Reading and Discussion Questions on
Blade Runner and
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

What themes do you find repeated in "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" and Do Androids Dream. . . ? How do these two works illustrate Dick's central concerns as outlined by Paul Brians in his Study Guide?

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Are there any major themes repeated in all three movies made (so far) from works by P. K. Dick: Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Screamers (adapted from the short story "Second Variety")?

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How does Dick's definition of the term "android" in "Man, Android, And Machine" relate to the novel? Using Dick's definition, is Rick Deckard an android -- in the book, in the film?

How does the novel triangulate the animal/ man/ machine/ insect continuum we have been looking at? (Think of the toad at the end as an insect?)

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Entropy is a central thematic concern throughout all of Dick's work. Typically, he juxtaposes this tendency of the universe to slow down, to fall apart in random disorder (cf. "kipple") to empathy: our human capacity to create energy and order by bonding with each other through shared emotions.

In Andoids who is on the side of empathy and who is on the side of entropy? Can you establish an empathy continuum for the novel? Which characters have the most empathy, which the least?

How are the visions of the "Tomb World" and the battle between Mercerism and "the killers" mainfestations of this tension between uncaring chaos and caring order?

Is this opposition between empathy and entropy also present in the film? Who does and doesn't have empathy in the movie? How is this different from the book?

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How does Dick's novel embody Campbell's notion of the hero's quest? (Dick read widely in all areas of cultural anthropology and mysticism; I am sure he had read many works by both Campbell and Jung.) Does Deckard's progress through the novel follow the heroic parabola? Call, Refusal of Call, Threshold, Brother Battle, Nadir, Atonement, Magic Flight -- which of the basic elements can you identify?

Does the movie also follow Campbell? What are the crucial structural similarities and differences in the ways the two plots are arranged?

How does Mercerism serve to re-emphasize the centrality of the hero's quest in the book?

What do you know about Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute? How does its archetypal plot add to these reverberations in the novel?

In the movie, some of the archetypal themes are carried by references to Oedipus, Blake, Milton, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. See if you can spot these and begin to put them together. All of these allusions cluster around issues of fatherhood and responsibility that are partially carried by Mercer in the book.

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Brians seems to suggest the very little was preserved from Dick's book in the film, Blade Runner. Do you agree?

In what ways does the film remain true to the novel thematically, if not in details of plot and character? What issues do both emphasize?

Is the film true to the book in terms of mood and atmosphere? (Find passges to cite in book that feel like movie.)

What are the major changes the film makes in the characters of the novel? How are these changes typical of Hollywood movies?

The orginal ending to the movie, preserved in the Director's Cut, was to stop as the elevator doors closed on Deckard and Rachel. Which ending seems more true to the novel?

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