Blade Runner
filfre.net
filfre.net
I'll avoid spoilers, but the cop scene is really great – Decker discovers the existence of a secret separate police department operating in San Francisco, which is staffed entirely with replicants.
If you've seen the movie but haven't read the book, I definitely recommend it. It's considerably different.
The weird thing was the obsession with robotic animals that's not in the movie at all. I think it was meant to underline the apocalyptic world where living things have mostly disappeared.
The best thing for me about blade runner is the visual style of the movie. It spawned an entire visual genre of cyberpunk and most cyberpunk franchises still lean very heavy on this. The darkness with neon, the 80s vision of the computer, the heavy branding and Eastern influences, the music etc.
It's still my favourite genre for techno party cosplay.
What other alternative genres are out there?
Although I haven't played the game or read the book, the movie features a robotic snake, and there's dialogue about real snakes being very expensive. It seems reasonable that this would apply to other animals too.
It's neat that the adaptation for Children of Men also did this, even though it's very much in the background.
Actually, those are all good ideas. But other than Scanner Darkly, Dick's work has mostly attracted people interested in the pulpy science fiction ideas and not so much the existentialism and the critiques of mainstream religion. It's a bummer.
Then again, the whole Jesus-was-an-Engineer subplot that was dropped from that film but still alluded to also makes me doubt that Scott's take would have been particularly "nuanced".
Anyway, it is IMO incorrect to say that the book did not suggest Deckard might be an android, and likewise, the movie only hints that Deckard is a replicant.
Phillip K Dick's writing was all about mind-fucks and the difficulty of knowing what is true.
Isn't it kind of confirmed in 2049 that he isn't a replicant, though?
For me, this is one of the movies I re-watch periodically simply for the visuals - the work done on the setting in concept art and the glorious result in turning that into film. "The kind of place the crew of Alien live in when on shore leave", sure, but just a fresh look and well implemented. Certainly hugely successful on that.
Any recommendations on creative fresh looks in recent SF movies? Say the past 15 years?
Mortal Engines was fresh, silly, and fairly well done. And silly.
The Zero Theorem was quirky and worth mentioning... but... too half-assed and grunge, used-furniture that's been done many times?
Its budget was comparable to Return of The Jedi, released the year after. Both around $30 million. It wasn't a high grossing movie, it made its budget back and a bit more but did not become a box office hit.
It was a big budget movie. It had a $30m budget (which would be $100m today), which was enormous by that day's standards, making it the second most expensive movie released in 1982, after Annie (!). Meanwhile, E.T. only had a budget of $10m.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attacked ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion ... etc". Great scene, but with a bit of spacey nonsense.
I really didn't consider the philosophy of deeper meaning contained within, so the contradictions this article points out never bothered me. They still don't. Yet I agree that the discussions around this movie that have taken place for 40 years, and its revival after box office failure continue to amaze. I do love Ridley's "Final Cut" version and the sequel as well which cements Deckard's replicant status.
This guy is recutting the film with the voiceover and some extra scenes included: https://youtube.com/@kazuchoice?si=6H8c9giAb9H-BUS5
> Louis Castle has often claimed in later decades that Blade Runner did well commercially, stating at least once that it sold 1 million copies(!).
Yeah... I don't believe that either.
I couldn't guess if it did well commercially, but I know I wasn't the only kid that had it.
This makes sense with replicants who know they are replicants and are trying to avoid detection (I'm not sure why they would ever be 'programmed' to try to fake detection, the simpler explanation is that they know what the test is and are trying to avoid identification and death.) But it's different for Rachel. She thinks she is human and wouldn't be trying to game the test, yet it takes a long time for Deckard to assess her. So why is that? Either way...
...leading one to suspect that the Voight-Kampff test may not be measuring pure, unadulterated empathy in quite the way everyone seems to think it is....But in Ridley Scott’s preferred version of the film, the central theme falls apart, to be replaced with psychological horror’s equivalent of a jump scare: “Deckard himself is really a replicant, dude! What a mind fuck, huh?"
Those 2 statements contradict themselves, because Deckard himself being a replicant (who actually is never tested himself anyway) is an extension of blurring the lines between human and replicant, and what the Voight-Kampff test actually is testing (which already happens when Deckard tests Rachel.)
I feel like the idea of next-gen replicants like Rachel (and possibly Deckard) that blur the lines further is thematically consistent with the rest of the movie. I don't know what kind of social life Rachel has led, but if she has any friends or social interaction at all some sort of empathy would be needed to pass off as human. These kind of things are not explicit in the movie, which I think is mostly fine as the movie is more about the big picture of what makes us 'human', or what that even means ethically or experientially. The early replicants are basically psychotic so it's easy to have no ethical concerns about them even if they have agency and consciousness. But then what about succeeding versions that do come closer and closer to experiencing regular human existence?
The movie was made to play in Peoria, so it was written with a Cartesian conceit of "replicants" as others in the Baudrillard sense of simulacra: the story was designed to reinforce the idea that humanity is a stable fixed point of reference upon which cleverly designed machines are intruding. This was calculated to be assimilated my audiences (the movie functions as a memory implant) who are upon arrival to the theater were already operating under the delusion of thinking they're free because they have endless choices for consumption, including which movie to watch. The love story between Deckard and Rachel seems calculated as a somatic device to inhibit introspection that might further trouble and arouse viewers to the point of rejecting a challenging product.
