Maybe the most telling difference between novelists and film-makers is that a novelist is down with the title, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and a film-maker thinks that Blade Runner is more the way to go.
But really, neither of those are true. The novelist rarely chooses the book title; the film-maker often has little input into the movie title.
Nonetheless, the differences between Blade Runner, the movie based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, are many. I have only seen Blade Runner once, a zillion years ago. I remember rain, and Harrison Ford, and dim lighting.
I absolutely loved Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I thought it was weird (but not in an offputting way) and interesting (but not in an "I'm saying interesting because what I mean is bad" way) and noir (in the best possible Raymond Chandler way) and sentimental (but not in a cornball way) and deep (but not in an inaccessible way).
The protagonist is a bounty hunter who's charged with tracking down androids. It's a post-apocalyptic Earth, where most humans have emigrated to Mars, and most living creatures are extinct. The few humans (and androids) left on Earth are faced with the inevitable degradation of the left-behind Earth. The novelist (Philip K. Dick) coined the term "kipple" to describe the infiltration of crap that comes with abandonment.
Loved it. Looking forward to reading more.
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