[HN Gopher] Blade Runner' at 40: Ridley Scott Masterpiece Is Sti...
___________________________________________________________________
Blade Runner' at 40: Ridley Scott Masterpiece Is Still the Greatest
of All-Time
Author : gumby
Score : 157 points
Date : 2022-06-26 20:42 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.esquire.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.esquire.com)
| Sporktacular wrote:
| Ridley Scott is a middling, hit and miss director who has said
| that if something does well he'll follow up with sequels. It's a
| kind of throw it at the wall and see what sticks approach as
| opposed to committing to a vision and knowing when to let it end.
|
| Blade Runner was an ambitious, pretty, ambient but also boring
| film. To refer to it as the GOAT is hyperbolic. To call Scott a
| genius etc. because of Blade Runner is also unjustified because
| all its strengths trace directly to PKD, Syd Mead, Jordan
| Cronenweth etc.
|
| It's one seriously overhyped film. All subjective of course, but
| then so are such articles and they arguably add to the hype.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I agree, and Blade Runner is very dated (80s fashion and
| music). Alien on the other hand hasn't aged a bit, and along
| 2001 and Star Wars really defined scifi movies. The same guy
| reinvented peplums with Gladiator, and war movies with Black
| Hawk Down. I think it's enough to justify all the misses.
|
| You can download IMDB's database as flat files. It is
| interesting to see the evolution of imdb ratings over a
| director's career. Some are remarkably stable like Woody Allen
| or Martin Scorsese. Some others falter like Brian de Palma.
| Ridley Scott has some ups and down but is fairly stable over a
| long career.
| dm8 wrote:
| Blade Runner is one of those movies that gets better every time
| you watch. First time I watched it, I was thoroughly bored. But
| over the years I seem to appreciate the deeper meaning under it.
| It tries to present some fundamental questions - "what separates
| humans from robot/AI?, Is it the act of humans giving birth to
| other humans or feelings or deeds?, Is robot/AI superior to human
| or vice a versa?"
|
| For those who find this movie boring, I'd recommend reading the
| book - "Do Androids dream of electric sheep" and maybe then watch
| the movie.
|
| I was born after it was released yet I find it's imagery unique
| even now. Every frame feels like an elaborate painting/artwork. I
| can imagine how innovative might've been when it was first
| released in early eighties.
| [deleted]
| tim333 wrote:
| Meh - it's quite good.
|
| On IMDB rankings the best three are Inception, The Empire Strikes
| Back and The Matrix.
| [deleted]
| jmyeet wrote:
| I am one of the 11 people on Earth that hates coffee. "Hate"
| isn't strong enough. Even "despises" I'm not sure goes far
| enough. It tastes disgusting to me. I can't even stand the smell.
| This has led me at times to wonder if I'm crazy or if everyone
| else is. I do notice a ton of people consume a ton of sugar in
| their coffee so it seems like many don't really like coffee. They
| like sugar. But I digresss.
|
| I have the same "am I crazy?" thoughts with Blade Runner. Unlike
| coffee it's not _bad_ (subjectively). I just don 't get the hype.
|
| It's a product of its time too. I'd put it in the 80s Cyberpunk
| bucket where the noir surroundings and mega corporations are a
| product of xenophobia, basically. There were genuine fears the
| Japanese were "taking over". And Blade Runner reflects this
| zeitgeist. In Blade Runner it's the Tyrell Corporation. In Aliens
| it was the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.
|
| Rutger Hauer did give a good performance and there were some good
| lines [1] but I'd never put it in my list of top films. Not even
| my list of top sci-fi films. It is better than Interstellar
| though, which is trash, so there's that.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRxHYHPzs7s
| ardit33 wrote:
| you sound like those type of guys that try to be 'cool' by
| disliking what other people like.
|
| Blade Runner is a great movie for its time and it has inspired
| a lot of artists. It is a Noir (Sci-fi), and the type of movie
| that only adults would appreciate, due to its storyline. If you
| are under 25, probably it is not a good movie for you.
|
| Same with 2001: A Space Odyssey, which came much earlier. any
| other movies of the time.
|
| Also Interstellar is very unique in one major aspect: They had
| to model true science (and maybe made a discovery) when they
| modeled the look of light around the super massive Black Hole.
| 5 years later, the real black hole halo pictures came out, and
| the movie got it spot on.
|
| You might not like the story, but good movies like that try to
| predict the future. They often miss, but sometimes get it
| right. Blade Runner deals with AI, Androids, and the question
| of 'What is human'. We might face this issue if General AI
| becomes a thing 50 years down the road.
