Blade Runner - movie vs book

Rating: 8/10 (21 June 2012)

Blade Runner is a freakin' classic of Sci-Fi. Me and my friends used to do our best Harrison Ford voice "tell me about your mother." Recently, I had been going through some of Philip K. Dick's work including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Now there are books that are so close to the movie it seems tough to tell which came first such as "The Princess Bride." Other movies don't resemble the source book much at all like "The Door in the Floor." Blade Runner was between the two but, boy, a lot was missing from the movie. The book contains some interesting pieces of the story involving how the remaining earthlings deal with the lack of people after the wars. This includes a lack of animals resulting in... yes, electric sheep! There are other bounty hunters who work for the androids who have escaped back to earth and have actually have set up their own police department. That makes for an interesting development.
Rachel is in the book. She is a little different than the movie. Although the scene in which Deckard questions her is very close to the book. Blade Runner is an excellent movie, but it is only loosely based on the Book. There is one problem that leaves the movie a bit empty though. Spoiler alert for a 30 year-old movie and 40 year-old book! Later in the book Deckard sleeps with Rachel, too. However, in the book it is an empty experience. After the act, he realizes it is nothing like a relationship with a real human female. So you can see the problem. In the ending of the movie he goes off to spend Rachel's remaining years with her. Now the movie needs a new ending!