Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Ridley Scott's 1982 film "Blade Runner" adapted the novel, starring Harrison Ford as bounty hunter Rick Deckard. The film deviated significantly from the book in tone and plot details, and Philip K. Dick passed away before the film's release.

Rick Deckard is the novel's protagonist, a bounty hunter working in post-apocalyptic San Francisco tasked with "retiring" six escaped Nexus-6 model androids. The character's name and profession were retained for the Blade Runner film.

The Voight-Kampff test is a fictional empathy-based examination used to distinguish humans from androids by measuring involuntary physiological responses to emotionally provocative questions. The test centers on empathy as the defining human trait, since androids cannot genuinely empathize, particularly with animals.

Real animals are extremely rare and prohibitively expensive after a global war, so owning one is a major status symbol. Deckard covets a real sheep but owns an electric one, and much of the novel's tension revolves around the commercial value and moral status of living creatures.

The novel includes major elements absent from the film, such as the religion of Mercerism, the concept of mood organs that let people dial up desired emotions, and the theme of animal ownership. The film also removes the entire subplot about the depletion of real animals and changes the ending significantly.