| baal80spam wrote:
| I can only recommend "The science of Interstellar" book as a
| great companion to the movie, explaining the physics side of
| it. As for Interstellar itself, I watched it the year it came
| out and I thought it was a pretty cool science-fiction movie.
| I rewatched it last year sometime after my father died of
| covid and I appreciated it from a whole different angle.
| Suffice to say, I don't remember the last time I cried
| watching a movie.
| cowmix wrote:
| The _only_ reason I give people like you a pass on hating on
| Blade Runner is I, personally, can 't stand The Matrix -- which
| has made me a pariah with my peer group for over 20 years now.
| divs1210 wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| Blade Runner seems to age like wine, and becomes more poignant
| with each re-watch.
|
| It has a good pace, amazing visuals, asks tough questions, has
| some really good action sequences, etc.
|
| Of course, everyone is looking for different things in movies
| and the experience is highly subjective.
|
| Blade Runner will always be one of my favorites - right there
| with Contact, They Live, Jurassic Park, and other top-notch
| SciFi films.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Starship Troopers, don't forget Starship Troopers.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| Starship troopers was a masterpiece. Don't mock it.
| aglavine wrote:
| Blade Runner was truly original.And it was truly copied all
| over the place.
| HorizonXP wrote:
| I have to ask then, what films do you like better than
| Interstellar?
| fb03 wrote:
| I was also baffled by the "interstellar is trash" line. Maybe
| I watched it wrong.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I didn't love Interstellar the first time I saw it.
|
| When I watched Inception for the first time I walked out of
| the theatre in love with that movie (and I still am), but,
| leaving Interstellar I felt confused and underwhelmed.
|
| Perversely I think I was actually very overwhelmed by
| Interstellar because after seeing it many times in the
| almost a decade since it came out (oh my god how has it
| been 10 years) it's become one of my favorite films, but,
| there is just so much going on that it was difficult to
| connect with it on the first viewing.
| Joeri wrote:
| I had a similar experience. It is one of my favorite
| scifi movies, and it gets better with every viewing. I
| think it also resonates especially because I have a young
| daughter myself. The soundtrack though, that clicked
| right away. I never get tired of that soundtrack. In
| fact, I would say it is my favorite soundtrack of any
| movie ever made.
| turdit wrote:
| ghaff wrote:
| Countless SF films. I found Interstellar very middle-drawer.
| I didn't hate it but certainly wasn't wowed by it.
| corrral wrote:
| It was a fine excuse to have a few big-budget sci-fi themed
| FX spectacles.
|
| Could have stood to be a full hour shorter, though.
| jmyeet wrote:
| My view is a little more negative because of all the hype it
| gets but only a little. It's just a bad movie.
|
| SPOILER WARNING
|
| To understand the plot structure (such that it is) in
| Interstellar, you have to start with the writer's desire for
| the emotional ending of the main character with his daughter,
| who is now old. Everything that happens in the movie is a
| really forced way to reach that outcome.
|
| The whole watch time-travel thing was more of that illogical
| nonsense in service of that conclusion.
|
| The time dilation to make all this happens just doesn't work
| that way. You have to get to a significant percentage of c
| before time dilation becomes really noticeable. For example,
| at 0.9c you're still only at ~2x time dilation [1].
|
| The gravity effects of the black hole don't make sense
| either.
|
| The "science" of Interstellar is no more realistic than Star
| Trek or Starship Troopers.
|
| [1]: https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I mean I agree, on the other hand if it's no more realistic
| perhaps this means that the fiction part of science fiction
| actually takes precedence despite coming second and thus is
| actually not any sort of evidence of its being a bad movie.
| airstrike wrote:
| Risky Business
| kennywinker wrote:
| > It's a product of its time too. I'd put it in the 80s
| Cyberpunk bucket where the noir surroundings and mega
| corporations are a product of xenophobia, basically.
|
| This is a super interesting critique of basically everything
| cyberpunk, that I've only recently come across. I still don't
| totally buy the xenophobia angle, because to me it just came
| across as a projection of hyper-corporate/capitalist. Like it's
| an extrapolation out from where we were, but the problem isn't
| that it's foreigners, it's that it's hyper-capitalist. In blade
| runner the world has been globalized to the point where we
| don't recognize downtown LA, but that's not actually what's
| wrong with the world - big faceless corporations and
| environmental destruction are what's wrong with the world.
| While the environment itself is heavily influenced by asian
| imagery, Tyrell and Weyland-Yutani aren't very _strongly_ coded
| asian. i.e. Tyrell is run by an Elon Musk type engineer-ceo,
| and Weyland is a decidedly white name to go along with the
| Yutani part.
