Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams

[rustyuk]

Two down both rubbish IMHO. Let's hope they have saved the best to last!

PS I'm guessing it's prodcued by the same team that created Utopia?

[Arun_D]

Jonesy23 said:

Another gripe - what was the point in casting a young actress as an old deaf woman beyond the tenuous link to the flashback bits? The makeup wasn't bad but she never sounded or acted anything other than her real (young) age; the voice just didn't match the elderly character.

Unless I'm missing something, the actress playing the old lady is genuinely an old lady (73, Charlie Chapman's graddaughter).

[ajprice]

Arun_D said:

Unless I'm missing something, the actress playing the old lady is genuinely an old lady (73, Charlie Chapman's graddaughter).

Geraldine Chaplin is his daughter, his granddaughter is Oona Chaplin, who was in the White Christmas Black Mirror episode. Oona Chaplin playing the young woman would have been good.

[croyde]

The Actress playing the old lady was born in 1944.

Still looking good for her age.

Yep a bit of make up to make her look 300 odd years old.

Have to admit that I didn't really get it. Was the Irish fella a dead spit for her long gone boyfriend.

Bit of apoxia at the end to make them think everything was fine and dandy?

[Jonesy23]

Oops. Just seemed odd and I made an assumption...

[wombleh]

Am a big fan of Mr Dick and was really looking forward to this series but I'm just not feeling it. They seem to be taking quite large liberties with the original stories and losing a lot.

Will keep watching and hoping this series doesn't turn out to be a huge missed opportunity.

[defblade]

Jonesy23 said:

ash73 said:

I think the theme was basically places get forgotten but relationships endure. They butchered the story a fair bit, in the book the old lady dies on the planet and the crew find an old coin showing it really was Earth; everyone had forgotten it even existed and thought it was a myth.

So I was basically right - there were major chunks of plot missing compared to the original.

Seems pointless to make something from a short story and lose the core along the way & instead chuck in a load of random bits that add nothing.

Been thinking about this today... I think the "OMG, it was Earth all along!" reveal ending, while quite original when written, has now been trumped forever by the original Planet of the Apes... sticking with that it would have been "well, that was just a st version of PotA". So they had to find something else to do.

[TCEvo]

Watched the second episode last night. Thought it was poor; boring and confusing.

[popeyewhite]

wombleh said:

Am a big fan of Mr Dick and was really looking forward to this series but I'm just not feeling it. They seem to be taking quite large liberties with the original stories and losing a lot.

Will keep watching and hoping this series doesn't turn out to be a huge missed opportunity.

I keep defending PKD on here it seems. Thing is if you read his collection of short stories, and I've read every one as you may have, you soon realise that many are just 'cautionary tales', that lack any real drama. They're intelligently written and generally all have similar themes running through but really the average PKD is less screen-worthy than a poor Stephen King. However the top 10% are absolute crackers, but you'll have to sift through a huge amount of short stories to find them. I don't think it's good idea to assume PKD will automatically translate well to the screen as it's often the ideas and philosophies of his stories that are the pull to the reader, and these won't necessarily make good screen drama hence the heavy edits.

[Rapid rental]

oilbethere said:

No just boring.

Classic PH at its best there.

[anonymous-user]

liked the second one but still confused by the ending.

[p1doc]

The Spruce goose said:

liked the second one but still confused by the ending.

same here-but trailer for timothy spall next sunday looks good

[jonvw84]

Got round to catching up with this one last night, confused is not the word.....

Spoiler alerts if you haven't watched it (theorising below will spoil if you've not seen it!)

















I'm guessing they died and it was a flashback? Or she's a telepath of some kind? Or the creepy robot changed the course and they went to Earth after all? Made no sense to me

[ajprice]

Differences between the original short story (11 pages, so very short) and the TV version of The Impossible Planet (spoilers if you haven't seen it)
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-09-24/how-is-e...

[RedCarsAnonymous]

I've really enjoyed the first two episodes - for me they play as a slightly more cerebral, slightly more adult themed version of Doctor Who - Dick's writing always seemed to me to be one good idea or angle per story, (or a twist) the rest being not much more than filler, (allegedly) banged out in a speed-fuelled dash.

[entropy]

I actually enjoyed it and found it thought provoking given dementia has been given top billing in the news agenda. Admittedly my mind did wander at times times.

Never realised how dominant the themes of memory and reality dominates his work.

[K12beano]

I see that the SyFy channel is launching something called “Dimension 404” next week and wondered if that might be a modern take on some of these themes

Perhaps that could be more satisfying in some redpects?

[K12beano]

Well, I wasn’t going to ........





..... but this has started well!!

[KTF]

I have watched all of these and still don’t have a single clue about what’s going on.

[oilbethere]

Enjoyed that tonight very trippy.