…Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” (second time), the novel (as you well know) upon which “Blade Runner” was based, a film which (faithful FB readers will know) I only recently saw. The Comments that followed were the reason for my re-reading.

It seems the movie’s entire visual tone, the darkness, the teeming streets, the multitude of Asians, was Ridley Scott’s. (Kudus to him there.) His other major contribution was to strip away the contents to, basically, Hunt and Slaughter. He eliminated (or drastically reduced) the nuclear holocaust backstory, Deckard’s wife Iran, the characters Rench and Garland (and the cool potential parallel universe story), the entire deal with animals (super-cool), the sex with Rachel (and the kinkiness thereof), kipple (also cool), Hannibal Sloat, Buster Friendly, and Mercerism which, I would bet, Dick would have considered the central part of the whole shebang (even if I would have needed one of the smarter kids in the class to explain it to me.)

He also curiously changed some names. J.R. Isidore became J.F. Sebastian (oh yeah, the toys were new) and Rosen Industries and Rachel Rosen became Tyrell Industries and Rachel Tyrell. Wazzup with that? Too Jewish?