My recollection of Deckard in the novel was that he wasn't much concerned with what constituted androids outside of narrow technical dimensions—though maybe I mis-recall my own reading? The character had his own problems. He was quintessentially American, preoccupied with status, possessions, work-a-day worries, televangelism, and somatic distractions, like the mood organ.
Stepping up a level, the open question of the story being who is building us as the robots we find ourselves to be? Of course there's no answer to this question: it begs a god a patriarchy, an orthodoxy.
That the movie took on a adoring following which is overly invested in particulars is typically ignorant fan fetish: Robots (fans) touching robots for pleasure. The cusp is the awareness that civilization is robotic.
Lucas's THX 1138 seems well informed by the ideas of PKD's Androids.
The uncanny and nihilistic aspect of the beast-machine was the central theme of Kubrick's 2001; the monolith illustrating a realm of authenticity inaccessible to us, no matter the power and complexity of the garments we attire as tribute to our uncanny of our self awareness. Kubrick's epic comes off as a depressive's longing for an extinction event that would result in a rebirth of the species (self) on some other plane of existence.
Tarkovsky's adaptation of Lem's Solaris tried to go further than Kubrick, with the observation that everything we feel is real is a regress of a universal mind, and our views of ourselves play out in some kind of Klein bottle of nature.
Blade Runner feels trite, but I truly enjoyed Villeneuve's sequel as just stomping ahead with the pre-suppositions of Scott's movie and continuing to build out its world of increasing alienation with some kind of an attractor of family and self-sacrifice in the midst of a gruesomely overdeveloped world: the star child has no immune system and so must live in a hygienic bubble with nothing to do but create memories for everyone else.
21st century Hollywood eating itself.
Within the context of a big budget Hollywood sci-fi actioner, I think it's about as reasonably deep as you could expect. None of its ideas are profound or new, but the cinematography and set design were.
Who's human is a key overt point in the novel, with Deckard wondering about the indefatigable anti-android DJ, and a subtle point, with Deckard being incapable of emotionally connecting to some common 'human' things; he is not emotionally engaged with animal care, and doesn't like the weirdo emotional gestalt device I can't recall the name of. It's right in the title -- what is different about a human, an android, and an android that thinks it's a human?
To my eyes, launched the same year ET was launched, to the same audiences, Blade Runner is right at the edge of what could have been successful. And, it is full of these fundamental questions of humanity. Unfortunately the cinema release dumbed it down with Harrison Ford's narration -- a result of the studio thinking the movie was too arthouse to play widely.
Visually and narratively, the implications are strong that Deckard is a replicant, including the weird questions about what police station is real, his ability to match Roy Batty physically, Edward James Ulmos' uncanny ability to find Deckard, and know what he's dreaming about -- it's all there in the original.
I follow your thoughts towards ET, and offer that Spielberg has already realized an epic treatment of the theme: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which he develops the idea of corporate society and daytime TV being indistinguishable from an extraterrestrial incursion. That he invited the founder of Auteur Theory and savant of the French New Wave, Francios Truffaut to emcee projects the high awareness Spielberg had of his conceits. To my mind ET merely revisited the scenario of CE3K as something that could be cross-marketed in Happy Meals, exploiting the success of Lucas' Star Wars licensing.
Ridley Scott's Alien is also trenchant commentary on the corporate/TV zeitgeist with an attack by an unstoppable libidinal force of life (Zizek referred to this idea as "lamella") that lives beneath all the levitating signifiers of the "capitalist real" (Mark Fisher).
All of these movies are first and foremost entertainment products, which so happen to code a surprising amount of reflection on the part of their auteur creators on US/UK corporatism and existential angst.
Recognizing the power of the movies on the collective mind, I'll repeat my thesis that the central consideration for PKD is "why do you think you're human?", not "how do humans distinguish androids from themselves?"
PKD created his works un-beholden to the idioms of popular culture, and I regard his oeuvre as profoundly more intellectually free than any Hollywood adaptation can be. The arrow of artist progress goes from books to movies, not the other way around, so beware of reading the movie's themes into the books. He helped carve out a place for science fiction in literature, and the popularity of cinematic adaptations of his work reveals the resonance of his themes, so read the story then look for how the movies hew to the writing.
There's a strange reversal of books adapted from movies, but even in the case of Arthur Clarke's 2001 (vs. The Sentinel) these read as fan fiction.
I guess I believe film is an independent art form, but I'm generally a reader first, so I don't mind your proposed flow book -> film for analysis. In reality, we have directors/producers/studios/actors who may or may not want a lot to do with any given book; Dune's history stands out to me here.
If I think about films that have tried to do more than the source book, Bladerunner is the only one that's even a candidate to me. I guess I just really like it!
I disagree with the assessment that Deckard possibly being a replicant takes away from the empathy premise of the movie.
After all, the empathy test itself was designed by humans; who applies it is irrelevant.
