The Novel and the Film
For example, Deckard accepting Rachael as human
before the Voight-Kampff machine proves her
otherwise was first presented to us in the
novel. The Voight-Kampff machine itself is a
Dickian invention that the film utilised, as was
the idea of a genetic engineering mega-
corporation providing incentives for off-world
emigration in the form of personally tailored
artificial life-forms, as well as their built-in
four year life-spans. A great deal of the
characters’ names in the novel were retained for
the film, and even some of the original dialogue
of the novel made the transition onto the
screen. For example, in the novel, "'In a
magazine you come across a full-page colour
picture of a nude girl.' He paused. 'Is this
testing whether I'm an android,' Rachael asked
tartly, 'or whether I'm homosexual?'" (page 41).
In the film, Deckard: "You're reading a
magazine. You come across a full-page nude
photo. of a girl" Rachael: "Is this testing
whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, Mr.
Deckard?". The films script is almost a word-
for-word transcription of the novels dialogue.
However, Paul Sammon makes the point much more
eloquently than I ever could,
"These minor moments are nothing
compared to the philosophical,
ecological, and sociological concerns
which Blade Runner faithfully
transplanted from Sheep's impassioned
heart. Not only did Ridley Scott's
film retain Electric Sheep's original
themes of paranoia (that huge staring
eye at the film's beginning) and
alienation (the cynical, disaffected
Harrison Ford), it also condemned
mankind's emotional sterility (Tyrell
creates people for slave labor) while
indicating humanity's misuse of the
earth's natural resources (BR's ever-
present acid rain and absence of real
animals)" (Future Noir, p. 20).
In short then, what Paul Sammon is saying
is that far from Blade Runner being merely based
on the premise of the novel Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep? it actually was most faithful to
its source with the aspects of visualisation,
which ironically are the aspects of the film
that viewers tend to have the most difficulty
overcoming. However, all this being said, there
is no denying that there are as many
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