Originally Posted by
AndyLate
I think its safe to say that Blade Runner is regarded as one of the best SciFi films ever. I find it spectacularly underwhelming. What am I not seeing? Am I just too unsophisticated to appreciate the movie?
Andy
P.S. I am not disparaging the movie, I feel like I am missing a key element I should learn to watch for. Its like I'm walking around the Louvre, disappointed they don't have the painting of dogs playing poker.
So the first thing is it came out in that magic period post Star Wars (1977) and pre CGI and as a result the special effects were astonishing without being cartoonish.
The second thing is it's an interesting blend of East / West directed by Ridley Scott and produced by Run Run Shaw which gives it it's very unique perspective.
The film borrows heavily from Metropolis (1927) with it's imagined landscapes of the future complete with flying cars. We also need to remember the film came out in 1982 addressing concepts like AI and artificial humans before films such as the Terminator and in a far more plausible way than say Westworld.
And even though the plot line is now old and outdated, a machine "Roy" who learned to value life, at the time was still pretty cutting edge.
Then there were characters, Harrison Ford at the height of his ability, Sean Young when she was astonishingly beautiful (even if we would learn later she is kinda nuts) and Edward James Olmos as a decisively odd but effective Blade Runner.
But more than that, the back story is completely threshed out. There is no make it up as we go along, develop the universe in sequels or any of that nonsense. It is a complete film from beginning to end, with everything you need and nothing complicated left hanging unanswered and no glaring contradictions which simply need to be accepted. Few films in history have done that.
Like Heat, like The Godfather and maybe a couple other dozen films in history, it is a perfect film.
Today it's like watching Citizen Kane, the big points are there and they've been borrowed from enough that it no longer has the same impact. Also if you know nothing about Orson Wells or Randolph Hearst and his media empire and the way he wielded it you won't get as much from the film and it will seem like nothing more than an odd morality tale where a man gains the whole world and yet profits nothing from it's gain. But when Citizen Kane debuted it changed film forever and Blade Runner did the same thing for many of the same reasons.
Also like The Godfather, Blade Runner probably requires at least 6 viewings well spaced apart to see everything. There is simply too much going on, little things are big things and sometimes they only show it to you one time and often without putting a light on it. 40 years later I can still see things in a slightly different context with both films even though I've seen them quite a few times.
For contrast, Kubrick and Spielberg attempted a similar film A.I., and even though it was 20 years later that still didn't manage many of the things that were achieved in Blade Runner. The story lines were of course completely different but the concepts of "what is sentience", "what is life" and what happens when you can no longer tell the difference are nearly identical. This of course hits all the big ones, "what does it mean to be human", "is what we feel real" and "what is the meaning and why are we here."
Deckard fell in love with Rachel despite the fact that his purpose was to eliminate her kind. Rachel was in love with Decard even though she was never designed for such things.
It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.
Chuck, we miss ya man.
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