title: Riyadh

text: The First Saudi State was destroyed by forces sent by Muhammad Ali of Egypt, acting on behalf of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman forces razed the Saudi capital Diriyah in 1818. They had maintained a garrison at Najd. This marked the decline of the House of Saud for a short time. Turki bin Abdullah bin Muhammad became the first Amir of the Second Saudi State; the cousin of Saud bin Saud, he ruled for 19 years till 1834, leading to the consolidation of the area though they were notionally under the control of the Muhammad Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt. In 1823, Turki ibn Abdallah chose Riyadh as the new capital. Following the assassination of Turki in 1834, his eldest son Faisal killed the assassin and took control, and refused to be controlled by the Viceroy of Egypt. Najd was then invaded and Faisal was taken captive and held in Cairo. However, as Egypt became independent of the Ottoman Empire, Faisal escaped after five years of incarceration, returned to Najd and resumed his reign, ruled till 1865, and consolidated the reign of House of Saud.


title: Riyadh

text: Following the death of Faisal, there was rivalry among his sons which situation was exploited by Muhammad bin Rashid who took most of Najd, signed a treaty with the Ottomans, and also captured Hasa in 1871. In 1889, Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, the third son of Faisal again regained control over Najd and ruled till 1891, whereafter the control was regained by Muhammad bin Raschid.


title: Riyadh

text: Internecine struggles between Turki's grandsons led to the fall of the Second Saudi State in 1891 at the hand of the rival Al Rashid clan, which ruled from the northern city of Ha'il. The al-Masmak fort dates from that period.


title: Riyadh

text: Abdul Rahman bin Faisal al-Saud had sought refuge among a tribal community on the outskirts of Najd and then went to Kuwait with his family and stayed in exile. However, his son Abdul Aziz retrieved his ancestral kingdom of Najd in 1902 and consolidated his rule by 1926, and further expanded his kingdom to cover "most of the Arabian Peninsula." He named his kingdom as Saudi Arabia in September 1932 with Riyadh as the capital. King Abdul Aziz died in 1953 and his son Saud took control as per the established succession rule of father to son from the time Muhammad bin Saud had established the Saud rule in 1744. However, this established line of succession was broken when King Saud was succeeded by his brother King Faisal in 1964. In 1975, Faisal was succeeded by his brother King Khalid. In 1982, King Fahd took the reins from his brother. This new line of succession is among the sons of King Abdul Aziz who has 35 sons; this large family of Ibn Saud hold all key positions in the large kingdom.


title: Riyadh

text: From the 1940s, Riyadh mushroomed from a relatively narrow, spatially isolated town into a spacious metropolis. When King Saud came to power, he made it his objective to modernize Riyadh, and began developing Annasriyyah, the royal residential district, in 1950. Following the example of American cities, new settlements and entire neighborhoods were created on grid plans, and connected by high-capacity main roads to the inner areas. The grid pattern in the city was introduced in 1953. The population growth of the town from 1974 to 1992 averaged 8.2 percent per year.


title: Riyadh

text: The mayor is Prince Faisal bin Abdulaziz al-Muqrin. Al-Muqrin was appointed in 2019 by royal decree and succeeds Tariq bin Abdul Aziz Al-Faris. Riyadh is now the administrative and to a great extent the commercial hub of the Kingdom. According to the Saudi Real Estate Companion, most large companies in the country established either sole headquarters or a large office in the city. For this reason, there has been significant growth in high-rise developments in all areas of the city. Most notable among these is King Abdullah Financial District which is fast becoming the key business hub in the city. Riyadh also has the largest all-female university in the world, the Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University.


title: Riyadh

text: According to the Global Financial Centres Index, Riyadh ranked at 77 in 2016–2017. Though the rank moved up to 69 in 2018, diversification in the economy of the capital is required in order to avoid what the World Bank called a "looming poverty crisis" brought on by lingering low oil prices and rich state benefits.


title: Riyadh

text: Since 2017, Riyadh has been the target of missiles from Yemen. In March 2018, one person died as a result of a missile attack. The number of missiles which targeted Riyadh are a small portion of the dozens of missiles fired from Yemen at Saudi Arabia due to the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. In April 2018, heavy gunfire was heard in Khozama; this led to rumors of a coup attempt.


title: Riyadh

text: Riyadh has a hot desert climate (Köppen Climate Classification "BWh"), with long, extremely hot summers and short, very mild winters. The average high temperature in August is . If it was not for the elevation the city was on, Riyadh would experience an even hotter climate. The city experiences very little precipitation, especially in summer, but receives a fair amount of rain in March and April. It is also known to have dust storms during which the dust can be so thick that visibility is under . On 1 and 2 April 2015, a massive dust storm hit Riyadh, causing suspension of classes in many schools in the area and cancellation of hundreds of flights, both domestic and international.


title: Riyadh

text: Riyadh is divided into fourteen branch municipalities, in addition to the Diplomatic Quarter. Each branch municipality in turn contains several districts, amounting to over 130 in total, though some districts are divided between more than one branch municipality. The branch municipalities are Al-Shemaysi, Irqah, Al-Ma'athar, Al-Olayya, Al-Aziziyya, Al-Malaz, Al-Selayy, Nemar, Al-Neseem, Al-Shifa, Al-'Urayja, Al-Bat'ha, Al-Ha'ir, Al-Rawdha, and Al-Shimal ("the North"). Olaya District is the commercial heart of the city, with accommodation, entertainment, dining and shopping options. The Kingdom Centre, Al Faisalyah, and Al-Tahlya Street are the area's most prominent landmarks. The center of the city, Al-Bathaa and Al-Deerah, is also its oldest part.


title: Riyadh

text: The city had a population of 40,000 inhabitants in 1935 and 83,000 in 1949. The city has experienced very high rates of population growth, from 150,000 inhabitants in the 1960s to over seven million, according to the most recent sources. As of 2017, the population of Riyadh is composed of 64.19% Saudis, while non-Saudis account for 35.81% of the population. Indians are the largest minority population at 13.7%, followed by Pakistanis at 12.4%.


title: Riyadh

text: The old town of Riyadh within the city walls did not exceed an area of 1 km, and therefore very few significant architectural remnants of the original walled oasis town of Riyadh exist today. The most prominent is the Masmak fort and some parts of the original wall structure with its gate which have been restored and reconstructed. There are also a number of traditional mud-brick houses within these old limits, but they are for the most part dilapidated.


title: Riyadh

text: Expansion outside the city walls was slow to begin with, although there were some smaller oases and settlements surrounding Riyadh. The first major construction beyond the walls was King Abdulaziz's Murabba Palace. It was constructed in 1936, completed in 1938, and a household of 800 people moved into it in 1938. The palace is now part of a bigger complex called The King Abdulaziz Historical Centre.


title: Riyadh

text: There are other traditional villages and towns in the area around traditional Riyadh which the urban sprawl reached and encompasses. These include Diriyah, Manfuha and Wadi Laban. Unlike in the early days of development in Riyadh during which vernacular structures were razed to the ground without consideration, there is a new-found appreciation for traditional architecture. The Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage is making efforts to revitalize the historic architecture in Riyadh and other parts of the kingdom.


title: Riyadh

text: Ain Heet cave has an underground lake (150 meters deep) situated at the face of Mount Al Jubayl in Wadi As Sulay in a small village called Heet in Riyadh. Between Riyadh and Al Kharj road, it is one of the easily accessible caves in the area of Riyadh.


title: Riyadh

text: The archeological sites at Riyadh which are of historical importance, in which the Municipality of Riyadh is involved, are the five old gates on the old walls of Riyadh. These are the eastern gate of Thumaira, the northern gate of Al-Suwailen, the southern gate of Dukhna, the western gate of Al-Madhbah, and the south-western gate of Shumaisi. There are also four historic palaces: Musmak Palace, Murabba Palace (palace of King Abdul Aziz), Atiqah Palace (belongs to Prince Muhammad bin Abdul Rahman) and Al Shamsiah Palace (belongs to Saud Al Kabeer).


title: Riyadh

text: The Turaif district, is another important archeological site inscribed in UNESCO World Heritage List on 31 July 2010. It was founded in the 15th century bearing an architectural style of Najdi. There are some Historic palaces and monuments in Al-Turaif district include: Salwa Palace, Saad bin Saud Palace, The Guest House and At-Turaif Bath House, and Imam Mohammad bin Saud Mosque.


title: Riyadh

text: This fortress was built around 1865 under the reign of Mohammed ibn Abdullah ibn Rasheed (1289-1315 AH), the ruler of Ha'il to the north, who had wrested control of the city from the rival clan of Al Saud. In January 1902 Ibn Saud, who was at the time living in exile in Kuwait, succeeded in capturing the Masmak fortress from its Rashid garrison. The event, which restored Saudi control over Riyadh, has acquired an almost mythical status in the history of Saudi Arabia. The story of the event is often retold and has as its central theme the heroism and bravery of King Abdulaziz al-Saud.


title: Riyadh

text: The Masmak Fortress is now a museum and is in close proximity to the Clock Tower Square, also known to English-speaking residents as Chop Chop Square, referring to the capital punishment that takes place there.


title: Riyadh

text: Designed by the team of Ellerbe Becket and Omrania, the tower is built on 94,230 square meters of land. The Kingdom Centre is owned by a group of companies including Kingdom Holding Company, headed by Al-Waleed bin Talal, a prince of the Saudi royal family, and is the headquarters of the holding company. The project cost 2 billion Saudi Arabian Riyals and the contract was undertaken by El-Seif. The Kingdom Centre is the winner of the 2002 Emporis Skyscraper Award, selected as the "best new skyscraper of the year for design and functionality". A three-level shopping center, which also won a major design award, fills the east wing. The large opening is illuminated at night in continuously changing colors. The shopping center has a separate floor for women only to shop where men are not allowed to enter.


