The Art and Beauty of Blade Runner (2015) | Hacker News Reader

The Art and Beauty of Blade Runner (2015)

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I love the film but for a long time I really disliked that Ridley Scott changed the plot.

To me Scott's idea that Deckard is a replicant but doesn't know it is just weak. Even the idea that they would make a replicant hunter that's weaker than the "basic pleasure model" it's designed to hunt doesn't work.

I think Scott shoe-horned his change in after the fact and he's had to keep releasing new edits because it doesn't really fit.

PKD's original plot themes are much richer and deeper:

The purpose of this story as I saw it was that in his job of hunting and killing these replicants, Deckard becomes progressively dehumanized.

At the same time, the replicants are being perceived as becoming more human.

Finally, Deckard must question what he is doing, and really what is the essential difference between him and them? And, to take it one step further, who is he if there is no real difference?

— Philip K. Dick

> At the same time, the replicants are being perceived as becoming more human.

Surely this is what the acknowledged replicants in the film do, particularly Roy Batty when he saves Deckard?

I was a great PKD fan (collected his books), and was a little disappointed when the film first came out, but it does grow on you.

Absolutely, having Deckard be a "weak" replicant makes no narrative sense, and it also makes no sense thematically. It's about a human hunting machines and finding the humanity in the machines and discovering what humanity is lacking in himself. It's important that the line is blurred, but it's also important that he's not actually a replicant.

If a "person" is not weak, it is easy for "it" to start suspecting that it is a replicant.

Furthermore, the biggest problem with replicants coming to Earth en masse is that they could overwhelm police forces. Deckard both "fits in" to his bureau (as a mostly independent officer), and isn't really powerful enough to threaten existing forces.

I just want a version that includes the prophet Mercer stuff.

felt like a huge component to drop out.

> I think Scott shoe-horned his change in after the fact

The effect used in at least one indoor scene, in which Harrison Food is filmed with his eyes glowing like the other replicants, is an in-camera effect and the decision to use it was made prior to filming.

> Finally, Deckard must question what he is doing, and really what is the essential difference between him and them? And, to take it one step further, who is he if there is no real difference?

Honestly, that is still what I get from Ridley Scott’s version.

> Even the idea that they would make a replicant hunter that's weaker than the "basic pleasure model" it's designed to hunt doesn't work.

I don't disagree with your points, but one explanation is that Deckard was made for the purpose of passing as human and had to be kept ignorant that he was a replicant as that would likely affect his job performance. If he was made stronger than other people, then it would have tipped him off as to his nature.

That does then raise the question of why Tyrell would present Rachael as being his most "human" creation unless he was testing/playing with Deckard to see what happens when replicants start to replicate.

Also, isn't it a major plot point that replicants are not allowed on Earth?

So Deckard being a replicant operating on Earth is illegal; making his status as a replicant "obvious", by endowing him with superhuman traits (or even self-knowledge) would be ill-advised!

First, I don't see Blade Runner as a film version of DADOES - it's inspired by it, but it's its own story. Scott took all the liberties he wanted in the script and movie. I think the movie does a excellent job of leaving Deckard questioning his humanity, the replicants' humanity, and what it means to be human. It's not a super-hero movie, I don't even think of Deckard as a hero. The replicants' strength is a product attribute that they happen to use as they become more human and rebel. And hunting replicants is not about strength or reflexes, it's police work. As others pointed, if Deckard had the same super-human abilities, there'd be no doubt, no uncertainty. Even Rachel, who we are let know is a replicants, she's starting to suspect, but we are never told what Deckard's condition - we are as much in the dark as he is. This is what this movie is about, and this is where I find it is most faithful to PKD's story.

The other thing that always strikes me when rewatching Blade Runner, is just how much time to breathe every little scene is given. Maybe a little too much time in some of the longer director's cuts, but it's a really stark contrast to a lot of lesser films, that try and pack as many story beats as they can into their runtime.

Most new sci-fi/action movies are like that. Ones that cater to younger viewers are so bad I've had to walk out of movie theaters because I felt my senses were under assault. Fortunately there are traditional directors like Villeneuve.

It's not just sci-fi/action. There have been many articles written about the increase in edit cadence in all movies. One of the biggest comments about older films is how "slow" movies were.

One of the examples I've seen goes something like: Wide shot of bank of elevators. Man walks up to elevator to push the button. Cut to close up of dial showing which floor the elevator is on showing the indicator moving back to first floor. A ding is heard indicating the elevator has arrived. Cut to wide shot showing doors opening, people exiting, man entering elevator. Cut to interior of elevator to see man choose floor and doors close. Now, you see the man walk to the elevator bank, hit the button, and then cut to the doors opening as man exits.