The central point of the film is that yes, the replicants can be more human than humans — and perhaps they are.
And that the fundamental cruelty isn't even treating replicants as disposable or slaves — the replicants themselves know their worth better than that, and it's the obstacle the main characters ultimately overcome.
The fundamental cruelty is the core premise that the replicants pay for their superhuman abilities with shortened lifespan - an irreversible choice that was made for them.
And at the height of their self-realization, everything that the replicants are is yanked away from them.
All of that will be gone — like tears in rain.
The movie raises the same question as Flowers for Algernon, and is ultimately a very human one.
After all, we have many examples of parents training their children from a very young age for stardom in a particular field — at the cost of depriving them of the choice. Like Tyrell, they think it's worth it; but is it right?
The other side is — given that the replicants are beings who burn twice as bright, the kind that can walk into Tyrell's office and greet the most powerful man with "Hello, fucker", the kind who get to see starships on fire on the shoulder of Orion — are they justified in feeling slighted?
And if Deckard is indeed a replicant — isn't he arguably the more boring one, being effectively just human?
And if the viewer were to discover they are a replicant - which kind would they rather be? And if they are human, then what's the point?
The famous monologue was semi-improvised by Rutger Hauer, and that speech alone adds more meaning to the movie than the author of the article allows themselves to see.
The speech is ultimately Roy's last and ultimate gift. Deckard may not see starships on fire at the shoulder of Orion, and yet those moments won't truly be gone, because he gets to live the carry on even as Roy burns out.
The scene gives an answer to the questions above: that however we were created, there is a meaning to the each life lived; and that ultimately we need each other for that meaning to exist.
For we need memories to be ourselves, and memories are need us to carry them.
The replicant/human distinction, in the end, loses significance.
The climactic moment isn't that Deckard is a replicant — it's that in the end, Roy spares Deckard's life to tell his story — and pass the torch.
It only makes sense for Deckard to be a replicant — something that Roy would know, and choose not to tell.
But whether Deckard is or isn't a replicant ultimately doesn't matter, because the film makes sense either way.
And that's the point in and of itself.
Maybe I should have recognized this earlier, but I really like this point and feel it adds depth- whether or not the screenwriters or Ridley Scott even intended it. It's not necessary for this to be the case for Batty to spare Deckard, it's also possible that recognizing his end was near he wanted to pass something on and/or communicate his life in some way to another.
> The famous monologue was improvised by Rutger Hauer
It wasn't improvised. Hauer rewrote the monologue by cutting a few words from the original script, and adding the "like tears in the rain", which he showed to Scott and Peoples, who liked it.
The original line in the script was: "I've seen things... seen things you little people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion bright as magnesium... I rode on the back decks of a blinker and watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments... they'll be gone."
Source: "Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner", great documentary about the film.
Still, what a great addition those few words were. They become the culminating chord of the entire film.
My first thought is' the fire is as bright as magnesium because it is, in fact, magnesium in the hulls (or shells) burning.
"I saw a fireplace, as hot as ignited firewood" would sound silly too.
2. Because by that point, Roy was on of the world's experts on replicants and their biology;
3. Because that provides a good explanation for why he told his story to Deckard, rather than, well, doing anything else
IMO the monologue at the end was Roy coming to terms with the end of his life. There was nothing to be gained by killing Deckard. He wanted to be remembered.
We don't know that from the film, because we don't see him fight ordinary humans.
All we can gather is that he has maybe a bit less strength than the replicants he's fighting... but still enough to come out on top every time.
Weird, huh?
>He got his ass kicked multiple times.
...by replicants with superhuman strength. And made it out just fine. No hospital or anything.
Huh.
>the monologue at the end was Roy coming to terms with the end of his life. There was nothing to be gained by killing Deckard. He wanted to be remembered
Agreeing to that.
My point was that wanting to be remembered by your executioner, who would never have the grasp of what you saw (or what you truly are), makes less sense than wanting to be remembered by one of your own kind, who you know will outlive you by a long shot.
The snake woman by is shot by Deckards large calibre handgun, gets up and keeps running. Priss, when dying goes into a spasm of inhuman twitching. Deckard never does anything like that.
Deckard by contrast is nearly killed by Roy, who toys with him. Casually dislocates his fingers, causing excruciating pain. Then puts the gun back into Deckard's mangled hand.
In the final battle, Deckard is bloody and beaten, and actually loses against Roy. Roy I think laughs off some serious damage, including smashing his own head through a wall; at the end he only stops fighting because his time is up. This isn't "maybe a bit less strength". This is a kid fighting against Mike Tyson.
I don't look at it as Deckard being strong "enough to come out on top every time", I look at is as a human with a gun, barely surviving against inhuman opponents.
cracks door open, throws in can of worms like a grenade, jumps away
But enough about Blade Runner 2049
Kidding aside, while Blade Runner 2049 is a really great movie, I cannot accept it as canonical. The original has a sense of humor, sexiness, and even tenderness that 2049 does not. The original has characters doing truly reprehensible things, but no one is outright, cartoonishly evil with incomprehensible motives as in 2049.