I read the book first and was deeply disappointed in the movie. They could have done so much more. Instead they spent like half an hour on dumb fight scenes which are only a couple pages in the book. I can't enjoy it just because of how much they cut out. For those that haven't read the book, here's an example:

When Deckard Cain meets Rachael for the first time, she has an owl, and she claims it's real. He says "I thought they were extinct." She says no, you just can't buy them on the open market. He then tests his humanity detector on her, which she fails. They explain that she grew isolated on a spaceship leaving Earth which turned around and came home after the war, so she grew up without a sense of empathy. He is horrified to learn his detector may be flawed, and he may have killed real humans thinking they were androids. They then offer him the owl to cover it up. He finally realizes that they're lying and she's an android after all. He then says "And the owl?" "It's robotic, of course. Owls are extinct."

In the movie? He shows up and says "Nice owl, is it robotic?" Rachael goes "Yup, and so am I". Welp, there goes like 50 of the best pages of the book.

Another example, which really shows just how unnecessarily shallow the movie is: in the book, Rachael and Pris are identical model androids, and sex with androids is forbidden. The whole conflict Deckard experiences is based on the fact that he becomes infatuated with Rachael: not only is it extremely taboo, but his feelings start to interfere with his mission of killing her identical twin Pris. In the movie? Completely different replicants, and Pris is a standard-issue sex-bot. There's just no internal conflict at all.

Seriously people, read this book. It is fantastic.

Woah. That’s not what happens in the movie. Rachael does indeed say the owl is fake. However she has no idea she is a replicant. If I remember correctly she’s a “different kind of replicants” more human like because she was given pre-canned memories.

I do agree that the removal of the extinction of animals theme, the removal of Deckard's wife, and to some extent the removal of mercerism detracts from the movie (or at least with the second two significantly alters bits), however not sure if the removal of the "it's difficult to kill someone when you've had sex with their double"-theme is really detrimental.

the whole fake police precinct full of androids thing was probably also better removed from a cinematic standpoint.

on edit: at any rate we should probably take into account that Phil Dick seemed to appreciate the movie https://screencrush.com/philip-k-dick-blade-runner/

> and to some extent the removal of mercerism

Imagine how I feel!?

probably like you've been pelted with rocks.

His full letter, as the original website that was hosting it is no longer online:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120610184707im_/http://www.phil...

It's an interesting case of literature-movie adaptation. The film is one of my favorites, but mostly for the atmosphere and cinematography, not the story itself.

Yet, after recently re-reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I came away thinking that the movie could have been so much better. They left a lot of the interesting details and Phillip K. Dick weirdness out.

> It's an interesting case of literature-movie adaptation.

Indeed. It's one of my favorite films as well, and consider that I'm a PKD fan: I don't think it's even a companion piece to the book. It hits some of the same themes, but Blade Runner is more neo-noir with smoke-filled rooms, and Do Androids is more PKD exploration of ideas, religion, anxieties, etc. PKD loved what he managed to see of the movie before dying, mind you.

I think what makes Blade Runner engaging is that it's not trying to be a direct translation of the book. It even reverses some of the book's characterizations: "Rachael" is in the book manipulative and a liar, but in the movie she's naive and the one being lied to. The androids from the book are cold and callous, almost completely unempathetic even for their own kind. The replicants from the movie are way more empathic -- Roy Batty is arguably an antihero rather than a villain. I've watched Blade Runner many times, being one of my favorites, and there are times I consider Roy the true protagonist of the movie.

It does hit some of the same themes of PKD's works: what is real and what is fake? What is human, and what deserves to live?

The best works of art leave space between the ideas, words and images. Blade Runner is a bit more like a poem than a novel and that's why it works so well and why it was rejected so soundly at the time of release.

Sometime it takes a while to grasp the significance of a poem.