|
| I'm still digesting this idea tho, I definitely need to re-
| watch with this in mind. There is definitely some playing with
| xenophobia there, just... how much? and is it re-enforcing it,
| or is it challenging it?
| jmyeet wrote:
| To be clear, you shouldn't discount the movie because it's
| intertwined anti-Japense sentiment of the time. It's simply
| more context.
|
| You cannot separate art from the time when it was created.
| It's why you see a lot of countercultural themes in 1960s
| movies, for example.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Listen, if I've managed to get this far without discounting
| the movie despite the blatant and jarring non-consensual
| sex scene presented as a love scene, I'm not about to let
| some mild xenophobia stop me.
|
| Some of my favorite pieces of art are deeply flawed. What's
| important is understanding what ideas they contain, so you
| don't just uncritically and subconsciously believe those
| ideas. The xenophobia in cyberpunk idea is jarring to me
| because I wasn't really aware of it, and if it is there, it
| means I have some unexamined biases that hid it from me.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Tyrell is of Scandinavian origin, Eldon Tyrell was played by
| Joe Turkel, the name in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep was
| the Rosen corporation. I figure it was more fear of Germanic
| people than Japanese.
| jmyeet wrote:
| The Philip K. Dick book dates from the 60s so it doesn't
| really fit into the 80s Japanese xenophobia zeitgeist.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| yes, nor does the movie. Eldon Tyrell is not Japanese,
| Tyrell is not a Japanese or even an Asiatic sounding name,
| Rachel is not Japanese.
|
| Yutani is a Japanese name, Weyland-Yutani sounds like the
| merger of an Occidental and Oriental firm.
|
| I was not supporting the Japanese xenophobia zeitgeist idea
| vis-a-vis the names, I was indicating that the name itself
| (in Blade Runner) did not support it and indicating that
| from the source material of the book it was not supported.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> I figure it was more fear of Germanic people than
| Japanese._
|
| Probably a combination of both to represent the Axis, in the
| book even the Soviets are also still around and the Cold War
| actually went hot, which is what lead to thermonuclear WWIII
| that left Earth increasingly inhabitable.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > I just don't get the hype.
|
| IMO, much depends on when you were born.
|
| When it came out, Blade Runner was truly something else _and_
| rode in on multiple deep cultural vibes of that era (e.g.
| Japan, Vangelis 's synth music, etc...).
|
| Second, the book it was based on (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
| /Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_...) was _also_ quite unique in
| the SF genre of that era, as was the author (Phil K Dick).
|
| The thing is : on top of that, amazingly enough, the visuals /
| art direction has aged rather well, going from what was a
| futuristic vibe at the time to something that now looks
| steampunk-ish.
|
| I must confess to being boringly average when it comes the
| Blade Runner: I do love the movie, and it is certainly in my
| top ten sci-fi movies list.
| ghaff wrote:
| FWIW, Blade Runner (like some other films e.g. Apocalypse Now)
| weren't considered as anything special at the time but were
| more appreciated as the years went on with or without
| director's cuts.
|
| That said, I really liked both at the time.
| sorokod wrote:
| I watched apocalypse now soon after it's release and was
| completely blown away by it. There is a soundtrack album to
| which I listen occasionally.
| ghaff wrote:
| There were definitely other Vietnam War and related films
| like Platoon and Coming Home which were probably more
| highly regarded at the time but haven't had the staying
| power of Apocalypse Now.
| ffhhj wrote:
| I love Blade Runner, but I find the detective to be a useless
| entity, like an ant walking in a deeper world that makes him
| meaningless. And the idea of them not being able to discover
| which are the cyborgs makes no sense.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Aren't we all meaningless ants?
| ffhhj wrote:
| I mean we could replace Deckard with a pizza delivery guy,
| or even a camera drone, and the story won't change a lot.
| Try changing Neo in Matrix, Dave on Space Odyssey. And
| there's nothing wrong, the main character is the spectator,
| which makes it a more deeply philosophical movie, the
| replicant captcha is performed on the viewer. "What's
| meaningful" the movie asks.
| corrral wrote:
| A fairly ineffective detective protagonist teasing at the
| edges of something much bigger, and mostly getting
| steamrolled by it, is a common noir thing. Not universal, but
| a frequently-used trope.
| mrandish wrote:
| I first saw BR in a theater the month it originally came out.
| It's hard to appreciate from today's perspective just how
| revolutionary it was. The film itself, especially the original
| cut, is flawed due to the studio making last minute edits which
| the director, cast and writers were against. Yet, it is still
| the one science fiction film that has been more visually
| influential than any other. It changed everything that came
| after it.
|
| > I'd put it in the 80s Cyberpunk bucket
|
| BR largely created that bucket.
