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A Scanner Darkly
Work In Progress This article is still under construction. It may contain factual errors. See Talk:A Scanner Darkly for current discussions. Content is subject to change. |
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Weapons are listed on this page in the order that they appeared in the movie.
Note: Due to the interpolated rotoscoping process (where animators take a live-action film and draw over it, digitally or manually, to produce animation) used in this film, firearms depicted in this film sometimes have their details wash out or disappear into flat colors from frame to frame, or even change proportion. The number of screenshots for each weapon here are intended to display this effect and to make identification easier. Ostensibly this rotoscoping process (previously used by this film's director in an earlier picture of his, titled Waking Life) was chosen to emulate the warped perception of reality experienced by users of mind-altering-substances, of which the fictional Substance D is one. To that end, proportions of shaded areas on some objects, their sizes, and the general perspective of onscreen locales are all occasionally seen to warp and change size during the course of the film. Unlike its more famous genre-mate Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, this film is relatively lacking in outright-unreal moments, but some memorable hallucinatory sequences (such as Arctor hallucinating that his housemates have turned into giant bugs or Freck meeting a "creature from between dimensions") are included in this film.
The following weapons were used in the film A Scanner Darkly:
Unknown Glock Pistol
James Barris' Revolver
In the book, Barris instead used a ".22 pistol," beyond which no other details were mentioned, not even if it was a revolver or otherwise.
On a side note, Robert Downey Jr. is infamous for his bouts with drug addiction and bipolar disorder (he had his first post-rehab role in 2001, only 5 years before this movie's release), and playing the at-times manic and paranoid James Barris was undoubtedly a deeply personal experience for him, just as writing the A Scanner Darkly novel was for its late author.
Bob Arctor's Service Pistol
Bob Arctor, being an undercover cop, reflexively draws this handgun from under his bed after hearing James Barris test out a "silencer" for the latter's revolver. It is never fired and does not appear after this scene in the film.
In the book, Bob Arctor carried a ".32 police-special revolver," the make and model of which are never elaborated upon. Arctor in the book keeps the gun under his pillow instead of under the bed as in the film, and also keeps it in his car's glove compartment while driving.
Unknown Carbine
In a scene original to the film and not found in the book, Alex Jones (a controversial conspiracy theorist and media pundit in real life) has a short cameo as a "Street Prophet" who harangues passersby via megaphone about the government's possible complicity in the Substance D addiction pandemic and the dangers of the increasingly intrusive surveillance state shown throughout the movie. He is then is subsequently incapacitated by police officers who then drag him into a van, not to be seen again in the film. The police officer (portrayed by an uncredited extra) who shocks Jones into compliance is seen carrying this carbine.
The whole scene is witnessed by Bob Arctor, who, like the other witnesses of the scene, shows no reaction, leaving open the question of whether or not the scene was in fact real or just another Substance-D-induced hallucination on Arctor's part.
Despite being credited as a "Street Prophet," Alex Jones is in fact mentioned by name on a magazine headline briefly seen in the film (he is apparently "running for office" in this film's timeline), so it might be more accurate to say that he simply portrayed himself in this film.
Jones is then unceremoniously shocked into compliance by what, oddly enough, appears to be a makeshift electric cattle prod (instead of a purpose-built Taser or Stun Gun). As a nod to the old trope of "electrocution causes a subject's bones to show through its skin," an animated skeleton can be briefly seen superimposed over Jones' rotoscoped form in the brief moment he is shocked, the faint outline of which is visible in this screenshot.
