The Gamer's Quarter

boojiboy7 · Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:34 am Post subject:

I guess the movie Blade Runner is just all about the feel of it more than anything else. The atmosphere wins, for me, I guess, though it is amazing how different the movie feels than the book to me.

The book is more terrifying, I guess, in that uncertainty over anything, the feeling of not knowing even what the main character is, not knowing if the mood of your wife is generated by her own feelings or by some machine (completely left out of the movie), just a lot of that isn't in the movie.

I also think ti is a bit important to what was going on in sci fi movies at the time. You had all these happy versions of the future, and here comes blade runner with WELL THE FUTURE MIGHT BE SHIT. It was a different feel then, definitely, though it is one we have become used to now.

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

I thought dystopic visions of the future were pretty much par for the course in the 70's. Then Star Wars came along. Then there was a few happy sci-fi movies. But also there were some more sad sci-fi movies. Don't forget Alien had already been out a couple of years before Blade Runner, by the same director. I guess what Star Wars did was to allow Sci-Fi movies bigger budgets and set a precedent for the amount of explosions and action these movies had to have, and Blade Runner was perhaps the first major dystopic vision of the future made to fit this template.

boojiboy7 · Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 11:47 am Post subject:

The other thing though is that very few of those dystopic visions of the future were set in cities, and not in some post apocalyptic cold war future. What makes Blade Runner a bit different is that it tried to not go too far past where we are, and paint something that does require a catastrophe or play on our fears of the present so much as play on a fear of the future.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Don't forget E.T., the ultimate Cute Alien movie. Of course, it came out at the same time as Carpenter's The Thing, which got blasted by the critics because well, it's one of the more lonely (in an existential sense) alien movies made.

dhex · Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:04 pm Post subject:

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Good game you guys. Well, except for the whole abrupt ending thing. I hung around for a little bit but I can't host with my connection here so I felt helpless to start a new game.

Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

Sorry I didn't make it guys, a friend came in from out of town so I ended up hanging out with him instead.

I like Bladerunner the movie for the feel of it more than anything, the way they get the atmosphere set up just right. It makes me totally okay with the fact that they trimmed out some stuff from the book that might have made the movie better. Of course they did the exact opposite for A Scanner Darkly and tried to keep as much from the book intact and you could probably make a decent argument that the movie suffered a little for it.

Daph is right about Total Recall though. I think PKDs best book to movie adaptations come from his short stories. Excluding that Nic Cage crapfest Next, we have Scanners, Total Recall, and The Minority Report, which all managed to be decent movies first and foremost. Well, I don't know, Scanners might be a solid B movie by todays standards but the other two still hold up.
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Mr. Mechanical

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

You people are nuts about your PKD opinions. Crazy I tell you.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
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"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

[quote="Scratchmonkey"Of course, it came out at the same time as Carpenter's The Thing, which got blasted by the critics because well, it's one of the more lonely (in an existential sense) alien movies made.[/quote]
I just got a copy of that, finally. On the cheap!

Just so everyone knows.
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boojiboy7 · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:13 pm Post subject:

I don't think Scanners is PKD.

Also, Paycheck was PKD, and wasn't very good, if reviews are to be believed.

Total Recall is sweet, however.

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

When he said Scanners, I think he meant Screamers.
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Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

Yeah, Screamers. The story was called Second Variety though. Don't know where I got Scanners.

I saw The Thing for the first time about a year ago. It was a pretty great movie. Made me think about the videogame, whether it was worth it to play it or not. Apparently you can find and listen to the audio tape Kurt Russel's character made in the movie, which sounds kind of neat.
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Mr. Mechanical

dhex · Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:22 am Post subject:

you got scanners from the bag marked "awesome" probably.

also hauer apparently was in a 2002 rotoscoped adaptation of "the last words of dutch schultz" which i now apparently have to go find somehow.
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

Flesh & Blood was certainly something. His failed attempt at rape in it as well.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

boojiboy7 · Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:14 pm Post subject:

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

yeah the game sounds great in concept, but the execution was awful, sad to say.
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

It controls awkwardly and has the same (or more) problems as every other control-a-squad-with-bad-AI PC game. But yeah, you start the game checking out the ruins of the base from the movie, and you can find Kurt Russell's tape. Neat.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

Lasa · . Joined: 26 Nov 2006 Posts: 128

It also squanders its main selling point (blood test) by having people randomly infected when you reach certain checkpoints.

Intentionally Wrong · Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:09 pm Post subject:

Scanning through this thread, for a moment I thought you guys were talking about the Hidden. Anybody here tried that? I mean, yeah, I know most of the people involved in this thread to begin with were playing the Xbox 360 version. Still, I figured I can't be the ONLY one who plays the Orange Box on 360 while also having HL2 on Steam.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

I have the Orange Box on both the 360 and PC. I got it because it was cheaper than buying TF2 and EP1 (so I could play Minerva and a few other mods) separately on the PC. Also, i'm guessing there could be some awesome Portal mods in the future. Anyways, the console experience and PC experience is fairly different anyways.

I'll check out this Hidden thing you're talking about too.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

OK, The Hidden is really awesome! Wow, it's like everything a game of hide and seek with guns should be. Although I feel that the pounce is a little... well, highly impractical to use for wall climbing.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

ee_emm_ecks · . Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 98 Location: St. Louis

WHO WANTS AN IP

boojiboy7 · Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 1:15 am Post subject:

dessgeega · Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 1:17 am Post subject:

didn't ubik become the matrix?
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