The long overdue _Blade Runner_ thread

I kind of agree and ALL OF SCIENCE FICTION MOVIEMAKING TO THREAD EXCEPT FOR BLADERUNNER BECAUSE IT'S REALLY GREAT AND BRILLIANT.

See, you're trying to apply the rule to the exception. No sir.

-- vahid (vfoz...)

haha i think you're talking about the Matrix, not Blade Runner.

"everything is there to make a point"

!?

i dont really think so, plotwise the film isn't as that concious of its intent, in fact it's rather all over the place (in that sense it is kind of shallow). reading the making of book shows you how much was come up with at the last minute or improvised by the actors. the main thing the movie is fully concious of is the look, the music, the atmosphere, the mise-en-scene. sure its pretentious, but it's beautiful.

I will not accept shitting on ideas just because they're ideas. It's just anti-intellectualism in its purest form. You can throw a lot of stupid stereotypical labels as anything, but that doesn't make it a valid or smart thing to do.

yeah, exactly! its all kind of nonsensical but it sounds profound! in the best possible way.

that actually is the weakest part of the film: the characters are mostly undersketched and the love story is somewhat forced and unconvincing. i think the replicants and the JR Sebastian character are the most 'human' and sympasthetic elements in the film. i think Roy is kinda supposed to be a creepy/ambiguous character while the other replicants are more childlike and innocent. (even Brion James as Leon is more like an angry toddler in a man's body than anything else)

No, it's all shallow, to the core. What... being dumb is good? Stumbling cluelessly through life is a great and noble thing to do? Explain to me how this message is not particularly shallow.

see, kenan, even noted misanthrope philip k dick cared about caring. enough to work the theme into the title of the book!

idiot.

idiot.

-- vahid (vfoz...), April 17th, 2006.

well, Blade Runner. but i love grand, impersonal sci-fi visions.

i like ET a lot though, it's the best kind of "saccharine", because it earns the tears and it comes from a genuine emotional place and understanding of being a kid.

People think I'm a creep because I'm socially inept, not because I'm stupid.

yeah, latebloomer, see where i'm coming from, we get to see the man-child get shot but we don't get to see deckard crying over his dead electric sheep? weak priorities, dude.

did spielberg have anything to do w/ gump?

I really want to watch this now but I don't own it. Like a fool I'm forever waiting for the never-come 2/3 disc spesh edish. But even then I'd miss the voiceover.

"Gaff had been there and let her live. Fours years he figured; he was wrong. I don't know how long we'll have together - who does?"
*Music swells*

I hear you there. (I do own the current DVD, at least.)

u know we had to wait years in the uk for a proper cd release of the soundtrack. was it the same everywhere else too? over here there was only some silly ass orchstral version availabale instead, up until 1994 when the proper thing came out. easily my favourite soundtrack disc ever.

truly a crime that there isn't some triple dvd thing going on. a *crime*.

Know what a turtle is Leon? Same Thing.

I think what I loved most was the "near-reality" of it. Sure, it was way in the future, there were flying cars, etc, but it somehow looked plausible and real - rain, crowded streets packed with advertising messages, etc. Which reminds me - why has no-one made umbrellas with the neon shaft? I'd totally use one of those. Sometimes I walk through Chinatown in Toronto and get a very BR vibe...

Biggest thing that used to baffle me was the replicant count conversation at the police station, the cop saying six "skin jobs" escaped, and then later there was a disrepancy between his and Deckard's 'count'... I'm having trouble remembering it all now (been a while), but I never really straightened that out in my head, since it didn't seem to add up (is that more "Deckard is a replicant" stuff?).

There are some pretty OTT cheesy lines in the script, mainly the police/crime story element - "You're not cop you're little people", etc. But there is just soooo much else to love about this film.

Live... in the offworld colonies!

vahid, I can see your point about the nerdy focus on certain elements in this film or Dick's relatively unrelated work, but I really don't think absence of empathy with women is evidence of misogyny.

Yup.

Biggest thing that used to baffle me was the replicant count conversation at the police station, the cop saying six "skin jobs" escaped, and then later there was a disrepancy between his and Deckard's 'count'... I'm having trouble remembering it all now (been a while), but I never really straightened that out in my head, since it didn't seem to add up (is that more "Deckard is a replicant" stuff?).

You really need to read the Sammon book, m'friend. ;-) (In brief -- originally there were a total of sex replicants; the first to die, Mary, was to have died 'naturally' in the company of the rest as an introduction to the film. The second died in the attack on Tyrell Corporation, and the rest are in the film. They recorded a loop at the time to fix it, but the results didn't look good on-screen in terms of lip-movement and synchronization.)

Anyway, Vahid's got a lot of good points. In flipping through the Sammon book again last night I remembered how Scott and company's areas of critique-as-such re: society, sexism, etc. were so encoded into the film or presented so flatly/subtly that whatever meaning was intended was by and large lost -- no matter what Scott implies or has said, I don't think it's strictly the audience's fault for missing much of it, narration or no narration. The film's not unsuccessful for all that, I feel.

(I like Blade Runner a lot but I haven't really thought about it in years.)

Yeah, I was gonna say -- blast from the past!

xp: nice pic, Ned.

I remembered one other thing from the book just now -- Hauer apparently was the one with the idea for the dove as well.

I like Blade Runner a lot better than quite a few of the films on vahid's list, but that's because I don't like sci fi.

The winner would be The Thing... Funny thing is that all three movies were released within a couple weeks of each other in 1982.

The replicants, future noir, and story elements of Blade Runner are mostly irrelevant and exist mainly to give us a tour of the future-possible city of Los Angeles. Blade Runner's real success and endurance is as a urban theory/sociology touchstone - fast forwarding through 50 years of suburban paranoia, white flight, and displaced racial anger. Which is what the best science fiction does anyway...

I saw BR the day it opened in Newport Beach - LA's own "off world colony" and it really fucked with people's heads with maximum disorientation. The California Republican fear of Japanese investment, Mexican immigration, and civic squalor was right out in front. It's impossible to write anything about the future of Los Angeles without namechecking BR.

And people were surprised that E.T. was the more successful movie that year?

everything else was done later on or before, but not better. the city comes down from lang, sure, but is anyone seriously going to argue that metropolis is a better movie?