Was the norm in the 70s, and into the early 80s. My memory is that the turning point to quick cuts was after MTV and music videos became popular (1982+). I remember old folks complaining about the “attention span” of young people.

Watching the old movies today, I do think that the 70s films are too slow and 90s+ films too aggressive with cuts. Would be nice to balance, or have important scenes breathe while others get chopped. Most movies are too long these days as well.

The film itself was criticized as “Blade Crawler” back in the day.

I think a lot of the change can be contributed to FX becoming cheaper, easier and better. It created a race to the bottom for the most visually spectacular movie. And when it’s cheaper, you can throw more in at the same budget. Then the next movie has to throw even more in to outdo their predecessor.

Though I’m not disagreeing that culturally we have been on a steep downwards decline with regards to our attention span.

Digital effects also look a lot worse (as in, less believable) than real special effects, pyrotechnics, etc., and I think the quick editing also has to do with that. You have to make a lot of cuts and shaky shots in order to not let viewers' eyes rest on the CGI's uncanny valley for too long and realise how wrong it looks.

I watched the first Rambo very late, only about two years ago, and I was amazed at how much better the explosions look than in any movie I've seen in the past two decades. You can afford to actually show what's happening when it looks that good.

I've noticed a similar thing in martial arts movies. You can save a lot of effort and money with the quick, frantic editing. The alternative is that the choreography and cinematography have to be really on point. If you just shake the camera around a lot and do a cut every second, you can get away with amateurish fighters doing whatever, nobody will really notice.

I completely agree regarding modern movies.

I recently watched the Borderlands movie and while it had its obvious faults, the biggest flaw in my opinion was the jarring pace that one scene would switch into the next. That movie had a short runtime so could easily have been extended to let each scene breathe a little more and I think that alone would have drawn people in the world building a lot better.

I do think with SciFi, the world-building aspect needs to be front and centre, otherwise it’s impossible to switch off the “well that couldn’t happen in real life” part of your brain.

Another annoying one is lazy and simplistic morality, which just ruins the story. Arcane had huge potential, great pacing, interesting characters, but failed on that front.

In general, modern media rarely lets the viewer make his own judgement about the morality of the situation. You're usually given a sermon rather than philosophical conundrum for your to think about.

One of the reasons why I liked The Good Place so much was because they did playful treatments on various philosophical points, without spoon feeding a solution.

Let me share this "fake" trailer i made for obscure polish movie that's is heavily inspired by Blade Runner visuals - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxfTouivTBY

It's called O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization (1985).

Another thing that might amuse Blade Runner nerds is my attempt at recreating Blimp advertisement video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK1LJKtHj6Y

Of the sci-fi genre for me it will always be #1. The whole thing is just perfect, there's no other movie that comes close to the world that is envisioned in Blade Runner.

Terminator #1 and #2 are probably more realistic though, despite the time travel.

But nowhere close to the emotional impact.

People usually do not remember what happened turn by turn but they do remember what it made them feel.

Funnily enough, in the movie, the humans have little no feelings but the androids do -- and that is the central question that the movie made me consider -- what makes us human.

I am ofcourse biased because Blade Runner (original) is not only on my top 5 scifi movie list but also on my top 5 movie list. So much so that I am reluctant to watch 2049.

I think Blade Runner and Alien helped destroy mainstream science fiction.

Before Blade Runner almost anything could be science fiction. After Blade Runner science fiction meant detective noir with #tech_upgrade - clones, memory implants, dystopia. Or it was US truckers and/or the military fighting nasty aliens in spaaaaaaace. (Star Wars and its magic space knights was always more fantasy with a science fiction stage set.)

Blade Runner did it far better than the others, but then we had decades of mostly mediocre book knock-offs, especially in the UK. (Gibson gets a pass for taking the new trope even further by being a brilliant stylist, mixing in some tech orientalism, and inventing cyberspace.)

It's a stunning, iconic masterpiece of a movie with an unfortunate chilling cultural effect.

And ironically the Philip K Dick original was... very different.

> And ironically the Philip K Dick original was... very different.

True. Ridley Scott and Philip K Dick collaborated very closely to tell it like they wanted it to. Studios liked it ... not so much.

Pretty sure Star Wars destroyed mainstream science fiction in film.

Close. Star Trek. Cheapened the entirety of the genre.

>Before Blade Runner almost anything could be science fiction. After Blade Runner science fiction meant detective noir with #tech_upgrade - clones, memory implants, dystopia.

