This scene alone makes the movie worth it.
The movie is alot more fun for me when I try to figure out if Deckard was a replicant or not. In the end I decided he was. His tolerance for pain, his ability to take out other replicants, surrounding himself with photos, the missing replicant, the whole thing adds up. Deckard himself is the missing rep and that makes him perfect to hunt down the other ones. His own inner struggle with what it means to be human and the rights of sentient entities becomes even more intense in this light. Great flick to watch with a buzz and the lights off either way . . .
This is one of my all-time favourite Sci-Fi movies, in spite of the weaknesses. One of the things I like about it is the pacing – unlike the usual shoot 'em up formula that most Sci-Fi settles for, this movie has a plot, a detective doing detective work, characters with personality, and it really did provide a vision of the future that was drastically different than what we were used to seeing.
One of the things I most appreciated about the show when I first saw it was that the hero was not invincible. He gets beat up, he makes mistakes, he’s not supremely confident. Again, this was not something we saw much of to that point.
Again, I dig this movie, but it is one that you might have to work at a little because it certainly doesn’t spoon feed you all the answers.
P.S. Caption leading into the opening scene of the movie:
Los Angeles
November, 2019
I have to jump in here with a more vigorous defense of this movie(but hopefully not over-long, as I could go on forever if allowed). I saw Blade Runner as a youngster (it was one of the first videos the family rented when we first bought a VCR), and being a huge fan of the Star Wars action-style space opera, the more contemplative Blade Runner didn’t make a big impression on me. I saw it again sometime in high school and thought it was great – it’s a sci-fi movie that at the very least attempts to incorporate the thoughtfulness and ideas that make written science fiction so interesting. So if you’re looking for a great action movie, this probably isn’t it; but within the limitations of the medium (and the corporate-produced side of that medium at that), it’s great science fiction.
Admitted that there are a couple hokey action bits and a little cinematic cliche – yes, Darryl Hannah doesn’t show the greatest tactical sense as a fighter, and yes, it’s a bit ridiculous that Deckard runs up to the roof in the final chase, where he knows he’ll be cornered/hanging off a dangerous precipice/etc.
However, despite some of these failings, I find the story overall to be very interesting. Obviously there’s some thoughts about “life and death” and stuff, but there’s also a lot of stuff about the nature of memory, sentiment, and compassion in defining humanity. The director’s cut is particularly good in allowing multiple interpretations of what happens – is Ford actually a replicant? Is Edward James Olmos going to come after Sean Young, or is he letting her live? (And if Deckard is a replicant, is he coming after both of them) Perhaps more important is the noir element of being able to interpret either Ford or Rutger Hauer as the real “bad guy” after you hear Hauer’s speech at the end (emphasized even more if you think perhaps Ford is the next replicant in line to be offed). It presented a complex and thoughtful story in a way that left itself open to interpretation and wasn’t just cheap plot twists, or the way-overused revelation that half the movie may or may not have been a dream/hallucination.
Ok, I’ll stop there, before even getting into how gosh-darn beautiful and original the cinematography and art direction were and how much lasting influence the movie has had…
The movie finale’ was filmed in Los Angele’s historic Bradbury Building . I’ve been inside the lobby. Hasn’t changed a bit, offer the security guard a fin and he’ll let you ride the elevator.
Here’s a question: how would you go about creating a replicant like the ones in Blade Runner?
I don’t recall it being explained in the book. I understand they have a 4 year life. But what is the power source? How are they manufactured?
In the movie, Tyrell talks to Rutger about genetic type issues preventing “fixing” him. So are the replicants actually “grown” with some type of artificial DNA/cellular structure? Or is there an artificial component mimicking each and every natural appearing body part and function?
For example, Decker bleeds when he is beat up. Would a robot actually have an artificial heart that pumps artificial blood through artificial veins? Or would the robot have some wholly non-lifelike system that merely mimicked life functions? The replicants are the same size and appearance of humans. So it seems as tho it would be hard to have the space to fit in both the “natural” systems, as well as the controlling components.
Sorry if these questions don’t make much sense. I’m not a huge expert of SF.
It’s an important film because it has so heavily influenced so many other films and stories. The depressing decaying techno-future it depicted virtually created the world of cyberpunk. (It wasn’t the first dreary future – there were lots of “after-the-bomb” films, and Dark Star in 1974 was the first flick to feature a spaceship with the “lived-in” look.)
