# Blade Runner (The Original) Sucks
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 19, 2018, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815 "2018-03-19T08:01:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/1 "2018-03-19T08:01:20Z")
After decades of hearing about this iconic movie, I finally watched it.
I almost fell asleep 15 minutes into the movie, and then it got worse. Why in the hell is this movie such a cult classic?
This is why I rarely watch movies. I’ll take Monty Python or Woody Allen or the Marx Brothers any day.
Blade Runner was a very boring movie, and now I’m going to be forced into seeing the sequel.
Gee, thanks.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/2 "2018-03-19T10:14:43Z")
Get off my lawn and allow me to yell at clouds in peace.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/3 "2018-03-19T10:28:21Z")
I’ve never liked _Blade Runner_, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it sucks. I do think it’s severely overrated, though. Yes, it’s very pretty to look at, and is stylish as hell, but the story is terrible, and the conclusion meaningless. It tries really hard to be something significant, and a lot of people seem to lap that up, but it really has no substance.
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### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/4 "2018-03-19T10:31:47Z")
Sounds like it’s not for you.
I love it. So it goes.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/5 "2018-03-19T10:35:43Z")
It is a nostalgia movie from my childhood for me, and is one of my top favorite movies of all time. (Along with Close Encounters of the Third Kind.)
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/6 "2018-03-19T11:45:09Z")
> [@Leaffan](#):
>
> I’ll take Monty Python or Woody Allen or the Marx Brothers any day.
Umm, were you expecting a comedy?
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/7 "2018-03-19T11:55:30Z")
You shoot an elephant in your pajamas–
_I wouldn’t shoot an elephant._
How did the elephant get in your pajamas?
_Don’t ask me about my pajamas! (Shoots interviewer from under the table.)_
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/8 "2018-03-19T13:00:23Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> _Don’t ask me about my pajamas! (Shoots interviewer from under the table.)_
The interviewer shot first.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/9 "2018-03-19T13:11:55Z")
**Leaf** , I hated Blade Runner too.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/10 "2018-03-19T14:31:16Z")
As for me, I didn’t have to be “told” it was a classic. I loved it from the first time I saw it. This was in the Dark Ages, pre-internet. In the hinterlands, all we had was our own opinions. That, and Siskel and Ebert.
Does it have problems? Hell yes. I even complained to myself about the ‘hard boiled’ detective narration, but by the end, I got to appreciate it, and I prefer having it to not having it.
Repeated watching reveals the flaws, but also reveals the beauty of it.
Nobody has to like every “classic”, but saying it “sucks” is just being reactionary.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/11 "2018-03-19T14:42:29Z")
Different strokes, I guess.
**Blade Runner** (the original) is on my 25 Favorites list, a list without representation by Monty Python or Woody Allen or the Marx Brothers.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/12 "2018-03-19T14:52:16Z")
Like the OP, I fell asleep during it also. It took me a few times to get through it.
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### Author:  [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/13 "2018-03-19T14:54:07Z")
> [@Leaffan](#):
>
> After decades of hearing about this iconic movie, I finally watched it.
>
> I almost fell asleep 15 minutes into the movie, and then it got worse. Why in the hell is this movie such a cult classic?
>
> This is why I rarely watch movies. I’ll take Monty Python or Woody Allen or the Marx Brothers any day.
>
> Blade Runner was a very boring movie, and now I’m going to be forced into seeing the sequel.
>
> Gee, thanks.
If you didn’t like the original, you are highly unlikely to care much for the sequel. But don’t worry about it. We don’t think you’re uncool for not liking it. Well, you aren’t cool, actually, but that’s allowed.
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### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/14 "2018-03-19T14:56:07Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Umm, were you expecting a comedy?
Haha, yeah, those were very interesting comparisons.
As for myself I loved Blade Runner.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/15 "2018-03-19T14:57:29Z")
Even die hard fans have to admit it is one SLOW movie.
But it gets mad points for attention to detail and world-building. But Harrison Ford’s unaware performance nails that character. The problem is he’s pretty much entirely unlikable. That’s always a hindrance in a movie. Audience’s LIKE to root for the protagonist.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/16 "2018-03-19T15:07:09Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> **Blade Runner** (the original) is on my 25 Favorites list, a list without representation by Monty Python or Woody Allen or the Marx Brothers.
It makes the BFI list of top 100 movies of all time (any genre) both for [critics](http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/critics) and [directors](http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/directors).
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### Author:  [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/17 "2018-03-19T15:07:22Z")
My WAG – if you’ve read a classic sci-fi book, and become enraptured by a praticular vision the author has for a sci-fi world, then you may enjoy even a bad film. Or you may hate what the film did to your image of the world. YMMV.
I don’t think Blade Runner was the awesomest film ever. I like Harrison Ford’s performance, and Edward James Olmos and Ruger Hauers character work is inspired. I get the gritty film noir meets futurism vibe. But I did feel, let down, by the storyline, when I was a kid – are the replicants advanced androids? Or fast grown clones? Or something else? The film wants it to be ambiguous, but as a kid, I expected sci-fi to be more straight forward. Things in the movie, reminiscent of the infamous – “isolate … enhance …” do leave me cold. But if I’d read the book, this world might have been more appealing to me.
Same for me with the David Lynch _Dune._ I didn’t get it at first when I saw it on TV, then I read the book, then it made more sense, and I was able to lose my self in the film’s vision of the world, even with the changes from the novel.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/18 "2018-03-19T15:24:34Z")
> [@Arkcon](#):
>
> My WAG – if you’ve read a classic sci-fi book, and become enraptured by a praticular vision the author has for a sci-fi world, then you may enjoy even a bad film.
The novel _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep_ is vastly different from _Blade Runner_. I didn’t see _Blade Runner_ in the theater, and first saw it when it first started airing on TV, so maybe around 1982? I loved it from the very first, was captivated by it, no dull or boring sections. And I was around 10 at the time. (I first read the novel while in college around 10 years later.)
You think _Blade Runner_ is slow? You should watch some of the other BFI/AFI top films, such as _Tokyo Story_. And even _The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly_ strikes me as a much slower movie than _Blade Runner_. And _Once Upon a Time in the West_. And _Jaws_. And _2001_. And, and, and…
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### Author:  [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/19 "2018-03-19T15:40:26Z")
_Blade Runner_ needs to be seen in the context of movies when it was released. At the time, the background world was incredibly rich on a level not typically seen. But now, every movie has whatever world it needs created through sets or CGI. You don’t even notice it anymore. So if you’re not impressed by the environment of _Blade Runner_, you probably won’t be impressed by the movie.
I agree that the story itself is not the best. It’s clunky and has a lot of holes. I think they were more going for making a movie which looked amazing rather than had a solid story. The current movie-watching audience has much higher expectations than they did back when it first came out.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2018, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blade-runner-the-original-sucks/810815/20 "2018-03-19T16:37:48Z")
Didn’t care for it much; it was all muddy atmosphere and even muddier plot.
The director’s cut was marginally better, but it was in no way a great film. I think its murky plot is part of its appeal.
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