Posted on 09/29/2017 9:06:16 AM PDT by C19fan
Even 35 years after the release of the original Blade Runner, Ridley Scott’s future feels like an invention modern cinema is still trying to catch up to. Other movies’ notions of nuclear-blasted dystopias or whiz-bang Jetsons kitsch seem to pale next to the haunting, soulful specificity of his vision: the Fritz Lang-meets-’40s-noir metropolis; the paranoid-android flair; the deeply un-sci-fi moments of melancholy. It was enough in some scenes just to watch the smoke curl from Sean Young’s cigarette, or follow the dust drifting through a bleached-white sunbeam.
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Well, I thought the first Blade Runner was pretty boring. Is this one any better? In the first one, Harrison Ford was so subdued that he almost put me to sleep and the story plodded along without much life. Is Ford and the screenplay/story any livelier in this one?
Scott’s rendition of Philip K Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” was absolutely brilliant.
Agreed—great movie—but I am a Philip K. Dick fan.
It is great so many of his novels/short stories have been made into movies. There are many more that should be.
Another PKD based movie that I really enjoyed—rewards several viewings—Minority Report.
Minority Report wasn’t half bad, but it didn’t rise to the level of art displayed in Blade Runner. The rest of Hollywood’s takes on Dick’s work were more or less stinkburgers. Total Recall comes to mind.
“Well, I thought the first Blade Runner was pretty boring. Is this one any better? In the first one, Harrison Ford was so subdued that he almost put me to sleep and the story plodded along without much life”
My recollection was also that it moved slow. Was disappointed in another Harrison Ford movie I saw recently, What Lies Beneath, slow moving with just a few plot changes from Presumed Innocent ten years earlier.
Perhaps he needs a blaster and aliens to make more exciting movies.
“Another PKD based movie that I really enjoyed—rewards several viewings—Minority Report.”
The first time I heard death as a side effect among ubiquitous drug commercials, and of course much of our advertising calls us by name now.
It was a bit of a flop on its first release. I liked it and considered it under-rated at the time. Years later, after it was released on home video in widescreen, more people came to appreciate it. Now I think of it as a tad over-rated.
Have you seen A Scanner Darkly?
No, haven’t seen that one. Any good?
Philip K Dick predicted the future ( our present ) with astonishing accuracy.
You must have not seen Man in the High Castle to say this.
I really enjoyed it. It deals with drug use/marketing, undercover police investigations. It has a great cast and after it was filmed it was rotoscoped and animated. Has a sort of paint by numbers look to it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/
Indeed, Man in the High Castle is excellent.
Agreed.
L
Nope. Don’t get Amazon streaming content.
EVERY review says how awesome it “LOOKS”. “Visually” stunning, etc. But I haven’t read one review that praises the actual STORY or plot. “Avatar” was visually stunning in 3D/IMAX. But try and watch it now on a regular TV, and it really sucks balls. Awful.
If you concentrate on the plot, then yes, it is pretty basic. And I think most people focused on that when it was in the theaters. But the beauty of the movie is more the mood, the atmosphere, and the questions it asks, without trying to force an answer on the audience.
Yes, excellent.
“Blade Runner” is worth it alone for the last couple of minutes between Roy and Deckard. That scene is beautiful, sad, overwhelming—damn near perfect.
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