Don't let the rating I gave this movie dissuade you. I actually think people who like 'thinking' science fiction should check this out.
Some have suggested that this 1962 feature should be remade. If someone did do a remake, they'd have to just accept the fact that many casual viewers would claim that this movie's remake was ripping off Blade Runner, The Questor Tapes, Ghost in the Shell, and the 2000s Battlestar Galactica. However, it looks very much like all of those shows 'borrowed' from this 1962 motion picture.
Clearly the concepts in this film were really coming to a head in the 1960s. "Do androids dream of electric sheep" was talking about a lot of this stuff in 1968 (and who knows how long the book took to write). Captain Future of the 1940s and 1950s touched on some of this too. Every time I dig a bit deeper, I find out that someone's tackled many of these concepts. Heck, even Fred Saberhagen's Berserker novels tread similar territory.
I've written this in such a way that I don't give too much away. I think the best thing is to see the film for yourself. Be prepared though, since certain aspects of it are certainly dated. The preliminary robot designs during the film's intro are primitive looking (and almost comical). And the pacing is somewhat difficult at times. Stick with it though. The thesis comes out in the end and it's pretty entertaining to watch it unfold. This is a movie that could actually be done as a stage play. To that effect, I really enjoyed the sets and the lighting. With such a deep message, I felt that even more dramatic lighting and higher contrast ratios would have added even more gravity to certain scenes.
So yes -- check this out. It must have come as quite a shock to audiences of the time. For audiences today, it covers topics that we're quite used to so the impact won't be as great. Still pretty neat though.
Some have suggested that this 1962 feature should be remade. If someone did do a remake, they'd have to just accept the fact that many casual viewers would claim that this movie's remake was ripping off Blade Runner, The Questor Tapes, Ghost in the Shell, and the 2000s Battlestar Galactica. However, it looks very much like all of those shows 'borrowed' from this 1962 motion picture.
Clearly the concepts in this film were really coming to a head in the 1960s. "Do androids dream of electric sheep" was talking about a lot of this stuff in 1968 (and who knows how long the book took to write). Captain Future of the 1940s and 1950s touched on some of this too. Every time I dig a bit deeper, I find out that someone's tackled many of these concepts. Heck, even Fred Saberhagen's Berserker novels tread similar territory.
I've written this in such a way that I don't give too much away. I think the best thing is to see the film for yourself. Be prepared though, since certain aspects of it are certainly dated. The preliminary robot designs during the film's intro are primitive looking (and almost comical). And the pacing is somewhat difficult at times. Stick with it though. The thesis comes out in the end and it's pretty entertaining to watch it unfold. This is a movie that could actually be done as a stage play. To that effect, I really enjoyed the sets and the lighting. With such a deep message, I felt that even more dramatic lighting and higher contrast ratios would have added even more gravity to certain scenes.
So yes -- check this out. It must have come as quite a shock to audiences of the time. For audiences today, it covers topics that we're quite used to so the impact won't be as great. Still pretty neat though.