| blacksqr wrote:
| I also saw Blade Runner in its original theatrical release,
| and it's still the version I prefer. In this case I think the
| studio heads did Scott a backhand favor by ending the film as
| they did.
|
| Spoilers:
|
| If, as depicted in the original release, Deckard is human and
| Rachael is a replicant, then the movie is a true love story.
| The message of a true love story is that the Other is as
| deserving of love and dignity as I am. It's the message of
| Romeo and Juliet, Frankenstein and To Kill a Mockingbird, to
| name three offhand.
|
| Whether your allotted lifespan is four years or threescore
| and ten, if you understand that you don't know how much time
| you really have, then you are entitled to the full measure of
| decent regard and respect the melancholy of that
| understanding earns. Batty bought that respect for Deckard
| and Rachael's sake. Thus the original ending is moving, and
| completes the film's overall themes.
|
| If Deckard is also a replicant, as subsequent versions try to
| establish more and more explicitly, then of course he's going
| to want to be with Rachael. It's a no-brainer, it's no
| sacrifice, and there's no moral revolution of the characters.
| In which case I don't really know what the movie is supposed
| to be about. Boy robot meets girl robot, boy robot loses girl
| robot, boy robot gets girl robot? Boring. Definitionally
| cliche.
|
| I suppose the realization of it is supposed to be some kind
| of shocking twist, but to me it simply empties the film of
| meaning.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I also don't like late-hour attempts to suggest that
| Deckard is a replicant. It cheapens Batty's finest act of
| forgiving him and sparing the life of his enemy who was
| trying to kill him.
| juliangamble wrote:
| > BR largely created that bucket.
|
| Combined with William Gibson's Neuromancer. It was a combined
| effort.
| munch117 wrote:
| The BR that I watched was more that an atmospheric sci-fi
| flic. It was an epic parable of the human condition. In the
| beginning it juxtaposes humans and replicants, but what
| you're supposed to realise along the way is that the life of
| a replicant is just an accelerated version of a human life:
| However long or short a lease on life you have been given,
| the common factor is that it is limited, and what matters is
| not what species you are, but how you approach life. Deckard,
| who is a coward unable to live the life that he has, has a
| life lesson to learn from the replicant who "does not go
| gently into that good night".
|
| Of course, if Deckard is a replicant, then that
| interpretation goes out the window, and BR is just another
| forgettable sci-fi plot twist movie. And since Ridley Scott
| seems to think so, the movie is now ruined for me -- I have
| never watched the sequel, because it is just too painful to
| watch the original movie that I loved be destroyed.
|
| I saw a movie that wasn't just a new visual style for 80's
| cyberpunk, it was so much more.
| samstave wrote:
| And Neuromancer! although the movie is 1982 and the book is
| 1984 - I put these two together as the founding fathers of
| cyberpunk entertainment, albeit the FATHER of Cyberpunk is PK
| Dick...
|
| BR created the visual dystopian cyberpunk world of the future
| _without_ focusing on internet /online things...
|
| Neuromancer changed and set the tone for the internet to
| come.
|
| The thing is, that at 47, MANY MANY MANY of my contemporaries
| and peer grew up in the 80s with these concepts for which
| they said "wouldn't it be cool if...." <--- and then we went
| about building all this shit.
|
| Its the nerds of the 80s that have all worked to make the
| cyberpunk-esque current systems we have, and the evil corps
| as described in both have come to pass.
| jmyeet wrote:
| The article mentions the earlier influence of Alien to this
| genre, at least in the sense of this future dystopia. But
| even if we accept the premise that BR was groundbreaking,
| groundbreaking != good.
|
| Larry Niven, for example, was a pioneering sci-fi author over
| many books but most of these books aren't _great_. Ringworld,
| for example, was one of the earlier works to talk about
| megastructures and the efficiency of living area per unit
| mass. The structure itself doesn 't make sense (ie it would
| be torn apart by centrifugal force) but it's an important
| idea.
|
| Neuromancer gets mentioned a lot in this particular genre. It
| too was groundbreaking but it's actually not that great of a
| book. Still, the groundbreaking aspect feeds into nostalgia,
| particularly if you read it when it came out. I feel like a
| lot of the BR hype falls into this same bucket. That's really
| all I'm saying.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| The xenophobia angle is really interesting to me. Despite being
| born after the movies release I always loved it. But I am also
| a huge japanophile and am unusual in the regard that I badly
| want cities as they are in Blade Runner and other Cyberpunk
| fantasies and was thus blind to the xenophobia, since I see the
| intended negative as desirable.
| rr808 wrote:
| Bladerunner 2049 is better.
