Philip K. Dick's 'Ubik' To Be Filmed

bowman9991 writes "Could this be the new Blade Runner? SFFMedia reports that Celluloid Dreams has obtained the movie rights to Philip K. Dick's science fiction masterpiece 'Ubik.' First published in 1969, Ubik's central character is Joe Chip, a technician for a telepathic organization that employs people with the ability to block certain psychic powers so they can secure other people's privacy. In the novel, the dead are kept in 'half-life,' a form of cryogenic suspension, with limited consciousness and communication ability. A mystical substance called Ubik, available in spray-can form, is the only thing stopping reality from disintegrating before Joe's eyes. It'll be hard to film, but fantastic if they get it right!"

Previous efforts

[JebusIsLord (566856)]

I hope it ends up more along the lines of the "A Scanner Darkly" adaptation (or Blade Runner, of course), rather than yet another dumbed-down effort like "Total Recall" or "Minority Report".

Re:Previous efforts

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

Flamebait. Total Recall was totally relevant. Where else would you find a 3-boobed chick? Kuato Lives.

Re:Previous efforts

[osu-neko (2604)]

Yeah. And shooting wife...right in her head, while saying 'consider this as divorce'??? It is relevant.

This, of course, is totally distorting the scene to make it sound more shocking than it actually was. When you phrase it accurately, "shooting the enemy agent who was pretending to be his wife", it sounds a lot less shocking.

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[ktappe (747125)]

Why does everyone slam on "Total Recall"? No, it wasn't "Blade Runner" quality but it certainly was thought-provoking. Meanwhile, "A Scanner Darkly" was thoroughly annoying--I could not stand to look at it for more than a couple minutes. I wish the inventor of that posterizing technique had never come up with it.

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[Vectronic (1221470)]

Agreed, however Waking Life, uses rotoscoping too, in a far less obnoxious way (ie: more like cell animation), and is far more watchable.

Re:Previous efforts

[irc.goatse.cx troll (593289)]

I loved the effect in Waking Life because they used it more as a base, then hand animated on top of it and actually made good use of the fact that it was no longer live action. Best example I could think of being when the girl was explaining love and they animated what she was saying as if you could see her thoughts.

Fit the premise of the movie perfectly.
It also seemed to help guide you towards what was important as most scenes seemed to be just as detailed as they needed to be, with some things shining through more.

OTOH, A Scanner Darkley used it more as just a form of special effects, a filter to be left on to make the movie pretty. I didn't dislike it as much as some of the posters here did, but it was much more of a gimmick than an artistic tool for sure.

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[JebusIsLord (566856)]

Really? I thought it was far more primitive (and thus eye-irritating) in Waking Life. On top of that, Waking life played out like an extremely pretentious introduction to philosophy 101. I fast-forwarded through large portions of it.

The style worked perfectly when you consider the people in Scanner were all psychedelic drug users. They got drug use down 100%, even going so far as to hire only drug-using A-list actors. Maybe you have to have done them to appreciate...

Re:Previous efforts

[TheRealMindChild (743925)]

Everyone slams Total Recall because they don't actually comprehend what actually was going on. So they hate the movie because what they think was actually going on was not what was going on at all.

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[Drishmung (458368)]

I would disagree that it was not in any way true to the short story. While it missed the sting in the tail of the short story, the constant themes of perception vs reality were the same.

I got much more upset about the lame physics.

Yes, we'd agree that 'inspired by' would be closer to the mark, but as an adaptation of a short story to a film, it wasn't too bad.

Re:Previous efforts

[soliptic (665417)]

To be honest I think Totall Recall is about the truest PKD film adaption there is. Yes, including Blade Runner.

The spirit of "We can remember it for you wholesale" was basically "guy has his memories messed with to think he went to Mars - or maybe it was that he did go to Mars and memories were messed with to think he didnt - etc". The film just made it longer and stacked more 'rug-pulled-from-your-under-your-feet' twists on top of each other.

Also, although it's schlocky, so was PKD. Seriously, if you think PKD was a literary master with elegant dialogue and profound characterisation... er... read more widely? And to be clear, I'm a massive PKD fan. The value of PKD is in the brainfucking ideas, but the actual "texture" of them is fairly pulp. Like Total Recall.

Blade Runner OTOH was verging on Hollywoodisation at it's worst. The spirit of "...Electric Sheep" was not "catch the replicant", it was far more broadly philosophical: hence all the stuff about android pets, social class, Mercerism, etc, which basically vanished from the film. Instead we got a simplified Cop Chases Bad Guy affair, with the MTV-esque depth you'd expect from an ex-advertisement director.

