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Comment by noisefridge | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious why you like these so much as titles. Tastes differ, but in my opinion, "A Scanner Darkly" is the only standout winner here.

Without knowing anything of what the story was about, would "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" convey anything important to the reader? Even as a standalone metaphor it's confused: humans don't dream about sheep! There is an old trope of counting sheep to fall asleep, but that's not a dream.

In any case, we're now thinking about sheep, not a noir detective story set in a declining post-biosphere world.

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A title doesn’t have to do anything other than draw the reader’s attention to the work. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is, IMO a great title — and it does relate to the humanity of the androids.

It’s a far superior title compared to “Blade Runner,” which is actually better than the book.

Anyway, I’d say that the fact we’re still talking about his work nearly 50 years after his death suggests he might not have sucked at titles…

I agree that the book title is great, but I've never understood the fawning over the movie. The art design is great, but the movie script turned a contemplative story into a generic thriller with a unique aesthetic.

Its mostly hailed as a great artsy movie, that general audiences find super boring. I think its asethetic & art design is what its hailed for. Nobody hails bladerunner for its pacing.

Its hard to be good at everything. Being really good at one aspect is enough to get people to fawn.

I disagree on the contemplative bit. I think both are quite contemplative but in very different ways.

>Its mostly hailed as a great artsy movie, that general audiences find super boring

You make it sound like some obscure arthouse. It's one of the most influence movies of all time, art design and worldbuilding wise.

It just didn't catch on at the box office in its time. Way more serious and slower paced movies have been big hits, so it's not being "artsy" that's the problem.

Sci-fi wasn't much of a win with adults at the time, and unlike Star Wars this was an adult oriented movie.

>Nobody hails bladerunner for its pacing.

You'd be surpised.

I can't speak to what audiences find boring now -- I know that I watched it as a kid when my attention span was not at its peak, and I found the pacing to be just fine. (I did see the much-panned version with the narration first.)

I've re-watched it quite a few times and find new things to enjoy each time. The aesthetic is hugely influential, but it also has a fantastic cast and superb acting. The soundtrack is also perfect.

The love story between Deckard and Rachel is ham-fisted, I will grant that, and if I were giving notes I'd say we need to see more of the backstory for the replicants. But IMO it succeeds far better than the book.

Blade Runner passed the test of not making my children pick up the phone while watching it.

Very few movies do that.

We should make an hn movie list like that. Movies our kids watched to the end....

Hardly generic- it is somewhat generic after what has come since, as there has been so much cheap copying of the original.

Yes, a definite instance of the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" Effect.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

In Blade Runner's case, the art design is superb. As I mentioned in my parent comment, that's not what I referred to as generic. The script though is what is generic and ham-fisted compared to the novel. It's also not a case of that meme, as I was comparing to the novel, and to earlier films which it is derivative of while taking just the skeleton of the plot from the novel.

The art design, which is the most influential aspect of the movie, is superb, but compared to the novel, the movie's script is that of a generic thriller.

That aesthetic had me riveted to the screen from the first minute to the last.

I think Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is a great title.

It sets up the narrative style and loads the gun for a incoming tragedy.

> Even as a standalone metaphor it's confused: humans don't dream about sheep!

Sure but its meaningful in the context of the story. The main character does literally dream of an electric sheep (in the book this is a metaphor being able to love, and by extension be human)

I don't think title metaphors have to be standalone. Very few books are like that. Its like criticizing Hamlet because if you don't read the play you have no idea who hamlet is.

> In any case, we're now thinking about sheep, not a noir detective story set in a declining post-biosphere world.

That's the theme of the movie not the book.

Isn't the point of a title to get someone to read the book (and not be disappointed by it's contents)?

I get you don't want to name a crime novel like a self help book but the title of the book is really just going to get me to pick it up off the shelf and read the back, not assume the narrative style and complete plot of the book.

Book titles are click bait and always have been.

>Isn't the point of a title to get someone to read the book (and not be disappointed by it's contents)?

For marketing departments maybe. For authors it's supposed to be a fitting name for their novel.

Authors want to sell books too. They'd, by and large, rather the title that sells more books as long as it's not totally off the mark.

maybe because English is my third language, but i always loathed the scanner darkly title. so empty and try-hard.

It’s a reference to a biblical passage.

1 Corinthians 13:12, "For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we shall see face to face".

There wasn’t any clear glass back in Paul’s day. Looking through glass meant that your vision was obscured.

It's the "scanner" that I had a problem with. A device to turn printed media into PDFs... but darkly?

The scanner is the surveillance state watching your day to day life.

> There is an old trope of counting sheep to fall asleep, but that's not a dream.

How about when people dream about what they were thinking about when they fell asleep? It happens.

In the context of the story, i think "dream" should be taken as "yearn for" i.e. something you dream of having one day, not so much what you dream of at night.

Those meanings are connected. I think it was a reference to counting sheep but it describes yearning as far as connecting the title to the plot.

Also, upon further reflection I don't really agree with what the other commenter said: "There is an old trope of counting sheep to fall asleep, but that's not a dream". If you try to and manage to think in a way that causes you to become less alert, it starts to be like daydreaming, so I think this sort of falling asleep thinking is under the umbrella of dreaming.

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