[qam1]

A 25th Anniversary Ouch

Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.

[highball]

“It’s like a great first draft of a thesis. It drops all of these complex time bombs, sets up thematic landmines. And then it never bothers to work them all out. The brilliance of the movie is that it never tries too hard to make sense. That’s why it’s perpetually renewable.”

I would tend to agree.

[RightWhale]

Movies don’t count for much, but this one is more and more appropriate as fetal stem cells research and cloning advance. It is not an uncommon theme in sci-fi, and it is coming to reality.

[TChris]

Blade Runner was in a class by itself. It defined an entire genre, that of the dirty, gritty sci-fi movie. Before it, sci-fi had typically been sterile, clean, jump suits and plastic.

I count it among the best sci-fi movies of all time.

[Vision]

BR was over rated.

[discostu]

The long rumored boxed set is finally coming, yea. I actually prefer the narration version to the 1992 version, without the narration it’s fun if you already know the story but is incomprehensible to a fresh audience, I showed my wife the 92 and basically had to give her all the information that’s in the narration. One way or the other though, a great movie, that inspired a life long love of Philip K Dick in me.

[newheart]

"Film critic Roger Ebert has written of “Blade Runner”: “It looks fabulous, it uses special effects to create a new world of its own, but it is thin in its human story.”"

As is too often the case, Ebert missed the point. If you are exploring the question of what it means to be human, of necessity you will have pared down human characters and enhanced non-human (replicants or robots or droids or whatever) characters.

This movie will probably always remain in my top ten list simply because of the questions it raises.

And besides this is where Edward James Olmos perfected the "spot on" school of acting. Simply paint a spot on the ground or somewhere else, stare at it without looking up very often and speak in a monotone. Another actor who belongs to that school is Haley Joel Osment except sometimes he paints the spot on a wall instead of a floor.

[Polonius]

I hope the box set referenced in this piece includes all versions of the film — the theatrical cut, the “director’s cut” and whatever version Scott is putting together.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

This movie was the inspiration for James Cameron's "Dark Angel" TV series.

I really haven't seen Blade Runner in its entirety. I vaguely remember watching bits and pieces of it when I was a kid when it came out.

[Publius6961]

Perhaps it's not a coincidence that last night (June 20) The American Film Institute's new list of the "Top 100 Movies of All Time" was aired.
As most other viewers, I mentally kept track of all the movies on that list that I have never watched, as well as my favorites from among them.

Blade Runner was 97, which frankly surprised me (that it was on the list at all), but it is one of a couple of dozen films I can watch over and over and enjoy it, without a lot of analysis, simply as thought-provoking entertainment.

Aside from Star Wars (#13), the highest rated Scifi movie was 2001 - a Space Odyssey (#15), followed by ET at #24, with no others in the top 50.

[KC_Conspirator]

One of my favorite movies of all time; film noir and science fiction. Spawned a new era of like themed movies.

[MoochPooch]

For a long time I was obsessed with that movie.

[Starter]

"This film has never done it for me,” Maltin said. “Watching it, I never feel emotionally engaged. I admire the production design. And it raises provocative thoughts. But in the end I just find it muddled.”

He gave it 1 1/2 stars, as a matter of fact. And yet he gave "Laserblast" two and a half stars...

[SunkenCiv]

Yet 25 years later "Blade Runner" is on many lists of the top sci-fi movies of all time.

It's on my list of top sci-fi disasters of all time. :')

P.K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was used for some of the character names, and the backdrop (post-nuclear-holocaust) was used (though not explicitly enough for me to be sure), while the rest of his interesting and paranoid book was thrown out in favor of what passes for the screenplay.

But I have watched it 50+ times on disk, plus the narration version on VHS a couple dozen more. Various times, I've heard that the narration version (which I far and away prefer) is to be included on a super duper DVD edition, so far, bupkis.

[backhoe]

PKD was one of my favorite writers, long ago.

I just wish he had lived to see and enjoy all this.

Here’s a tidbit from my files:

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39bc228a06d8.htm
The Chromium Fence (Science fiction short story [1954] )
Author: Philip K Dick
Posted on 09/10/2000 17:08:42 PDT by Prism

[CompSciGuy]

Great Article,

Believe it or not I just watched the “Director’s Cut” the other night. I like the ambiguous ending, even though I remember the original with the voice over and cheesed out happy ending. The film itself is great, a mix of dark creepy “thriller” style tension (like when Roy goes to meet Tyrell, you just KNOW something bad will happen), the gritty cop story (which Ford is fairly wooden in, yet that makes him seem more jaded than giving a “bad” performance). Additionally Sean Young gives one of the best performances of her career, with her mix of innocence and worldliness. The thing I always seem to notice is how both Young and Hannah’s eyes seem to glow in the dark, its both creepy in an inhuman way, but also strangely deep, like there is a different inner glow to the replicants. This is contrasted with Edward James Olmos’ characters eyes (which look to be ultra-blue contacts). Olmos’ character is creepy but mostly repulsive, the reptilian way he watches Ford’s Decker makes you almost feel sorry for the Blade Runner. The scene on the roof at the end is Shakespearian. Roy’s line about seeing things that were unbelievable, and how they “all wash away like tears in the rain”, is sad, poetic and yet affirms the sanctity of life, even though the statement comes from a psychotic inhuman construct. The best part of the movie is the fact that after 25 years, the film still has a fresh feel to it. It doesn’t feel dated, or feel anchored in time, the way that looking at 2001 or 2010 does. I’m glad to see that many of you feel the same way I do about this “cult classic.”

Cheers,
CSG

[KevinDavis]

[Darkwolf377]

The genius of Blade Runner for me has always been that the powerful emotional material is there for an adult, intelligent viewer to FIND. 99% of movies would spoonfeed you this material, with syrupy music and overacting, hammering the points home.

An example is how Roy reacts to learning he cannot have more life. He reacts by lashing out violently, not only at the man who made him this way but to the man who HELPED him get to Tyrell.

Similarly, the romance between Deckard and Rachel is very painful--Deckard is obviously a lonely jerk, and he stumbles over his emotions. Just because he's met someone he cares about, it doesn't mean he suddenly has the emotional equipment to DEAl with it. (And as we learn in the end of the workprint--which isn't a director's cut--there's a reason for this emotional immaturity.)

The replicants are perfect screen substitutes for today's youth--growing up so fast they don't have time to learn how to be adults, so they are just fumbling kids in sexual, buffed-up or just bigger bodies.

[Nachum]

I liked the film well enough, but one the best of all time? Not for me.

Some Sci fi's shook you. The first time the movie Alien was run, I saw it with a large audience that had no idea of what was to come. We all walked out in shock. The papers all had stories about it for weeks. The first Star Wars was stunning, The Day the Earth Stood still was like that.

Blade Runner? Definately not like that.

[antiRepublicrat]

Hauer, for instance, always has believed that his often-murderous character is the film’s true hero. He calls Deckard “a dumb character. He’s not the hero. He’s the bad guy.”

I think he's right. I always found Roy more sympathetic than Deckard. Deckard's wandering around in the dark wondering who he is. Roy knows who he is, and that he's going to die, yet he helps his hunter in the end.