What is the fascination with Blade Runner?

[nightrider]

Re: What is the facination with Blade Runner?

It doesn't need narration. It just needs an audience that THINKS, not sit back and let the film makers spoon-feed everything to it. You actually have to PAY ATTENTION, not just wait for random crap to happen just to keep your attention (like 80% of recent films).

I've heard a lot of the same criticisms about 2001, and my reply would be the same.

Most people that say the film doesn't need any narration have already seen it with the narration at least once. I like it either way, but I always suggest someone watch it first with the narration and then watch the final cut.

Guess I should have read the rest of the thread, everyone else said the same thing.:lol

 

[Larry Young]

You know that bit in "City on the Edge of Forever" where Edith Keeler is sussing out there's more to Kirk and Spock than they're letting on, and she says, "...Captain. Even when he doesn't say it, he does."

That's how I feel about "Sushi... that's what my ex-wife called me. Cold fish." I hear it even when it isn't there.

 

[androidandy]

I can agree that the Voice Over narration can help draw you into this film if you have never seen it before, but I do know quite a few people that have only seen the Directors Cut as their first film and still enjoy it and seem to get it just as much as I do. It doesn't seem to be as confusing as Dune was without the cheat sheet.

I also feel that in order to get the real connection to the film, you have to start watching it without the narration. After a while it gets in the way of truly enjoying this film, and is kind of like having someone behind you talking through the film explaining stuff to their friend who hasn't seen it before. Kind of annoying. I guess it is like having some training wheels, or drinking your scotch on the rocks. At some point you have to move on without it if you want the best experience from it.

It is great to see so many people who really do get this film though, and don't just say they do. Some really great comments in there, and even though I said I like to not have to share this film with others, it is great to see that that are many that I feel honored to share it with.

Andy

 

[Larry Young]

Who has Scotch on the rocks? :lol

 

[ChevyM14]

I saw this movie for the first time a few mouths ago, and I wanted to like it going in, but I just found it slow. it had a lot of cool themes and parts, but as a hole I think it could have been cut shorter (dont know if I saw the long or short one)

 

[CessnaDriver]

I was fifteen back then with a lot of big questions on my mind after my fathers
recent and sudden death.
I loved films and getting away from home for hours after that.
The film is about some big questions, though it doesn't beat you over the head with it either. I loved Sci Fi. I loved Harrison Ford after SW and Raiders, I loved ALIEN. The film was right up my alley. The film was and is extraordinary. It probably helped me deal with not having answers to big questions. So in some ways, it was personally relevent, as my young mind worked things out in dark theaters. That narration about how long we have, that was important to me at the time.
Sean Young of course was a pure vision. Batty grasping Deckard's wrist and saving him just gave me chills as a teen. Again, that narration about how Batty loved life even that of his enemy in those last moments.

So the narration was impactful for me. I wouldn't want to forget it.
Though I am happy to watch without it as well as the memories of the
narration are always going to be there of that time for me.

 

[rodneyfaile]

Who has Scotch on the rocks? :lol

I got Johnny Walker Black, Dewars White, and Laphroaig.

 

[Larry Young]

Johnny Walker Black and Dewar's White are blends, so no one in their right mind would call that Scotch, so put what you want in it </single malt snob> and putting water in cask-strength Laphroaig? You might as well tell McCarthy you're a Communist in 1959.

 

[blip]

Re: What is the facination with Blade Runner?

Ok, so, it's not that it's too brightly lit. But what is it then? Is it that the guys who do the CGI work after the fact simply don't give a crap about lighting? CGI shots always end up seeming...bright? To me. .

Yeah, I know a few CG artists, they spend so much time making all the detail that they want you to see every bit of it. Up goes the light level.

 

[Stormy320]

Re: What is the facination with Blade Runner?

I too hated Blade Runner the first time I had seen it but the second time was totally blown away. You need to comprehend the era that ended when the film was in production. Everything was going corporate and "film" was killed off for popcorn fluff and formula ruled crap which is why we have actors getting ungodly sums as paychecks and budgets higher than most cities are in debt.

Everything was still an art form where as today we can design and print graphics and even CGI on our home computers. Just to make the simple Deckard ID it was drawn out by hand and created by hand.

If you have never seen the actual filming locations, you will probly not recognize them yet they have changed so very little since then. New York Street at Warner Brothers is a perfect example. Its tiny, super fake looking, nothing futuristic at all about it but you never would guess this is it by watching the film:

Unfortunately if the film was made today it would probly star Vin Diesel or some other one dimensional actor, or maybe even Tom Cruise if they were to make the end chase more actual running then suspense, full of lame explosions, odd perspective looking CGI landscapes, music by some techno band and all flashy clothing that doesnt match the theme of a burnt out world... It wouldnt work as the classic it is but just another big budget flash in the pan.

