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It’s not often I get excited about films in advance, but A Scanner Darkly, due for release December 31st, 2005, is nothing if not intriguing.

Written by Philip K. Dick (Bladerunner, Minority Report, the film stars Keanu Reeves as a cop planning a sting operation on a drug dealer. Unfortunately, Keanu is hooked on Substance D, a drug which splits the mind; and the other half of his mind is the dealer he is trying to snare.

Also starring Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr, A Scanner Darkly has been filmed using a technique called Rotoscopy. The process involves taking each frame of film and tracing over the detail, giving a ‘live animation’ effect to the final result. The technique was used to create the lightsabers in the original three Star Wars as well as the animated singer effect in the A-Ha video for the 1986 song Take On Me.

There is currently no official site for the film, but there is a trailer as well as, of course, an IMDB page, OsakaSteve has another picture on his flickr blog, and keanuette has published Empire magazines’ May 2005 article, along with another excellent picture.