title: Riyadh

text: The Kingdom Tower has 99 stories and is the fifth tallest structure in the country, rising to 300 m. A special aspect of the tower is that it is divided into two parts in the last one-third of its height and is linked by a sky-bridge walkway, which provides extensive views of Riyadh.


title: Riyadh

text: Burj Rafal, located on King Fahd Road, is the tallest skyscraper in Riyadh at 307.9 meters (1,010 feet) tall. The tower was designed and engineered by P & T Group. Construction began in 2010 and was completed in 2014. The project was considered a success, with 70% of the residential units already sold by the time the skyscraper was topped out. The tower contains 474 residential condominium units and a 349-room 5-star Kempinski hotel.


title: Riyadh

text: Al Faisaliyah Centre (Arabic: برج الفيصلية) is the first skyscraper constructed in Saudi Arabia and is the third tallest building in Riyadh after the Burj Rafal and the Kingdom Centre. The golden ball that lies atop the tower is said to be inspired by a ballpoint pen, and contains a restaurant; immediately below this is an outside viewing deck. There is a shopping center with major world brands at ground level. Al Faisaliyah Centre also has a hotel on both sides of the tower while the main building is occupied by office. The Al Faisaliyah Tower has 44 stories. It was designed by Foster and Partners.


title: Riyadh

text: The Riyadh TV Tower is a 170 meter high television tower located inside the premises of the Saudi Ministry of Information. It is a vertical cantilever structure which was built between 1978 and 1981. The first movie made in 1983 by the TV tower group and named "1,000 Nights and Night" had Mohammed Abdu and Talal Mmdah as the main characters. At that time, there were no women on TV because of religious restrictions. Three years later, Abdul Khaliq Al-Ghanim produced a TV series called "Tash Ma Tash," which earned a good reaction from audiences in Eastern Arabia. This series created a media revolution back in the 1980s.


title: Riyadh

text: In 1999, a new central museum was built in Riyadh, at the eastern side of the King Abdul Aziz Historical Centre. The National Museum of Saudi Arabia combined several collections and pieces that had up until then been scattered over several institutions and other places in Riyadh and the Kingdom. For example, the meteorite fragment is known as the "Camel's Hump", recovered in 1966 from the Wabar site, that was on display at the King Saud University in Riyadh became the new entry piece of the National Museum of Saudi Arabia.


title: Riyadh

text: The Royal Saudi Air Force Museum, or Saqr Al-Jazira, is located on the East Ring Road of Riyadh between exits 10 and 11. It contains a collection of aircraft and aviation-related items used by the Royal Saudi Air Force and Saudia (Saudi Arabian Airlines).


title: Riyadh

text: Football is the most popular sport in Saudi Arabia. The city hosts four major football clubs, Al Hilal was established in 1957 and has won 15 championships in the Saudi Professional League. Al-Nasr club is another team in the top league that has many supporters around the kingdom. It was established in 1955, and has been named champion of the Saudi League 7 times. Another well-known club, Al-Shabab, was established in 1947 and holds 6 championships. There is also Al-Riyadh Club, which was established in 1954, as well as many other minor clubs.


title: Riyadh

text: The city also has several large stadiums such as King Fahd International Stadium with a seating capacity of 70,000. The stadium hosted the FIFA Confederations Cup three times, in the years 1992, 1995 and 1997. It also hosted the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 1989, and Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium (Al-Malaz Stadium) that is used mostly for football matches. The stadium has a capacity of 22,500 people.


title: Riyadh

text: The city's GPYW Indoor Stadium served as host arena for the 1997 Asian Basketball Championship, where Saudi Arabia's national basketball team reached the "Final Four".


title: Riyadh

text: On 29 February 2020, the world's richest thoroughbred horse race took place at the King Abdulaziz Racetrack in Riyadh. The Saudi Cup is a new race for thoroughbreds aged four and up, to be run at weight-for-age terms over 1800m (9f). The prize money is US$20m with a prize of US$10m to the winner and prize money down to tenth place. The Saudi Cup is perfectly positioned between the Pegasus World Cup and the Dubai World Cup to attract the best horses from around the world to compete for horse racing's richest prize. Putting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the international horseracing map, the Saudi Cup will also hold an undercard of international races on both dirt and the new turf course.


title: Riyadh

text: On 26 April 2020, Saudi Arabia entered the bidding process for the 2030 Asian Games, their main rival for this event was Doha, Qatar. On 16 December 2020, it was announced that Riyadh will host the 2034 Asian Games.


title: Riyadh

text: Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport (KKIA), located 35 kilometers north of the city center, is the city's main airport, and serves over 17 million passengers a year. Plans are being made to expand the airport to accommodate 35 million passengers, given that the airport was only built for 12 million passengers annually. A possible new airport is on the table. It is one of the largest airports in the world by land area.


title: Riyadh

text: The city is served by a modern major highway system. The main Eastern Ring Road connects the city's south and north, while the Northern Ring Road connects the city's east and west. King Fahd Road runs through the center of the city from north to south, in parallel with the East Ring Road. Makkah Road, which runs east–west across the city's center, connects eastern parts of the city with the city's main business district and the diplomatic quarters.


title: Riyadh

text: Saudi Railways Organization operates two separate passenger and cargo lines between Riyadh and Dammam, passing through Hofuf and Haradh. Two future railway projects, connecting Riyadh with Jeddah and Mecca in the western region, and connecting Riyadh with Buraidah, Ha'il and Northern Saudi Arabia are underway.


title: Riyadh

text: The six line Riyadh metro is under construction with the first line was expected to open by end of 2021, but now it is expected to open in 2023.


title: Riyadh

text: The main charter bus company in the kingdom, known as the Saudi Public Transport Company (SAPTCO), offers trips both within the kingdom and to its neighboring countries, including Egypt (via ferries from Safaga or Nuweiba) and Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council.


title: Riyadh

text: National Saudi television channels Saudi TV1, Saudi TV2, Saudi TV Sports, Al-Ekhbariya, ART channels network operate from here. Television broadcasts are mainly in Arabic, although some radio broadcasts are in English or French. Arabic is the main language used in television and radio but radio broadcasts are also made in different languages such as Urdu, French, or English. Riyadh has four Arabic newspapers; "Asharq Al-Awsat" (which is owned by the city governor), "Al Riyadh", "Al Jazirah" and "Al-Watan", two English language newspapers; "Saudi Gazette" and "Arab News", and one Malayalam language newspaper, "Gulf Madhyamam".


title: Riyadh

text: In 2019, King Salman launched a plan to implement 1281 development projects in Riyadh. The project is planned to cost around US$22 billion. The main goal of the plan is to improve the infrastructure, transportation, environment and other facilities in Riyadh and the surrounding area. In the framework of Saudi Vision 2030, the plan will take care of constructing 15 housing projects, building a huge museum, establishing an environmental project, sports areas, medical cities, educational facilities, etc. This includes the establishment of 14 electricity projects, 20 sewage projects, 10 housing areas, 66 trading and industrial areas, a number of lakes covering 315,000 square meters, and advanced sports cities. Alongside the development project and in the aim of enhancing the artistic movement of the city, 1000 pieces of art are planned to be publicly displayed in the city by the end of 2030. In the framework of Riyadh's development projects, an amount of SR 604 million has been awarded to develop and construct roads of Riyadh. On 3 July 2020, "Bloomberg" reported that Saudi Arabia has allocated $20 billion on the mega-project of tourism and culture in Riyadh namely, "Diriyah Gate", while facing a double economic crisis after rise in coronavirus cases.


title: Riyadh

text: The Ministry of Investment and the Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) announced on 13 July 2021 that they have partnered with to open SEK International School Riyadh, its first campus in Saudi Arabia. The new international school will welcome students from Pre-K (age 3 years) to Grade 12 (age 17/18 years), and will become one of the few schools in Riyadh accredited to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP), Middle Years Programme (MYP), and Diploma Programme (DP).


title: Riyadh

text: Jenadriyah is an annual festival that has been held in Riyadh. It hosts a number of cultural and traditional events, such as camel race, poetry reading and others.


title: Riyadh

text: It is one of the largest book fairs in the MENA region. It is usually held between March and April and it hosts a wide range of Saudi, Arab and international publishers.


title: Riyadh

text: In the framework of the recent Saudi endeavor to promote tourism in the country, Riyadh Season was held as part of the Saudi Seasons initiative. The season took place in October 2019 and lasted until December 2019. It hosted a wide range of sports, musical, theatrical, fashion shows, circus, and various other entertainment activities. Some of Riyadh Season events are BTS concert, Joy convention and Joy Expo, Ice Rink, WWE Events, Arabian concerts, Egyptian Theater, League of Legends, Real Madrid Interactive Expo and Ferrari Festival.


