Blade Runner

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I have loved this movie since if first came, and to me it is clearly one of the best movies ever.
The director's cut blew me away, with the long panoramas with no voice-over and the best music Vangelis ever made.

Today I saw the Final Cut, and I am still in awe.
My stereo can handle some abuse, and I blasted it so my walls shook.

CGI can suck my d***. This is the best looking movie ever.

I forget my initial reason to post this here.

There's a "final cut!" I loved the director's cut too - awesome movie!

Because it needed saying. Agree 100%.

Is Blade Runner better than 2001 ?

It's close, but yes.

Anyway, the Final Cut of BR is by far the best. The theatrical cut is ruined by the awful voiceover narration and the phony happy ending. The Director's Cut is better since it gets rid of both, but the Final Cut is the best since it's basically the Director's Cut with a restored print and some fixed mistakes. (Like when Bryant refers to the wrong number of Replicants.) BR is my #`1 favorite movie, and I've watched it obsessively so many times that I practically have it memorized. It's visually the best film I've ever seen; I always have to point out to people that it doesn't have a single frame of CGI, because they find it hard to believe that it was all created with models. Anyone who hasn't seen it is really missing out.

What's so great about Blade Runner?

a minority opinion here- i didn't like the director's/final cut because it lacked the voiceover narration which is the only thing which made sense to me, because all the actors seem to me, to have mumbled their lines, and even if they hadn't, the structure of the dialogue was not especially conducive to following the storyline. and i hated the suffocating feeling at the end minus the happy ending. i care not for movies lacking happy endings, because if i want sad endings all i have to do is tune in the nightly news or pick up a newspaper- i'd rather my entertainments NOT so severely remind me of life's essential suckiness. my fave version was the original international [unrated] version.

I can sympathise with auntblabby's thoughts on happy vs sad endings...my favourite films are the ones that never shy away from admitting how bad the world can be, but end on a note that's at least hopeful. Pure misery is a downer for me, but if it's sunshine and smiles all the way through it feels unconvincing and just as hard to relate to.

Re: Blade Runner...I've read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and the film is half of what the book is. Even so, it's still one of my all-time fave SF movies. It's not so much the acting or coherence of the plot in this case...it's the atmosphere and the immersive-ness; the film really draws you in and that's why I love it.

When I first heard about blu-ray and HD TV I was very sceptical. A friend of mine tried to convince me that blu-ray was the way to go but finally proved his point by playing the opening scene of this film. My reaction was an instant "SOLD."

I'm not sure if it's a well-known and verified fact, but I heard that Ridley Scott drew inspiration for that opening sequence from the cityscape of the Redcar/Middlesbrough/Teesside area where he grew up. The 'Boro is fairly close to where I live so every time I drive up the A19 I think "hmm...Blade Runner." It's cool to think that a piece of movie history is (indirectly) virtually on my doorstep.

I like how people have different opinions on which version of Blade Runner is the best movie ever.

i'd like it if they made a version which combines all other versions.

I would like Blade Runner better if they used real robots.

Also one of the best soundtracks ever... Coincidence?

No. Not coincidence.



I actually saw it AGAIN with a friend, and played a little private game of finding out what they got right and wrong about the future, which in this case is 2019. That's close enough to call some of the errors and praise some of the bullseyes...

First of all, the weather situation seems to be a little less bleak than Scott predicted. The sun still finds LA, and the perpetual rain of BR was a bit of a miss.

The magnificent, dystopic panoramic view of future LA with the power stations blasting off their flares is of course another one.

In Blade Runner, all downtown scenes suggest that a chaotic asian flavoured urbanity has spread everywhere. There are 'chinatowns' in most cities, but they haven't grown to pervade all city life quite yet. I can't make a decision on this, because we don't know if all of Scott's future LA is like this or just the parts we visit. Also, the inner city populations of Blade Runner are meant to be "left-overs". People who for some reason never got to leave. Which brings me to the next point:

Clearly, we don't have Off-Planet colonies, so our cities are much more crowded. JF Sebastian would not be the only tenant in a house like that. Hm. Actually, he might, but for different reasons. The Burj Dubai, which after a personal cash bailout of Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan became Burj Khalifa, is mostly empty, like many of Dubai's sky scrapers, but that is not from being left for other planets. And they're not taken over by squatters. Yet.

Our robots, however good at winning Jeaopardy, are very much less awesome than the Nexus 6. The owl at TC is out of reach for us. If anyone knows where I can get hold of a Pris, send me a PM.

