At any rate, the ambiguity, the fact that this question is open for debate, is one of the things that make the movie great.
While we’re at it, **Flesh + Blood **was a hell of a great movie and Rutger Hauer was at his most magnetic in it. Now *that *was a movie with morally ambiguous characters.
Well, I think** Blade Runner** is overrated – not bad, certainly not a great one.
As for the actors, better films include:
Ford – The Fugitive, Witness, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Hannah – Splash, Kill Bill and Silver City
Hauer – Sin City
Olmos – Miami Vice, Battlestar Galactica, Stand and Deliver
Young – probably her best.
As for Ridley Scott, Thelma and Louise is better, but I’d put Blade Runner second (though I haven’t seen Black Hawk Down
No love for Alien?
Agreed. By the way, and IIRC, just before they started shooting Roy’s death scene, Rutger Hauer asked Ridley Scott if he could use some lines he’d come up earlier that day. Scott gave him the go-ahead, and the result was the whole “Tears in rain” soliloquy; Rutger wrote that part himself.
Regarding the Deckard = Replicant debate:
It’s my opinion that Deckard is obviously a replicant. We know that Ridley Scott says so; All of the arguments against it can easily be reconciled with the plot; and the origami unicorn serves no other purpose in the story except to confirm, loud and clear, that Gaff knows Deckard’s dreams, just as Deckard knew Rachel’s. It’s as simple as that. Case closed.
BUT… a few years ago I got into a long and sincere argument with someone (who also loves the movie); I challenged him to reconcile Gaff’s unicorn with Deckard being human, and damned if he didn’t. I can’t remember what his explanation was except for its being convoluted, but his theory did work.
Ever since, regardless of my opinion, I have to concede that the debate can not be settled one way or the other. And the fact that people still argue about it all these years later is a testament to the power and beauty of this movie. Layers within layers within…
.
Tons of it. Best horror film of all time, IMO.
And for me, Blade Runner is the best Science Fiction film ever made.
I’d add The Mosquito Coast.
I think The Conversation is still the best film that Ford has appeared in.
Daryl Hannah has an uncredited speaking part in the far superior Crimes and Misdemeanors.
James Hong was in Chinatown and Joe Turkel was in Paths of Glory.
But I’ll give you Olmos, Hauer, Young, Sanderson, and Joanna Cassidy.
I read an article on “best ad libbed scenes” that said Hauer in fact ad libbed a fair bit during that speech. So it’s quite possible that you are remembering dialog from a film version that is not in the script.
Thanks, SMCF.
I do believe the man has a poetic bent.
Batman Begins? Sin City? Flesh+Blood? Ladyhawke? These are not dreck.
You can call The Hitcher dreck, but he was extremely good in that.
And his role in Fatherland was, if nothing else, good and solid.
If you think that Deckard was a replicant, you’ve missed the point. And if you think that he wasn’t a replicant, you’ve also missed the point. The point isn’t that he is or is not a replicant; the point is that it doesn’t matter whether he is one or not.
In the “Trivia” section for the Blade Runner entry on IMDB:
I guess there are lots of different meanings that can be taken away from watching the movie.
Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is Finkle!
People tend to take the unicorn dream sequence, and the origami uniform that Gaff leaves that the elevator, too literally. The unicorn is a motif; Deckard is the unicorn, the mythological beast that cannot be captured or killed until he forgets himself and falls into the lap of a maiden, becoming defenseless. Deckard falls under the spell of Rachael, rendering him incapable of dispatching her despite his duty to do so. Gaff is always shadowing right behind Deckard; he clearly admires him but at the same time sees him as increasingly ineffectual and wants him out of the way. Giving him Rachael guarantees that he’ll run.
As for Deckard being a Replicant but an inferior model, that still doesn’t make sense, nor does it worth with the overarching theme of the story (that the Nexus 6 Replicants are “prodigal sons”, equivalent to being human despite their superior physical abilities). Why implant memories into an inferior model that is likely to be killed as Deckard is in every case that he confronts one of the Replicants; only Pris does he “retire” without luck being a factor, and even then, only because she insisted upon playing with him rather than just breaking his neck. In the end, whether Deckard is or is not a Replicable isn’t the point; regardless of origin, Roy feels the same fear and compassion as a real human, e.g. he is human, and his servitude is nothing but slavery. ("Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave. ")
The discrepancy in the number of Replicants (six, in the original film) is a continuity error in the script, nothing more. In the original script in addition to Roy, Pris, Zora, Leon, and the unnamed skinjob that “got fried running through an electrical field,” there was also another female replicant named Mary. Mary was eliminated in rewrites before filming began, but (as with a number of other continuity errors) the number of Replicants remains per the original script. This is corrected in Final Cut.
Stranger
And Soylant Green is people, right?
I don’t see Harrison Ford ever making a better, more thoroughly enjoyable movie than Raiders of the Lost Ark.
And I would argue that Daryl Hannah’s best movie was the sublime Roxanne.
Can’t get behind this either. Without hesitation, I’d nominate Sanderson’s wonderful work in Deadwood as his absolute best.
But this is a night and day comparison: Raiders is homage to the old Doc Savage-type adventure serials; Blade Runner is a moody, atmospheric neo-noir. The performances required for each are vastly different.
Stranger