| moltude wrote:
| The soundtrack/score by Vangelis is entirely underrated.
| dekhn wrote:
| I bought the soundtrack :) Good background for programming.
| globular-toast wrote:
| It's very well rated in the electronic music community. In the
| 90s it was common to hear it mixed into trance sets by Paul
| Oakenfold.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I'd say it's underrated by people today who've only ever
| experienced Hans Zimmer but those who've heard it love it,
| surely.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| This is one movie that has put me to sleep every time I tried to
| watch it. I have never seen it beginning to end.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > This is one movie that has put me to sleep every time I tried
| to watch it.
|
| Try a matinee ?
| macintux wrote:
| Not the OP, but that's no guarantee. I've seen _Wizard of Oz_
| twice as an adult, both times in a movie theater, and both
| times I've fallen asleep.
| sanj wrote:
| So, is Deckard a replicant?
| jq-r wrote:
| Of course he is.
| gallerdude wrote:
| Why don't you ask him?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I like Blade Runner but I don't think it has aged particularly
| well, it was very much a product of its time even though
| ironically enough at the time it was very much unique.
|
| What made this really clear to me was the sequel which I think
| was way too literal about the aesthetics. Flying cars and CEOs
| living in ziggurats and CCCP banners made the new movie almost
| seem like a caricature. It's retrofuturism, like Back to the
| Future almost rather than science fiction. And that has somehow
| impacted my experience of the original now too which seems more
| dated to me now.
|
| What does stand the test of time though is Rutger Hauer's
| performance and the humanism that he has given his character,
| something that was absent in the sequel.
| fartcannon wrote:
| As a slight aside, isn't it amazing that art exists?
|
| I like to just stand back and appreciate that humans both make
| and love art. And it's not one thing, it's so. many. things. I
| especially like that some people like some art and not other art.
| It means there's complexity to it. And we can harness it to make
| beauty.
| davesque wrote:
| Calling it the "greatest of all time" seems like a total
| exaggeration. That being said, I've found it interesting that a
| film that in many ways seems so dated manages to have such a
| hypnotic effect on me every time I watch it. I think it's just
| one of Ridley Scott's directorial gifts that he manages to
| conjure up such an infectious mood in so many of his films. Of
| course, the other example is _Alien_. I definitely love a good
| viewing of _Blade Runner_ when I 'm content to chew on some slow
| paced sci-fi.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| > Calling it the "greatest of all time" seems like a total
| exaggeration
|
| I was thinking this at first but I've struggled with a
| suggestion of a better, and critically more
| impactful/influential, movie in the genere.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Personally I find Spaceballs to be much more memorable.
| jerrysievert wrote:
| brazil
|
| delicatessen
|
| both very deep and dark in similar genres: dystopian future.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| But not as hypnotic.
|
| Brazil is an amazing movie, but Gilliam is always
| distractingly manic.
|
| Blade Runner is _graceful_. The pacing, the
| characterisation, the imagery, and especially the music
| make it almost as much of a ballet /opera as a movie.
|
| It's not just science fiction, it's Wagnerian.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Brazil was a good movie, but, was far too unapproachable
| and would not make my top 10.
|
| I've never seen (or even heard of) delicatessen. Looks
| interesting, I'll check it out.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Brazil is everything.
|
| I've never seen Delicatessen but if it's like these other
| films, I'll check it out. Anything I need to know
| (culturally, or whatever) to fully appreciate it?
| boudin wrote:
| It's a different style of movie, not really science
| fiction. I really like it though, really strong
| atmosphere. The city of lost children as well has a
| unique atmosphere
| davesque wrote:
| I can't say which films were _the most_ influential, but here
| 's a list of ones which were at least as influential IMHO and
| also sort of stand on their own: _Star Wars Trilogy_ (epic
| sci-fi), _2001: A Space Odyssey_ (hard sci-fi), _The Thing_
| (body horror sci-fi), _Alien_ (body horror /dystopian sci-
| fi), _Mad Max_ (post apocalyptic sci-fi), _E.T._ (family sci-
| fi? lol), _The Terminator_ (post apocalyptic), _Howard the
| Duck_ (still reading?), _Predator_ (dunno?)
|
| I could list a lot of others but I'll stop there.
| willhinsa wrote:
| 2001: A Space Odyssey
| muro wrote:
| The "ages" jumping weirdness just ruined it, IMHO.
| Beautiful middle part, though.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Beautiful opening, great story in the middle, utterly
| incomprehensible ending.