So, yeah, for my money Total Recall is a way more PKDish film than Blade Runner, which I consider perhaps the most overrated sci-fi film going...

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[Wicked Zen (1006745)]

The spirit of "...Electric Sheep" was not "catch the replicant", it was far more broadly philosophical: hence all the stuff about android pets, social class, Mercerism, etc, which basically vanished from the film. Instead we got a simplified Cop Chases Bad Guy affair, with the MTV-esque depth you'd expect from an ex-advertisement director.

I don't think this is fair at all. The spirit of Blade Runner is not "catch the replicant" at all. The spirit is "what makes us human?" The genius of Blade Runner (an

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[HiVizDiver (640486)]

Interestingly enough, the director of "A Scanner Darkly" (Richard Linklater) initially wanted to do "Ubik" [filmmakermagazine.com], but there was some issue with the rights with respect to Dick's estate, and Linklater thought that "A Scanner..." might make a better film anyway.

I admit I don't know "Ubik", but I enjoyed Bladerunner (based on Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", for anyone who may not know) immensely, and I really liked Linklater's adaptation of "A Scanner Darkly", so I'd definitely check this out.

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[iphayd (170761)]

Oh come on. If you want to list a crappy PKD movie adaptation, you should list Screamers. A Second Variety was so much better. Especially the ending.

Re:Previous efforts

[cyberon22 (456844)]

I don't mean to flame here, but Total Recall is a great film and totally blows away "A Scanner Darkly". You should give it another shot!

The great thing about the movie is that it isn't just a visual retelling of the short story. It is a tirade against the dominance of sex and violence in the entertainment industry (our collective fantasies). The director might be somewhat tongue-in-cheek for communicating this using such a violent film, but even if the hypocrisy rubs you the wrong way the focus on fantasies of violence is a brilliant treatment of the original story since it works so well in conjunction with it: the resolution of Dick's paradox (is it a dream?) ends up irrelevant to the central message of the film. Under-emphasized elements of the book (Mars = God of War) also gain new salience.

Total Recall is a great film because it takes good material, does it's own thing with it, and puts the viewer in a paradox much like the one it shows us. As long as we enjoyed the movie, the film has us pinned. How much of our enjoyment was because of the sex and violence the film revels in even as it critiques it?

In contrast, "A Scanner Darkly" paid homage to the high noes of the book (and it was sweet that they included the epilogue too), but there wasn't anything really original and exceptional about the execution save the style of the animation. Worth watching, but not worth watching more than once.

To recreate Blade Runner...

[ktappe (747125)]

....they need: 1) A good actor as they had in Harrison Ford. 2) Faith that their audience is intelligent, so they don't have to go all "Summer blockbuster" on us. 3) A director who is willing to give the film the atmosphere it needs. Let's cross our fingers we get all of these.

Re:To recreate Blade Runner...

[devnulljapan (316200)]

....they need:
1) A good actor as they had in Harrison Ford.
2) Faith that their audience is intelligent, so they don't have to go all "Summer blockbuster" on us.
3) A director who is willing to give the film the atmosphere it needs.
Let's cross our fingers we get all of these.

...and hope against hope that Will Smith is busy that week

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[MsGeek (162936)]

And make sure Keanu Reeves is nowhere near the project.

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[WK2 (1072560)]

2) Faith that their audience is intelligent, so they don't have to go all "Summer blockbuster" on us.

Producers are delusional, but not that much.

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[by Anonymous Coward]

Coming Soon: Ubik

Starring: Hayden Christensen
Directed By: Uwe Boll

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[rossz (67331)]

Oops, typo. PKD

Misread?

[ZiakII (829432)]

Did anyone else read Philip's Dick to be filmed? I Think it is time to goto bed.

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[greyhoundpoe (802148)]

I Think it is time to goto bed.

That's bad form -- you should probably just throw yourself and let the bed catch you.

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[aussie_a (778472)]

Thankfully there wouldn't be any problem with getting it stiff.

I may be too overly hopeful, but...