I liked it – it stood out in that science fiction summer of 1982, even with competition like Star Trek II, The Thing, ET, Conan the Barbarian, Swamp Thing, and Firefox. Pepper Mill didn’t like it on first release, but liked the director’s cut.
Nevertheless, It’s not my favorite by a long shot, and I don’t think it’s a GREAT Film. Some problems:
1.) Too much was left extremely obscure that could easily have been made clear. If you hadn’t read the book or any commentaries, would you know that most of the animals on earth had been destroyed? This is why they make such a big deal over the questions on the “android test”, and why there’s such a trade in android animals.
2.) Ridley Scott complains that “Americans don’t like to sit througfh ‘crawls’ at the beginning of movies”, which seems unsubstantiated to me – I’ve seen plenty of crawls. And then he puts a crawl at the start of “Bladerunner”! And he tells you a lot of things that the movie does, latere on! But he leaves out things that the movie doesn’t!
3.) I hated the “sledgehammer school of symbolism” Dove ending. And how come the damned doves didn’t die off, along with the owls?
4.) If the Replicants are gonna die anyway, what’s the point of hunting them down as replicants? Hunting down murderers is one thing, but Deckert’s job seems to be offing replicants just 'cause they’re replicants.
5.) It’s only emerged recently, but I’m annoyed by the whole “Is Deckard a replicant himself or not?” controversy. It seems to me, as others have suggested, that that idea wasn’t there originally, but the idea came up after the film had been out for a while and Scott just fanned the spark. If it was intentional, it’s not well set up and suggested. It would fit in nicely with Dick’s perennial obsession with “what’s real and what isn’t?”, but, ultimately, I don’t see the point, even if it is true. If Deckard’s a replicant, it’s ironic that he’s hunting down replicants, but…so what?
I think your biggest problem Dinsdale is that you are not watching it in a movie theatre.
This is one of those films where the image really needs to overwhelm you. All those towering buildings, flying cars, Deckards leap for life at the end, are all much more exciting on a HUGE screen. Also the original release had a narration by Ford runing throughout. In it he explained what was going on and even some of the symbolism.
I don’t think Deckard heading for the roof is that wrong. The central part of the building is open and he can easily be thrown off to his death there as from the roof. Plus the rout to the elevators had a crazed replicant but the path to the roof just had some pidgeons. He know that the replicant was almost out of time and he was just trying to stay away.
BMalion
I always that was a tip of the hat to SF author Ray Bradbury. There really is a Bradbury building? Wow!
Untrue. While Dick is critically acclaimed (though it’s unfortunate that the acclaim came late to him), cyberpunk arose independently of him, pushed primarily by the fanzine “Cheap Truth.” The inventors of cyberpunk included Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Bruce Bethke (who invented the term), Pat Cadigan and broke on the scene in Ellen Datlow’s tenure at Omni Magazine. Dick was retroactively listed as a “father” of the genre, but he was no more father of it than Hal Clement* was.
FWIW, the authors most closely associated with Dick – Tim Powers, K.W. Jeter, and James Blaylock – went into the steampunk genre, not cyberpunk.
*I was on a cyberpunk panel in the 80s where that was the conclusion – the cyberpunks were going over ground with principles Clement developed.
Nope – it’s a weird and famous building, and movie fans ought to know about it. It’s the scene of the denouement of D.O.A. (the original version) and Harlan Ellison’s Outer Limits story Demon with a Glass Hand is set there.
A few comments, for what they’re worth…
I remember when Blade Runner came out. IIRC, it wasn’t heavily plugged as a sci-fi film, but rather as a detective story set in the future–more specifically, a film much like The Maltese Falcon.
Looked at this way, it worked IMHO, and worked very well. There was the world-weary and cynical voiceover from the detective who didn’t really want the job but has to take it anyway, the ongoing investigation peppered with blind alleys and red herrings, and the questions about exactly who the bad guys were. Because I went in expecting a Maltese Falcon-style detective story, I thought it was great. But I also remember that a few of my friends, who were heavily into sci-fi, were disappointed.
And so was I, when I saw that the director’s cut had done away with the voiceover and the “Is Deckard a Replicant” questions became more frequent. Suddenly, it was no longer like a 1940s hard-boiled detective story; rather it was … just something else.
So, to give my opinion to the OP: Was Blade Runner great? Maybe it was once. Is it now? No.