title: Riyadh

text: Noor Riyadh (Noor meaning light in Arabic) is an annual festival and one of the four major projects under the mandate of the Royal Commission for Riyadh City. It is the festival of light and art. In 2021, the festival will be launched on 18 March and will last until 3 April.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Scooby-Doo (also known as Scooby-Doo: The Movie) is a 2002 American fantasy adventure-comedy film based on the long-running Hanna-Barbera animated television franchise of the same name. The first installment in the "Scooby-Doo" live-action film series, the film was directed by Raja Gosnell from a screenplay by James Gunn, and stars Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini and Rowan Atkinson. The plot revolves around Mystery Incorporated, a group of four young adults and a talking dog who solve mysteries, who reunite after a two-year disbandment to investigate a mystery at a popular horror-themed tropical island resort.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Filmed in and around Queensland, Australia, on a budget of $84 million, "Scooby-Doo" was released on June 14, 2002, and grossed $275 million worldwide. Reggae artist Shaggy and rock group MxPx performed different versions of the "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" theme song. The Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster, a ride based on the film, was built at Warner Bros. Movie World in Gold Coast, Australia in 2002. The film received generally negative reviews from critics, who criticized its script and humor, although Lillard’s performance was praised and the movie later gained a cult following from fans of the show. This is the last time William Hanna served as an executive producer before his death on . A sequel, "", was released on March 26, 2004.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: After Mystery, Inc. solves the mystery of the Luna Ghost at a factory, long-brewing friction between Fred, a glory hog, Daphne, who has become sick of being the one who gets captured, and Velma, from whom Fred regularly steals credit for her plans, causes the gang to disband, abandoning a dismayed Scooby and Shaggy and leaving them to care for the gang's van, The Mystery Machine. Two years later, they are all invited to solve a mystery on horror-themed tropical resort Spooky Island, whose owner, Emile Mondavarious, believes the visiting tourists are being brainwashed.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: While Shaggy and Scooby hope this will bring the gang back together, Velma, Fred and Daphne are all intent on solving the mystery on their own. Velma attends a ritualistic performance given by actor N'Goo Tuana and his henchman, famous luchador Zarkos. N'Goo claims ancient demons once ruled the island but have been plotting revenge ever since they were displaced by the resort. Meanwhile, Shaggy falls for a girl named Mary Jane, distancing himself from Scooby in the process.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: They are all led to the resort's haunted house ride, where Fred and Velma encounter a schoolroom that educates inhuman creatures about human culture, while Daphne discovers a pyramid-shaped artifact called the Daemon Ritus. Fred, Velma and Mondavarious are kidnapped and later possessed by the island's demons. Mary Jane calls the Coast Guard for help, but they don't arrive; Zarkos steals back the Daemon Ritus from Daphne, who is also captured and possessed. The next day, after trying and failing to tell Shaggy that Mary Jane is a demon in disguise, Scooby goes missing as well.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Shaggy goes in search of his friends and finds a vat of protoplasm containing the souls of those possessed. He finds and frees the souls of Daphne, Fred and Velma, who discovers sunlight destroys the demons. A voodoo priest who lives on the island informs the gang the demons are to perform their "Darpokalypse" Ritual, which will see them rule the world for ten thousand years if a pure soul is sacrificed in the Daemon Ritus. The gang realizes that the pure soul is Scooby, whom Mondavarious brought to Spooky Island for this very reason. Fred, Daphne, and Velma finally decide to put their differences aside and work together with Shaggy to save Scooby.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: The gang infiltrate the ritual, where Mondavarious is foiled in sacrificing Scooby's soul by Shaggy. Mondavarious is revealed to be a robot controlled by Scooby's estranged nephew Scrappy-Doo, whom the gang abandoned long ago after his increasingly power-hungry and egomaniacal nature got out of control. Absorbing the tourists' souls, Scrappy transforms into a huge monster and tries to kill the gang. Daphne kills the demons by reflecting sunlight through a skull-shaped disco ball and knocks Zarkos into the vat, returning the other to their bodies. Shaggy frees the rest of the souls and finds the real Mondavarious imprisoned, having been captured by Scrappy so he could pose as his double. Scrappy and his henchmen are all arrested and Mystery, Inc. reunites.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: In a mid-credits scene, Shaggy and Scooby eat hot peppers in the Spooky Island restaurant, glad that the resort has fulfilled its "all-you-can-eat" promise.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Neil Fanning voices the titular character, Scooby-Doo. Scott Innes reprises his role as the voice of Scrappy-Doo and J.P. Manoux voices Scrappy Rex. Sam Greco portrays Zarkos; Steven Grieves portrays N'Goo Tuana; Kristian Schmid portrays Brad; and Michala Banas portrays Carol.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Additionally, Holly Brisley appear as a Training Video Woman. Frank Welker and Jess Harnell voice the creatures. Sugar Ray, Pamela Anderson, and Nicholas Hope appeared in cameo roles.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Producer Charles Roven began developing a live-action treatment of "Scooby-Doo" in 1994. By the end of the decade, the combined popularity of "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!", along with the addition of the script and updated digital animation led Warner Bros. to fast track production of the film. Mike Myers was reported to be co-writing the screenplay with Jay Kogan in July 1998, and was later on board to play Shaggy as well. In October 2000, the film was officially given the green light. "Variety" reported that Raja Gosnell had been hired to direct the film.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: The movie references several pop-culture fads, particularly the scene in the Mystery Machine. Scooby has a Heinz Kickr's Bottle, there are some mouths-with-eyes toys, Pamela Anderson interviews the main characters in the opening chapter.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: The film was shot on location in and around Queensland, Australia. Production was started on February 12, 2001 at the Warner Bros. Movie World theme park, with over 400 cast and crew also taking over Tangalooma Island Resort for six weeks to film all the scenes set on Spooky Island. Production wrapped in June 2001. The film was originally set to have a much darker tone, essentially poking fun at the original series, much like "The Brady Bunch Movie", and was set for a PG-13 rating. Shaggy was set to be a stoner, and there were many marijuana references.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Several rumors about these aspects in the original cartoon series were passed around by fans of the original and were to be incorporated into the live action film. In March 2001, one month into filming, the first official cast picture was released.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: According to Sarah Michelle Gellar, after the cast had signed on there was a change, and the film became more family friendly, though some of the original adult jokes are still in the film. They are also included in deleted scenes on the home media releases.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Gellar also said her character and Linda Cardellini's shared an onscreen kiss that did not make the final film. "It wasn't just, like, for fun," she said, explaining it took place in the body-switching scene. "Initially in the soul-swapping scene Velma and Daphne couldn't seem to get their souls back together in the woods. And so the way they found was to kiss and the souls went back into proper alignment." In a 2012 r/IAmA, Matthew Lillard additionally revealed that the original cut of the film had Fred be revealed to be gay, and that Freddie Prinze Jr. had portrayed him as such throughout the film.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: In 2017, the 15th anniversary of the release of the film, James Gunn, the film's screenwriter, revealed in a Facebook post that there was an R-rated cut of "Scooby-Doo" and that CGI was used to remove cleavage of the female cast members.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Actors Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who both previously worked in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and portray Fred and Daphne, are romantically involved in both the film and reality. This film marks the first time in the franchise's history where the characters are portrayed as a couple. The pair married shortly after the film was released. Prinze said of his character, "[He] always showed more arrogance than everyone else. So in the movie, I took the opportunity to make him as narcissistic and self-loving as possible."


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Jim Carrey was originally attached to play Shaggy, while Mike Myers also expressed interest in the role. Lochlyn Munro also auditioned for the role. The role was eventually given to Matthew Lillard. When asked about watching several cartoons before playing Shaggy, Lillard responded, "Everything I could get my hands on. If I ever have to see another episode of "Scooby-Doo", it will be way too soon." Lillard would continue voicing Shaggy in the rest of the "Scooby-Doo" media starting in 2010; he would also poke fun at this appearance in the following year's "", where an animated Shaggy and Scooby voice their grievances over Lillard's portrayal over a lunch in the Warner Bros. studio cafeteria and threaten him to make him do a better portrayal in the sequel.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Isla Fisher grew up watching "Scooby-Doo" in Australia, and said that the "best part of making this movie was being part of an institution, something that has been in people's childhoods and is something that means a lot to a lot of people." Linda Cardellini was also a fan of the "Scooby-Doo" series.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Principal photography began on February 13, 2001, and wrapped on June 1, 2001. Filming took place throughout Queensland, Australia. Spooky Island was filmed on Tangalooma Island resort in Moreton Island.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: The film's score was composed by David Newman. A soundtrack was released on June 4, 2002, by Atlantic Records. It peaked at number 24 on the "Billboard" 200 and 49 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Shaggy performs the theme song from "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!", which was retitled "Shaggy, Where Are You?".


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: On November 16, 2001, the first trailer of "Scooby-Doo" was released in theaters with the opening of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". A second trailer debuted with the release of "Ice Age" and "Showtime" on March 15, 2002.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: A video game based upon the film was released for Game Boy Advance shortly before the film was released. The game is played in third-person point of view and has multiple puzzle games and mini-games. The game's structure was similar to a board game. Metacritic rated it 64/100 based on five reviews, which they labeled as "mixed or average reviews". Meanwhile, Dairy Queen began promoting the film with kids meal toys, frozen cakes and a limited edition Mystery Crunch Blizzard flavor.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Scholastic Inc. released a novelization of the story in conjunction with the film. The novel was written by American fantasy and science fiction author Suzanne Weyn.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: The film was released on VHS and DVD on October 11, 2002. The release included deleted scenes, among them an alternate opening animated in the style of the original television series. It was later released on Blu-ray on January 16, 2007. Said Blu-ray was given a double feature pack with its sequel, "Monsters Unleashed", on November 9, 2010.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: "Scooby-Doo" debuted with $19.2 million on its opening day and $54.1 million over the weekend from 3,447 theaters, averaging about $15,711 per venue and ranking No. 1 at the box office. At the time, it had the second-highest June opening weekend, behind "". During its theatrical run, "Scooby-Doo" also competed against another family-oriented film, "Lilo & Stitch". The film closed on October 31, 2002, with a final gross of $153 million in the United States and Canada. It made an additional $122 million in other territories, bringing the total worldwide gross to $275.7 million, making it the fifteenth most successful film worldwide of 2002. The film was released in the United Kingdom on July 12, 2002, and topped the country's box office for the next two weekends, before being dethroned by "Austin Powers in Goldmember".