If only.

Moon. Contact. Interstellar. Gravity. Project Hail Mary.

None of these fit those tropes.

It didn't destroy anything; it just set a mold for the next few decades that was used to cookie-cut copies from. It cut a rut, and movie execs LOOOOVE a profitable rut to wallow in.

(Gibson gets a pass for taking the new trope even further by being a brilliant stylist, mixing in some tech orientalism, and inventing cyberspace.)

Gibson was horrified after walking out of a theater after seeing Blade Runner; in that Scott had visualized and shown onscreen the aesthetic of (at that point unpublished) Neuromancer.

> But nowhere close to the emotional impact

It may be trite but “Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too.” gets me every single time

I disagree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHKxoARmjLU&pp=ygUYdGVybWluY...

I most liked that just before his death Roy crafted some poetry. Creating Art? Isn't that what it means to be human?

To me, the whole point of Batty's final scene is his empathy. PKD made a big point of empathy being the defining quality of humans and even the Voight-Kampff test relies on it.

What if Batty saved Deckart to tell him about things he saw? Not for empathy to Deckart, but just to tell a story.

Because, frankly, he may as well try not to kill Deckart, at all. For empathy. Or ask Deckart about how does he do, instead of going into monologue.

I think that's a less interesting story if Batty doesn't develop and has only his self-interest.

I interpret the ending as Batty coming to the end of his life and realising that all life is precious, not just his own. That's why he saves Deckard after toying with him and then goes into his final monologue that taunts Deckard with how much more of a human life that Batty has experienced.

Of course, there's all the Christ symbolism with Batty's "crucified" hand and how he saves Deckard despite him killing all his friends and intending to kill him as well.

> I interpret the ending as Batty coming to the end of his life and realising that all life is precious, not just his own.

The voiceover in the original theatrical version makes this very explicit, in fact.

There are some acting missteps that unfortunately flaw the film for me.

Harrison Ford is not very good in it—perhaps not a great actor generally. His pretending to be a nerd/fan in Zhora's dressing room is too cringey to watch it's so bad… I feel like I'm watching Mickey Rooney playing Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

And the actor that played Leon (Brion James) is also difficult to watch (he was a distraction in The Fifth Element as well).

My only complaints though.

I thought Brion James was fantastic in The Fifth Element because he's one of the few slapstick outlets. He comes off as sorta military-scary, and ends up frozen like a Looney-Tunes popsicle in the freezer a few minutes later , and dead-pan military is a kind-of-funny partner to Corbin being an outlaw bachelor. He then remains the dead-pan receiver of abuse from the president, etc.

I agree about Harrison Ford, though I don't know who would've done it better at that moment in history.

aside : The Fifth Element is considered to be one of the noisiest distracting sci-fi movies ever, so to hear your main distraction was Brion James made me grin.

>because he's one of the few slapstick outlets

Huh? Between Kassovitz trying to rob Corbin, the priest's sidekick, the head scientist, the archeologist with "Aziz, light!", the Chris Rock character, Corbins "fake wife" suggestion, the space port ticket counter gags, the president, and several others, the movie hardly has "few" slapstick outlets.

Oh, love the energy and pace of The Fifth Element, Brion James was the wrong kind of distraction. :-/

> I thought Brion James was fantastic in The Fifth Element because he's one of the few slapstick outlets.

Did we watch the same movie? The opera singer was the ONLY character that wasn't slapstick...

>His pretending to be a nerd/fan in Zhora's dressing room is too cringey to watch it's so bad

He's not pretending to be a nerd/fan. He's pretending to be a spineless small-time bureucrat doing an inspection that nervous with her.

You're probably right, but it doesn't excuse Ford's hackneyed performance.

WTF are you talking about?! Brion James was fantastic in Blade Runner!

Yeah, I would go so far as to say highlight of his career. Extremely, extremely good, like can't look away good. I suppose it's all just opinion at some level, but this is sticking out like a sore thumb is perhaps the hardest one to defend that I'm seeing in the whole thread.

I remember so many details of his brief appearances in that movie, but what really stands out are his eyes -- intense, fearful, paranoid, menacing. (Suitable, given that scene where Deckard and Leon extract J. F. Sebastian's name.)

He almost always played a thug or heavy, and so I'm not sure what other film of his could have ranked higher than this. His scene sitting across the table from Holden is classic.

I don't remember him playing a heavy in The King is Alive, which is not a classic but a rather dark Dogme 95 film, of all things.

