That's because so many people on here, and elsewhere, have missed the point of the animation! Sure, it would suck in a different movie, but it's essential to what Linkletter did here. He's capturing the crazy hallucinagenic experience of one of PKD's most overt drug paranoia tales! Which is saying a lot, as all of his books have some thread of that going through them, but here, it's the whole experience. Everything the characters are seeing all of the time is completely distorted by drugs and technology (in the case of the scamble suits, but also the monitoring devices), so this medium was perfect to capture their experience.

Plus, with animation, you can put expressions on Reeve's face, which leads him to suddenly be completely convincing as somebody besides himself for once. Though Woody totally steels the show.

It SUCKED.

Absolutely.

I like the radio shows, the early movie serials, the Fleischer cartoons, and the TV series quite a bit. I've never watched Smallville though.

The Reeve movies were okay. The new one was cool for the effects, I guess. Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane was horrible.

I like Batman and Spider-Man more than Superman though.

The Justice League (& Justice League Unlimited) Cartoon Network series are very good. The new saturday morning Superman (The Legion of Superheroes) & Batman (The Batman) animated series are each not too bad. The Batman:The Animated Series (won lots of Emmys and Mark Hamill is the shit as The Joker) and Superman cartoons from the nineties are fantastic.

Contrary to your opinion, 2006 was a great year for movies and, in my own opinion, A Scanner Darkly was in the top ten.

I was disappointed some by the somewhat predictable ending, but damn, it's a very good movie still and a nice companion to the book.

To each their own, but man...

Virtually devoid of a plot (and what plot there was was extremely cliche and quite predictable). Actors in it giving some of their worst performances ever (except, strangely, Keanu who -- while asleep at the wheel as usual -- actually delivered a convincing role). Cliche cliche boring cliche cliche. A Scanner Darkly was pretty worthless, cept for the gimmicky (but pretty!) rotoscoping. Take that part away from it and watch the film for what it was and go, "oh, it's this really plotless pointless film." It has its hook -- every film needs a hook, i GUESS -- but man... longest 100 minutes I've seen in a LONG time.

Looks good, sounds good, but secretly sucks. Yeah... Good soundtrack!

Waking Life did more with the effect. On that one, Linklater had several different graphic artists (or teams) with different styles for each of the sections.

Agreed.

Hell yes.
Pure style, great writing. I collected toys from the Batman one. Beautiful.
I will admit to really liking Smallville. It's the WB'inest thing I have ever liked, and as teenagery as it gets, but I love it.

I actually have all the Batman: the Animated series dvd's.. only dvd tv shows I own besides ren and stimpy. shit was boss.

I don't really agree on that point. I liked Waking Life, but it was so whimsical compared to ASD. The effect works for either concept - a dream like surreality, or a paranoid drug-addled hallucination fest - however it seemed more focused to me in ASD. But then, the whole technology had aged considerably between the two movies, and Linkletter took years longer than anticipated to pull it off in ASD. Waking Life felt more like a cartoon to me, while ASD felt like a hallucinatory reality.

Well, it wouldn't have really made much sense to present different styles of digital overpainting with A Scanner Darkly...except in parts, and it would have only made it more confusing for some audiences if the same method had been employed.

To clarify, I wasn't remarking that A Scanner Darkly should have been graphically more like Waking Life.

Sure, you're saying "did more" = "more variation". I can accept that. I just think "did more" usually means "more effective", which for me would definitely be the latter film.

i saw it a while ago and thought it was really good.

this was the worst piece of shit ive seen in a looong time. actually made the book seem good by comparison.

Just saw it today. Good movie. Really good.

I love the book but really couldn't get into the film. I didn't have a problem with the animation or Keanu Reeves but the way in which whole chunks of it played like some kind of stoner comedy. The scene at the beginning, with the guy showering and imagining being covered in bugs, set the tone of the whole movie. In the book it's genuinely creepy but in the film it's like an out-take from the Fear and Loathing movie - which I also disliked.

I'm a fan. It's terrific.

i thought it was an awesome film
i actually thought it might be cool if the Cobain film was done in this style, Linklater captured bing on drugs so well aswell as capturing the 70s so well in dazed and confused.

I that stuff helped make Keanu's character more tragic.

the animated batman series totally pwned!!!...mark hamill, and then dana delaney with her uber-babe voice in the movie...so good....

i like a scanner darkly....i think i need to see it again to see if it was a fluke...but the changing suit things that they had on looked amazing...and robert downey was in fine form as usual...ah i guess i did like it.