/lit/ - Literature

Just something I thought I might share in relation to cyberpunk and Blade Runner.

I have not read Philip K Dick's original novel, which I know differs significantly from the film screenplay.

But I have been reading Shakespeare Richard III, and came across this passage. I wonder if it inspired the screenwriters and also the imagery used in the films, iconic aesthetics that came to define the genre that followed. If you examine the names of some of the other characters of the film, you can see they are taken from literature (eg Salome). Here Tyrrell / Tyrell is the murderer of the Princes in the tower.

KING RICHARD
Know’st thou not any whom corrupting gold
Will tempt unto a close exploit of death?

PAGE
I know a discontented gentleman
Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit.
Gold were as good as twenty orators,
And will no doubt tempt him to anything.

KING RICHARD
What is his name?

PAGE
His name, my lord, is Tyrrell.

(...)

KING RICHARD
(...)
Uncertain way of gain, but I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.
Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.—

Is thy name Tyrrell?
(...) Dar’st thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?