Stuart Moore's A Thousand Flowers: Moore/Dick Ruminations

[MattBrady]

A THOUSAND FLOWERSComics, Pop Culture, and the World OutsideInstallment 22by Stuart Moore


Blade Runners and Extraordinary Gentlemen

Rick Deckard kills rogue androids for a living. But what happens when he falls in love with one?

When an ordinary man buys a fake-memory trip to Mars, he finds himself trapped in a web of corporate and government deceit. Did he really travel to Mars -- and if so, what horrible thing did he do there?

In the future, an infallible precognitive crime unit stops crimes before they happen -- but now, the head of the unit is accused of a crime himself. Can he prove his innocence?

You probably recognize these as the plots of three sf/action movies: Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report. You may also know that they’re all based on stories by Philip K. Dick, the late science fiction writer: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” and (surprise) “Minority Report.” Several other films have been made from Dick’s works, including Screamers, Imposter, and the upcoming John Woo/Ben Affleck thriller Paycheck.

Two notes here. First off, with the sole exception of Blade Runner (the most ambitious and successful of the films, commercially and artistically), these are all based on Philip Dick’s short stories -- not his novels. But in his writing, Dick was both more prolific and more highly acclaimed as a novelist. Why? We’ll come back to that momentarily…

Point two: Most of these films -- again, Blade Runner is a partial exception -- are action movies. But Philip K. Dick was not an action writer. His books, both science fiction and mainstream, are exercises in paranoia and reality-shifting, disturbing tales that really get under your skin, dated though many of them are now. They’ve been imitated and used as raw idea-stuff in TV, films, comics, and other prose writings for decades, but there’s an odd sense of the real that rarely comes through in the derived works.

Dick wrote about reality-shifting, about parallel universes, as though he’d really been there and found the whole experience profoundly disturbing. By all accounts, he did believe this, at least on some level. An amazingly prolific writer in the ‘50s and ‘60s, he slowed way down during the ‘70s, spending a disturbing amount of time writing his “Exegesis” -- a huge, detailed account of his bizarre cosmological/theological theories, including what he perceived to be his actual contact with extraterrestrial forces.

Dick never intended the Exegesis to be read, and from the excerpts that have been published, it’s pretty tough going. But Dick never lost his mind, or his talent; during that same period, he wrote some of his most challenging and fascinating works of fiction. In some ways, he gained greater perspective on his work, as seen in this comment from D. Scott Apel’s Philip k. Dick: The Dream Connection. Upon reading the galleys to his novel Vaild, Dick reported:

“I found out I had not written the novel I thought I had. It is a study of a man's passage into acute mental illness, his brief return to sanity, only to pass back into mental illness again, and his courage in facing the fact of his defeat. I thought it had to do with extraterrestrials."

Valis is an unusually personal novel for Dick, but it follows the pattern of many of his other books: Start with an ordinary man and throw a dizzying array of problems, both mundane and surreal, at him until his sense of reality cracks wide open. This basic formula led to such varied, multitextured works as The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Ubik, Martian Time-Slip, and many others. When the novels worked, the pieces fell together into a disturbing, dizzying whole, held together by invisible strands under the surface. When they didn’t, they still contained shards, bits of narrative, unsettling incidents that stuck with the reader. (The Zap Gun comes to mind.)

But Dick’s short stories -- most of them written early in his career -- are, of necessity, simpler. They tend to take one single idea, often a very clever one, and riff on it in a fairly short space. That makes a PKD short story a weaker, less immersive reading experience than one of his novels -- but a stronger candidate for a movie pitch-meeting, and a perfect skeleton on which to hang an action movie. Total Recall and Minority Report bear little resemblance to the stories they’re based on, but the basic story-hooks remain.

This phenomenon isn’t unique to Philip Dick. William Harrison’s original short story, “Roller Ball Murder,” was a fifteen-page meditation on society’s increasing fascination with bloodsports. How do you make an action movie out of it? Easy. Add lots of Rollerball games!