[Paperweight (865007)]

I hope a gifted director comes along and makes a GOOD science fiction adaptation of Asimov's Foundation series.

almost impossible to film

[GabrielF (636907)]

There's no way that Ubik could be filmed for a mainstream audience. The plot features telepaths and anti-telepaths, communication with the dead, time travel, coin-operated apartment front doors, people who suddenly turn into dust, a bomb blast that may or may not have killed all of the characters, and the usual questions about the nature of reality. Just figuring out a way to explain what the hell is going on will be a pretty big challenge. During the whole course of the plot, time is flowing backwards, so the filmmakers would have to build not just a static version of New York City, but one where all the artifacts are gradually transforming into their more primitive forms. If they can pull this off, it will be amazing, but its hard to imagine anyone tackling it without a big budget, and the eccentricities of the plot seem to preclude that. Its a wildly imaginative and thought-provoking book, and I hope someone makes it into an amazing film, I just don't expect it to ever happen. The one Dick book that I'm surprised hasn't been filmed is The Man in the High Castle, which has a much more conventional plot (by comparison) and would be more accessible to a mass audience.

Re:almost impossible to film

[fahrbot-bot (874524)]

The plot features telepaths and anti-telepaths, communication with the dead, time travel, coin-operated apartment front doors, people who suddenly turn into dust, a bomb blast that may or may not have killed all of the characters, and the usual questions about the nature of reality.

Just a day on the subway my friend... Please stand clear of the doors.

Coin-operated conapt doors

[Geof (153857)]

A little off topic: those coin-operated doors were like parodies of DRM. The guy owns the apartment, but the artificially intelligent front door won't open unless he pays it. Each time he has to give it a nickel. No nickel, no open. Transaction costs through the roof but hey, the door gets paid.

The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please."

He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. . . . "What I pay you," he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity. I don't have to pay you."

"I

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[Oktober Sunset (838224)]

Thanks for the spoiler, shithead.

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[markov_chain (202465)]

How can you be sure you didn't just imagine that post? The book/movie could still turn out something totally different.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep vs Ubik

[bazald (886779)]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is largely set in a potentially realistic dark future setting, some things more advanced, others decaying. Most of the environment is easy to make real without making it look silly, not to downplay the great work done by Ridley Scott and everyone else involved. The one aspect of the novel that would be difficult to reasonably translate to the silver screen is Mercerism, the animal worshiping cult/religion of the future. So, they dropped it from the film, which takes a slightly different view anyway. (The only reason it would be difficult is because the way in which one tries to become one with Mercer is very abstractly represented throughout the novel.)

Ubik on the other hand is almost entirely abstract stuff. In fact, it is more abstract than the Mercerism stuff. There is some great imagery in Ubik that would be easy to translate, but by and large, making the novel come to life without making it look ridiculous would be very difficult. The way I picture Ubik, the scenes would have to appear incomplete for most of the novel, from the standpoint of anyone in cold-pac, and that would be much harder to pull off. I doubt anyone that the current Hollywood industry is likely to pull it off. The best they could hope to do is to make something reminiscent of The Thirteenth Floor.

YES!

[Luscious868 (679143)]

I'm sure it will turn out just as faithful as the other adaptations of his work have!

An astonsihly good book (warning spoiler)

[mrraven (129238)]

Towards the end end where they had regressed from the future back to the 1930s and everyone was so old that they were crumbling into death and lacking the strength to even get up the stairs of the hotel in the 30s small town they were stuck in was one of the most powerful and heartbreaking things I have ever read.

Please, please, please don't ruin it Hollywood. :(

Reality???

[Kozar_The_Malignant (738483)]

I read Ubik in 1970 when reality dissolving in front of your eyes was standard weekend fare, thanks to Bear [wikipedia.org] and others. What I would consider to be a great movie made from this would wind up as a cult film. In order to be really popular movie, it would needs be a crappy adaptation of the book.

Should be good

[jackb_guppy (204733)]

Since "What Dreams May Come" is a movie about the dead and afterlife was film very nicely, maybe Vincent Ward would make a good director.

Remember "UBIK" is not about time travel, as some have said, or other high SciFi topics. It is about what life is and one's perceptions. The story is mainly from a view point of someone that is in the half-life world, discovering first that they are "dead", and second how to stay "alive". Then you throw in a "vampire". ;-)

There is another book call "Job: A Comedy of Ju

Re:

[Creepy Crawler (680178)]

So I'm not the only one to read Job: A comedy of errors!

I love that end of the book.. I could see heaven and hell just like that. Too bad about Margarethe (sp?), though she did deserve it ;).

Buy the book!

[odsock (863358)]

I guess I'd better buy the book now, before they all have Will Smith on the cover.

Script

[by Anonymous Coward]

You all know that Dick already wrote a script, don't you?

From wikipedia:
"Attempts to produce an Ubik film

In 1974, French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin commissioned Dick to write a screenplay for an Ubik film. Dick completed the screenplay, turning it in within a month, but Gorin never filmed the project. The screenplay was published in 1985 as Ubik: The Screenplay (ISBN-13: 978-0911169065)."

