A Scanner Darkly (Film and Book)

I was gonna make this thread just for the film, but why be restrictive on a classic novel?

Well, Linklater's next movie is finally appearing to have a solid release date, with near complete screenings going on all over the place. An adaptation of Phillip K. Dick's novel, A Scanner Darkly stars Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Robert Downey, Jr and utilizes the same rotoscope technology featured in the philosophical Waking Life.

The new trailer's up on apple.com/trailers. It looks amazing. I almost know there's gonna be at least one detractor here about rotoscope technology. Apparently, there's a major plot alteration at the end of the film.

Anyone else anticipating this?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Philip K. Dick stories are always guaranteed to have a wonderful concept, even if the film adaptation flounders. I mean, "Paycheck" stank like a week-old skunk, but it had an extremely intriguing pretext.

The thing that's got me the most excited about "Scanner Darkly," though, is the aforementioned rotoscopery. Rotoscoping has always intrigued me, since when done well, it lends animation a fluidity and three-dimensional quality entirely different than traditional or CGI animation. Of course, when it's bad, you get the 1978 Lord of the Rings, but the trailer to "Scanner" dispelled my fears of that.

The film's supposed pro-drug message (at least according to the novel summary and Philip K. Dick bio on Wikipedia) has me less excited, although the final product alone will determine what's what.

Anticipation Level: Sustained interest.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I find the fluidity to be too much; I've always known animation to lack the fluidity and detail of real life. Since now it's shown in a perfected way, I find it to be flawed on the basis that it no longer looks like animation. It looks like extremely colorful live-action. There's something I don't like about it.

Someone said that all of the frames were retraced manually and that this wasn't merely video being run through a software filter. It's nice to know someone went through a lot of trouble for the sake of the animation. However, I'm wondering if they had simply run the video through a software filter, would it have made a huge difference?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I don't get the point of rotoscoping, when they could've saved time and possibly money just creating a CG film or hand drawn animation film. Might as well since they spent so much time retracing key frames and adding in new props or whatever.

By the way, they didn't trace each frame, just key ones and the software fills in the gaps.


I'm curious about it since I like Philip K. Dick, however Waking Life wasn't that good at all and would've been very boring if it was live action purely. I hope the director shapes up his directing skills and has a better script writer this go around.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by orion_mk3

Of course, when it's bad, you get the 1978 Lord of the Rings, but the trailer to "Scanner" dispelled my fears of that.

For a second, I thought you were talking about the trailer for the 80's movie Scanners.

I was speaking idiomatically.