Blade Runner was an actual film that created a real world. Its full of undertones and leaves you questioning characters motivations and the characters themselves. You have to let the sci fi thing go and watch it as its a real world. The major mistake I think they made was the timeline. It should have been set 100 years into the future as opposed to 2016.

The poster has opened a can of worms for sure.

I love the film ever since I saw it as a kid. It has such a great mood and tone to it. Such a rich and believable world. Has a realism that I don't see in today's Sci Fi films.

Thank you so much for posting the picture of the back lot. I've been there twice and walked down the subway entrance and had no idea that was where they filmed it. Right on :love

 

[JPolacchi]

The only thing I can say about the original theatrical release is that it isn't neccessarily the narration that is bothersome(although at some points unneccessary), but truely the killer to the original release is the wretched ending that makes no sense with the rest of the film.It really just kills the film overall."The Final Cut" is the best and greatest version of Blade Runner.Its the foriegn relase combined with the "Director's Cut", but cleaned up a great deal and some wrongs made right now that technology has caught up.You have to really admire Blade Runner if you are a big fan of film. Its is on one side an art film,almost poetic as well as parallelling other older themes that most of you know of, but combined with good story telling in an alternate universe,style/design all flawlesly photographed.As others have mentioned, not everyone sees or understands the film the same way and there is always something more to discover in viewing it.I never tire of it.The cinemaphotography, film miniatures, the story or the Vangelis soundtrack.

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

Part of the continued fascination is how it was the first movie to predict a globalised, yet totally fragmented, urban multicultural landscape and how that landscape would increasingly be a mix of decaying abandoned ancient structures and new high-tech development. This was not too much in evidence in cities in 1982, but it sure is now.

(While it was the first film to do this, it was comics that showed it first. Scott has acknowledged his massive debt to 'The Long Tomorrow' drawn by Moebius in the mid 70s, most of which looks like concept art for the film.)

One of the touches that has most stayed with me is the image of graffiti scrawled across the screen of the vidphone Ford uses in the bar. In 1982 that was a stunning assertion of the idea that the SF futures we'd seen so far in 2001 and Star Trek were just a pipe dream, that no matter how high tech we get, we're always going to be living with the everyday detritus of our existence. Plus, the graffiti indicates more than just the wear and tear of the Star Wars used universe, but disaffection and social tension. That image sums up the actuality of the early 21st Century very well indeed, it seems to me.

 

[BlasterManiac]

Re: What is the fascination with Blade Runner?

Well this always did it in part, for me (the Blaster, that is).
The rest is that it's a great classic movie which I am still watching.



E18G6625 by SoloDallas, on Flickr

 

[JPolacchi]

I :lovethat prop too.I've been wanting to get one (preferibly the metal one) for years. The V.C machine is pretty cool too,but I think beyond my abilities to replicate to do it any justice.

 

[Force Commander]

This is a mostly pointless thread. While it is a great chance for those of us who love it to wax poetic, nobody is going to be converted by reading this. Many of us will be offended by the suggestions that it is shallow and will then offend others in turn for not being smart enough to see how beautifully layered it is.

I've loved it from my first viewing in the theater in '82. I like the narration. As stated, once you have heard it, it sticks with you. You can't unhear it. If it was reversed people would be asking why it was excluded from the original as it adds just that little bit more.

 

[BoozeBeGood]

2019.......geezzz.

At least we know what's gonna happen after 2012 right?

 

[skintaster]

Hi. New to the forum. Been lurking for a while. Blade Runner is one of my favorite sci fi films. It was one of the first that convincingly created a world that seemed "possible", and basically set the standard (Not often equalled) for that kind of thing. I like the fact that the film makes you think a bit, and isn't just driven by action sequences.

Frankly, I can't understand the love for 5th Element, which looked great, but had little real substance to the plot. I can understand it's appeal to people that collect props, but the story and a lot of the acting is pretty subpar in my opinion. Blade Runner's characters seemed like they could be real, 5th Element's characters are really one dimensional. Two totally different kinds of films in any case.

 

[Larry Young]

This is a mostly pointless thread. While it is a great chance for those of us who love it to wax poetic, nobody is going to be converted by reading this. Many of us will be offended by the suggestions that it is shallow and will then offend others in turn for not being smart enough...

You could post this in nearly every thread of the OT and the Entertainment section and not feel out of place. :lol

 

[franz bolo]

I just finished watching this film for the first time.:eek

Hence your problem! Take a time machine back to 1982 and then erase all memory after 1982, then watch it again.

You'll like it, I'm sure of it. :thumbsup

FB

 

[robstyle]

Frankly, I can't understand the love for 5th Element, which looked great, but had little real substance to the plot. I can understand it's appeal to people that collect props, but the story and a lot of the acting is pretty subpar in my opinion. Blade Runner's characters seemed like they could be real, 5th Element's characters are really one dimensional. Two totally different kinds of films in any case.

I find it interesting people keep referencing the 5th Element. Ive recently spoken to a couple people that worked on Blade Runner and they both brought up 5th Element on their own.