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 32% based on 146 reviews with an average rating of 4.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Though Lillard is uncannily spot-on as Shaggy, Scooby Doo is a tired live-action update, filled with lame jokes." On Metacritic, the film received a score of 35 based on 31 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film one out of four stars, stating that the film "exists in a closed universe, and the rest of us are aliens. The Internet was invented so that you can find someone else's review of "Scooby-Doo". Start surfing." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" said, "Get out your pooper-scoopers. "Doo" happens June 14th, warn the ads for "Scooby-Doo". And they say there's no truth in Hollywood." Chris Hewitt of "Empire Magazine" gave the film two out of five stars.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Robin Rauzi of the "Los Angeles Times" called the film "entertainment more disposable than Hanna-Barbera's half-hour cartoons ever were." Although Jay Boyar of the "Orlando Sentinel" said that children who liked the animated version of "Scooby-Doo" will "probably like" the film, he urged parents to "know that the violence is a bit harder-edged than in the cartoon version". He would later go on to say that adults who remember the cartoon version "may get caught up in what Scooby would call the 'rostalgia'", but said that "adults who do not fondly recall the Scooby-Doo cartoons are strongly advised to steer clear."


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Conversely, Hank Struever of "The Washington Post" gave the film a positive review, stating that "You don't want to love this, but you will. Although "Scooby-Doo" falls far short of becoming the "Blazing Saddles" of Generations X, Y and Z, it is hard to resist in its charms."


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: Gellar won Choice Movie Actress – Comedy at the Teen Choice Awards. Prinze was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award (Razzie) for Worst Supporting Actor, but he lost to Hayden Christensen for "". It was also nominated for another Razzie, Most Flatulent Teen-Targeted Movie, but lost against "". It won the Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Fart in a Movie.


title: Scooby-Doo (film)

text: A sequel, "", was released in 2004. A third film was planned, but cancelled after the poor critical and financial results of the second. In 2009 and 2010, two prequel telefilms, "Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins" and "Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster", aired on Cartoon Network. In 2018, a direct-to-video spin-off film, "Daphne & Velma", was released.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: Sing is a 2016 American computer-animated jukebox musical comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. It is the first film of the franchise of the same name. It was written and directed by Garth Jennings, co-directed by Christophe Lourdelet (in his feature directorial debut), and produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy. The film stars the ensemble voices of Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Tori Kelly, Taron Egerton and Nick Kroll. Set in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, the film focuses on a struggling theater owner who stages a singing competition in an effort to prevent his theater from entering foreclosure, as well as how the competition interferes with the personal lives of its contestants.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: The film features more than 60 songs from famous artists, mostly performed diegetically. It also has an original song by Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande called "Faith", which was nominated for a Golden Globe. It screened on the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2016, premiered at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 3, and was released in the United States on December 21, by Universal Pictures. It grossed $634 million worldwide.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: In Calatonia, a city of anthropomorphic animals, koala Buster Moon owns a struggling theater, and is threatened with foreclosure by bank representative llama Judith. He decides to hold a singing competition with a prize of $1,000, but a typo made by his elderly assistant iguana Miss Crawly adds two extra zeros to the prize money. The misprinted flyers are blown out of the window by a fan before they can be proofread, and float across the city.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: Crowds of animals gather to audition, and Buster selects his contestants. Among them are housewife and mother of 25 piglets Rosita; punk-rock porcupine Ash; teenage gorilla Johnny, son of a criminal gang leader named Big Daddy; street musician mouse Mike; and an exuberant pig named Gunter. Teenage elephant Meena fails her audition due to stage fright, Ash's self-absorbed boyfriend and co-auditionee Lance is upset to be dismissed from the contest, and Rosita is paired with Gunter for a dance routine. After Buster discovers the flyers advertise a prize of $100,000, he joins his friend sheep Eddie on a visit to Eddie's wealthy grandmother, former theater superstar Nana Noodleman. Nana is reluctant to sponsor the prize money, but agrees to attend a private preview of the show before making a decision.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: Pressured by her grandfather, Meena attempts to request a second audition, but settles on being Buster's stagehand instead. After some acts withdraw from the competition, Meena is offered a spot in the show, but again struggles to overcome her fear. Further problems soon arise; Rosita flounders in her dance routine with Gunter, believing her motherly duties have caused her to lose her passion; Lance cheats on Ash, causing her to break up with him, and later to break down crying during a rehearsal; Mike, assuming he will win the competition, takes out a massive loan from the bank to buy a flashy car and swindles a group of bears in a card game; and Johnny, forced by Big Daddy to partake in a heist as a getaway driver, sneaks away to a rehearsal. Traffic prevents Johnny from returning to the heist in time, resulting in the arrest and incarceration of Big Daddy and his gang, straining their relationship.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: Desperate, Johnny attempts to steal the prize money for his father's bail, but when he sees a note on Buster's desk praising his talents, Johnny resolves to focus on his musical career instead. On the day of the preview, the bears Mike had cheated locate him, and demand their money back. Mike directs them to Buster; the bears break open the prize chest, but it is nowhere near $100,000. Shocked by the lack of money, the rest of the contestants question Buster, and the glass tank of luminescent squids lighting the stage shatters under everyone's weight. The flooded theater implodes, and Judith repossesses the lot, while Buster takes up residence with Eddie and supports himself by washing cars.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: Meena goes to the rubble of the theater and sings out loud to music on her headphones. Overhearing her, Buster is inspired to stage an outdoor show just for fun. Despite attempts from Judith to halt the show, it takes place on the lot of the former theater, with Meena's and Rosita's families in attendance. Dozens more animals are drawn into the audience when the show is broadcast on the news. Rosita's husband Norman finally notices his wife's talent, Big Daddy breaks out of prison and travels to the lot to reconcile with Johnny and apologize, Lance is impressed by Ash's original rock song "Set It All Free", the bears find Mike and chase him away, and Meena overcomes her stage fright and gives an enthusiastic performance. The show is a success and impresses Nana, who was in the audience. She purchases the lot, and the theater is rebuilt and reopened.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: The voices of Rosita and Norman's piglet children were provided by Oscar, Leo, Caspar, and Asa Jennings, the children of Garth Jennings. Jennings had directors Edgar Wright (as a goat) and Wes Anderson (as Daniel, a giraffe who auditions with the song "Ben") provide "additional voices", continuing a tradition of the three friends appearing in each other's films. An archival recording of Shooby Taylor, who died in 2003, singing "Stout-Hearted Men" was used for the singing voice of a hippopotamus.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: In January 2014, it was announced that Garth Jennings would write and direct an animated comedy film for Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment, about "courage, competition and carrying a tune". It was originally titled "Lunch", then retitled "Sing".


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: On January 14, 2015, Matthew McConaughey was cast in the film's lead voice role. Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy produced the film. On June 17, 2015, it was confirmed that McConaughey's character was named Buster and that John C. Reilly would voice Eddie, a sheep and Buster's best friend. In November 2015, it was announced that Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, Tori Kelly and Taron Egerton had joined the cast.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: According to a "Hollywood Reporter" interview and article, "The film contains 65 non-stop pop songs", the rights to which cost 15% of the film's $75 million budget. The animation was created entirely in France by Illumination Mac Guff.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: The almost complete film was screened as a work in progress beginning September 11, 2016 at the Toronto International Film Festival. Universal Studios released the film on December 21, 2016.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: "Sing" was released on DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on March 21, 2017. It includes three short films: "Gunter Babysits", "Love at First Sight", and "Eddie's Life Coach".


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: "Sing" grossed $270.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $363.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $634.1 million, against a production budget of $75 million. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the net profit of the film to be $194.2 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs, with box office grosses, and ancillary revenues from home media, placing it seventh on their list of 2016's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: In North America, the film opened alongside "Passengers" and "Assassin's Creed", and was expected to gross around $70 million from 4,022 theaters over its first six days of release. The film made $1.7 million during its Tuesday night previews. It went on to gross $35.2 million in its opening weekend (a six-day total of $75.5 million), finishing second at the box office behind "Rogue One", which was in its second week. It rose 21% in its second weekend to $42.9 million, remaining in second, and grossed $20.8 million in its third week and finishing third. "Sing" holds the record for being the highest-grossing film to never finish first at the North American box office, beating "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" ($241.4 million in 2002).


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, ""Sing" delivers colorfully animated, cheerfully undemanding entertainment with a solid voice cast and a warm-hearted – albeit familiar – storyline that lives up to its title." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: Brian Truitt of "USA Today" gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, "In a year full of talking-animal hits, "Sing" isn't quite as strong a number. It's a tale that might not be particularly thought-provoking but sure is toe-tapping." In her review for the "Los Angeles Times", Katie Walsh called "Sing", "a cute movie with genuinely funny moments (keep an eye out for the koala car wash), and some great tunes to boot." "The Arizona Republic"s Bill Goodykoontz was rather mixed about the movie in his review and overall said, "Sing is like an album with a good song here and there, but too much filler and not enough hits." Reviewing the version of the film screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, Stefan Pape of the British website "HeyUGuys" gave the film a mixed review of 2/5, stating that "Garth Jennings's "Sing" effectively acknowledges early on that it's following a completely unoriginal formula, and yet carries on regardless." While Peter Debruge of "Variety", who also saw the film during the same festival, did not find the subplots to have any "profound life lessons", he overall praised Jennings' direction, the cast's voice performances and the film's silliness.