And it’s happening to Alan Moore, too -- or, more accurately, it’s happening with his work. The film version of From Hell tones down and twists around both the disturbing graphic novel and the historical facts of the Ripper case, but retains the basic spine of the story. In this case, the quick pitch goes something like this: The true story of the Jack the Ripper murders, as investigated by a haunted, clairvoyant detective. But as with the Philip Dick stories, that stripped-down, genre-pegging description gives you very little sense of the graphic novel’s depths.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen boasts a similarly attractive high concept: The greatest adventurers of the Victorian age band together against a grave threat. (The sequel’s pitch is even better: The League vs. H.G. Wells’s Martians!) But that description gives you no hint of the comic’s many layers: the mysteries of Mina Harker, the tensions within the team, the depravity of Hyde and the Invisible Man. The film is not out yet at this writing, and is rumored to be troubled. But even if it’s successful on its own terms, it won’t be because it captures the disturbing undertones of the original, but because of different, filmic virtues.

Alan Moore is a frighteningly imaginative man -- it’s not surprising that he’s written books that both work on their own terms and contain that seed, that high-concept fodder that Hollywood craves, but he always, always lets go completely when the project is optioned or being produced for film. Depending on his mood, he may dismiss it with a genteel, “movies aren’t really my thing,” or, if a little piqued, explain his dissociation with a “(Name of film project) isn’t my project, and I don’t see it as related to what I did at all,” and he’s off on his next story, epic, or incantation.

Moore’s Lost Girls has a similarly great hook, but it may be just too sexually explicit a work for mainstream film producers to consider adapting. We’ll see, once it’s finished, but it’s highly likely that we’ll never see a 100% faithful adaptation of any of Moore’s work on screen or in any other media, unless he has something to do with which, to this day, he hasn’t shown even the slightest interest.

Philip K. Dick died in 1982. The only film adaptation of his work produced during his lifetime was Blade Runner. Dick didn’t live to see its release, but he was involved with the film’s production and, despite some mixed feelings along the way, he seemed generally happy with the project. Arguably, it’s the only film adaptation that really retained the spirit of his work, if not the specific plot elements. (In some ways, it bears a greater resemblance to his short stories than to the novel it’s adapted from.)

But to Philip Dick, as to Alan Moore, the original work was always his main focus. In Philip K. Dick: In His Own Words, by Gregg Rickman, he tells of being asked to write the novelization of Blade Runner -- essentially, a novel based on the film based on the original novel. (This practice has become more common in recent years.) Dick resisted the idea; he wanted to write a literary, non-science fiction novel based on the life of a friend of his, the late Bishop Pike of California, whom he fictionalized under the name Timothy Archer.

Dick’s agent, Russell Galen, and his editor at Simon & Schuster, David Hartwell -- both very shrewd and cultured men -- compared notes. They knew that an original novel would not sell as well as a novelization of a major film -- and a non-genre novel, especially in those days, would likely sell worse than an all-new Philip Dick science fiction book (which had become rare). They reported this back to him, and he responded:

“…my agent calls me yesterday and he says, they’ll give you $7,500 for the Timothy Archer literary novel. Or you can make $400,000 doing this novelization based on the screenplay. I says, I won’t do the goddamned novelization. I don’t want the $400,000. I do want to do this novel about Timothy Archer.”

Now, I don’t for a minute begrudge any working writer going for the big money. For most of us -- Philip Dick included -- it isn’t dangled before you every day. And if you can segment out your workload, strike a balance between high-paying work and more serious, personal writing, that’s an ideal existence in many ways. Several current comics writers practice that feat regularly. It’s even possible that, had Dick gone ahead and written the novelization, some people might have read it, remembered his name, and sought out his other works.

But.

The Transmigration Of Timothy Archer is my favorite Philip Dick novel. In it, he pulls off two unusual tricks for him: a first-person narrative and a female protagonist. The prose is very smooth, and psychologically it’s a masterwork. I’ve read it twice now -- not too often, don’t want to ruin it -- and both times, I found myself rushing through pages, wanting to read faster, yet actually afraid that it would end too quickly, almost as though I was picking up and reflecting the anxiety of the characters. Oh, and it’s got a quiet but devastating ending that pulls you abruptly outside the protagonist’s life, casting her actions in a completely different light.

Philip K. Dick wrote The Transmigration of Timothy Archer and then he died. He couldn’t have known it at the time -- he’d already planned another, ambitious sf novel to follow -- but he could not have written both Transmigration and the Blade Runner novelization.

As I said, I’d never advise a working author against making some cash from his work. But while I’m sure Dick would have found something to do with that $400,000, I’m very glad he made the choice he did. Because if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have this novel that means so much to me.