|
| Kubrick was no doubt a genius and mystery is a part of
| storytelling, the entirety of Eyes Wide Shut leaves so
| much room for mystique and interpretation that we can
| debate and discuss it forever but I did not find similar
| in the ending of 2001, it seemed like confusion for
| confusions sake with little deeper meaning.
| colordrops wrote:
| Arthur C Clarke is one of the greatest sci fi authors of
| all time and wrote the book in conjunction with the movie
| with Stanley Kubrick. They are meant to be consumed
| together. Read the book and the movie makes a lot more
| sense. There is virtually zero ambiguity if you read the
| book.
| tus666 wrote:
| Star Wars was better.
| mhh__ wrote:
| What is star wars actually _about_ though.
|
| There's probably no blade runner without star wars but it's
| just childish/shallow if you don't buy into George Lucas.
|
| The originals are good movies but only empire is truly great
| and even then it's just a good flick. It asks almost no
| questions of the audience.
| corrral wrote:
| > The originals are good movies but only empire is truly
| great and even then it's just a good flick. It asks almost no
| questions of the audience.
|
| Star Wars (as in, "Episode IV: A New Hope") gets a lot of
| points on the greatness scale for basically inventing the
| multi-genre pastiche film, and for being a pretty good
| example of the practice. Empire's a better movie in a lot of
| ways, but less ground-breaking as far as the storytelling
| goes.
|
| But yeah, no Star Wars films are high art. The first two,
| especially, though, get a lot of basic stuff right and have
| fairly straightforward plots, so they make for excellent
| examples for illustrating many of aspects of film story-
| telling: mood, plotting, characterization, foreshadowing,
| setup/payoff in general, et c.
| mhh__ wrote:
| That's a fair assessment. I like them, I don't like the
| mythology of star wars movies. And not even the originals,
| people actually think the prequels are some misunderstood
| masterpieces...
| kennywinker wrote:
| Star Wars isn't science fiction, it's fantasy
| deltaonefour wrote:
| No it's not. You're just getting too technical. Star wars is
| science fiction.
|
| Because in the same vein you could call LOTR science fiction
| too because the fantasy elements are just natural properties
| of the created world. The "magic" can technically be
| technology as well.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Star wars has literal space magic. Hard disagree. It's not
| in any way speculative fiction - it's a fantasy story told
| in a sci Fi aesthetic.
|
| LOTR is explicitly a fantasy story in a fantasy aesthetic.
| Magic can be technology but it doesn't try to be in either
| of the stories you mention.
| bowsamic wrote:
| No one has captured cyberpunk so perfectly since. It is the
| ultimate visual and auditory expression of it. The sequel is also
| excellent
| mhh__ wrote:
| 2049 choosing to include Joi elevates it a little beyond the
| original in that regard for me.
|
| Replicants are more of a question about dehumanization whereas
| a true AI (with the projection to help the audience along) is
| much trickier. There's no flesh to hold and yet it seems to
| feel
| Krasnol wrote:
| The sequel gave me more of a post-cyberpunk vibe and I feel
| like it was intended.
|
| They killed Capitalist-Tokyo-Dystopia and replaced it with
| Soviet Russia.
| rainworld wrote:
| As for _The Question,_ I believe there is a fairly unambiguous
| answer...
|
| http://www.gavinrothery.com/my-blog/2011/10/1/a-matter-of-el...
| mhh__ wrote:
| Hampton Fancher I think once said the question is more
| interesting than the answer, I'm inclined to agree, although
| once you notice the nudging in the sequel it's more funny than
| anything else.
| hujun wrote:
| blade runner is good, however my personal best sci-fi film is
| matrix, specially the 1st one
| duxup wrote:
| I hated that movie the first to I saw it. I was bored with it.
|
| Now I love it. I really enjoy how much time they spend
| establishing the atmosphere and characters. It all feels very
| real and has depth.
|
| I loath the speedy sci fi that tries to touch on atmosphere and
| then hurries along with their paper characters and so on. So much
| sci fi I encounter now feels little more than a long trailer with
| no idea how to end.
| melling wrote:
| Yeah, I don't recalling loving it either. Perhaps as a kid, it
| wasn't upbeat enough for me.
|
| In 1982, 2019 sure looked exciting though. Androids, flying
| cars, ...
|
| I hope kids today have a much more interesting future 40 years
| from now.
| JSavageOne wrote:
| I've tried to watch the movie multiple times, always get bored
| in the beginning and abort early. Once tried to watching with a
| friend and we were both bored fairly quickly.
|
| To be fair I don't watch movies / TV shows often because I have
| a low attention span for this stuff, but this is a movie I
| really wanted to like because I love the genre, but it's too
| slow paced for me. I do know that pacing was generally slower
| in older movies (eg. I recently watched "Roman Holiday" because
| so many older people love that one, and found it incredibly
| slow).