Harrison Ford is not very good in it—perhaps not a great actor generally. His pretending to be a nerd/fan in Zhora's dressing room is too cringey to watch it's so bad…

Harrison Ford is playing Rock Deckard, a detective (not an actor) who hunts down artificial humans. At least to begin with, he and his fellow detectives don't have much respect for the replicants, so he thinks it will be easy to manipulate Zhora and get some information out of her before he kills her.

> And the actor that played Leon (Brion James) is also difficult to watch (he was a distraction in The Fifth Element as well).

Wow, couldn't disagree more. I mean, Brion James wasn't a good actor, but he aced his role of Leon. Leon is weird, awkward and insecure, while also capable of great violence... which fit Brion perfectly.

Same. The atmosphere it creates is still unmatched.

I wish I hadn’t watched BR2049. Felt like a cheap parody, from the torrents of water falling on the windows, to the fake light effects, to the cartoonish villain who of course had to butcher a human-looking replicant while monologuing in order to get a proper introduction.

Felt like Villeneuve agonized & sweated blood trying to make a homage to the original film (whose own appeal was not immediately grasped at release); which ended up not letting his own movie be as good as it could've been.

I felt the same way about BR2049. I know some people love it, but to me it was an unnecessary movie that did nothing better than the original, and it only cheapened some of the characters. Also, Jared Leto: I simply cannot stand his scenery chewing, even if he was in the movie only for a few minutes.

And now there will be a TV show... facepalm.

This came up about a month ago when someone posted a link celebrating the title cards in Blade Runner. I responded then the same way I will respond now: it’s not just the amazing visuals, it’s also the amazing auditory experience, an additional creative dimension to transport the audience into a dystopian future.

The audio consists of two parts: the wonderful minimalist score by Vangelis, and sound effects that include distant booms, twinkling computer notes, dripping rain, strange languages, the whoosh of futuristic vehicles, even small details such as the crosswalk warning. Along with the set design, photography, special effects, acting, and other visual elements, the audio effectively immerses viewers into this incredible world and story.

Keep in mind that a typical viewer entering the local cineplex in 1982 to watch Blade Runner might have just stepped out of a Chevy Nova with an 8-track cassette player loaded with Juice Newton and Kool & The Gang. The visuals, the score, the sound effects, and the story would have been completely novel, and totally mind-blowing.

I stepped in to watch it in 1982. Didn't like it much. But rewatching it over the years, it grew on me.

The re-cuts are definitely an improvement on the original theatrical release. It's a matter of taste, but for me Director's Cut is the better.

I wonder if part of that is that Blade Runner doesn't optimize for the first viewing. Once you already know where the plot is going, your attention is free to wander into the production design, sound, background activity

But it does! (Or did)

The first theatrical release had a drab narration by Harrison Ford. At places it makes it sound like a cheap film noir detective story.

The Directors Cut is the unbutchered version.

Maybe 4D chess by Ridley Scott. Most had seen the optimized version first and was prepared for the magic which is the recut version ;-)

I have the opposite feeling with Apocalypse Now. The Redux version killed the pacing and explained too much. The added scenes are by themselves worthwhile (and explains later actions) but makes the complete movie a bit heavy handed.

By comparison Blade Runner feels more ethereal even though the both cover dark subjects of human nature.

> The Directors Cut is the unbutchered version.

The Director's Cut (released in 1992) drops the narration and adds the dream sequence, but despite the name is not entirely approved by Ridley Scott.

The Final Cut (released in 2007) is the only version where Ridley Scott had full final cut approval. It re-masters the audio, fixes some of the effects (replacing faces on stunt doubles, removing wires, etc), and changes a few lines (most notably "I want more life, father" instead of "fucker"). The color is also re-graded.

Some people prefer the Director's Cut over the Final Cut, especially the color grading, although I saw the Final Cut in 35mm when it was released and it looked pretty spectacular. In any event the changes in the Final Cut are nowhere near as egregious as the Star Wars special editions or the AI remasters of James Cameron's films.

Yup. It's one of those weird and rare movies that grows on you the number of times you watch it. I have watched it at different ages. The later I have watched the better it seemed.

> someone posted a link celebrating the title cards in Blade Runner.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49189287

The highlight of my summer was Blade Runner Live At the Acropolis. The movie was shown in the ancient theater with a live orchestra performing Vangelis.

They may have a global tour of it in some places this fall.

Wow... The venue almost adds another layer to the movie. You're watching a 1982 vision of 2019, accompanied by live electronic-orchestral music, inside a theater built a couple thousand years ago...

Also Vangelis was pretty much inspired by Byzantine Greek Music which was inspired by Ancient Greek music which was played in the ancient theater 2 millennia ago.