And I’m kind of glad Alan Moore isn’t screwing around with From Hell or “LXG” coloring books, either.

**

Bibliography:

D. Scott Apel, ed., PHILIP K. DICK: THE DREAM CONNECTION (The Impermanent Press, 1987, 1999)
Philip K. Dick, IN PURSUIT OF VALIS: SELECTIONS FROM THE EXEGESIS, edited by Lawrence Sutin (Underwood-Miller, 1991)
Gwen Lee and Doris Elaine Sauter, eds., WHAT IF OUR WORLD IS THEIR HEAVEN?: THE FINAL CONVERSATIONS OF PHILIP K. DICK (Overlook Press, 2000)
Gregg Rickman, PHILIP K. DICK: IN HIS OWN WORDS, Revised Edition (Fragments West, 1988)

**

Stuart Moore has been a writer, a comics editor for Vertigo and Marvel Knights, a kitchen worker, a book editor, and the nighttime manager of the Lawrenceville, NJ Woolworth's curtain department. He has won the Will Eisner award for Best Editor 1996 and the Don Thompson Award for Favorite Editor 1999.

My current comics work: JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #22, coming in August, features a nice stand-alone story spotlighting Green Lantern and Hawkgirl; details and a great cover image here . Next up is LONE, a new future-western series from Dark Horse/Rocket Comics in September, likewise previewed at Rocket Comics.net. More details on these and other new projects, including GIANT ROBOT WARRIORS, VAMPIRELLA, and PARA, here and here.

See you in two weeks…

[L'Zoril]

Great article Stuart. Loved the similarities between the film treatments of Moore and Dick. Yet, I disagree with the following:

Originally posted by MattBrady

First off, with the sole exception of Blade Runner (the most ambitious and successful of the films, commercially and artistically), [/b]

Was Blade Runner successful comercially? I think it bombed completely when it was released. Though it's true that a kind of cult has been formed around it and that now many acknowledge the high creativity of it, it's also true that it sank completely in the box office. Everybody thought it'd be an action movie with Mr. Han Solo Ford and it was nothing of the sort. Well, that's all I have to say.

Continue with the great work Stuart!

[blankpoint]

Blade Runner was sufficiently hyped in the ten years after its release that when it was rereleased in its "Director's Cut" form, it made quite a bit of money. Video/DVD sales for the film have also always been considered quite good. Fight Club is a similar example of a film that was considered a box-office disappointment by the studios, but for years to come will outperform in its dvd sales most of the films that came out around the same time it did.

[Simon DelMonte]

I have to say that I find Blade Runner to be just as far away from the original as the two others Stuart talks about, and that I also find it to be a rather overblown and dull film, made by a director who doesn't quite get it. Whereas I love Minority Report, think that it is made by people who understaind the underlying themes in PKD's works, and feel that it sets a standard for quality SF that most films don't. That it may or may not be true to the original matters little in this context.

[Elayne Riggs]

This is all a guy thing, isn't it?



- Elayne

[L'Zoril]

Originally posted by Elayne Riggs
This is all a guy thing, isn't it?



- Elayne

I prefer to think of it as a sci-fi geek thing.

[Michael P]

Ack! A girl!

Run away! Run away!

[TTROY]

I have to argee with the poster that Blade Runner was a flop both comercially and critically... I believe the more sucessful was Total Recall.
Blade Runner was seen as a flop even by its director. -- it became a cult classic only after the video release.

[Zonker]

Originally posted by Elayne Riggs
This is all a guy thing, isn't it?



- Elayne

The fondness for PKD? Or the inevitable disagreement about which movie adaptation was 'best'? (If the former, I'll try to convince ya otherwise, if the latter, I'll just laugh and admit you're right & welcome back to the internet, eh?)

[Timothycat]

Interesting and insightful article. One more thing that the two have/had in common is the apparent* consumption of prodigous quanities of drugs. And drugs are a very strong theme in both writers bodies of work. There's definitely at least a PhD's thesis worth of material to explore in a comparison of the two.

Best,
Tim

*Tim hedges his bets here in case the reports/rumors he's heard are untrue.

[db]

Originally posted by Timothycat
Interesting and insightful article. One more thing that the two have/had in common is the apparent* consumption of prodigous quanities of drugs. And drugs are a very strong theme in both writers bodies of work. There's definitely at least a PhD's thesis worth of material to explore in a comparison of the two.

