The long overdue _Blade Runner_ thread

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?

Rob, looks like you're onto something:

31st January 2006

The Digital Bits has reported on an official Warner's press conference:

"And finally, here's a bit of news that's going to get a lot of you excited (and I made a point to specifically ask about this title, believe me)... Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) is currently on track for release as a multi-disc special edition in time for its 25th anniversary in 2007. The release is far from certain (as usual, there's a lot more that I can't post about this title yet - think of the old saying, "Loose lips sink ships"), but Warner says that work is proceeding, most of the key players are involved and things are "looking good" for release next year. We'll see."

2nd February 2006

As the century has progressed I got a bit tired of saying there is no BR:SE news, but as BR DVD restocking has gradually been diminishing in various regions and I have heard the usual odd rumours, I've been preparing a proper update of this page this week to go along with the sitewide update I'm doing. Then the above announcement was made. But let us put it in context - it came at the end of a press conference where many definite Warner releases for 2006/7 were being announced. This comment about Blade Runner is almost an afterthought - sort of an, "I can't say anything definite, but we're still trying and keeping the hope alive". In other words, not much more than the comment made below almost two years ago. So don't get too excited. 2007 is the 25th aniversary of the release of Blade Runner of course, which is added incentive, but we thought it would be released for the 20th anniversary, so it is still wait and see what happens at the moment.

I hate that stupid unicorn scene.

you both need to pay attention... i said close encounters of the third kind was the forrest gump of sci-fi. close encounters was directed by spielberg.

this didn't mean anything until the movie was recut to have the unicorn dream in it though.

f.h., hence my reading comprehension comment! Go back and read what vahid was replying to when he started on his "SO AND SO CAN DO THIS BUT SPIELBERG CAN'T?" thing (hint: "2. trivializing history"). C'mon guys.

RJG I kiss u still.

Back to the Future...huh.

"Sushi...raw fish."

it's so amazing to me that ridley scott made these two movies that just totally changed cinema sci-fi

I guess I missed a whole lot of post-Alien boring haunted-house movies set in spaceships.

event horizon! (sooooooooooo bad.)

i'll grant that lang vs. scott is no kind of comparison at all. but i think metropolis is a weak movie, plotwise, with convoluted -- nay, incoherent -- politics and characters who could be generously described as two-dimensional. what it's (rightly, justly) famous for is its design and vision of da future. but that's what blade runner is rightly, justly admired for too, and i think blade runner's story and characters are more coherent, and the cast is a lot better. so i think it's a better movie, lang's general genius notwithstanding.

BECAUSE HE WANTS MORE LIFE FUCKER

anyway, which mad max are you checking there in yr list vahid? speaking of adolescent film experiences, the 2nd one blew my leetle mind, age 15 or so. the simplicity of the plot and the agorophobic blankness of the setting really got to me, and i was like, "this is like a greek myth or something dood."

yeah, there's the whole "expanding the general vocabulary of film" thing that you can't get around w/ lang.

the crowd scenes in metropolis were the first of their kind, right?