Oh vow. Now jealous. My highlight that can even dare to come close would be a Roger Waters show.

Would love to experience the three *katsis in such a setting.

The sound is probably why the visuals feel so much larger than the sets actually were

The audio was good but after I listened to it many times, I started to dislike it. On the other hand, for instance, the Conan the barbarian main themes I can always listen to numerous times.

I think Blade Runner stands out for the visual effects though. The dystopian future cities were great. It were these effects packed into a storyline why I did not want to watch the "sequel".

>audio

It's another of those movies which uses light extremely effectively, also.

In fact I've heard it said that every single shot in Blade Runner carefully deals with light specifically.

I agree. The other week I saw this at a movie theater. I was blown away by the audio experience. So much better than watching it on my subpar home audio.

It was a cool experience to watch this on the big screen.

Just your description makes me want to watch it again twice, and one of those times is with my eyes closed.

I saw Blade Runner in its first theater run, and I was bored. But it stayed with me, and decided that I had to watch it again. And again and again, and I've now seen in dozens of times over the years. It is one of my favorites, for the completeness of the world, for the visuals, for the music, for the ideas, for the acting, for the little details I keep discovering.

Ridley Scott's idea of the scifi future being as gritty, ugly and dysfunctional as current times led to his creation of his two scifi masterpieces -- Blade Runner and Alien. The sequels have been disappointing, they had to be.

> The sequels have been disappointing, they had to be.

Scott never owned the rights to Blade Runner and wasn't heavily involved in 2049.

It shows. The script. The choice of actors. Clumsy scenes, like the fight scene at the casino with its stiff choreography. The pointless "virtual girlfriend" subplot. The location for the shoots (Hungary IIRC) which really limited the pool of extras - hardly a single Asian person to be seen.

Some of the people who worked on the film tried their best, including the CGI and set designers and the score (by Hans Zimmer) but I could only watch it once from beginning to end in IMAX. The second time at home I had to stop halfway through.

I had modest expectations going in (I mean, how could it possibly compare?). But it was still disappointing. I expected so much better from Denis Villeneuve. Unfortunately, he seems to have veered into big-budget pretentious scifi schlock.

I had to leave the IMAX showing of 2049, it was deafening (and I'm already hard of hearing!) Saw the whole thing in an ordinary non-IMAX theater, which was much more tolerable.

I was disappointed with BR2049 but thought his Dune adaptation is actually good...

Ridley Scott is perhaps not quite as script-centric as Martin Scorsese or able to make a multi-faceted movie like Spielberg or visual effects heavy as George Lucas. However had, Ridley Scott has by far the best visual eye and is also able to draw like a professional designer, which the others can't. I think the best example for this can be seen in both Alien (first one) and Gladiator. In Gladiator he was much more professional from A to Z, but I think the first Alien is even more impressive if you look at it. The camera work is brilliant (Martin also has great camera work in Taxi Driver, but in Alien the effect is IMO much more profound) and the work around for visual problems (depicting the alien without it looking like garbage) was really epic. It is not easily possible to rank directors, but from a visual point of view, Ridley is probably the best individual (visual) artist as such (note: I refer to his abilities, not to the final product, which may not require as much individual artistic prowess, in other words, Martin may not be able to draw something with a pencil, but the end result movie has strong visual effects - see the desert scene in Casino or the "Do I amuse you?" scene in Goodfellas).

It's amazing that Blade Runner looks as good as anything that has come since. And sounds way better.

My local Regal is playing it on September 12th. Can’t wait to see it again in theaters.

I watched it a week or two ago at my local Picture House (at FACT). Had a great time!

The sound especially feels almost impossible to date

Genuine craft and human ingenuity can be a wonderful thing. Technology is a force multiplier and it's not always going to lead to better results in lesser hands.

In general there's also a problem that cinematography has gone to hell in filmmaking, because they want to be able to incorporate CGI more (cost) effectively and that means things like proper lighting and color grading is no longer utilized.

"thicknesse"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49347543

It’s one of the very few immersive masterpieces where all elements complement each other: script, acting, score, production design, lighting, cinematography. The core vision was so brilliant that even short-sighted studio bosses couldn't destroy it with a butchered edit.

Alien is the same imho, hard to believe two of the most iconic sci fi's were created by the same guy and only 3 years apart.

Many aspects have already been mentioned, all great in their own right, that lifts the movie into timeless greatness. I'd like to add one more. The stunning beauty and performance of Sean Young.

https://youtu.be/vIdlYzbugT8