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Screamers (1995) is one of my favourite sci-fi movies and it's more or less The Secondary Variety in film form.

Beware: low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, "frustrating close to being great."



I liked the idea of Screamers, how the robots started self replicating and took over. Also liked Total Recall, I was never sure if the whole second part of the movie was real or in his head.


Quite a lot of Philip K Dick's stories mess with your sense of what's real, quite intentionally.

The short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", on which Total Recall is based, is a fun read - it's not quite the same as the movie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_W...


I think the confusion about Total Recall's reality is intentional. My view: there are scenes in the movie that are not from Quaid's point of view and that Quaid could not have direct knowledge of. That seems to imply that it's real.


In the TR commentary, Verhoeven says the second half is a brain-damaged dream of Quaid’s.


Maybe, but when I'm dreaming I don't always see things from my point of view and I'm often an observer without me clearly being in the dream at all.


I'm surprised nobody mentioned Electric Dreams (2017-2018). A series of pure gems based on PKD's legacy.


I really, really disliked that show. They completely mangled the plots, for one; Autofac is a great story, but the adaptation bears little resemblance to it.

They also made some odd choices that didn't really emphasize the qualities that PKD is known for. "Autofac" is the only really classic story here. Why not "The Electric Ant", "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon", "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" (rights still owned by the Total Recall producers maybe?), "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts", or "Faith of Our Fathers"? Or, indeed, Second Variety?


Ah, this one.

Yes, it's close to be great, but lacks to be it. Mostly because it's not another Hollywood sugar story about the good guys killing all the bad ones.

But I would recommend it to anyone who like a serious SF.




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