f13.net

Amazon does Black Mirror. Almost to the tee.

Not bad.

Episodes are based upon Philip K Dicks short stories

Counterpoint :  They were all bloody awful meandering messes with no point nor punch.

The one with Cranston was particularly brutal because how on Earth do you fuck that up ?

Because they usually get Philip K. Dick wrong. So far I would say only Blade Runner and Man in the High Castle are even close to understanding what they're doing in working with Dick's writings.

The stories themselves are fine, its the dialogue, directing, art direction etc that's the problem. Felt cheap. I couldn't get through the Bryan Cranston episode it was that bad.

I enjoyed a couple of the episodes, but in trying to find one I wanted to rewatch (the one with the Auto-Fac), I realized that at least half of them, I hadn't watched the endings. And didn't feel like I wanted to.

--Dave

Scanner Darkly?

Was that the mental Keanu Reeves one ?  I couldn't watch it.  Was it any good ?

I liked it, but its a weird trippy movie that is a very close translation of the novel, so its got strange pacing.  You'll either love it or be bored to tears with it.

I think I lasted half an hour and was bored.  I barely remember it.  The possibility exists that I was pissed at the time, but my recollection doesn't bode well for a second attempt.

It is absolutely not for everybody, but it has a surprisingly great cast just sort of fucking around and acting weird for a few hours.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aTVeJfzFCTY

Also this scene is even more funny than when it originally came out:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7J5FWEre07w

Yeah, Scanner Darkly is trying hard to be faithful to the source.

I barely remember Scanner Darkly. It was kind of a cool tech and look, but yeah, trippy is about the only thing I remember.

Scanner Darkly is one of those rare occasion where an adaptation is trying *too hard* to be faithful to the source, and while that's a novel experience (*rimshot noise*), it's not what 95% of people want out of their cinematic experience. I happen to like it, and have watched it multiple times, but even I'll cop to it being incredibly weirdly paced for a film.

It's got one of the most hilariously lopsided commentary tracks I've ever heard also. You've got PKDs daughter who is sharing anecdotes about her father and the real life analogues of these characters, and you've got Jonathan Lethem, who is incredibly erudite and a PKD scholar, and Richard Linklater, who's generally interesting to listen to. And then you've got Keanu Reeves, who occasionally tries to add something to the conversation and pretty much everyone responds with "Riiiiiight. Moving on"

I think the episodes "The Commuter" and "The Hood Maker" are worth watching out of this bunch. The rest are fine, though the talent seems a bit wasted.

This definitely isn't Black Mirror - the theme of how technology is changing us is less present.

These are largely based on stories written in the 1950s, so that's not terribly surprising. The negative ways in which technology was perceived as changing us then seem downright whimsical in the information age.

This show fell pretty flat for me, which is disappointing as a PKD fan.