Settings:
Novel: DADoES. SF and points south.
Movie: The opening crawl says LA, 2019. The final flying mountain scenes in the original were leftover footage from Kubrick’s “The Shining” which was filmed in part at Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, OR. Ergo, they fled to Oregon to hide out.
Deckard was a replicant in the script up to filming. Ford objected, the scene where this is revealed was not done. (Jerk!) Hence the film quite definitely leads to that (unresolved) conclusion. It was not a post-release fan concept in the least.
More info in the Blade Runner FAQ.
I would not put it on my “greatest” film list, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I also saw it a kind of futuristic “film noir,” the atmosphere and attention to detail were stunning.
The Christ imagery at the end put me off a bit. That’s a personal bias, such symbolism has usually struck me as cliche and sophomoric.
Hey, to my kid’s credit, he said Deckerd reminded him of Sam Spade. I must be doing something right!
I was going to make a thread like this about a month ago after Watching The Directors Cut of Blade Runner for the first time (never saw the origonal or read the book)
At the end, I was slightly dissapointed. I had thought the movie to be a groundbreaking Sci-Fi action movie (like how the game is,which I’ll get to later) and I’l admit for the time it was released, it probably as groundbreaking. However I didn’t understand the symbolisim of a lot of things (like the Christian imagery which I didn’t understand until reading this thread, and the Unicorn dream) but it was for the least, an intresting movie.
Dinsdale, your son (andprehaps yourself) might like the Blade Runner video game, released in 2000 or so. The charcters and story are different, and it’s more actiony (even though the settings are the same) You might like it. It only lost 5 bucks last time I checked, and it may be going out of print (or already is)
You might laos like another 4 buck game (if you can find it) called Killing Cloud, about a future San Franciso trapped under a cloud of Noxious gas.
I like both versions but I think the director’s cut is definetly the better one. The theatrical release was a good movie. The DC is a great one.
I find the same problems everybody else does in the original version: voice-overs, happy ending, minimized “is he a replicant” references.
To star with I think it is the best SF noir ever filmed. As I can’t think of any other one this isn’t so much, so let me amend. It is one of the best films in the noir tradition ever. Not the best of course, but one of them. (Just remenbered Minority Report which is also noir, SF and a Dick adaptation.)
Visually the movie is stunning. Great soundtrack and the effects are not dated a bit. The dialog is smart and there are some great, extremely memorable lines. “…like tears in the rain.”, “t’s not easy to meet your maker.”, etc…
I like the story a lot. It has lots of nuances and subtleties and leaves things that shouldn’t be said unsaid. the carachters are complex and memorable. The detective is a real detective, not some sort of super-man that is the only one that knows what’s going on and has the physique of a boxer.
Lot’s of people complained about the pacing of the movie. I don’t see what’s wrong with it at all. It keeps things moving. They move slowly but never stop so there’s always something going on and we have an opportunity to look around at the world presented to us. I think the trouble is it goes a lot for atmosphere and there are lot’s of people that just don’t get much of a kick from atmospheric movies. Just read the complains about 2001. 2001 is my favorite SF flick along with Solaris (both versions) and Minority Report (I’m sure I’m forgetting something obvious here) so I don’t have that problem.
I guess it didn’t seem so slow at the time, because most Sci-Fi/fantasy type movies out in the era were all as slow. Planet of the Apes,Logan’s Run, Mad Max, Terminator, and Highlander , to name some of the more popular,were all slow paced, eerie dialogue and monologue fests, with a few scenes of action. Star Wars was the exception as a rousing, action packed, grand scenery, special effects heavy space adventure. By now that’s the standard but I think half the reason Star Wars was so popular is that it was different, and by the late 80’s every Sci-Fi seemed to follow the pattern.
“Not an easy thing, to meet your maker” is the exact quote.
Trivia: Rutger Hauer wrote Roy’s final speech himself.
Further trivia: Roy tells JF that if they don’t get help, Pris doesn’t have long to live - but if you check the datafiles that Bryant gives Deckard, Roy has less time to live than Pris. A very nice touch.
This has not come up, AFAIK, in any oprevious discussions on the Board, nor in any of the things I’ve read about the film – and I read quite a bit during the initial release and for several years after. If this is true, it was a well-kept secret for a long time.
Doves? Yeah, right! They are like flying rats.
I was confused about one thing: Did Roy kill the oddball scientist guy, the one who made the little marching men?