But it's not enough to just be better than the cotton candy fluff of recent movies, since that's not a real competition. It's a solid movie that stands on its own, even despite some quirky flaws in the delivery and editing of the performances.
It's not Rocky Horror Picture Show, where you and your friends have a party, and participate. It's more of a sleepy, quiet time movie like Taxi Driver. Like Taxi Driver, and any other classic movie, it gets better with repeated viewing, as more details tie together.
It's not a mind blowing movie, but for it's time, it dealt with a lot of new themes in extremely subtle ways, without excessive treatment. The future was cast as a recognizable, ordinary reality, taking on a tone that really only draws a cult following, but warrants substantial appreciation.
Movies like this don't get made anymore because risking a budget on cult appreciation doesn't land well in a pitch, especially amid the modern environment of implicit piracy, if it's fair to label shared viewing as such.
Whether it was the first movie to feel vaguely cyberpunk-ish or not, doesn't matter much anymore, but Blade Runner had a deep gravitational pull that influenced visual concepts of the near future well into the late nineties.
Without a sequel, all of the open-ended background trivia that was never elaborated upon, left open a whole universe to imagine, and this is where the cultural resonance ties in. The people who enjoyed the movie were left free to speculate about what really went on in the off world colonies, given the curiousities revealed by film.
I wish more movies were like Blade Runner. It's a rare item. It's not a movie you watch once. It's not a blockbuster. It's not a movie you turn off, when it finds it's way onto your TV, however that manages to happen.
The real question is, what film called Blade Runner did you see?
The sequel follows the visual style of the original, but it doesn't have the film noir feel. It's tone is much harsher. In the original the characters are able to find some meaning in their lives, and even find love or redemption, but the sequel shows the future as much less forgiving.
The sequel does the same at the end, isn't it? Father and daughter are reunited, and K finds meaning in the struggle.
> it doesn't have the film noir feel
That would have been gimmicky. It was innovative when the original was released but it's now been done to death.
I should have said 'escape' rather than 'meaning'. In the original Deckard and Rachael escape the dystopia. In the sequel it feels like there's no escape from the confines of the film. Even the daughter is still in her cage at the end.
There's a whole universe in there. It's best watched alone in the dark.