lot. Freck, played by
Rory Cochrane, was almost perfect. He played the paranoid schizophrenic on D
part extremely convincingly.
Relationship to the Book
Hats off to Robert Linklater and his screenwriters. This is by far the most
accurate book to movie transformation I have seen in years, and possibly one
of the best done ever. Time and time again I heard lines directly quoted from
the book, and not simply as an homage. Let's face it; not every scene could
have gone into the movie, and Linklater did an admirable job of choosing what
scenes to cut without losing the pace of the film. He even won my admiration
by scrolling Philip K. Dick's list of dead friends at the end of the film,
quoting him directly from his author's note.
As a whole, the film sticks
remarkably close to the book, with only minor changes in the overall
structure, all of them simply to clarify things that could not be explained
in the amount of time they had. The one semi-large plot element that was
completely cut was Bob Arctor's mood organ, but it doesn't make any
difference; the mood organ and its ilk were one of PKD's trademark ways of
adding sci-fi and transcendental messages to his stories, and for something
set seven years in the future, it doesn't really make sense. I didn't miss
that section at all.
I did feel, however, that not enough time was spent on
the fundamental change from Fred seeing himself as Bob Arctor to Fred seeing
Bob Arctor as someone entirely different. It was unfortunate that not enough
time was spent on that, but in the confines of the cinema I think they did a
good enough job of it; maybe not the best they could have, but still a good
job.
Audio
Audio still needed some work; the dialogue was hard to hear in many scenes,
but I'm confident that they'll clean that up by release time. Yes, there are
a few Radiohead songs in it, but usually only snippets of them. The scoring
is decent, but certainly not the best I've ever seen.
Overall Impression
Much better than I had expected.
I hadn't felt that the material could be
adapted succesfully to the screen, but it was. A few diehard fans will, of
course, object to every change that they find, but they will be in the
minority. I think the film with tank in wide release, but not because of its
quality, but because of the issues dealt with. On the whole, it was
thought-provoking (my friends, who hadn't read the book, sat and talked about
it for twenty minutes after the film) and entertaining (everyone agreed that
it was good).
So, two thumbs up for the film, and I hope you all enjoy it
when it comes out in theatres.
Now, here’s Hobbes alternate take on the film…
I was also at the "world premier" screening of A Scanner Darkly at Brandeis University, and after reading the reviews you posted I felt obliged to relate to you the views held by myself and all of my friends with whom I saw the movie.
First of all, I will tell you this: A Scanner Darkly is not an adaptation. I haven't read the novel (short story, whatever) myself, but the Producer, Erwin Stoff, revealed afterwards that the fight for rights to the story involved the concession that the movie be "true to the story." Unfortunately, they failed to realize that "true to the story" for an adaptation means "capturing the essence of the story" and translating it into a visual movie.
Visually, there was nothing here. Sure, the style of animation was impressive and hallucinatory, but simply filming everday events through black and white doesn't make something a movie, either. It makes it a bad home video. One of AICN's earlier reviews lauded the film for preserving even the dialogue of the original text. I can barely express the lunacy of that statement.
We don't watch movies in order to obtain the same art as a book. If I wish to read a book, I shall. I watch a movie because it's a visual media. And here, there was no visual story. It was a series of non-events and banterings that failed to develop beyond an addicted cop that was slowly going insane.
Why was he going insane? Because he was on drugs. Why did he get into drugs? Were we visually ever told? Not really. We're verbally told he was sick of his life, but not exactly why. Why was he a cop in the first place? Again, no visual clue.
When the "twist" happens in the third act, my friends and I were collectively outraged to discover that an actual story had been going on the entire time and that no one had felt we merited its telling. And it's sad how easily this story could have been artistically modified for the screen. Simply start with Keanu Reeve's character, Robert, deciding to take on a mission as a cop or becoming a narcotics cop and then becoming addicted to the drug, D, at the midpoint. That could have been moving: watching a civil servant lose his ideals, conceptions, and identity to addiction.
Really, that's the problem here. The movie starts in the second half of the second act of a real movie and somehow drags on for a few hours. It's all subtext without any text.
The "twist" reveals that there was a movie all along and that no one wanted to show it for the sake of being "true to the story."
Personally, I rarely embrace that whole “making real life look animated” thing.
It can certainly work well in small doses (TV commercials, for example), but I find it highly distracting when used in mass quantities. I usually end up feeling like I’m watching a second-rate “cut scene” from a video game instead of true storytelling.
It's too damn gimmicky, but that’s probably just me…
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This one is way too thin, another one the review actually stretched the TB/page. Has the tech person at the site gone on holiday or is it 'arty'? Anyway, I want to see this movie and I think a lot of people won't like it. Shame. On. Them. ;-)
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Keanu stars in cool movies most of the time. I like the sound of this. Horray for Zoidberg.
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The one where that blob thing was sitting at a kitchen table drinking juice and says "I'm going to college." I LOVE that animation style and think the film would have benefitted greatly from that treatment instead of the whole Waking Life vomit-motion thing.
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Get a talkback up on that, maties. Original ideas in Hollywood: Dead, or dead and buried?
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Who is this guy? Named after Calvin's cuddly tiger counterpart or the author of Leviathan? Either way he seems a bit out of his league.
How can someone state that the film is not an adaptation of the book as it did not grab the essense of it visually when he has not read the book? Hell, he wasn't even certain if it was a book or a short story.
How is retaining the dialogue of the book lunacy?
How do we not watch movies to obtain the same art as a book? I know that I read books for various reason, escapism, ideas, to soak up the use of language, to allow my imagination to wander. How does this differ from the way I view a film?