Flying cars. I've seen both the flying cars that were "launched" this year, and one is a crappy plane and a crappy car combined into something nobody would want to be seen in, and the other one is a weird looking three wheeled car and a fairly cool autogyro, which would appeal mostly to people who like autogyros, and is in no way the flying car we all want, despite being a car that can fly. None of them are remotely like the flying cars in BR. Inventors, shame on you!

People smoke everywhere with no shame.
A mistake that was very easy to make. The victory of the anti-smoke people was unexpected and very quick, and the change in people's minds about where and when it is appropriate to smoke was quite astonishing to watch. I smoke myself, and it feels completely natural to me not to light up in people's homes or offices. In fact, when I visit countries where smoking is still allowed in bars, I feel a little dirty. I enjoy a smoke with my beer, but the change in the collective mind has been rapid and pervasive, and I am no exception. Nobody would have been able to foresee this in the late 70's, so it's a forgivable mistake. The very idea that a theatre audience would grow accustomed to seeing a cigarette as a sign of a bad guy or madman would never have entered the mind of a 70s director. In 1982, smoking made Rachael look hotter.
I thought that it was ridiculous that the spaceship crew smoked in Aliens, but for earth in 2019 smoking everywhere would have been a fair prediction. But wrong. There would not have been smoking in Tyrell corporation's headquarters. As a former lights technician, I miss smoke in the air, because it makes light visible and greatly enhances visuals, but from most other points of view, good riddance.

Most buildings are too big and too imposing. We have a lot of big and imposing buildings, but even in Dubai the likes of the Tyrell Corp building are still just dreams. Particularly after the economy tanked.

The huge billboards were a good prediction, but the quality of big screens not anticipated. We have MUCH better screens today than BR predicted. The scene where Deckard enhances the photo of Zhora the snake stripper could be the basis of a whole article all on its own! He sticks a photo into his computer. Of course we would probably just copy an image file into it, but we have good scanners, so it's not completely unthinkable. His monitor is ridiculously retro, and of course the sounds (this is a general peeve of mine: real computers don't and shouldn't make beeping noises while performing normal operations. No need for the bleeps and beeps.) are stupid. But he talks to his computer in everyday language with normal voice. By 2019 this will probably be more common than now, but we already see it emerging. I think this is an area where we'll see a lot of development the next few years. The image enhancement itself seems a tad on the impossible side, but at least the image he gets of Zhora is very grainy...
Touch screens not anticipated.

Robotic snakes are still more expensive than real ones.

TDK is dead (or eaten by Imation, of course). Shame, because the TDK sign behind Roy's head is so hard to ignore, and it reminds us that it's fiction...
Other defunct companies on billboards include Atari and Pan Am, but are less intrusive than the TDK sign. I dislike this use of real companies, and assume paid for product placement which I disapprove of in general, but at the same time the sense of realism is enhanced by seeing the Coca Cola sign.

The saxophone is no longer the most sexy instrument on the planet. The romantic scenes with Vangelis' gorgeous sax melody dates the soundtrack, while the synth parts still feel nearly timeless. I will thank Ridley Scott for ever for using Vangelis in this movie. Not only the music, but the overall soundtrack is great and for the most part enhances the dystopic, melancholic vibe.

Our video phones now fit in our pockets, and most of us choose to use it only for special occasions. Voice conversations are sufficient, and SMS and internet social network communication not anticipated.


These are some off the top of my head. Anyone else have thoughts about this?
I don't expect you to agree on everything, or even care, but last night these things caught my attention.

Just so it's clear: My love and awe for the movie is in no way diminished by these things.
I enjoy seeing how predictions fail. My own expectations for the year 2000 were for the most part left unfulfilled, and my own idea of 2019 in the early 80s was certainly more like Blade Runner than the present day Earth.
I find a certain hope in the fact that none of the bleakest ideas of the future came true, and Pris certainly gives AI and robotic researchers something to strive for.

Uh. Again not completely sure why I decided this would be a good idea for a post, but hey.

I want to give you a hug!

I just watched it for like a millionth time last night... every single time I watch it I'm reminded of the first time I saw it as a kid, I was so massively impressed then! and that final scene in the rain... I remember exactly seeing it as a kid and for the first time understanding what death really was. it's just the perfect scene...

Vangelis is the man.

No space travel in the movie Blade Runner other than mentioning it.