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‘Blade Runner’ at 40

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Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#291

Post by rootw0rm »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #25
modeless wrote: post #3

I had a professor in college who was obsessed with Blade Runner and had us watch it in class. I just didn't get it. I mean I love sci-fi, but Blade Runner was just OK. Maybe in the context of its time it was great, pioneering, all that stuff. But in the context of now, or even back when I was in college (closer to the release of Blade Runner than present day, yikes), it didn't seem that special to me. I guess now tha…

I think it still holds up. Very few films are as bold and original today. Everything is CGI focus group contrived garbage now. What good recent scifi comes close? Dune? Bladerunner 2049?

Sunshine (2007), District 9 (2009), Firefly (TV 2002), Serenity (2005), Battlestar Galactica (TV 2003), Lexx (TV 1997), The Expanse (TV 2015)

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#292

Post by trzy »

deltaonezero wrote: post #223
cm2187 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No the reality is many big budget films are targeted towards AS MANY PEOPLE AS possible. It doesn't make business sense to target one demographic. Business people target qualities that hit as many demographics as possible. In short you could say that the mainstream general audience is what the big budget move is target-ted towards. Something like the MCU which is over a decade old doesn't fit your thinking. If the fi…

Sounds like you are trying to rationalize a taste for terrible movies with frenetic pacing.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#293

Post by croes »

jacobolus wrote: post #61
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.

This is also a film that most people probably have to watch 2–3 times to really understand the whole plot (much less notice all of the symbolism, etc.). The first time, a bunch is quite confusing.

Which cut?

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#294

Post by deltaonefour »

mos_basik wrote: post #286
deltaonefour wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A quality that makes a film commercially successful is not automatically a quality which makes a film great art. Agreed? Why are you telling me something I completely agree with? >Popular is popular. Art is art. The problem here is that for people like you, most of the time: "Popular is NOT art", it's this elitist attitude that "art" is above what is "popular" that I hate. We divide wealth into classes and now we h…

He's referring to a painting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images I'm not art critic enough to know even half of what's been written about the meaning of this painting, but I know that it's considered significant, and I immediately recognized the reference. Can't speak for him, but I guess the reason for including it may have been as an example of a work that was decidedly not Popular but (after m…

>He's referring to a painting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

Most people don't know about this painting nor do most people know French... I'm sure you and him are aware of that.

It could be that whatever the painting represents fits his point. But you have to look deeper then that because he is fully aware that most people on this site don't know about that painting nor do they know French. So why post it at all? His intent definitely wasn't communicating anything understandable to anyone here.

I'm Chinese, so if quoted some famous quote from Confucius, and to top if off I wrote that quote in Chinese, then of course my intention isn't communication. I know most people on HN can't read Chinese, so then why would I include the quote?

I would have included it to make myself look intelligent, educated and well versed in Chinese philosophy. This is basically the gist of what's going on here.

The alternative is he just didn't have the brains to realize this is an English site and most people don't speak french nor do they have an understanding of French paintings.

I would say the former reason is much more likely then the later.

That's why I said it's almost like a cartoon. I'm talking about elitism in movie tastes and here someone tries to counter that claim with a carbon copy circus act of exactly the snobbery I'm talking about. I don't think he picked up on it, and hopefully this explanation helps you realize what I'm talking about.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#295

Post by deltaonezero »

trzy wrote: post #292
deltaonezero wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No the reality is many big budget films are targeted towards AS MANY PEOPLE AS possible. It doesn't make business sense to target one demographic. Business people target qualities that hit as many demographics as possible. In short you could say that the mainstream general audience is what the big budget move is target-ted towards. Something like the MCU which is over a decade old doesn't fit your thinking. If the fi…

Sounds like you are trying to rationalize a taste for terrible movies with frenetic pacing.

Maybe. The problem is the majority of the population has the exact same taste I'm talking about. Everyone loves summer blockbusters while Bladerunner is a niche.

So am I rationalizing something or am I trying to explain something to a stubborn elitist minority?

I think we're both intelligent enough to know that the later reason is the actual reality and that I'm not the one actually rationalizing things.

Top Gun just crossed a billion dollars, and while I haven't seen it, I'm sure the pacing is frenetic as fuck. Nobody needs to rationalize a billion dollars, but somebody definitely needs to justify a niche movie like blade runner.

cheers.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#296

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#298

Post by BionicAnomaly »

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?

Take a listen to Perturbator, Carpenter Brut, and Daniel Deluxe. The genre of "Dark Synthwave"[1] in general tends to have BladeRunner/Cyberpunk vibes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthwave

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#299

Post by StillLrning123 »

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.

I love the movie. And I enjoyed the book many years later. But they are completely different. The book has an atmosphere of 1950 dry, dusty, empty suburbia and deals a lot with the status of owning real pets and what real really means.

The movie is literary much darker and takes place in a claustrophobic decaying chaos of a enormous city. I has the slow pace of a 1940th film noir and while the theme of what real really entails is central, it just one part in the whole vision.

Re: ‘Blade Runner’ at 40

#300

Post by xtian »

walrus01 wrote: post #165
nico wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Jodorowsky has said he’s only taken psychedelics once. There’s also overt criticism of drug use and dependence throughout his body of work, including in Holy Mountain itself, so that seems like a self-limiting conclusion to come to.
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