Philip K. dick’s criticisms about the film adaption ‘Blade runner’ have been justified by the differences that have been shown. The theme of empathy throughout both texts has been shown through two different characters causing the effect to change. Rick Deckard has the hero sort of sign through human’s eyes throughout the novel whereas Roy Batty has the hero symbol in a replicants eyes throughout the film. The motivation for Deckard in the novel is to buy a real animal, playing on his want and needs, which is also a sign of empathy.
Having this motive shows the selfish side of people and questions whether or not someone actually needs an animal to be happy. The idea is put across that killing for an animal (even if it is just killing an android) to be alright. Throughout the novel we watch Deckard’s development. Having only a glimpse of this development in the film adaption shown, the viewer won’t really understand that Deckard goes through a change. Ridley Scott has used a different way to put across the empathy by using a different character that was only a small part in the novel.
Batty has been given the motive to find a way to live longer and be able to become more human. Batty became the super human figure with more intelligence and strength. However Dick wrote that androids died way before they could even begin to comprehend emotions, making sure they were as robotic as possible. Electric animals were just a little way from the bottom of the social ladder and having a real one puts you higher. Being able to take care of an animal shows the empathy that a human is able to have and not an android.
The film adaption doesn’t revolve empathy around the animals like the novel does. A glimpse is seen through the wolf howls that Baty cries at the point when he feels so much pain and loss, again showing empathy through a replicant. Dick had that androids shut down at the moment they feel threatened towards their lives. Scott turns that around in the film adaption and has them fight back as shown with Pris as well as Baty. The minor characters in the novel have been taken out for the film adaption so this does change parts of the story.
The novels characters contrasted with each other. Deckard had Iran to contrast with himself; he wanted to have an animal to keep his life meaningful whereas she had already given up. Irmgard shows the more gentle side of an android in contrast to Pris who is curious about how life works is still more violent to figuring it out “Restraining the spider with the edge of her hand. She was smiling. ” This insinuates that she feeling some sort of emotion whether it be that it’s just that she trying to fake an emotion or she’s being sadistic.
Having some of these contrasts cut out for the film adaption it’s hard to see what the character’s main intention is until later on in the film. Dick’s criticisms are justified in the way that the main parts of his story have been cut out. Some of the scenes make or break certain characters and not having them in the film adaption slows the story down in how it has been told. Characters even if they are minor are still relevant to the story and are used to put the point across. The film adaption does give a different point and is less straight forward than what Dick wrote ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep? ’
