4 ms·

"Short story not mentioned but is worth reading if one has not, Second Variety." The movie The Terminator has some similarities to Second Variety, and I wouldn

"Short story not mentioned but is worth reading if one has not, Second Variety." The movie The Terminator has some similarities to Second Variety, and I wouldn't be surprised if the movie was somewhat influenced by the story.

anigbrowl 4y ago
PKD has a much stronger claim on that than Harlan Ellison ever did. A writer of great talent who inexplicably chose to drown it in a barrel of pomposity.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  according to this, Cameron said he ripped off Ellison https://www.cbr.com/terminator-harlan-ellison-credit/ https://www.cbr.com/terminator-harlan-ellison-credit/ the article describes it as the opening time travel part, though it's not clear that's what Cameron said.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    Yeah, I've never really bought that. HE made such a thing out of it I think they put it on there to placate him. It seemed to me that his claims of plagiarism rested on very narrow conceptual elements that were too abstract to count as a real rip-off. See below for another example of this. I really admired him as a writer when I first encountered on him but the more I got to know him the less I enjoyed it :-/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Time In contrast, PKD stories like Second Variety feel astonishingly like the post-apocalyptic environment ruled by Skynet and the plan of hunting down the remaining humans with terminators. I would be very surprised if Cameron or someone on the creative team weren't inspired by it.
stevenwoo 4y ago
When I was reading the story I confidently thought - I know how this goes, for sure Terminator was based on Second Variety. I was very surprised that Screamers was the movie licensed from the story because the Screamers part of the story is just the introduction/setup for the main plot, and the movie simply used the setup technology for the entire plot which kind of misses a point of the story in a way.

anigbrowl 4y ago

PKD has a much stronger claim on that than Harlan Ellison ever did. A writer of great talent who inexplicably chose to drown it in a barrel of pomposity.

fsckboy 4y ago
according to this, Cameron said he ripped off Ellison https://www.cbr.com/terminator-harlan-ellison-credit/ https://www.cbr.com/terminator-harlan-ellison-credit/ the article describes it as the opening time travel part, though it's not clear that's what Cameron said.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Yeah, I've never really bought that. HE made such a thing out of it I think they put it on there to placate him. It seemed to me that his claims of plagiarism rested on very narrow conceptual elements that were too abstract to count as a real rip-off. See below for another example of this. I really admired him as a writer when I first encountered on him but the more I got to know him the less I enjoyed it :-/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Time In contrast, PKD stories like Second Variety feel astonishingly like the post-apocalyptic environment ruled by Skynet and the plan of hunting down the remaining humans with terminators. I would be very surprised if Cameron or someone on the creative team weren't inspired by it.

stevenwoo 4y ago

When I was reading the story I confidently thought - I know how this goes, for sure Terminator was based on Second Variety. I was very surprised that Screamers was the movie licensed from the story because the Screamers part of the story is just the introduction/setup for the main plot, and the movie simply used the setup technology for the entire plot which kind of misses a point of the story in a way.