Blade Runner

Neuromancer · Enigma's Little Pet Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Posts: 48

Maybe we should go about it this way: if anyone wants to make a review he/she makes a new topic here so all concerned can comment on it.

Blade Runner
- Do you think this qualifies as cyberpunk enough to be reviewed here?
- Does anyone oppose to me doing this one?

What do you think?

sfam

Morgan Blackhand · Meat Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 7 Location: france

Blade Runner is surely cyberpunk (I speak about the movie). I buy the book because I'm looking for answer about the symbol of the horse with horn (really escuse, I don't now the name of this kind of beast, where's my dictionnary... Very Happy

), who appears two times in the movie.

That thing to say, the book is really strange, really different of the movie (what a sacrilege, the book is older, but I see the movie first...), and the theme are quite different.

For exemple, the fear of dying that devellop the replicant in the movie don't exist in the book, or the addiction of human people for naturals animals (oppose to artifials ones) is very important in the book, when it just evocated in the movie.
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TG CHAN

Blade runner rox!!! I saw it first ime when i was like 12yo...I saw it again few months ago and i must say it is really good.BTW there are 2 verision normal and directors cut.I have watched both and i must say both are almost same.
DC have got 1 more scene (lenght:about 5sec) in which we can see that Deckard is replicant also and the real blade runner is this guy making Origami
People likes rather happy ends so normal version is more popular Razz

Movie is from 1982...2 years later was my birth and movie is damn good recommended for everyone!

PS:Sry for my english i have problem with it (It's not my native one:P)
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microchip · Bit-Junkie Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 184 Location: Belgium

all I can say about Blade Runner, is that I love it. I've seen it a dozen of times and I'll always going to see it. I don't get tired of that movie which just shows what I think about it Smile

I also love the Vangelis music in it
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Jade

Hmm... I've seen it only once many years ago... Neutral

But now when I'm reading your posts...

Damn I really should watch it again Fresh

erc1452

IMO Blade Runner is the very best of the genre.

It is probably truest to the core of the genre out of any movie ever made, and is a damn fine movie when compared to movies of any genre.

I watch the movie once a month - never get tired of it, and long for September 2007 when the Final version is released.

Eric

Ak!mbo

Blade Runner is definitly the one movie that influenced me the most growing up.
Saw the directors cut (I think) when I was seven or eight, it blew me away.
Watching it again now, it still rocks hard and I can't wait to read Do Androids Dream..

Stormtrooper of Death

According to me the are at least 4 version of Bladerunner

1) the complete version (that was shown to the review people in a selected theatre)
2) the box-office version (cut by the distributer)
3) the Directors Cut
4) and some other

There are also 3 difrent endings of BladeRunner,

And there was a lot of footage cut out, like the scene of the cop that was in the hospital....

Harrison Ford, disliked the movie when it was completed, and he does not often mention bladerunner in interviews.
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max314 · Meat Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 1

Blade Runner: Director's Cut (1982, 1992):

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die."

Jane Maslin in the New York Times wrote that “Blade Runner” was a “muddled . . . gruesome . . . mess.” People magazine called it “a slothful movie, dim both literally and figuratively . . . Better you should go down to your local foreign car garage and watch them repair a Porsche, if want to see something really exotic.” Shiela Benson referred to the film as “blade crawler” in the LA Times, and Pat Berman in a Southern review called it “SF pornography.” Roger Ebert gave it a thumbs down, explaining “the movie’s weakness is that it allows the special effects technology to overwhelm its story.”

- Extract from 'the IRONY OF NEGATIVE REVIEWS: CREATING SF CULT CLASSICS' By Dr. John L. Flynn

I've never seen the original cut of the film. Like my good friend, the Don (ooh, it's empowering just saying that, hehe...) I don't feel the need to. But if those initial reactions were anything at all to go by, I'd say that the director's cut is probably even further away from their collective idea of 'good' cinema.

the Matrix sequels seem to face a similar critical onslaught today. Looking at how a classic like Blade Runner (a classic in my eyes, of course, and not just because it's the reputable thing to say these days...), it gives me some comfort to reinforce my general view that reviewers sort of undermine the very core of subjective art by inflincting upon such art a barrage of 'objective' critique that ultimately acheives next to nothing.

