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?
What good recent scifi comes close? Dune? Bladerunner 2049?
But I agree it's hard to beat "the originals". I've come to the conclusion that it's probably just as much me that has changed.
I don't think Dune, the 2022 version will make it to the heights Blade Runner is at.
There are some scenes that give you Blade Runner level shivers (e.g. the Sardaukar assembly on Salusa Secundus), but they're few and far between.
And if you meant the original Dune ... nah, it certainly hasn't aged as well as BR.
Maybe it will rise to the levels of great sci-fi, maybe it will not, I won't judge it till I can see the complete picture. It has the correct aesthetic and the truly shiver-worthy moments are yet to come.
(Of course one should try and watch one of the longer cuts with more of the dialog and establishing scenes.)
You're right that they couldn't afford to shoot on-location for the desert scenes so instead they painted desert landscapes and scaled them up then printed them on 40-foot-high by 200-foot-wide transparencies and put bright lights behind them to illuminate the scenes.
They don't look anything like real life but they weren't really trying for realism as much as they were trying for artistry.
I think that when you view things through that lens, what they did craft was beautiful.