If decades of TV and cinema have taught us anything, it’s that adapting the science fiction works of Philip K. Dick is difficult, but can deliver some of landmark moments of film. The next frontier seems to be video games, and Entertainment One’s studio Secret Location are taking Dick’s The Great C and turning it into a cinematic virtual reality narrative. It will premiere at the Venice Film Festival later this year, before coming to Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world where the remains humanity are ruled over by the supercomputer known as The Great C, the nearby village is forced to send someone on a pilgramage each year to appease the machine. The story follows Clare who’s forced to leave the village and decide whether to accept society’s rules or fight against the world.
Speaking of the choice of platform and technology, Ryan Andal, President and Co-Founder of Secret Location said, “Authors have long adhered to the ‘show, don’t tell’ technique. We’re hard-pressed to find a better way to ‘show’ a story than in VR – adapting Philip K. Dick’s The Great C only makes our ability to ‘show’ even stronger.”
Secret Location will be leaning on cinematic techniques for editing, composition and story structure, blending them with room scale VR, and characters and environments to engage with.
The question is, will it be more like Blade Runner or 2012’s Total Recall?
Source: press release
MrYd
I think you’ll find Total Recall was made in 1990, not 2012. I had some horrible dream once where someone had remade it in 2012, but that couldn’t have happened, could it?
I’m not sure adapting Dick’s work is actually that difficult. It usually tends to end up being at least interesting, and rarely terrible. Maybe if someone tried to adapt Ubik that might prove challenging (it’s enough of a challenge trying to work out what’s going on in the book), but they generally seem to work well.
But a bit of VR Dick sounds interesting. (Although last time I saw some VR Dick, it was a little bit creepy, as I think has been discussed here before)
Stefan L
Obviously the 1990 one was brilliant, but I needed a pretty vivid example of bad Dick.
ron_mcphatty
That was a big miss of a Dick. Last years Electric Dreams Dicks were hit and miss too, some were really satisfying but others were a bit limp. I really, really loved this years big Dick though, Blade Runner 2049, saw it in IMAX and it blew my head off! I also caught Secret Cinema’s dress-up Dick, really enjoyed the pre-film bollocks and it was great to see Ford’s moody noir Dick all big and loud. I haven’t gobbled up any Dick for a while now and I’ve never tried The Great C, might be time to pop that cherry.
MrYd
Electric Dreams was probably more hit than miss though. Maybe 3 I wasn’t keen on, 3 I really liked, and 4 ok ones.
The Bryan Cranston one being a bit shit, while Kill All Others (no matter how much was changed from the original story) was not so shit. I think that means Walter White’s Dick is a bit limp and lifeless, while Norma Bates’ Dick is proud and magnificent. Or something. Maybe it was Bear McCreary’s Dick that did it for me? (The music in that one managed to be fairly unnoticeable until right at the end when it kind of made sure you noticed it and realised it was probably there all along)
Haven’t seen any Dick in IMAX, but we did see reasonably sized Dick at that nice cinema in Reading with Atmos sound and comfy reclining seats. Nice to lie back and be surrounded by Dick coming from all sides and above.
A lot of his stuff is short stories, obviously from many years ago, which can somehow get made into big films that are still relevant today, with a few changes. You can play with a little old Dick and it grows into something big and impressive and suitable for a younger audience.
I think we should probably stop there. Just in case any of us ever want to make a Marvel film in 10 years time or something ;)
ron_mcphatty
Haha, fair enough! I was enjoying all the Dick though. I haven’t read much of his stuff, just Ubik, Electric Sheep and Penultimate Truth, gotta say none of them stuck in my head like anything by Baxter, Wells or Pratchett but they were all great at the time. Any recommendations?
MrYd
I’ve not read as much of his stuff as I should, really.
You’ve mentioned the brilliantly confusing (and probably unfilmable) Ubik. And Electric Sheep (which has surprisingly little to do with Bladerunner, really)
The Man in the High Castle is an interesting little idea that doesn’t have an enormous amount to do with what Amazon did in their TV version (which is finally getting it’s 3rd series later this year).
I must get around to reading more. A Scanner Darkly (because I loved the film) and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (because Guilermo del Toro obviously likes it, hence the Eldritch Palmer character in The Strain, because swapping the names around makes it less obvious, apparently ;)
ron_mcphatty
Thanks bud, I’ll give High Castle and Scanner Darnley a go! I liked the film too, very weird, no idea how closely it follows the book but you’re right about how the others don’t. Electric Sheep loosely inspired the plot for Blade Runner but it felt more like it happened in the same universe as Terry Gillingham’s Brazil.
MOVE
This thread is a big cock-up.