This is the only movie (so far) that for me captures the depressing isolation and desolation that is the most common post-nuclear dystopia for so many of Philip K. Dick stories. I've seen several other movies based on this great author's work (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, etc.) and this one really captures the feel.
This movie is full of empty landscapes of Sirius 6B, and although it makes some changes for the silver screen it stays generally faithful to the excellent Philip K. Dick story throughout.
Screamers contains one of the two main themes that Philip K. Dick likes to explore: "what is human?" (the other common theme is "what is reality?").
Another thing this film captures really well is the paranoia in Philip K. Dick's stories ... You don't know who to trust or what is real or fantasy and in this movie the main character (played very well by Peter Weller I thought) constantly has to change his assumptions about what is possible and not in his reality, who is an enemy or friend, what is a machine, who is human, etc.
The concept of an automated factory being left alone by humans which then decides to accomplish it's mission without human oversight is also well presented here. That is another common theme in Mr. Dick's stories; when artificial intelligence is running things the results can be unexpected and usually bad for the humans.
Some things in the movie, such as who is a screamer and who is not, are purposely left vague and the ending is also up for debate.
There were some comments about this movie being cheesy or having some low budget special effects but I prefer the look of this movie to most modern high budget films with their CGI effects that are almost interchangeable from one film to the next. The special effects in this movie have an organic feel to them that I miss. I also prefer the effects in the original Star Wars movie to the later films.
This movie is full of empty landscapes of Sirius 6B, and although it makes some changes for the silver screen it stays generally faithful to the excellent Philip K. Dick story throughout.
Screamers contains one of the two main themes that Philip K. Dick likes to explore: "what is human?" (the other common theme is "what is reality?").
Another thing this film captures really well is the paranoia in Philip K. Dick's stories ... You don't know who to trust or what is real or fantasy and in this movie the main character (played very well by Peter Weller I thought) constantly has to change his assumptions about what is possible and not in his reality, who is an enemy or friend, what is a machine, who is human, etc.
The concept of an automated factory being left alone by humans which then decides to accomplish it's mission without human oversight is also well presented here. That is another common theme in Mr. Dick's stories; when artificial intelligence is running things the results can be unexpected and usually bad for the humans.
Some things in the movie, such as who is a screamer and who is not, are purposely left vague and the ending is also up for debate.
There were some comments about this movie being cheesy or having some low budget special effects but I prefer the look of this movie to most modern high budget films with their CGI effects that are almost interchangeable from one film to the next. The special effects in this movie have an organic feel to them that I miss. I also prefer the effects in the original Star Wars movie to the later films.