Blade Runner: A Literary Analysis

The adaptation of popular literary fiction into film often results in a profound change of genre. Philip K Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner provide interesting source material for interrogating the question as to why a change in medium results in a change of genre. The first step in understanding the relationship between a film adaptation and its literary source is in defining the terms of adaptation theory, and framing the way fidelity to text should be approached. An understanding that viewing adaptations through ‘medium-specificity’ is necessary in dispelling the unhelpful popularity of viewing literature as somehow more valuable or more intelligent than film. This allows an

However the film’s subtle changes in genre results in a necessity to few it as a unique project. The ability of adaptations to be innovative is crucial in comprehending the ways in which these two mediums interact and inform on one another. “Works in any medium are both created and received by people,” and it is this understanding which allows adaptation theory to move beyond the confines of intellectual hierarchies or fidelity (Hutcheon 2012, p.34). A change in medium does not immediately result in a change of genre, however in this instance we are given a unique piece of work in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. As opposed to a simple retelling or reworking of Phillip K. Dick’s novel. This is undoubtedly the pinnacle of “medium-specificity” which allows for an adaption to capture the essence of its source, while being able to move “beyond fidelity” (Stam 2000, p.54). An obvious similarity between this film and its novel is the engagement with the question of what defines humanity. Phillip K Dick’s central point concerning empathy and the realisation in both his work and Scott’s film that “the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated” (Dick 1968,