Dick Does Chick Flick
Adjustment Team is a short story by Philip K. Dick where a man, Ed Fletcher, inadvertently gets a look at those who work behind the scenes of ‘reality’. The Adjustment Bureau is a movie loosely based on the short story and stars Matt Damon as rising politician who falls for Emily Blunt’s ballerina while the Adjustment Team schemes to keep them apart. Since it’s a PKD story, you would expect plenty of reality warping, mind bending games to occur. I dare you to watch this trailer and not think ‘chick flick’.
Is this some sort of mad attempt by the writers to cram a romance storyline into a PKD novel? Is that even possible and if so, Matt Damon?! Stylin’ hat though, Matt. It seems that PKD can’t catch a break with movies, with the vast majority of adaptations not being worth the celluloid they’re filmed on. This one certainly seems no different.
[H/T Quiet Earth]
Related posts:
- Which Philip K. Dick Book Do You Want to See on Film? (or…Halcyon Can’t Get Enough Dick!)
- Star Trek 10 – hunting for a new Will?
- Chick Lit?
- Team Avatar! – Trailer Mashup
- REVIEW: A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
Filed under: Movies
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It seems that PKD can’t catch a break with movies, with the vast majority of adaptations not being worth the celluloid they’re filmed on.
Well, that’s certainly a matter of opinion, but it’s not an opinion I can easily agree with. It seems to me that Dick’s titles have had better than average luck in movie adaptations, including films like Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and a Scanner Darkly. We can debate their respective merits, or how closely they do or don’t reflect Dick’s original stories, but even films like Next and Screamers have their supporters. And I can certainly name plenty of other writers whose work has fared worse in adaptation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#Adaptations
Then again, I think this one looks like it could be interesting, too, so our mileage may vary.
I’m actually looking forward to this one. Looks interesting and they used music from Sunshine in the trailer, so…totally in.
Huh, maybe your blurb lowered my expectations enough, but this doesn’t look that bad to me. Bear in mind that a trailer may not actually represent the tone of a movie. (The romantic-comedy remix of The Shining trailer spring to mind with this statement.)
i.e.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0
Well, Zod is looking good. Do they have god-like powers over reality or something? I’ll keep my hopes up, if the couple isn’t too annoying could be a nice one.
<i>Is this some sort of mad attempt by the writers to cram a romance storyline into a PKD novel?</i>
Not that there’s anything wrong with a little romance, right?! *kiss kiss*
I just re-watched BLADE RUNNER a few weeks ago (many years since my first viewing), and loved revisiting the romantic subplot just as much as the other elements. It supplemented the main plot quite nicely. It’s all in the execution.
And besides, at the risk of splitting hairs, the writers would be including a romance in the movie, not the novel. So it’d be more like an alternate universe (albeit by way of Hollywood marketing departments) version of the original story. Hey, it worked for AVATAR, right?
Besides, it might attract more women to the movie, and by extension, SF. Let’s just hope the writers included a romance that feels organic to the story. If not, then we can chalk it up to another #Hollywoodfail.
I will definitely watch this move and if the romance has a happy ending it will make for a good blog post. On my science fiction *romance* blog.
*hugs*
It’s a bit like Tom Cruise’s nose, isn’t it? Once you see Matt Damon running hither and thither without losing that stylish bit of mannish accessories perched on his head, everything else fades into insignificance. I’ll catch it on DVD. When it’s on special. In the bargain bin.
As a person that has read the Dick short story I really wish Hollywood would stop buying the right just to use his name. This movie has nothing to do with the original story and I find it disleading to use the Dick name on it.
[...]Now here’s the veeeerrry interesting part: In Dick Does Chick Flick, SF Signal staff blogger JP Frantz bemoans the fact that the original story had been tweaked in the process of adapting it for the big screen.[...]