Blade Runner 2049’s title could’ve been much, much sillier

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? is a great title, a science-fiction koan that looks great in any era’s typography and instantly marks the dystopian novel as the work of Philip K. Dick. But just like “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” “Second Variety,” or How About A Cyborg Pope, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? isn’t a string of words that would jump out at theatergoers from beneath the fresh faces of Harrison Ford and Sean Young. So, through a convoluted series of twists and turns that involve a physician moonlighting as a sci-fi author, an unfilmable William S. Burroughs script, and Ridley Scott’s realization that Dick never put a name to Rick Deckard’s particular line of work, the cinematic version of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? flew under an even more evocative banner: Blade Runner.