title: Sing (2016 American film)

text: A month after the film's release, Universal and Illumination announced plans for a sequel with writer/director Jennings, producers Meledandri and Healy, and the original cast returning for it. The film was originally scheduled for release on December 25, 2020, but the date was pushed back to July 2, 2021, accommodating the release of "". "Sing 2" release date was further pushed back to December 22, 2021.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928March 2, 1982) was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. His fiction explored varied philosophical and social questions such as the nature of reality, perception, human nature, and identity, and commonly featured characters struggling against elements such as alternate realities, illusory environments, monopolistic corporations, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Born in Chicago, Dick moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his family at a young age. He began publishing science fiction stories in 1952, at age 23. He found little commercial success until his alternative history novel "The Man in the High Castle" (1962) earned him acclaim, including a Hugo Award for Best Novel, when he was 33. He followed with science fiction novels such as "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968) and "Ubik" (1969). His 1974 novel "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Following years of drug abuse and a series of mystical experiences in 1974, Dick's work engaged more explicitly with issues of theology, metaphysics, and the nature of reality, as in novels "A Scanner Darkly" (1977), "VALIS" (1981), and "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer" (1982). A collection of his speculative nonfiction writing on these themes was published posthumously as "The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick" (2011). He died in 1982 in Santa Ana, California, at the age of 53, due to complications from a stroke. Following his death, he became "widely regarded as a master of imaginative, paranoid fiction in the vein of Franz Kafka and Thomas Pynchon".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick's posthumous influence has been widespread, extending beyond literary circles into Hollywood filmmaking. Popular films based on his works include "Blade Runner" (1982), "Total Recall" (adapted twice: in 1990 and in 2012), "Minority Report" (2002), "A Scanner Darkly" (2006), "The Adjustment Bureau" (2011), and "Radio Free Albemuth" (2010). Beginning in 2015, Amazon Prime Video produced the multi-season television adaptation "The Man in the High Castle", based on Dick's 1962 novel; and in 2017 Channel 4 began producing the ongoing anthology series "Electric Dreams", based on various Dick stories.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In 2005, "Time" magazine named "Ubik" (1969) one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer included in The Library of America series.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick and his twin sister, Jane Charlotte Dick, were born six weeks prematurely on December 16, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy (née Kindred; 1900–1978) and Joseph Edgar Dick (1899–1985), who worked for the United States Department of Agriculture. His paternal grandparents were Irish. Jane's death on January 26, 1929, six weeks after their birth, profoundly affected Philip's life, leading to the recurrent motif of the "phantom twin" in his books.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick's family later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. When he was five, his father was transferred to Reno, Nevada, and when Dorothy refused to move, she and Joseph divorced. Both fought for custody of Philip, which was awarded to Dorothy. Determined to raise Philip alone, she took a job in Washington, D.C. and moved there with her son. Philip was enrolled at John Eaton Elementary School (1936–1938), completing the second through fourth grades. His lowest grade was a "C" in Written Composition, although a teacher said he "shows interest and ability in story telling". He was educated in Quaker schools. In June 1938, Dorothy and Philip returned to California, and it was around this time that he became interested in science fiction. Dick stated that he read his first science fiction magazine, "Stirring Science Stories," in 1940.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick attended Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California. He and fellow science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin were members of the class of 1947 but did not know each other at the time.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: He claimed to have hosted a classical music program on KSMO Radio in 1947. From 1948 to 1952, he worked at Art Music Company, a record store on Telegraph Avenue.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: He attended the University of California, Berkeley from September 1949 to November 11, 1949, ultimately receiving an honorable dismissal dated January 1, 1950. He did not declare a major and took classes in history, psychology, philosophy, and zoology. Dick dropped out because of ongoing anxiety problems, according to his third wife Anne's memoir. She also says he disliked the mandatory ROTC training. At Berkeley, he befriended poet Robert Duncan and poet and linguist Jack Spicer, who gave Dick ideas for a Martian language.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Through his studies in philosophy, he believed that existence is based on internal human perception, which does not necessarily correspond to external reality. He described himself as "an acosmic panentheist," believing in the universe only as an extension of God. After reading the works of Plato and pondering the possibilities of metaphysical realms, he came to the conclusion that, in a certain sense, the world is not entirely real and there is no way to confirm whether it is truly there. This question from his early studies persisted as a theme in many of his novels.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick sold his first story, "Roog", in 1951, when he was 22, about "a dog who imagined that the garbagemen who came every Friday morning were stealing valuable food which the family had carefully stored away in a safe metal container". From then on he wrote full-time. During 1952, his first speculative fiction publications appeared in July and September numbers of "Planet Stories", edited by Jack O'Sullivan, and in "If" and "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" that year. His debut novel, "Solar Lottery", was published in 1955 as half of Ace Double #D-103 alongside "The Big Jump" by Leigh Brackett. The 1950s were a difficult and impoverished time for Dick, who once lamented, "We couldn't even pay the late fees on a library book." He published almost exclusively within the science fiction genre but dreamed of a career in mainstream fiction. During the 1950s, he produced a series of non-genre, relatively conventional novels.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In 1960, Dick wrote that he was willing to "take twenty to thirty years to succeed as a literary writer". The dream of mainstream success formally died in January 1963 when the Scott Meredith Literary Agency returned all of his unsold mainstream novels. Only one of them, "Confessions of a Crap Artist", was published during Dick's lifetime.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In 1963 Dick won the Hugo Award for "The Man in the High Castle". Although he was hailed as a genius in the science fiction world, the mainstream literary world was unappreciative, and he could publish books only through low-paying science fiction publishers such as Ace. Even in his later years, he continued to have financial troubles. In the introduction to the 1980 short story collection "The Golden Man", he wrote:


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In 1971, Dick's marriage to Nancy Hackett broke down, and she moved out of their house in Santa Venetia, California. He had abused amphetamine for much of the previous decade, stemming in part from his need to maintain a prolific writing regimen due to the financial exigencies of the science fiction field. He allowed other drug users to move into the house. Following the release of 21 novels between 1960 and 1970, these developments were exacerbated by unprecedented periods of writer's block, with Dick ultimately failing to publish new fiction until 1974.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: One day, in November 1971, Dick returned to his home to discover it had been burglarized, with his safe blown open and personal papers missing. The police couldn't determine the culprit, and even suspected Dick of having done it himself. Shortly thereafter, he was invited to be guest of honor at the Vancouver Science Fiction Convention in February 1972. Within a day of arriving at the conference and giving his speech, "The Android and the Human", he informed people that he had fallen in love with a woman named Janis whom he had met there and announced that he would be remaining in Vancouver. A conference attendee, Michael Walsh, movie critic for the local newspaper "The Province", invited Dick to stay in his home, but asked him to leave two weeks later due to his erratic behavior. Janis then ended their relationship and moved away. On March 23, 1972, Dick attempted suicide by taking an overdose of the sedative potassium bromide. Subsequently, after deciding to seek help, Dick became a participant in X-Kalay (a Canadian Synanon-type recovery program), and was well enough by April to return to California. In October 1972, Dick wrote a letter to the FBI about science fiction writer Thomas Disch.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: On relocating to Orange County, California at the behest of California State University, Fullerton professor Willis McNelly (who initiated a correspondence with Dick during his X-Kalay stint), he donated manuscripts, papers and other materials to the university's Special Collections Library, where they are in the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Collection in the Pollak Library. During this period, Dick befriended a circle of Fullerton State students that included several aspiring science fiction writers, including K. W. Jeter, James Blaylock and Tim Powers. Jeter would later continue Dick's Bladerunner series with three sequels.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick returned to the events of these months while writing his novel "A Scanner Darkly" (1977), which contains fictionalized depictions of the burglary of his home, his time using amphetamines and living with addicts, and his experiences of X-Kalay (portrayed in the novel as "New-Path"). A factual account of his recovery program participation was portrayed in his posthumously released book "The Dark Haired Girl", a collection of letters and journals from the period.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: On February 20, 1974, while recovering from the effects of sodium pentothal administered for the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth, Dick received a home delivery of Darvon from a young woman. When he opened the door, he was struck by the dark-haired girl's beauty, and was especially drawn to her golden necklace. He asked her about its curious fish-shaped design. As she was leaving, she replied: "This is a sign used by the early Christians." Dick called the symbol the "vesicle pisces". This name seems to have been based on his conflation of two related symbols, the Christian ichthys symbol (two intersecting arcs delineating a fish in profile), which the woman was wearing, and the vesica piscis.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick recounted that as the sun glinted off the gold pendant, the reflection caused the generation of a "pink beam" of light that mesmerized him. He came to believe the beam imparted wisdom and clairvoyance, and also believed it to be intelligent. On one occasion, he was startled by a separate recurrence of the pink beam, which imparted the information that his infant son was ill. The Dicks rushed the child to the hospital, where the illness was confirmed by professional diagnosis.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: After the woman's departure, Dick began experiencing strange hallucinations. Although initially attributing them to side effects from medication, he considered this explanation implausible after weeks of continued hallucination. He told Charles Platt: "I experienced an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind, as if I had been insane all my life and suddenly I had become sane."


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Throughout February and March 1974, Dick experienced a series of hallucinations which he referred to as "2-3-74", shorthand for February–March 1974. Aside from the "pink beam", he described the initial hallucinations as geometric patterns, and, occasionally, brief pictures of Jesus and ancient Rome. As the hallucinations increased in duration and frequency, Dick claimed he began to live two parallel lives—one as himself, "Philip K. Dick", and one as "Thomas", a Christian persecuted by Romans in the first century AD. He referred to the "transcendentally rational mind" as "Zebra", "God" and "VALIS" (an acronym for "Vast Active Living Intelligence System"). He wrote about the experiences, first in the semi-autobiographical novel "Radio Free Albemuth", then in "VALIS", "The Divine Invasion", "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer" and the unfinished "The Owl in Daylight" (the VALIS trilogy).


