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‘Blade Runner’ at 40

esquire.com

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Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#251

Post by kirevmaco »

colordrops wrote: post #200
symlinkk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what does the ending mean then?

He made it all the way to Jupiter, and figured he might as well check out the monolith despite the disaster of the mission so far. He took the pod to check it out. He was then taken through a portal in the monolith to the home system of the aliens that created the monolith. There, he was put in a simulation as best as could be created based on TV signals from earth. The simulation was of a hotel room in a particular…

Thanks for bringing this up. Arthur C. Clarke was devastated at how the movie removed most of the explanations of what was going on, and walked out of the movie during the intermission:

"Without consulting or confronting his co-creator, Kubrick cut a huge amount of Arthur’s voice-over explanation during the final edit... As it turned out, Arthur did not get to see the completed film until the US private premiere. He was shocked by the transformation. Almost every element of explanation had been removed. Reams of voice-over narration had been cut. Far from being a pseudo-documentary, the film was now elusive, ambiguous and thoroughly unclear. Close to tears, he left at the intermission..."

(full article: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2017/01/close-tears-he-...)

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#252

Post by karpierz »

Terretta wrote: post #199
deltaonefour wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> comprehend why Blade runner even has the possibility of being boring then I'm likely too stupid to be communicating with you Step away from the sugar drinks and try a digital detox. :-) People paid to see Vangelis sound and light shows, when there wasn’t even a movie rolling. Surely with a movie attached, the sound and light isn’t that dull? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31437226 Buried in that thread is a p…

> https://youtu.be/7vfqkvwW2fs

I really appreciated this video, thanks for sharing it.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#253

Post by scott_s »

munch117 wrote: post #128
mrandish wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first saw BR in a theater the month it originally came out. It's hard to appreciate from today's perspective just how revolutionary it was. The film itself, especially the original cut, is flawed due to the studio making last minute edits which the director, cast and writers were against. Yet, it is still the one science fiction film that has been more visually influential than any other. It changed everything that…

The BR that I watched was more that an atmospheric sci-fi flic. It was an epic parable of the human condition. In the beginning it juxtaposes humans and replicants, but what you're supposed to realise along the way is that the life of a replicant is just an accelerated version of a human life: However long or short a lease on life you have been given, the common factor is that it is limited, and what matters is not w…

In the sequel, Deckard is human. I feel it reinforces your take on the first.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#254

Post by _carbyau_ »

samstave wrote: post #92
mrandish wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first saw BR in a theater the month it originally came out. It's hard to appreciate from today's perspective just how revolutionary it was. The film itself, especially the original cut, is flawed due to the studio making last minute edits which the director, cast and writers were against. Yet, it is still the one science fiction film that has been more visually influential than any other. It changed everything that…

And Neuromancer! although the movie is 1982 and the book is 1984 - I put these two together as the founding fathers of cyberpunk entertainment, albeit the FATHER of Cyberpunk is PK Dick... BR created the visual dystopian cyberpunk world of the future without focusing on internet/online things... Neuromancer changed and set the tone for the internet to come. The thing is, that at 47, MANY MANY MANY of my contemporarie…

It is a curious thing that science fiction and science-that-comes-to-pass influence each other.

This is why I like the idea of solarpunk. And yet, cyberpunk brings conflict/struggle which makes it interesting.

Solarpunk so far seems like a boring utopian dream. While I'd rather that in my future, it won't sell or interest people.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#255

Post by clairity »

jerrysievert wrote: post #58
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calling it the "greatest of all time" seems like a total exaggeration I was thinking this at first but I've struggled with a suggestion of a better, and critically more impactful/influential, movie in the genere.

brazil delicatessen both very deep and dark in similar genres: dystopian future.

i liked brazil, but it, blade runner, and 2001 weren't nearly as good as delicatessen. delicatessen is so darkly funny and deliciously memorable (ha).

city of lost children, which came a little later by the same directors, is my all-time favorite in that dystopian future genre. it's probably a top 10 movie for me. plot, characters, the world you get sucked into, all top-notch. plus, you get the "brain in a vat" years before the matrix (which is also miles better than blade runner, 2001, and brazil).

