Sam Lowry: Excuse me, Dawson, can you put me through to Mr. Helpmann’s office?
Dawson: I’m afraid I can’t sir. You have to go through the proper channels.
Sam Lowry: And you can’t tell me what the proper channels are, because that’s classified information?
Dawson: I’m glad to see the Ministry’s continuing its tradition of recruiting the brightest and best, sir.
Sam Lowry: Thank you, Dawson.
I’m not sure I’d describe the movie as “funny”, especially how it ends up (again, in the original cinematic release and the director’s cut versions, not the abominable “Love Conquers All” version Sid Sheinberg edit), but it is a hell of a satire. Double feature with Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
I finally watch the original too, in a doubel feature with the new one. It looks like basis for every other post-apocalyptic cityscape since then so that counts for a lot. Harrison Ford was his usual meh self. But I had heard it was inscrutable so I was just glad I could follow it.
It’s been many years since I have seen Blade Runner, and perhaps it looks dated. But I loved it when I saw it. I think it was quite perceptive and clever, and I’m not a huge sci-fi fan. I’m sure it has been overhyped, but I’d put it in my Top 200 movies for sure.
I have found that one’s enjoyment and perception of the original Blade Runner (and by this, I mean the original, that was screened in cinemas in 1982) depended on how one approached it: as science-fiction, or as film noir.
Science-fiction fans–at least, my friends who were science-fiction fans–didn’t like the narration, or they didn’t like the lack of technology in the storyline, or they didn’t like the fact that flying cars and living off-world weren’t key plot points.
For us fans of the film noir genre, it was a wonderful detective story set in the future. Characters talked to each other. They dealt with the constant rain, with living in broken-down buildings, with a story that built, clue by clue, to the inevitable climax. And when Roy Batty gives his (improvised on the spot) speech, you get it. If you’re a fan of film noir, that is.
I remember leaving the cinema with my friends back in 1982. They, expecting a science-fiction movie with spaceships and ray guns and robots that would have been more at home in Lost in Space were scratching their heads. But I, expecting a gritty detective story set in the future, got exactly what I wanted. And I liked it.
Your friends must not have been very bright. The whole movie revolves around biotech and robotics and casual use of advanced computer technology and flying cars. The storyline was packed full of technology.
Yeah, but it isn’t the beeping robots and blinky-light magic of swashbuckling space opera that largely passes for cinematic science fiction, e.g. Star Wars and Star Trek, a d there for not “real science fiction” in the minds of many. That it delves into deeper themes and open-ended musings about what it means to “be human” and how we may treat sapient artifical life in a world where even human life is cheap makes it too complex for most children to appreciate. There is nothing wrong with space opera and science fantasy, of course—Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 were two of my favorite films from last year—but there should also be room for movies with deeply immersive environments and complex ideas and themes like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner.
I have not watched any of the new “remastered” or “director’s cut”. I enjoyed Blade Runner a lot, my only issue was that, in it’s original format anyway, it was so dark - lighting wise - that it was difficult to see sometimes.
A deeper problem here is how it’s taken for granted that “slow” equals “bad” in this thread. Yeah, the movie IS slow. But it’s really good. And much of what makes it good is made possible by it being slow. Scott gives the audience time to check out the awesome setting and scenery. You get to imagine what the place is like.
“It’s confusing” is another phrase that often seems to mean, “I had to think and I don’t like that.”
So get back your Michael Bay flicks if you want ADHD action and no-brain-required plots.
I have a roommate at this point in my mixed up world of separation and impending divorce and stuff. It was he who suggested we watch the new Blade Runner, I said sure, but I hadn’t seen tho original. He insisted we watch the original so I would be able to follow the new one. So, at this point I’m invested in seeing the new one with him. No big deal.
So you get lots of time to think about how intensely stupid the story is, how the city makes no sense whatsoever, and how dull it is to watch Deckard being beaten up four separate times. Why is that a good thing?
Whether Michael Bay is good, bad, or ugly is irrelevant to whether this dumb movie is a dumb movie. It’s a dumb movie.
I rank it up there with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It’s a slow artsy movie that I didn’t particularly enjoy. OK, I think they both suck! I also believe there are a LOT of people saying they like them, but who haven’t actually seen it in 20 years or so. To them I say, watch it again if you can; because it sucks!
I watched BR as recently as late last year. (I always watch the original version.) It’s still as awesome as it was new, and the flaws that bug me are still there, too. On the whole the good parts outweigh the bad.
Because your particular taste is the objective arbiter on what “sucks” in movies?
Some people really like the Tomb Raider films or those Transformer movies that Michael Bay shits out like like he spent the last week eating Hot Wheels cars and robot figurines and is filming the result as he flushes the toliet. I’ll admit that they are made with a certain technical skill and craft and I can appreciate that even though I’d rather spend two hours sticking bamboo skewers up my nose than watching another one of those films ever again, but to each his own. *Blade Runner and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are also skillfully made films with a broad positive critical consenus, so while you may not appreciate them they clearly don’t “suck” in any objective sense. Films that are actually terrible and poorly made, like The Room or Star Wars: The Phantom Menace can be demonstrated to have objective flaws regardless of whether you like the plot or genre.
It has been 5 months since the last time I saw the original Blade Runner (and the first time in probably 30ish years I had seen the voiceover/happy ending version.)
I fell asleep the first time it showed, but I had been up for 2 days. I sat down in the theater seat and fell asleep from fatigue about 5 minutes into the film, waking up just as the credits rolled and everyone began walking out. I had really looked forward to seeing it after seeing all the pre-release publicity in Jim Streanko’s Mediascene magazine. And it was the last show of the night, so I couldn’t even stick around to see the next showing. Man, I was bummed.
I’ve seen it many times since then and it remains one of my favorite films, and it was enormously influential on the scifi film genre and the cyberpunk movement in general. An amazing film, and dealt with some very deep subtextual issues, but it won’t appeal to everyone.
It came out the same summer as E.T., when the audience was looking for friendly aliens in their science fiction entertainment, so it was a box office failure and probably only made its money back on VHS release. I think Blade Runner 2049 will probably have the same long-term impact on DVD, and I loved it, but it will never blaze the same trails as the original.