Best,
Tim

*Tim hedges his bets here in case the reports/rumors he's heard are untrue.

Those who knew PKD personally say that his drug taking was exaggerated, and in particular that he'd only tried LSD a couple of times.

The opposite is true of Mr Moore.

[Spudmunkey]

Great article!
How come this article made perfect sense?
You're slipping!

[rdcoyner]

Originally posted by L'Zoril
Was Blade Runner successful comercially? I think it bombed completely when it was released.

Actually, you're right. It was considered both a commercial and critical failure upon it's release. It built a cult following over the years and once the director's cut emerged in the early 90s several critics, like Roger Ebert, took the time to reevaluate it and review slightly better. Which sucks, because I agree with Stuart that it's probably the best of the film versions of Philip K. Dick's work, but in reality Minority Report had a greater immediate critical response (look at rottentomatoes.com) and it's box office, even when figuring the price difference from the early 80s to last summer blew Blade Runner away (Blade Runner didn't even make back it's production budget (28mil budget - 27mil gross) until it went to home video, while Minority Report internationally grossed nearly half a billion dollars - imdb.com has detailed info. for both).

Still, that's quibbling and doesn't have to do with the real meat of Stuart Moore's article, which I agree with.

[Aaron Weisbrod]

Great Article, Stuart!

You hit the nail of the head on all points!

With a tip of the hat,
Aaon Weisbrod

[William Coate]

Blade Runner may not have been what most people expected but it certainly surprised a lot of people and lives on in many people's mind as one of the greatest films of all time. What list isn't it on in terms of the ten best films ever made. Not all films are financially successful. It shares a similar history with Apocalypse Now. Successful after the fact over many years.


These self searching films are far superior than most and even though these films did not receive the accolades that they deserved they opened the way for such films as Dances With Wolves and Gladiator. Yes they are not sci-fi but they represent a kind of search for survival or instinct for survival that us humans endure. That is why Blade Runner endures the test of time.

In terms of the book I felt it wasted a lot of time on the collecting of animals bit. Something that was not very important to the movie. It would seem that a more direct adaptation would have been nice but I don't fault him (the author) for going the creative direction and bringing out something new.

When the director's cut of Blade Runner came out in theatres it did quite well and the fact that many people talk about it today demonstrates it's influence. This isn't Ice Pirates and thank goodness for that!

William Coate

[dollman]

I think I might be the only fan of the original Blade Runner released in the theatres with Harrison Ford's narration. The director's cut is fine, but it's not as a great as everyone paints it to be. One of the argument I've heard for why the director's cut is better is that it creates ambiguity as to whether Deckard is human or not. I've watched it a couple of times, and I don't see ambiguity at all. To me Deckard is human. Where's the doubt?

Unfortunately no one rents or sells the theatrical release version anymore, so I really can't compare it Ridley's preferred version.

[L'Zoril]

Originally posted by dollman
One of the argument I've heard for why the director's cut is better is that it creates ambiguity as to whether Deckard is human or not. I've watched it a couple of times, and I don't see ambiguity at all. To me Deckard is human. Where's the doubt?

Actually, Deckard is not human. He's the 4th replicant. (Or was it 5th?) Ridley Scott said it himself in July of 2000. There is evidence throughout the movie. For example, at some point of the movie every replicant has a red brightness in their eyes (Rachel in Deckard's home, Pris in Sebastian's). Deckard also has the shining in his eyes while talking to Rachel in his house. Another clue is that all replicants are called by their surname while humans are called by their names. Deckard is called by both.

Well, that's it.

[dollman]

Originally posted by L'Zoril
Actually, Deckard is not human. He's the 4th replicant. (Or was it 5th?) Ridley Scott said it himself in July of 2000. There is evidence throughout the movie. For example, at some point of the movie every replicant has a red brightness in their eyes (Rachel in Deckard's home, Pris in Sebastian's). Deckard also has the shining in his eyes while talking to Rachel in his house. Another clue is that all replicants are called by their surname while humans are called by their names. Deckard is called by both.

Well, that's it.

hmm....ok, thanks for the tip off. Now I'll have to watch it again.

[L'Zoril]

Originally posted by dollman
hmm....ok, thanks for the tip off. Now I'll have to watch it again.