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#256

Post by colordrops »

kirevmaco wrote: post #251
colordrops wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He made it all the way to Jupiter, and figured he might as well check out the monolith despite the disaster of the mission so far. He took the pod to check it out. He was then taken through a portal in the monolith to the home system of the aliens that created the monolith. There, he was put in a simulation as best as could be created based on TV signals from earth. The simulation was of a hotel room in a particular…

Thanks for bringing this up. Arthur C. Clarke was devastated at how the movie removed most of the explanations of what was going on, and walked out of the movie during the intermission: "Without consulting or confronting his co-creator, Kubrick cut a huge amount of Arthur’s voice-over explanation during the final edit... As it turned out, Arthur did not get to see the completed film until the US private premiere. He…

I'm honestly glad Kubrick didn't go with Clarke's narration. Kubrick was a filmmaker and Clarke was a writer. While abstract and nearly impossible to understand without the book, the movie and book work amazingly well together as a unit. With concrete first order explanation at the end the sense of profundity wouldn't have been there. The aliens and their machines are vastly beyond human comprehension, and the arc of man's evolution was absolutely poetic. It would have been dated and corny with direct visual and vocal explication. The movie drew me to book, not the other way around.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#257

Post by pengaru »

Agentlien wrote: post #30
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'm the other way around. I loved the atmosphere and the slow pace when I first saw it. But ever since I read the book I can't enjoy it the same way. I feel it just doesn't do it justice.

PKD was an excellent author, I feel like he doesn't get enough credit for Blade Runner. It'd probably be different if Alien didn't exist.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#258

Post by kirevmaco »

colordrops wrote: post #256
kirevmaco wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for bringing this up. Arthur C. Clarke was devastated at how the movie removed most of the explanations of what was going on, and walked out of the movie during the intermission: "Without consulting or confronting his co-creator, Kubrick cut a huge amount of Arthur’s voice-over explanation during the final edit... As it turned out, Arthur did not get to see the completed film until the US private premiere. He…

I'm honestly glad Kubrick didn't go with Clarke's narration. Kubrick was a filmmaker and Clarke was a writer. While abstract and nearly impossible to understand without the book, the movie and book work amazingly well together as a unit. With concrete first order explanation at the end the sense of profundity wouldn't have been there. The aliens and their machines are vastly beyond human comprehension, and the arc of…

Thanks for sharing your opinion. Probably you could tell from the tone of my comment, but I don't like the movie the way it is. I agree with you that the movie and the book work well together but I wish the movie worked as a standalone piece of art.

I think Kubrick and Clarke could have perhaps found a compromise. For example, I remember liking the ending part of the movie "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" by Spielberg which had a similar situation to the last sequence in 2001. I don't recall if that movie had any explicit explanation of what the beings at the end were but it was pretty clear who they were and what they were doing from the way the movie handled things.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#260

Post by deltaonezero »

LegitShady wrote: post #249
deltaonezero wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's a fantasy story told in a sci Fi aesthetic. The aesthetic is what defines the genre. There's tons of garbage technology in other sci-fi works that are beyond what's even speculative. Star wars is not the only art work that does this. Midi chloreans (The technical/scientific explanation for the force) are way less speculative then alot of the sci fi that's out there.

midichloreans didn't exist in star wars cannon until 2007 in a 'making of' book - star wars was conceived without midichloreans and were retconned in later. Lucas in 1981 said being a jedi was like doing yoga - anyone can do it, but only people who work at it get good. see the citation here: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Midi-chlorian#cite_note-The... The story of star wars is a fantasy story complete with magic.…

I wrote this piece in response to your comment:

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/is-star-wars-science-f...

Just kidding, but it's equivalent to what I would've wrote.

>You can shift the entire thing to ancient china and adjust all the set pieces for the time and it would still work.

Bro, I'm chinese. Ancient China is neither Fantasy or Sci-Fi. It's a whole different genre called Wuxia. Fantasy and wuxia are not compatible.

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