| globular-toast wrote:
| It is possible, of course, that you saw an inferior cut of the
| film. It's notorious for having been recut several times over
| the years. The Final Cut is the one to watch.
| procinct wrote:
| I accidentally started rewatching a different cut after
| having only ever watched the final cut. When that noir style
| voice over started going, I was so confused. It was so bad I
| was sure it couldn't have been part of the film I had
| previously enjoyed. Researching it after lead me to the same
| conclusion as you.
| hybridtupel wrote:
| I just saw the movie for the first time and had quite some
| expectations. It was the directors cut. And while the overall
| setting was interesting and there were quite good scenes in
| it, for me it was just too long and I found it quite boring.
| Mainly the awfully stretched fight at the end put me off. Not
| sure if I should or want to revisit it after some time. As I
| also did not really find the sequel that convincing. But it
| got me thinking in what people see in these movies which I
| can't.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah I have no clue what I saw first. But the directors cut
| is the one I enjoy.
| jacobolus wrote:
| This is also a film that most people probably have to watch 2-3
| times to really understand the whole plot (much less notice all
| of the symbolism, etc.).
|
| The first time, a bunch is quite confusing.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Ah, the Ridley Scott flair. It's pretty much the same with
| almost all his movies.
| quotemstr wrote:
| > I loath the speedy sci fi that tries to touch on atmosphere
| and then hurries along with their paper characters and so on.
|
| Post-Blade-Runner movies can spend less time developing their
| aesthetic and setting specifically because they can "import"
| the Blade Runner vibe "by reference", as it were, while Blade
| Runner had to build up the whole thing from scratch.
|
| To fair, importing a setting this way isn't necessarily lazy:
| doing so allows the derivative film maker to spend more time on
| the things that make his film unique. There's only so long an
| audience will tolerate.
| Agentlien wrote:
| I'm the other way around. I loved the atmosphere and the slow
| pace when I first saw it. But ever since I read the book I
| can't enjoy it the same way. I feel it just doesn't do it
| justice.
| JeanMarcS wrote:
| I'm another way around: I read the book then watch the movie
| not long after. I slept.
|
| And everytime I try to watch it I get bored quick.
|
| I think I would have much more apreciate it, the atmosphere
| et all, if I hadn't read the book before. And I realy regret
| it because I know it's a good movie.
| robertbarbe wrote:
| The book has a level emotional depth of that is not matched
| in the film. The first dialogue between Deckhart and his
| wife (yes he is married in the book) is really clever and
| meta. I was extremely disappointed by the film (I first saw
| it 2 years ago) and it feels very dated and has that 80s
| men-women cringe-portrayal. I agree, read the book it is
| awesome!
| j-james wrote:
| I'm a fourth way around: I read the book before watching
| the movie, and greatly enjoyed both in different ways.
| dekhn wrote:
| Same for me- I also found it boring the first time. Or rather,
| I found it amazing, but the final battle comes a bit too late.
| After rewatching I kind of learned where the lulls are, and
| tend to break it up around those.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| There are three things that are important to the movie.
| - Pacing so you don't get bored. - Thematic depth
| - Atmosphere
|
| A lot of pretentious people like to ignore pacing as if their
| brains are made up of pure IQ and anything related excitement
| is beneath them. Make no mistake, we are all human and we all
| get bored. Pacing is important and it takes a lot of effort
| (and intelligence) for a director to maintain that level of
| momentum for a movie.
|
| Let's face it, Blade runner really screwed up with pacing.
| Ultra slow pacing is understandably sort of required for the
| atmosphere but while it scores very very very highly in the
| other areas; there is absolute truth to the statement when
| someone says that movie is in general quite slow and boring. If
| your brain is too big to comprehend why Blade runner even has
| the possibility of being boring then I'm likely too stupid to
| be communicating with you, you should go read other comments of
| higher intelligence.
|
| The MCU scores highly in pacing and probably is the greatest
| paced franchise of all time, with 10 years of momentum and a
| payoff unlike anything ever seen before in cinema. But because
| of pretension, in general a certain crowd looks at the entire
| franchise with disdain; even though it's actually much harder
| and challenging to create good pacing then many of the more
| serious thematically deep movies I've seen out there.
|
| Inception would be movie that on average has the best high
| balance on all three pillars. Good pacing, thematically deep,
| well established professional/corporate atmosphere. Though I
| would say in terms of theme and atmosphere, while quite high,
| it's not quite high enough to get past certain pretentious
| attitudes. I would even argue that sometimes if the pacing is
| too good, the movie becomes too popular and thus "not good" to
| the elite crowd.