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...Sounds like he'd rather be at home watching DVDs of Arnie clone flicks.
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After five minutes I would be sick of it. Therefore I won't even bother watching it.
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Obviously this guy is fucking retarded.
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What a waste.
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I just read a review in which someone criticized a movie as an adaptation only to admit in the same god damn sentence that THEY HAVEN'T READ THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL. This site defies reality.
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Perhaps AICN is just an hallucination... Ahhh!
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So its not an adaptation and doesnt capture the essence but hes never read the book. Right. That makes sense.
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How did you feel about Sin City?
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He seems to be saying that for it to be an "adaptation" it would need to change the book as necessary to fit into what Syd Fields says a story should be. Therefore, he doesn't need to have read the original material, because he can tell this isn't an "adaptation" without doing so simply by noting the absence of the same set of story beats every other movie has. Get it? He's saying the movie should have been "adapted" into being just like every other story he's ever seen, and since it wasn't, the movie is a bad "adaptation". Of course, this movie may suck, but Hobbesy that's kind of a ghey way to review a film, dude.
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then it will be 200% cooler than anything else this summer that does not end with "-man" or "-Men".
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Which sucked major hind teat, and those lame-ass personal financing commercials that have ripped off the animation, we basically have to cut that out as a point of interest of this movie. Also, the fact that this movie has been on the runway for this long screams "stinker". That said, I have to go see it simply for Robert Downey Jr. who is truly an underrated talent and will hopefully not overdose after being in the spotlight again. "go to meetings, and call you sponsor Robert!"
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Re: Fluffy Unbound. Movies and books are two different mediums. In order to adapt one to suit the other, you have to change it, sometimes significantly. Hobbes was saying that he thought the movie version of A Scanner Darkly could've benefited from using the more visual and cinematic elements of the novel instead of the boring conversations that go nowhere. I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know if he's right, but I thought it was a darn fine review and an interesting point of view.
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that's why he didn't need to read the book in order to tell it wasn't an accurate translation. Moron. He reminds me of these film school assholes that came into my comic store who pretended to know a lot more about film than they actually did. Like Bill O'Riely with politics, they thought if they just got LOUDER and LOUDER it would mask the fact they were just pulling shit out of their ass and had no idea what they were talking about. They used words like "paradigm" and tried to talk about symbolism in the original "Solaris". When I asked what the symbloism of the dead horse actually stood for, they stared at their shoes for a while and finally one of them said, and I quote "It's symbolic for symbolism." Now correct me if I'm wrong, but if a director uses symbolism, it's supposed to stand for SOMETHING, right? If not, then that's just being pretentious and random. Soon after, I had to ask them to leave for being loud, obnoxious dicks.
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Hobbes and his friends may actually be those assholes. He sure sounds like they did.
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Don't Do IT!
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If you ever have had one, Waking Life is a very relevant, even quasi-religious kinda movie. If not, maybe it's just a talk-fest with trippy animation. I have had many lucid dreams and after seeing Waking Life I came to appreciate them (and have them) much more than before. FEED YOUR HEAD!!! There's nothing quite like the feeling of flying or breathing underwater...even if it is just a dream. And the sex, oh man.....even if it is just a dream......
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...a remake of the movie "Rush" from the early 1990's.
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http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/supermanreturns/trailer2/
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POST THAT SHIT
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Pretentiousness by itself is irritating. An attempt at lofty language surrounded by bad grammar and poor style, on the other hand, can be pretty entertaining.
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How does Hobbes know what the visual or cinematic elements of the book are? Hes never read it. That makes no sense.
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"When the "twist" happens in the third act, my friends and I were collectively outraged to discover that an actual story had been going on the entire time and that no one had felt we merited its telling."
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I haven't read the book or seen the movie, but I heretofore claim that the book is neither a book and the movie tis not a faithful adaptaption, were I wont to claim otherwise, perhaps I would, but the feeling befits me not, so I shan't. Good day sirs.
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Hobbes, this is not the film you were looking for. Do yourself a favour - go to the video store and rent yourself a copy of RUSH - I'm pretty sure it's not an adaptation, or at least I'm sure you haven't read the book anyhow...
Seems to me the reception of this film is CLEARLY divided right down the line between those who have read the book and are faithfully waiting for Hollywood to NOT butcher another Phil Dick story, and those who have NOT read the book and HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!
I will say one thing in Hobbes' defence - Linklater's films do tend to be a talkfest with not much going on plotwise (not always!) but you know THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Do you hate theatre? Coz that's ALL you get in a play. It's pretty much a whole genre of film that you just shat on, my man, and really you should'a known better going into the film what to expect from Linklater. If you didn't like Waking Life, your mind was already made up before you even watched one single frame, so let's not pretend you were ever going to have something intelligent to say on this particular story. Maybe now you'll go out and READ the book (it's a novel, by the way) after having watched the film - there's nothing wrong with that, either... -
And it's pretty damn good s'far.
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Can't wait to see 'em.
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I disagree, Itchy. Not a waste to animate Ryder's boobs. The way I see it, it is a blessing in disguise. We've all waited since Heathers for the big nipple reveal, and that was a long time ago. I'd rather see her breasts animated at this time in her life, at least they'll look pert through the miracle of FX.
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....Hobbes, the second reviewer, wants to watch a film like any other film out there. Let's hear it for movies that aren't like movies.
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not like verns review. comparint this to ice age 2! my balls still hurt from reading that. i understand that there are differences of opinions, and respect it. kudos, harry, on finding two intelligent individuals to review an intelligent move. now go shoot vern in the face. or, if you aren't a violent man, at least delegate him to the romantic comedy review section. don't let a monkey review a mans film.
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