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‘Blade Runner’ at 40

esquire.com

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Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#161

Post by dev_tty01 »

aresant wrote: post #23

The visual language Bladerunner invented has virtually defined SciFi for the past 40 years. If you enjoy it's worth digging into the work Syd Mead - the film's concept artist - created: https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5642443624/in/... https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5642443252/in/... https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5641873923/in/... https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_…

Great stuff. Thanks. Gotta love the data tape reels on the "home" computer.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#162

Post by ffhhj »

the_gipsy wrote: post #134
ffhhj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Blade Runner, but I find the detective to be a useless entity, like an ant walking in a deeper world that makes him meaningless. And the idea of them not being able to discover which are the cyborgs makes no sense.

Aren't we all meaningless ants?

I mean we could replace Deckard with a pizza delivery guy, or even a camera drone, and the story won't change a lot. Try changing Neo in Matrix, Dave on Space Odyssey. And there's nothing wrong, the main character is the spectator, which makes it a more deeply philosophical movie, the replicant captcha is performed on the viewer. "What's meaningful" the movie asks.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#163

Post by cm2187 »

deltaonefour wrote: post #95
duxup wrote: post #19

I hated that movie the first to I saw it. I was bored with it. Now I love it. I really enjoy how much time they spend establishing the atmosphere and characters. It all feels very real and has depth. I loath the speedy sci fi that tries to touch on atmosphere and then hurries along with their paper characters and so on. So much sci fi I encounter now feels little more than a long trailer with no idea how to end.

There are three things that are important to the movie. - Pacing so you don't get bored. - Thematic depth - Atmosphere A lot of pretentious people like to ignore pacing as if their brains are made up of pure IQ and anything related excitement is beneath them. Make no mistake, we are all human and we all get bored. Pacing is important and it takes a lot of effort (and intelligence) for a director to maintain that leve…

Hum. The reality is that almost every big budget movie today is targeted at a international teenage audience. And goes for the lowest common denominator across the US, Europe and Asia. That doesn’t leave much for originality and atmosphere. Superheros with cartoonish SFX and violence, violence and violence. And some occasional fart jokes. That’s pretty much it.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#164

Post by Keyframe »

deltaonefour wrote: post #95
duxup wrote: post #19

I hated that movie the first to I saw it. I was bored with it. Now I love it. I really enjoy how much time they spend establishing the atmosphere and characters. It all feels very real and has depth. I loath the speedy sci fi that tries to touch on atmosphere and then hurries along with their paper characters and so on. So much sci fi I encounter now feels little more than a long trailer with no idea how to end.

There are three things that are important to the movie. - Pacing so you don't get bored. - Thematic depth - Atmosphere A lot of pretentious people like to ignore pacing as if their brains are made up of pure IQ and anything related excitement is beneath them. Make no mistake, we are all human and we all get bored. Pacing is important and it takes a lot of effort (and intelligence) for a director to maintain that leve…

I get what you're saying (I worked in fiom and tv for eons before switching out), but you can't really do it like that. Comparison needs to include both what the movie was built on, leading to it, and then also to consider directors own body of work leading to it. That takes into account period of work and release as well. What came after (not immediately) is not relevant to the work itself since it's out of period (in future). To even start talking in this direction you'd have to invoke, serially, works like Clockwork Orange, American Graffiti, Taxi Driver, and then Midnight Express to even start outlining the silhouette of what is to come.with Blade Runner.. and that's just a start since Ridley Scott's path is a bit unusual, and that movie's genesis especially so (see Legend he did sonce it's close to the period). That only covers the basics of the basics of discussing of what and specifically why this particular work is the way it is and why emulating the moves later (2049) didn't yield the same.