I have. I have not read it. Anyone knows if it is any good or do i have to have my own judgement -.-

May never be filmed

[dreamchaser (49529)]

Just because someone acquired the movie rights to a book doesn't mean it will ever see the light of day. It's not uncommon for rights to be bought and then for the project to languish indefinitely.

Purchasing rights != filming movie

If you actually read Ubik...

[doom (14564)]

If you actually read Ubik, you'll find that it's an exceedingly minor Philip K. Dick novel -- to my eye, it looks as though it was written really rapidly, with an ending tacked on at random when he had enough pages. Call Dick a great writer if you like, but every single work of a great writer is not deserving of the label "masterpiece". Not that this has anything to do with what kind of film they're going to make (if any -- most film deals flop without producing anything, you guys know that, right?) because as with all the other Dick novels that have been "filmed" the screen-writers will do whatever they want to movie-up the material. The metaphysical joke that Dick had in mind (the answer to everything is everywhere) isn't going to survive the process. Essentially, they paid for the rights to a Philip K. Dick novel, just so they could say that they did.

While we're on the subject, can I point out that Philip K. Dick is not the only science fiction writer in the world? Like I said, call him a great writer if you like, but if so there are other great writers whose material could be raided help get the screenwriters off of the dime. You could film Brunner's "Stand on Zanibar", or Sturgeon's "More than Human", or Aldis' "Barefoot in the Head", or Delany's "Babel-17", or Fritz Leiber's "The Big Time", or Sterling's "Holy Fire"...

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[Abcd1234 (188840)]

If you actually read Ubik, you'll find that it's an exceedingly minor Philip K. Dick novel

Funny, because I've read a few of his works (mainly his more notable stuff), and 1) I thought it was quite good (as good as Do Androids Dream..., definitely better than The Man in the High Castle), and 2) so do most other critics and readers of his stuff.

But, hey, it's obviously more cool to buck the trend and look like some sort of high-brow outsider...

Re:Uhmm... quid pro quo..addendum.

[Vectronic (1221470)]

From The Summary: "A mystical substance called Ubik, available in spray-can form, is the only thing stopping reality from disintegrating before Joe's eyes"

From Wikipedia: "This substance, whose name is derived from the word "ubiquity", has the property of preserving people who are in half-life."

Draw your own conclusions about what chemical properties it may have.

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[Vectronic (1221470)]

I'd say iots more like Unattainium, slightly more volatile, and can become Dihydrogen Monoxide in some cases under pressure.

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[plantman-the-womb-st (776722)]

It's a *book*, books are these things that have words in them but you don't need electricity to read.

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[PalmerEldritch42 (754411)]

Ubik? WTF is Ubik?

Safe, if used as directed

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[PoeticExplosion (943918)]

I hated it the first time too. Wait a few months, and watch it again. Then maybe a few months after that. It's a very subtle movie, which is why it did terribly at the time but is now a cult classic.

Re:Why the fuss over blade runner?

[grub (11606)]

I watched Blade Runner in the theatre. Came out thinking "WTF did I just see?" (and that was with Ford's voiceover explaining everything!) I was confused yet knew there was something there. Bought the widescreen VHS a while later and it really grew with each viewing.

Now I'm a diehard fan and just love it. My gut feeling hints that most big fans weren't until they had a few viewings.

Re:Why the fuss over blade runner?

[Gary W. Longsine (124661)]

It helps to watch Blade Runner with an above average IQ. It's the opposite of Tron, which, I'm told, is only watchable while stoned.

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[Lisandro (799651)]

Let us hope the adaptation of Ubik doesn't repeat the mistakes of the adaptation of Fight Club.

I never read any of Palahniuk's work, but if the movie turns out to be half as good Fight Club, we're in for a treat.

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[Tenebrousedge (1226584)]

If I understand you right, you're implying that the movie Fight Club had a vapid ending. I would like to note that Chuck Palahniuk said that he liked the movie ending better that the one he wrote.

For my part, the Pixies have never sounded better or more appropriate than in that final scene. Also, I believe that in terms of the film's intended message (rejection of the values of T. Durden), having something positive happen to the narrator as a result of the rejection is almost necessary.

Re:First Post

[91degrees (207121)]

One of his books has a character called "Horselover Fat", which is apparently a translation of his name. Philip is derived from Philoppos - a greek name meaning lover of horses, and Dick is German for Fat. I think he was probably okay with his name.