I consider myself a filmmaker. Asside from a number of small projects, I'm not a filmmaker by profession. But I am a filmmaker at heart. I'm a filmmaker and not a film critic (which is perhaps why I have a tendancy only to review films I actually enjoy), and like every respectible filmmaker, I have a vision that is comprised of a unique twist, a different slant on how I view the world. Being a young film enthusiast and hoping to one day make the journey into my own cinematic endeavours, I have nothing but respect, admiration and awe for the creators and creations of movies like Blade Runner.

But why is Blade Runner so important to me? It's important because it represents a vision that lurks in the recesses of my mind. A vision that seems to be getting closer and closer to fruition as time goes on. Is this a bad thing? I don't know. Our societies seem to develop in kind to our physical and biological evolution - perhaps moreso. Our behaviour on a personal level and our behaviour on a interpersonal level are facets of our psyche that are evolving. Evolution, by its central conceit, is predicated on the idea of an attempt to obtain increasing efficiency and optimisation. Curious, then, that man's natural instinct is to recreate himself replacing the brain with the microchips, bones with super-light and super-dense titanium alloys, and tissue cells with nanomachines.

Man makes tools. Tools make up man.

And what happens when the tool replaces man? Or when the tool is able to replicate man's 'spirit'? What defines man then?

This is one of the philosophical questions posed in Scott's Blade Runner, and found its roots in its Philip K. Dick origin, the novell 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?'.

In order to tackle Dick's world, Scott goes to remarkable lengths to establish the validity of this future rendition of Los Angeles with visual flare and integrity. Adopting what seems to be a film noir framework encompassing a super-modern futurescape, Scott weeds and works his way around this labrynthine metropolis in all manner of odd and captivating ways.

the cinematography is astounding. There is little denying this. Anyone with a heart, half a brain cell, and something even remotely resembling subtle taste should be able to tell you that. Cronenweth shows an obvious understanding and affiliation for Scott's visual sentiments, and it shows on every second of screen time. But the cinematography alone is not enough to create this world. the art direction is exemplary of science fiction filmmaking at its finest. the fusion of East and West is so well done, so tastefully handled, that his quasi-Egyptian-Oriental-neotech citiscape takes on a characteristic life of its own. With humanity melding alongside its technological creations, the future presented in Blade Runner is not only plausible...it's downright possible.

You really can't go far wrong when Vangelis takes the reigns of a film score. His typically incredible implementation of synthesisers evokes the most perfect sense of retro-futurism, perfectly in synch with the aesthetic and thematic ethos of the Blade Runner movie.

In terms of performances, Ford is hardly the front-runner...but he does the job with enough solidarity, humanisim and sarcastic wit to see the protagonist through to the end of the film in a satisfying manner. the most powerful performance undoubtedly comes from Rutger Hauer. Apparently, that monologue I quoted underneath the picture at the beginning of this review was actually written by him - testament to Hauer's incredible empathy with Scott's vision and proving his worth as much as a cinematic artisan as he is a bona fide screen presence.

Final comments? the Wachowski Brothers have cited this movie as a major influence on their Matrix mythos. It took us back to Kubrick's 2001 as a reminder of what cinematic science fiction is capable of. I think it's important not to overlook the fact that the inception of this concept holds Phil Dick in sole parentage. But as a piece of cinematic golddust, it can't be deined that it was Scott's vision that turned the pages of Dick's head (heh...sorry, couldn't resist...) into that beautiful canvas the world now calls Blade Runner.

Score: *****
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"the MATRIX is arguably the ultimate “cyberpunk” artifact."
~William Gibson~

Klaw

Being the Blade Runner obsessive I am, I'm a little embarassed to have missed this review.

#1 Great review, and very eloquently stated.

Ak!mbo

Wow, talk about thread necromancy!
I'm pretty sure the topics up for discussion about this movie are all covered in the Meatspace, though, suggesting discussion of the movie is done there as to not drag up long dead threads...

Klaw

I know children shouldn't play with dead things Ak!mbo but hey, as I said I can't help myself... me likey Blade Runner...
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zerocoolmiklos

I heard somewhere that there is more books than one for the "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" I must say that the book is very dark, but the game that they made for it (not the 1982 version) plays along the lines of the book a little bit more. I think that Blade Runner deserves a remake or maybe even a sequel. Very Happy

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Ak!mbo

A Blade Runner remake?
Heresy I say.
A sequel?
In fear of repeating myself; heresy I say.
BR is such a masterpiece in cyberpunk and movies in general, a remake or equel would never be able to live up to the original and would just be disapointing.
However, there are sequels to Do Androids Dream.. as far as I know, however not written by Phillip Dick.. (I think.)
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