Edit: typing on mobile. Screw it, I hope it's at least somewhat readable.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#165

Post by walrus01 »

nico wrote: post #91
aresant wrote: post #23

The visual language Bladerunner invented has virtually defined SciFi for the past 40 years. If you enjoy it's worth digging into the work Syd Mead - the film's concept artist - created: https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5642443624/in/... https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5642443252/in/... https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5641873923/in/... https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_…

There is also the failed attempt of Jodorowsky to make a Dune movie: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky's_Dune https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)#Early_stalled_a... The documentary is pretty fascinating. Jodorowsky managed to put together a stellar team, among them H.R. Giger, Dalí and the script writer who would later write Alien.

> Jodorowsky

I recently got a copy of this and could only come to the conclusion that they were doing a lot of drugs in the 1970s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Mountain_(1973_film)

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#166

Post by minikomi »

candiddevmike wrote: post #150
aresant wrote: post #23

The visual language Bladerunner invented has virtually defined SciFi for the past 40 years. If you enjoy it's worth digging into the work Syd Mead - the film's concept artist - created: https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5642443624/in/... https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5642443252/in/... https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5641873923/in/... https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_…

Can anyone recommend some music that has the same vibe as Blade Runner's synth stuff?

Kuedo's severant album has a very similar DNA. intense, sleek synth driven but still melancholic and familiar

https://open.spotify.com/track/6tjTQ95h4TOHvB1VzhYvKJ?si=anq...

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#167

Post by quotemstr »

duxup wrote: post #19

I hated that movie the first to I saw it. I was bored with it. Now I love it. I really enjoy how much time they spend establishing the atmosphere and characters. It all feels very real and has depth. I loath the speedy sci fi that tries to touch on atmosphere and then hurries along with their paper characters and so on. So much sci fi I encounter now feels little more than a long trailer with no idea how to end.

> I loath the speedy sci fi that tries to touch on atmosphere and then hurries along with their paper characters and so on.

Post-Blade-Runner movies can spend less time developing their aesthetic and setting specifically because they can "import" the Blade Runner vibe "by reference", as it were, while Blade Runner had to build up the whole thing from scratch.

To fair, importing a setting this way isn't necessarily lazy: doing so allows the derivative film maker to spend more time on the things that make his film unique. There's only so long an audience will tolerate.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#168

Post by hybridtupel »

globular-toast wrote: post #60
duxup wrote: post #19

I hated that movie the first to I saw it. I was bored with it. Now I love it. I really enjoy how much time they spend establishing the atmosphere and characters. It all feels very real and has depth. I loath the speedy sci fi that tries to touch on atmosphere and then hurries along with their paper characters and so on. So much sci fi I encounter now feels little more than a long trailer with no idea how to end.

It is possible, of course, that you saw an inferior cut of the film. It's notorious for having been recut several times over the years. The Final Cut is the one to watch.

I just saw the movie for the first time and had quite some expectations. It was the directors cut. And while the overall setting was interesting and there were quite good scenes in it, for me it was just too long and I found it quite boring. Mainly the awfully stretched fight at the end put me off. Not sure if I should or want to revisit it after some time. As I also did not really find the sequel that convincing. But it got me thinking in what people see in these movies which I can’t.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#169

Post by gambiting »

I was bored with it when I first saw it, I'm still bored with it having seen it again recently. It's just so....full of itself. Like oh my god, you think you're trying to say something deep and meaningful, but you really aren't. The cinematography is still incredible and the film deserves all the praise in that department. But the whole philosophical argument being made there has the depth of a teaspoon. I just laugh when the villain makes his monologue at the end, you can almost feel the writer behind those lines straining with all their might to write something, anything that would be interesting in any way, and just failing completely.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#170

Post by airstrike »

HorizonXP wrote: post #14
jmyeet wrote: post #9

I am one of the 11 people on Earth that hates coffee. "Hate" isn't strong enough. Even "despises" I'm not sure goes far enough. It tastes disgusting to me. I can't even stand the smell. This has led me at times to wonder if I'm crazy or if everyone else is. I do notice a ton of people consume a ton of sugar in their coffee so it seems like many don't really like coffee. They like sugar. But I digresss. I have the sam…

I have to ask then, what films do you like better than Interstellar?

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