A PIECE OF ART

I was a teenager when BLADE RUNNER was on Madrid's movie theaters.One Sunday I went to the theater and the film was retired! I had to wait two years and I saw the VHS at last. I bought Director's Cut DVD at the begining of this Century but this edition is impossible to overcome!

WOW!!!!!
How good can a home theater DVD get!
This is everything a Blade Runner wanted AND MORE!
4 versions of the film in various cuts!
The bonus material alone is like, all the nitty-grittys you always wanted to know!
And Japanese subtitles! (I live in Japan and Japanese is my first language)
Now, all I need is that Blu-ray player!
Thank you PKD, Ricdley Scott and WB!

Classic...
You can even watch the original theatrical release in this to boot! Buy it! Watch it!

Maybe it seemed great in 1982...
I had from time to time heard that this was a movie of major importance, with an incredible world created in it. I finally rented it a couple of weeks ago in the "Final Cut" version. After watching it, I had to ask, "What was so great about that?" Four androids come to earth and must be killed by a bounty hunter. He goes out and kills them one at a time. End of story. So...?

I find nothing morally compelling about the story. The plot is very straightforward. Is it supposed to make us think about the ethics of android life? Maybe now the idea of androids is so commonplace (thanks to Mr. Data) that I am simply jaded to them. I think clones (The 6th Day) are a far more morally compelling issue these days, since it seems that it may actually become technologically feasible to create human clones in the foreseeable future.

As for the world created in Blade Runner, the only thing that really caught my eye were the two huge pyramid-shaped buildings that seem to be modeled on the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico.

What has actually compelled me to write this review is the fact that I just read the book Bladerunner, since I happened to find it in the library. There is nothing in the movie that even suggests the fact revealed in the book, that the earth has been through a major, hugely destructive war. The movie is packed with people, while the book sounds rather depopulated. The Mercerism religion that is so pivotal in the book is not even hinted at in the movie.

The relationship between the book and the movie is about the same as that between the book Logan's Run and the movie Logan's Run. In each case, the book and the movie share a title, a few general similarities between the fictitious worlds, and a faintly similar plot. But in fact, in each case, there is so little similarity between the book and the movie that you have to wonder whether giving them the same name is really justified. Both books are products of the late Sixties. Logan's Run is from 1976 and Blade Runner is from 1982, not too far apart. The relationship between the books and their movies is equally distant. There must have been something in the air in Hollywood around that time...

For True Science Fiction Fans
Believe it or not, this is the first and only version of Blade Runner that I've seen. I understand that there have been many different versions over the years, but this one, The Final Cut, is supposed to be the end-all-be-all.

Supposedly, the director, Ridley Scott, never intended the studio-mandated Harrison Ford narration in the original version. In this new, definitive release, Scott cuts the narration, adds a few scenes, and cleans up a lot of the special effects. Reportedly, other than the narration, there isn't a whole lot different (though I've been told the omission of the narration makes the movie far more ambiguous).

I'm sure you already know this, but Blade Runner is about a man named Rick Deckard who is brought out of retirement to hunt a pack of rogue replicants, androids who appear human in every way and are forced to do the labor in space that humans won't or can't. It's obviously set in the future, 2019 to be exact, and Scott provides a terrifying but realistic take on a world overrun by people, pollution, and commercialism. Every scene is dark and wet, and the film really suffocates the viewer with its dystopian outlook.

(Spoilers Ahead)

In his hunt, Deckard runs across a replicant played by Sean Young who doesn't even know she's a replicant, and he takes a love interest in her. After a brutal and violent showdown with the last of the rogue replicants eerily played by Rutger Hauer, Deckard must deal with the fact that no replicants are to be left in public, and so what is he to do with Young's character?

(Major Spoilers Ahead)

I suppose a major argument against The Final Cut is that the omission of the voice over no longer makes it obvious that Deckard is a replicant himself. Allegedly, at the end of the movie, Edward James Olmos' character leaves a paper doll unicorn outside of Deckard's apartment when Deckard returns to run away with Young's character. This unicorn, some say, is an obvious clue that Olmos knew Deckard's memories because Deckard dreamt of a unicorn, thus making him a replicant.

I don't see it that way. Olmos left paper dolls everywhere of various animals throughout the entire movie. I believe Olmos left the paper unicorn outside Deckard's apartment as a sign his character could have killed Young's character, but chose to let Deckard try to live a life with her instead. The unicorn is coincidental in the literal sense, but I believe it figuratively is a metaphor representing Deckard's dreams now have a chance at reality with the sparing of Young's character and a chance at love.

(End Major Spoilers)

I was surprised at all the big names in this movie, though I guess, other than Ford, they weren't very big names at the time. I found Ford's acting stiff and difficult to watch, but everyone else did an adequate job. The real pleasure of this movie came from the sets. The special effects were impressive in their day, but I've never seen such a realistic depiction of a city gone to hell.

I don't know if I'd recommend Blade Runner: The Final Cut to the general movie audience, but I think any science fiction fan would really enjoy it on a variety of levels.

~Scott William Foley, author of The Imagination's Provocation: Volume II: A Collection of Short Stories