Die Hard, Blade Runner And The Movie Tie-In.

Since the dawn of time, the film industry has looked to novels for inspiration, frequently mining books, comics and graphic novels for movie fodder. Conversely, movies that were scripted without any pre-existing source material were routinely adapted into comic or novel form (the novelisation). To close the loop, novels that were adapted into movies would later be re-released, featuring artwork from the film (and occasionally a title change), to create what is known as the movie tie-in. These rebranded novels were sometimes completely different to the film. Some might even suggest that slapping a celebrity's face onto a novel is a cynical attempt to cash in on the adaptation's success. Case in point:

Other than redefining Bruce Willis as an action hero, the 1988 blockbuster Die Hard precipitated a slew of movies featuring a lone protagonist fighting bad guys in an enclosed space. In the film, New York City cop John McClane travels to LA to visit his estranged wife Holly, who is celebrating Christmas with her Nakatomi Corporation workmates. Immediately after arriving, the tower is hijacked by a group of criminals posing as terrorists, and it is up to McClane to kill them off one by one, foil their plan, and reconcile with his wife. 

The novel, written in 1979 by former private detective Roderick Thorp, differs from the film in a number of key ways. Firstly, its original title of Nothing Lasts Forever conjures up images of a made for TV romance from the early 80s rather than an edge-of-your-seat action extravaganza. Secondly, the terrorists in the book are, in actuality, terrorists. And thirdly, the lead protagonist is not a 1980s era Bruce Willis action hero type, but a 2010s era Bruce Willis action hero type - specifically, an old retired cop named Joseph Leland. Leland's wife died years before, and he is in town visiting his daughter Stephanie, an executive working for Klaxxon Oil. Spoiler alert - Stephanie falls to her death at the end of the book, and it's implied that Leland will not survive the wounds he accumulated throughout the course of the novel.

To be fair, the movie is generally based on the events of the book and the differences between the two are superficial. But to my 14 year old self in 1988, the darker tone and pessimistic ending were entirely at odds with my desire to relive the experience of one of the greatest films of all time.

Similarly, when I purchased Philip K. Dick's Blade Runner I expected to read a story about a brooding, noirish Blade Runner. What I didn't expect was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - a story that was heavily laden with metaphysics, existentialism and theology, where down-on-his-luck bounty hunter Rick Deckard lives with his overbearing wife Iran and kills androids in order to save enough money to buy her a goat. 

An interesting variation from novel to screen is the fact that Rachael, who Deckard falls in love with in both iterations, is, in the novel, the same Nexus 6 model as Pris - meaning, she looks exactly like her. Because of this, killing Pris proves to be a much greater moral dilemma for Deckard.

Although the novel was not at all what I expected, it had a lasting effect on me and to this day Philip K. Dick remains one of my all-time favourite authors.

Amazing Stories' November 1969 issue falls into none of the aforementioned film fiction categories. Instead, it can be considered as what is sometimes called 'expanded universe' due to its inclusion of one particular story, Philip K Dick's A. Lincoln, Simulacrum. This original serialised version of Dick's We Can Build You is the unofficial prequel to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and, therefore, Blade Runner. It features a young sociopath named Pris Frauenzimmer, who designs the android prototype - her lack of empathy being the probable cause of the androids' empathy deficiency in the sequel. The novel's protagonist, businessman Louis Rosen, becomes obsessed with Pris and eventually succumbs to mental illness himself. 

In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner's Tyrell Corp. is named the Rosen Association after its founder, Eldon Rosen. Although certain elements fail to correlate, it can be surmised that Eldon and Louis are the same person, and the reason Pris and Rachael look the same is because of Rosen's obsession with the androids' original designer, Pris Frauenzimmer. Whether these facts hold true or not for the film, it certainly adds extra depth (and a little extra creepiness) to the character of Eldon Tyrell. It's entirely plausible that Tyrell designed Rachael to look and behave like the girl he once knew and chose her, of all the Nexus 6 models, to be programmed without the knowledge of her true replicant nature.

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