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In 1974, Dick wrote a letter to the FBI, accusing various people, including University of California, San Diego professor Fredric Jameson, of being foreign agents of Warsaw Pact powers. He also wrote that Stanisław Lem was probably a false name used by a composite committee operating on orders of the Communist party to gain control over public opinion.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: At one point, Dick felt he had been taken over by the spirit of the prophet Elijah. He believed that an episode in his novel "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" was a detailed retelling of a biblical story from the Book of Acts, which he had never read. He documented and discussed his experiences and faith in a private journal he called his "exegesis", portions of which were later published as "The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick". The last novel he wrote was "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer"; it was published shortly after his death in 1982.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick had three children, Laura Archer Dick (born February 25, 1960, to Dick and his third wife, Anne Williams Rubenstein), Isolde Freya Dick (now Isa Dick Hackett) (born March 15, 1967, to Dick and his fourth wife, Nancy Hackett), and Christopher Kenneth Dick (born July 25, 1973, to Dick and his fifth wife, Leslie "Tessa" Busby).


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In 1955, Dick and his second wife, Kleo Apostolides, received a visit from the FBI, which they believed to be the result of Kleo's socialist views and left-wing activities.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: He was physically abusive with his third wife, Anne Williams Rubinstein; after one argument in 1963, he attempted to push her off a cliff in a car, then later claimed she was trying to kill him, and persuaded a psychiatrist to commit her involuntarily. After filing for divorce in 1964, he moved to Oakland to live with a fan, author and editor Grania Davis. Shortly after, he attempted suicide by driving off the road while she was a passenger.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick tried to stay out of the political scene because of high societal turmoil from the Vietnam War. Still, he did show some anti-Vietnam War and anti-governmental sentiments. In 1968, he joined the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest", an anti-war pledge to pay no U.S. federal income tax, which resulted in the confiscation of his car by the IRS.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: On February 17, 1982, after completing an interview, Dick contacted his therapist, complaining of failing eyesight, and was advised to go to a hospital immediately, but did not. The following day, he was found unconscious on the floor of his Santa Ana, California home, having suffered a stroke. On February 25, 1982, Dick suffered another stroke in the hospital, which led to brain death. Five days later, on March 2, 1982, he was disconnected from life support. After his death, Dick's father, Joseph, took his son's ashes to Riverside Cemetery in Fort Morgan, Colorado, (section K, block 1, lot 56), where they were buried next to his twin sister Jane, who died in infancy. Her tombstone had been inscribed with both of their names at the time of her death, 53 years earlier. Philip died four months before the release of "Blade Runner", the film based on his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick's stories typically focus on the fragile nature of what is real and the construction of personal identity. His stories often become surreal fantasies, as the main characters slowly discover that their everyday world is actually an illusion assembled by powerful external entities, such as the suspended animation in "Ubik", vast political conspiracies or the vicissitudes of an unreliable narrator. "All of his work starts with the basic assumption that there cannot be one, single, objective reality", writes science fiction author Charles Platt. "Everything is a matter of perception. The ground is liable to shift under your feet. A protagonist may find himself living out another person's dream, or he may enter a drug-induced state that actually makes better sense than the real world, or he may cross into a different universe completely."


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Alternate universes and simulacra are common plot devices, with fictional worlds inhabited by common, working people, rather than galactic elites. "There are no heroes in Dick's books", Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, "but there are heroics. One is reminded of Dickens: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people." Dick made no secret that much of his thinking and work was heavily influenced by the writings of Carl Jung. The Jungian constructs and models that most concerned Dick seem to be the archetypes of the collective unconscious, group projection/hallucination, synchronicities, and personality theory. Many of Dick's protagonists overtly analyze reality and their perceptions in Jungian terms (see "Lies, Inc.").


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick identified one major theme of his work as the question, "What constitutes the authentic human being?" In works such as "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", beings can appear totally human in every respect while lacking soul or compassion, while completely alien beings such as Glimmung in "Galactic Pot-Healer" may be more humane and complex than their human peers. Understood correctly, said Dick, the term "human being” applies “not to origin or to any ontology but to a way of being in the world." This authentic way of being manifests itself in compassion that recognizes the oneness of all life. "In Dick’s vision, the moral imperative calls on us to care for all sentient beings, human or nonhuman, natural or artificial, regardless of their place in the order of things. And Dick makes clear that this imperative is grounded in empathy, not reason, whatever subsequent role reason may play." The figure of the android depicts those who are deficient in empathy, who are alienated from others and are becoming more mechanical (emotionless) in their behaviour. "In general, then, it can be said that for Dick robots represent machines that are becoming more like humans, while androids represent humans that are becoming more like machines."


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Mental illness was a constant interest of Dick's, and themes of mental illness permeate his work. The character Jack Bohlen in the 1964 novel "Martian Time-Slip" is an "ex-schizophrenic". The novel "Clans of the Alphane Moon" centers on an entire society made up of descendants of lunatic asylum inmates. In 1965, he wrote the essay titled "Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Drug use (including religious, recreational, and abuse) was also a theme in many of Dick's works, such as "A Scanner Darkly" and "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch". Dick himself was a drug user for much of his life. According to a 1975 interview in "Rolling Stone", Dick wrote all of his books published before 1970 while on amphetamines. ""A Scanner Darkly" (1977) was the first complete novel I had written without speed", said Dick in the interview. He also experimented briefly with psychedelics, but wrote "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (1965), which "Rolling Stone" dubs "the classic LSD novel of all time", before he had ever tried them. Despite his heavy amphetamine use, however, Dick later said that doctors told him the amphetamines never actually affected him, that his liver had processed them before they reached his brain.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Summing up all these themes in "Understanding Philip K. Dick", Eric Carl Link discussed eight themes or 'ideas and motifs': Epistemology and the Nature of Reality, Know Thyself, The Android and the Human, Entropy and Pot Healing, The Theodicy Problem, Warfare and Power Politics, The Evolved Human, and 'Technology, Media, Drugs and Madness'.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick had two professional stories published under the pen names Richard Phillipps and Jack Dowland. "Some Kinds of Life" was published in October 1953 in "Fantastic Universe" under byline Richard Phillipps, apparently because the magazine had a policy against publishing multiple stories by the same author in the same issue; "Planet for Transients" was published in the same issue under his own name.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: The short story "Orpheus with Clay Feet" was published under the pen name Jack Dowland. The protagonist desires to be the muse for fictional author Jack Dowland, considered the greatest science fiction author of the 20th century. In the story, Dowland publishes a short story titled "Orpheus with Clay Feet" under the pen name Philip K. Dick.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: The surname Dowland refers to Renaissance composer John Dowland, who is featured in several works. The title "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" directly refers to Dowland's best-known composition, "Flow, my tears". In the novel "The Divine Invasion", the character Linda Fox, created specifically with Linda Ronstadt in mind, is an intergalactically famous singer whose entire body of work consists of recordings of John Dowland compositions.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: "The Man in the High Castle" (1962) is set in an alternate history in which the United States is ruled by the victorious Axis powers. It is the only Dick novel to win a Hugo Award. In 2015 this was adapted into a television series by Amazon Studios.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (1965) utilizes an array of science fiction concepts and features several layers of reality and unreality. It is also one of Dick's first works to explore religious themes. The novel takes place in the 21st century, when, under UN authority, mankind has colonized the Solar System's every habitable planet and moon. Life is physically daunting and psychologically monotonous for most colonists, so the UN must draft people to go to the colonies. Most entertain themselves using "Perky Pat" dolls and accessories manufactured by Earth-based "P.P. Layouts". The company also secretly creates "Can-D", an illegal but widely available hallucinogenic drug allowing the user to "translate" into Perky Pat (if the drug user is a woman) or Pat's boyfriend, Walt (if the drug user is a man). This recreational use of Can-D allows colonists to experience a few minutes of an idealized life on Earth by participating in a collective hallucination.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968) is the story of a bounty hunter policing the local android population. It occurs on a dying, poisoned Earth de-populated of almost all animals and all "successful" humans; the only remaining inhabitants of the planet are people with no prospects off-world. The 1968 novel is the literary source of the film "Blade Runner" (1982). It is both a conflation and an intensification of the pivotally Dickian question: "What is real, what is fake? What crucial factor defines humanity as distinctly 'alive', versus those merely alive only in their outward appearance?"