No problem. It's a great movie. Go watch it as many times as you can.

[Promethea]

Originally posted by Elayne Riggs
This is all a guy thing, isn't it?



- Elayne

It most certainly not. I got the PKD short story collection for Christmas. As I was reading it, I thought "Hmm, 'Paycheck' would make a great movie though they will have to 'Minority Report' it."

[Mister Farrell]

Originally posted by L'Zoril
Actually, Deckard is not human. He's the 4th replicant. (Or was it 5th?) Ridley Scott said it himself in July of 2000. There is evidence throughout the movie. For example, at some point of the movie every replicant has a red brightness in their eyes (Rachel in Deckard's home, Pris in Sebastian's). Deckard also has the shining in his eyes while talking to Rachel in his house. Another clue is that all replicants are called by their surname while humans are called by their names. Deckard is called by both.

Well, that's it.

Also, there's the recurring dream/image of the unicorn. It appears in Deckard's dream and then Gaffe leaves him an origami unicorn as a calling card. Much like Deckard telling Rachel about her memory of the spiders in unknowable detail, I thought Gaffe was revealing his knowledge of Deckard's dream.

In the studio cut (which I also liked, although I prefer the director's cut), they cut the dream of the unicorn, but left the origami. I interpreted this to be a reflection of Rachel's artificial nature; that Deckard was running away with a fantasy.

Great article, thought-provoking article, particularly the bit about Dick's untimely death and his decision not to fillow the money. Maybe even a lesson in there.

[Elayne Riggs]

Originally posted by L'Zoril
I prefer to think of it as a sci-fi geek thing.

Nah, I was a sci-fi geek for awhile and I was never into Philip('s) Dick... but all the sci-fi geek guys I knew were.

- Elayne

[L'Zoril]

Originally posted by Mister Farrell
Also, there's the recurring dream/image of the unicorn. It appears in Deckard's dream and then Gaffe leaves him an origami unicorn as a calling card. Much like Deckard telling Rachel about her memory of the spiders in unknowable detail, I thought Gaffe was revealing his knowledge of Deckard's dream.

Forgot that one. thanx!

[Zonker]

Originally posted by Elayne Riggs
Nah, I was a sci-fi geek for awhile and I was never into Philip('s) Dick... but all the sci-fi geek guys I knew were.

- Elayne

OK, got my answer. Here's an attempt at a halfway serious reply-- you may indeed be on to something: Dick's themes of paranoia and the unreal reality (Gnosticism basically) may indeed be predominantly guy things. Most conspiracy buffs you come across also seem to be males for some reason. Maybe something to do with many females being tied to the here & now reality without the time or inclination for the more speculative bullshit? (as in my wife: "yeah, yeah all this philosophy stuff is well & good, but who's gonna raise our kids while you guys are busy navel-gazing?")

On the other hand, it may be that most of the PKD sf has women as ornamental and/or unobtainable objects, and not very interesting characters. More armchair psychology : Dick was probably most productive as a writer when he was in the dumps, between one of his several marriages. In that case, I'd be interested if you've ever read Transmigration of Timothy Archer, which, as Stuart says, has a first-person female narrator who seemed to ring true (to me at least.) It's also one of the least beholden to pulp sf conventions of any of Dick's books, so if your tastes have changed away from sf, you might like this book more.

Cheers,
Z.

[little kon-el]

Originally posted by TTROY
I have to argee with the poster that Blade Runner was a flop both comercially and critically... I believe the more sucessful was Total Recall.
Blade Runner was seen as a flop even by its director. -- it became a cult classic only after the video release.

I think that something else unforeseen is that Blade Runner debuted at the same time as E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial. The US had fallen in love with really happy-go-lucky Sci-Fi/immigrant that was ET and couldn't really bear the weight of something like the nihilistic/anti-asian noir Blade Runner. Both stories had the plot of "sci-immigrant(s) come down to the new world", with ET welcoming this immigrant in because he embraces our culture and Blade Runner rejecting the immigrants because they critique and criticize our culture.

Curiously enough, Alan Moore's D.R & Quinch comes out the same time and creates a very similar "Alien-Lands-To-Earth" story, playing with the basic structure that was ET, but manipulating the narrative so that it gives a critique on British Political Policy of the early 1980s similar to the way that Blade Runner gives a biting political commentary to US policy in the early 1980s.

little kon-el