Adam’s Comments (group member since Aug 19, 2016)

Adam’s comments from the Philip K Dick group.

I'm still holding out hope that Bryan Cranston starring at the center of one of PKD's most memorable short stories will more than make up for the disappointments. I just have a wary feeling that they might try and shoehorn a modern social message into it in a very on the nose way, and that would be very irritating.

Impossible Planet I thought it was really, really bad. It's like they decided to keep a ghost of the premise but then toss all of the other aspects to it and replace it with overblown sci-fi cliches and just general "are they dead, in heaven, dreaming?" speculation that is so overused now. It just does the story a disservice, and completely ignores the obvious (and still relevant more than ever) environmental themes of the original. A waste of what could have been a emotive ending as well (the image of the woman being carried into the water by her artificial servant should have been irresistible to a director!)

I thought Clans of the Alphane Moon was very fun.

One thing I wondered is if Runciter is in half-life, why would his wife not reunite and communicate with him, and bother working with Joe instead? Unless all three of them were in half-life but only Joe and Runciter's wife were linked by proximity in storage or some such. Or Ruciter became linked with the others later. It's been a few years since I have read it so maybe that could be explained.

I tend to think that they all died in the moon blast, as there just isn't any other reason the image changing on the money would have changed to Joe's picture if Runciter was alive in the real world. The largest part of the novel is Joe awakening into his existence in half-life, and being attacked by Jory and so forth. Unbeknownst to him, Runciter died as well and is communicating to him from within half-life in a confused state, both mistakenly believing Runciter survived and is outside.

I can't think of why Runciter and his wife would be separated in half-life but each connected with Joe. It sort of becomes a question as to who can communicate with who and what is reality and what is an illusion. Which I guess is the question Philip K. intends for us to ask.

One of Philip K's darkest novels with one of his most human, earnest endings. His belief allowed him to transcend his situation and liberated him. That's how I looked at it.