title: Philip K. Dick

text: "Ubik" (1969) employs extensive psychic telepathy and a suspended state after death in creating a state of eroding reality. A group of psychics is sent to investigate a rival organisation, but several of them are apparently killed by a saboteur's bomb. Much of the following novel flicks between different equally plausible realities and the "real" reality, a state of half-life and psychically manipulated realities. In 2005, "Time" magazine listed it among the "All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels" published since 1923.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" (1974) concerns Jason Taverner, a television star living in a dystopian near-future police state. After being attacked by an angry ex-girlfriend, Taverner awakens in a dingy Los Angeles hotel room. He still has his money in his wallet, but his identification cards are missing. This is no minor inconvenience, as security checkpoints (staffed by "pols" and "nats", the police and National Guard) are set up throughout the city to stop and arrest anyone without valid ID. Jason at first thinks that he was robbed, but soon discovers that his entire identity has been erased. There is no record of him in any official database, and even his closest associates do not recognize or remember him. For the first time in many years, Jason has no fame or reputation to rely on. He has only his innate charm and social graces to help him as he tries to find out what happened to his past while avoiding the attention of the pols. The novel was Dick's first published novel after years of silence, during which time his critical reputation had grown, and this novel was awarded the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. It is the only Philip K. Dick novel nominated for both a Hugo and a Nebula Award.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In an essay written two years before his death, Dick described how he learned from his Episcopal priest that an important scene in "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" – involving its other main character, the eponymous Police General Felix Buckman, was very similar to a scene in "Acts of the Apostles", a book of the New Testament. Film director Richard Linklater discusses this novel in his film "Waking Life", which begins with a scene reminiscent of another Dick novel, "Time Out of Joint".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: "A Scanner Darkly" (1977) is a bleak mixture of science fiction and police procedural novels; in its story, an undercover narcotics police detective begins to lose touch with reality after falling victim to Substance D, the same permanently mind-altering drug he was enlisted to help fight. Substance D is instantly addictive, beginning with a pleasant euphoria which is quickly replaced with increasing confusion, hallucinations and eventually total psychosis. In this novel, as with all Dick novels, there is an underlying thread of paranoia and dissociation with multiple realities perceived simultaneously. It was adapted to film by Richard Linklater.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: "VALIS" (1980) is perhaps Dick's most postmodern and autobiographical novel, examining his own unexplained experiences. It may also be his most academically studied work, and was adapted as an opera by Tod Machover. Later works like the VALIS trilogy were heavily autobiographical, many with "two-three-seventy-four" (2-3-74) references and influences. The word VALIS is the acronym for "Vast Active Living Intelligence System". Later, Dick theorized that VALIS was both a "reality generator" and a means of extraterrestrial communication. A fourth VALIS manuscript, "Radio Free Albemuth", although composed in 1976, was posthumously published in 1985. This work is described by the publisher (Arbor House) as "an introduction and key to his magnificent VALIS trilogy".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Regardless of the feeling that he was somehow experiencing a divine communication, Dick was never fully able to rationalize the events. For the rest of his life, he struggled to comprehend what was occurring, questioning his own sanity and perception of reality. He transcribed what thoughts he could into an eight-thousand-page, one-million-word journal dubbed the "Exegesis". From 1974 until his death in 1982, Dick spent many nights writing in this journal. A recurring theme in "Exegesis" is Dick's hypothesis that history had been stopped in the first century AD, and that "the Empire never ended". He saw Rome as the pinnacle of materialism and despotism, which, after forcing the Gnostics underground, had kept the population of Earth enslaved to worldly possessions. Dick believed that VALIS had communicated with him, and anonymously others, to induce the impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon, whom Dick believed to be the current Emperor of Rome incarnate.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In a 1968 essay titled "Self Portrait", collected in the 1995 book "The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick", Dick reflects on his work and lists which books he feels "might escape World War Three": "Eye in the Sky", "The Man in the High Castle", "Martian Time-Slip", "Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb", "The Zap Gun", "The Penultimate Truth", "The Simulacra", "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (which he refers to as "the most vital of them all"), "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", and "Ubik". In a 1976 interview, Dick cited "A Scanner Darkly" as his best work, feeling that he "had finally written a true masterpiece, after 25 years of writing".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Several of Dick's stories have been made into films. Dick himself wrote a screenplay for an intended film adaptation of "Ubik" in 1974, but the film was never made. Many film adaptations have not used Dick's original titles. When asked why this was, Dick's ex-wife Tessa said, "Actually, the books rarely carry Phil's original titles, as the editors usually wrote new titles after reading his manuscripts. Phil often commented that he couldn't write good titles. If he could, he would have been an advertising writer instead of a novelist." Films based on Dick's writing had accumulated a total revenue of over US$1 billion by 2009.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Future films based on Dick's writing include a film adaptation of "Ubik" which, according to Dick's daughter, Isa Dick Hackett, is in advanced negotiation. Ubik was set to be made into a film by Michel Gondry. In 2014, however, Gondry told French outlet Telerama (via Jeux Actu), that he was no longer working on the project. In November 2021, it was announced that Francis Lawrence will direct a film adaptation of "Vulcan's Hammer", with Lawrence's about:blank, New Republic Pictures and Electric Shepherd Productions producing.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: An animated adaptation of "The King of the Elves" from Walt Disney Animation Studios was in production and was set to be released in the spring of 2016 but it was cancelled following multiple creative problems.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: The "Terminator" series prominently features the theme of humanoid assassination machines first portrayed in "Second Variety". The Halcyon Company, known for developing the "Terminator" franchise, acquired right of first refusal to film adaptations of the works of Philip K. Dick in 2007. In May 2009, they announced plans for an adaptation of "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: It was reported in 2010 that Ridley Scott would produce an adaptation of "The Man in the High Castle" for the BBC, in the form of a miniseries. A pilot episode was released on Amazon Prime Video in January 2015 and season 1 was fully released in ten episodes of about 60 minutes each on November 20, 2015. Premiering in January 2015, the pilot was Amazon's "most-watched since the original series development program began." The next month Amazon ordered episodes to fill out a ten-episode season, which was released in November, to positive reviews. A second season of ten episodes premiered in December 2016, with a third season announced a few weeks later to be released in 2018. In July 2018, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a fourth season.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In late 2015, Fox aired "Minority Report", a television series sequel adaptation to the 2002 film of the same name based on Dick's short story "The Minority Report" (1956). The show was cancelled after one 10-episode season.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In May 2016, it was announced that a 10-part anthology series was in the works. Titled "Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams", the series was distributed by Sony Pictures Television and premiered on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and Amazon Prime Video in the United States. It was written by executive producers Ronald D. Moore and Michael Dinner, with executive input from Dick's daughter Isa Dick Hackett, and stars Bryan Cranston, also an executive producer.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: One was the opera "VALIS", composed and with libretto by Tod Machover, which premiered at the Pompidou Center in Paris on December 1, 1987, with a French libretto. It was subsequently revised and readapted into English, and was recorded and released on CD (Bridge Records BCD9007) in 1988.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Another was "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said", adapted by Linda Hartinian and produced by the New York-based avant-garde company Mabou Mines. It premiered in Boston at the Boston Shakespeare Theatre (June 18–30, 1985) and was subsequently staged in New York and Chicago. Productions of "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" were also staged by the Evidence Room in Los Angeles in 1999 and by the Fifth Column Theatre Company at the Oval House Theatre in London in the same year.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In November 2010, a production of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", adapted by Edward Einhorn, premiered at the 3LD Art and Technology Center in Manhattan.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: A radio drama adaptation of Dick's short story "Mr. Spaceship" was aired by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yleisradio) in 1996 under the name "Menolippu Paratiisiin". Radio dramatizations of Dick's short stories "Colony" and "The Defenders" were aired by NBC in 1956 as part of the series "X Minus One".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In January 2006, a "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (English for "Trzy stygmaty Palmera Eldritcha") theatre adaptation premiered in Stary Teatr in Kraków, with an extensive use of lights and laser choreography.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In June 2014, the BBC broadcast a two-part adaptation of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" on BBC Radio 4, starring James Purefoy as Rick Deckard.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Marvel Comics adapted Dick's short story "The Electric Ant" as a limited series which was released in 2009. The comic was produced by writer David Mack ("Daredevil") and artist Pascal Alixe ("Ultimate X-Men"), with covers provided by artist Paul Pope. "The Electric Ant" had earlier been loosely adapted by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow in their 3-issue mini-series "Hard Boiled" published by Dark Horse Comics in 1990–1992.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In 2009, BOOM! Studios started publishing a 24-issue miniseries comic book adaptation of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" "Blade Runner", the 1982 film adapted from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", had previously been adapted to comics as "".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In 2011, Dynamite Entertainment published a four-issue miniseries "Total Recall", a sequel to the 1990 film "Total Recall", inspired by Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". In 1990, DC Comics published the official adaptation of the original film as a "DC Movie Special: Total Recall".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In response to a 1975 request from the National Library for the Blind for permission to make use of "The Man in the High Castle", Dick responded, "I also grant you a general permission to transcribe any of my former, present or future work, so indeed you can add my name to your 'general permission' list." Some of his books and stories are available in braille and other specialized formats through the NLS.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: As of December 2012, thirteen of Philip K. Dick's early works in the public domain in the United States are available in ebook form from Project Gutenberg. As of December 2019, Wikisource has three of Philip K. Dick's early works in the public domain in the United States available in ebook form which is not from Project Gutenberg.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Lawrence Sutin's 1989 biography of Dick, "Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick", is considered the standard biographical treatment of Dick's life.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: In 1993, French writer Emmanuel Carrère published "Je suis vivant et vous êtes morts" which was first translated and published in English in 2004 as "I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philip K. Dick", which the author describes in his preface in this way:The book you hold in your hands is a very peculiar book. I have tried to depict the life of Philip K. Dick from the inside, in other words, with the same freedom and empathy – indeed with the same truth – with which he depicted his own characters. Critics of the book have complained about the lack of fact checking, sourcing, notes and index, "the usual evidence of deep research that gives a biography the solid stamp of authority." It can be considered a non-fiction novel about his life.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick has influenced many writers, including Jonathan Lethem and Ursula K. Le Guin. The prominent literary critic Fredric Jameson proclaimed Dick the "Shakespeare of Science Fiction", and praised his work as "one of the most powerful expressions of the society of spectacle and pseudo-event". The author Roberto Bolaño also praised Dick, describing him as "Thoreau plus the death of the American dream". Dick has also influenced filmmakers, his work being compared to films such as the Wachowskis' "The Matrix", David Cronenberg's "Videodrome", "eXistenZ", and "Spider", Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation", Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", Alex Proyas's "Dark City", Peter Weir's "The Truman Show", Andrew Niccol's "Gattaca", "In Time", Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys", Alejandro Amenábar's "Open Your Eyes", David Fincher's "Fight Club", Cameron Crowe's "Vanilla Sky", Darren Aronofsky's "Pi", Richard Kelly's "Donnie Darko" and "Southland Tales", Rian Johnson's "Looper", Duncan Jones' "Source Code", Christopher Nolan's "Memento" and "Inception," and Owen Dennis' Infinity Train


title: Philip K. Dick

text: The Philip K. Dick Society was an organization dedicated to promoting the literary works of Dick and was led by Dick's longtime friend and music journalist Paul Williams. Williams also served as Dick's literary executor for several years after Dick's death and wrote one of the first biographies of Dick, entitled "".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: The Philip K. Dick estate owns and operates the production company Electric Shepherd Productions, which has produced the film "The Adjustment Bureau" (2011), the TV series "The Man in the High Castle" and also a Marvel Comics 5-issue adaptation of "Electric Ant".


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Dick was recreated by his fans in the form of a simulacrum or remote-controlled android designed in his likeness. Such simulacra had been themes of many of Dick's works. The Philip K. Dick simulacrum was included on a discussion panel in a San Diego Comic Con presentation about the film adaptation of the novel, "A Scanner Darkly". In February 2006, an America West Airlines employee misplaced the android's head, and it has not yet been found. In January 2011, it was announced that Hanson Robotics had built a replacement.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: Postmodernists such as Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Laurence Rickels and Slavoj Žižek have commented on Dick's writing's foreshadowing of postmodernity. Jean Baudrillard offers this interpretation:


title: Philip K. Dick

text: "It is hyperreal. It is a universe of simulation, which is something altogether different. And this is so not because Dick speaks specifically of simulacra. SF has always done so, but it has always played upon the double, on artificial replication or imaginary duplication, whereas here the double has disappeared. There is no more double; one is always already in the other world, an other world which is not another, without mirrors or projection or utopias as means for reflection. The simulation is impassable, unsurpassable, checkmated, without exteriority. We can no longer move 'through the mirror' to the other side, as we could during the golden age of transcendence."


title: Philip K. Dick

text: For his anti-government skepticism, Philip K. Dick was afforded minor mention in "Mythmakers and Lawbreakers", a collection of interviews about fiction by anarchist authors. Noting his early authorship of "The Last of the Masters", an anarchist-themed novelette, author Margaret Killjoy expressed that while Dick never fully sided with anarchism, his opposition to government centralization and organized religion has influenced anarchist interpretations of gnosticism.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: During his lifetime he received numerous annual literary awards and nominations for particular works.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: The Philip K. Dick Award is a science fiction award that annually recognizes the previous year's best SF paperback original published in the U.S. It is conferred at Norwescon, sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, and since 2005 supported by the Philip K. Dick Trust. Winning works are identified on their covers as "Best Original SF Paperback". It is currently administered by Pat LoBrutto, John Silbersack, and Gordon Van Gelder.


title: Philip K. Dick

text: The award was inaugurated in 1983, the year after Dick's death. It was founded by Thomas Disch with assistance from David G. Hartwell, Paul S. Williams, and Charles N. Brown. Past administrators include Algis J. Budrys and David Alexander Smith.


title: Turkic peoples

text: The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.


title: Turkic peoples

text: According to historians and linguists, the Proto-Turkic language originated in Central-East Asia region, potentially in Mongolia or Tuva. Initially, Proto-Turkic speakers were potentially both hunter-gatherers and farmers, but later became nomadic pastoralists. Early and medieval Turkic groups exhibited a wide range of both East Asian and West-Eurasian physical appearances and genetic origins, in part through long-term contact with neighboring peoples such as Iranian, Mongolic, Tocharians, Yeniseian people, and others.


title: Turkic peoples

text: Many vastly differing ethnic groups have throughout history become part of the Turkic peoples through language shift, acculturation, conquest, intermixing, adoption, and religious conversion. Nevertheless, Turkic peoples share, to varying degrees, non-linguistic characteristics like cultural traits, ancestry from a common gene pool, and historical experiences. Some of the most notable modern Turkic ethnic groups include the Altai people, Azerbaijanis, Chuvash people, Gagauz people, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz people, Turkmens, Turkish people, Tuvans, Uyghurs, Uzbeks, and Yakuts.


title: Turkic peoples

text: The first known mention of the term "Turk" (Old Turkic: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 "Türük" or 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰:𐰜𐰇𐰛 "Kök Türük", , Pinyin: Tūjué < Middle Chinese *"tɦut-kyat" < *"dwət-kuɑt", Old Tibetan: "drugu") applied to only one Turkic group, namely, the Göktürks, who were also mentioned, as "türüg" ~ "török", in the 6th-century Khüis Tolgoi inscription, most likely not later than 587 AD. A letter by Ishbara Qaghan to Emperor Wen of Sui in 585 described him as "the Great Turk Khan". The Bugut (584 CE) and Orkhon inscriptions (735 CE) use the terms "Türküt", "Türk" and "Türük".


title: Turkic peoples

text: During the first century CE, Pomponius Mela refers to the "Turcae" in the forests north of the Sea of Azov, and Pliny the Elder lists the "Tyrcae" among the people of the same area. However, English archaeologist Ellis Minns contended that "Tyrcae" Τῦρκαι is "a false correction" for "Iyrcae" Ἱύρκαι, a people who dwelt beyond the Thyssagetae, according to Herodotus (Histories, iv. 22), and were likely Ugric ancestors of Magyars. There are references to certain groups in antiquity whose names might have been foreign transcriptions of "Tür(ü)k", such as "Togarma", "Turukha"/"Turuška", "Turukku" and so on; but the information gap is so substantial that any connection of these ancient people to the modern Turks is not possible.


title: Turkic peoples

text: It is generally accepted that the name "Türk" is ultimately derived from the Old-Turkic migration-term 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 "Türük"/"Törük",< which means 'created, born' or 'strong'. Scholars, including Toru Haneda, Onogawa Hidemi, and Geng Shimin believed that "Di", "Dili", "Dingling", "Chile" and "Tujue" all came from the Turkic word "Türk", which means 'powerful' and 'strength', and its plural form is "Türküt". Even though Gerhard Doerfer supports the proposal that "türk" means 'strong' in general, Gerard Clauson points out that "the word "türk" is never used in the generalized sense of 'strong'" and that "türk" was originally a noun and meant "'the culminating point of maturity' (of a fruit, human being, etc.), but more often used as an [adjective] meaning (of a fruit) 'just fully ripe'; (of a human being) 'in the prime of life, young, and vigorous'". Turkologist Peter B. Golden agrees that the term "Turk" has roots in Old Turkic. yet is not convinced by attempts to link "Dili", "Dingling", "Chile", "Tele", & "Tiele", which possibly transcribed *"tegrek" (probably meaning 'cart'), to "Tujue", which transliterated "Türküt". The Chinese Book of Zhou (7th century) presents an etymology of the name "Turk" as derived from 'helmet', explaining that this name comes from the shape of a mountain where they worked in the Altai Mountains. Hungarian scholar András Róna-Tas (1991) pointed to a Khotanese-Saka word, "tturakä" 'lid', semantically stretchable to 'helmet', as a possible source for this folk etymology, yet Golden thinks this connection requires more data.


title: Turkic peoples

text: The earliest Turkic-speaking peoples identifiable in Chinese sources are the Yenisei Kyrgyz and Xinli, located in South Siberia. Another example of an early Turkic population would be the Dingling. Medieval European chroniclers subsumed various Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe under the "umbrella-identity" of the "Scythians". Between 400 CE and the 16th century, Byzantine sources use the name Σκύθαι ("Skuthai") in reference to twelve different Turkic peoples.


title: Turkic peoples

text: In the modern Turkish language as used in the Republic of Turkey, a distinction is made between "Turks" and the "Turkic peoples" in loosely speaking: the term "Türk" corresponds specifically to the "Turkish-speaking" people (in this context, "Turkish-speaking" is considered the same as "Turkic-speaking"), while the term "Türki" refers generally to the people of modern "Turkic Republics" ("Türki Cumhuriyetler" or "Türk Cumhuriyetleri"). However, the proper usage of the term is based on the linguistic classification in order to avoid any political sense. In short, the term "Türki" can be used for "Türk" or vice versa.


title: Turkic peoples

text: Possible Proto-Turkic ancestry, at least partial, has been posited for Xiongnu, Huns and Pannonian Avars, as well as Tuoba and Rouran, who were of Proto-Mongolic Donghu ancestry., as well as Tatars, Rourans' supposed descendants.


title: Turkic peoples

text: The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some 30 languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, to Siberia and Manchuria and through to the Middle East. Some 170 million people have a Turkic language as their native language; an additional 20 million people speak a Turkic language as a second language. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, or Anatolian Turkish, the speakers of which account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers. More than one third of these are ethnic Turks of Turkey, dwelling predominantly in Turkey proper and formerly Ottoman-dominated areas of Southern and Eastern Europe and West Asia; as well as in Western Europe, Australia and the Americas as a result of immigration. The remainder of the Turkic people are concentrated in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus, China, and northern Iraq.


title: Turkic peoples

text: The Turkic language family is traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. Howeover since the 1950s, many comparative linguists have rejected the proposal, after supposed cognates were found not to be valid, hypothesized sound shifts were not found, and Turkic and Mongolic languages were found to be converging rather than diverging over the centuries. Opponents of the theory proposed that the similarities are due to mutual linguistic influences between the groups concerned.


title: Turkic peoples

text: The Turkic alphabets are sets of related alphabets with letters (formerly known as runes), used for writing mostly Turkic languages. Inscriptions in Turkic alphabets were found in Mongolia. Most of the preserved inscriptions were dated to between 8th and 10th centuries CE.


title: Turkic peoples

text: The earliest positively dated and read Turkic inscriptions date from the 8th century, and the alphabets were generally replaced by the Old Uyghur alphabet in the East and Central Asia, Arabic script in the Middle and Western Asia, Cyrillic in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, and Latin alphabet in Central Europe. The latest recorded use of Turkic alphabet was recorded in Central Europe's Hungary in 1699 CE.


title: Turkic peoples

text: The Turkic runiform scripts, unlike other typologically close scripts of the world, do not have a uniform palaeography as, for example, have the Gothic runes, noted for the exceptional uniformity of its language and paleography. The Turkic alphabets are divided into four groups, the best known of them is the Orkhon version of the Enisei group. The Orkhon script is the alphabet used by the Göktürks from the 8th century to record the Old Turkic language. It was later used by the Uyghur Empire; a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian script of the 10th century. Irk Bitig is the only known complete manuscript text written in the Old Turkic script.