|
| At the same time, sometimes if the pacing is too good, the
| themes and atmosphere get copied by dozens of other movies. The
| audience sees too much of it and becomes more sophisticated.
| Now the stuff that use to be high concept to the general
| audience becomes quite boring. Directors and movies producers
| are always playing catch up to increase sophistication and
| bring you stuff you've never seen before.
|
| @duxup, I think this is what's happening to you. Bladerunner is
| so boring that it wasn't copied too much. But the other sci-fi
| stuff get copied to hell and now the cookie cutter sameness
| doesn't do it for you anymore. So you turn to the thing that's
| most different.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Hum. The reality is that almost every big budget movie today
| is targeted at a _international teenage_ audience. And goes
| for the lowest common denominator across the US, Europe and
| Asia. That doesn't leave much for originality and atmosphere.
| Superheros with cartoonish SFX and violence, violence and
| violence. And some occasional fart jokes. That's pretty much
| it.
| Keyframe wrote:
| I get what you're saying (I worked in fiom and tv for eons
| before switching out), but you can't really do it like that.
| Comparison needs to include both what the movie was built on,
| leading to it, and then also to consider directors own body
| of work leading to it. That takes into account period of work
| and release as well. What came after (not immediately) is not
| relevant to the work itself since it's out of period (in
| future). To even start talking in this direction you'd have
| to invoke, serially, works like Clockwork Orange, American
| Graffiti, Taxi Driver, and then Midnight Express to even
| start outlining the silhouette of what is to come.with Blade
| Runner.. and that's just a start since Ridley Scott's path is
| a bit unusual, and that movie's genesis especially so (see
| Legend he did sonce it's close to the period). That only
| covers the basics of the basics of discussing of what and
| specifically why this particular work is the way it is and
| why emulating the moves later (2049) didn't yield the same.
|
| Edit: typing on mobile. Screw it, I hope it's at least
| somewhat readable.
| thombat wrote:
| "Let's face it" - anyone who brings their preferences to the
| table as indisputable truths held by all reasonable, i.e. non
| "pretentious", folk, could probably do with some long
| expository chats with other film fans in a good cafe around
| the corner from a good cinema.
| kebman wrote:
| Thinking about what was possible to make in 1982, it's pretty
| amazing. It's an absolute classic, up there with the best of the
| noirs (the actual film noirs), such as The Maltese Falcon, Double
| Indemnity and The Third Man; the logical answer to the Neo Noir
| Body Heat the year before. It's like a legacy moving onto such
| things as Ghost in the Shell and even The Matrix.
| bsder wrote:
| And I think that's why it flopped initially but has such
| staying power.
|
| Balde Runner is fundamentally _film noir_ and the sci-fi is
| just the setting.
|
| The essential conflicts are _human_ conflicts--not
| technological ones. You can replace the setting and you still
| have mostly the same story.
| deltaonefour wrote:
| But if you replaced the setting with a mundane one the movie
| would be a generic film noir.
|
| It only works because of the combination of the setting and
| the story.
| aglavine wrote:
| Not even a word there in the note devoted to goddess Daryl
| Hannah.
| aresant wrote:
| The visual language Bladerunner invented has virtually defined
| SciFi for the past 40 years.
|
| If you enjoy it's worth digging into the work Syd Mead - the
| film's concept artist - created:
|
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5642443624/in/...
|
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5642443252/in/...
|
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5641873923/in/...
|
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5642441904/in/...
|
| Syd's work in general is worth a deeper investigation if
| interested ->
|
| https://sydmead.com/
|
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/40143737@N02/albums/7215762290...
|
| https://www.iamag.co/the-art-of-syd-mead/
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Can anyone recommend some music that has the same vibe as Blade
| Runner's synth stuff?
| crispyambulance wrote:
| Yeah, Isao Tomita and Tangerine Dream come to mind.
| Contemporaries of Vangelis (the composer of the soundtrack of
| Blade Runner) from the 70's. Very similar vibe.
|
| Jean Michel Jarre as well, though he had more of a beat. I
| like Morton Subotnick and the seminal album "Silver Apples of
| the Moon" it's more out there and experimental but it
| definitely it had a similar texture.
| minikomi wrote:
| Kuedo's severant album has a very similar DNA. intense, sleek
| synth driven but still melancholic and familiar
|
| https://open.spotify.com/track/6tjTQ95h4TOHvB1VzhYvKJ?si=anq.
| ..
| quakeguy wrote:
| Selected Ambient Works II by Aphex Twin
| mattmanser wrote:
| From the wiki page:
|
| _The visual style of the movie is influenced by the work of
| futurist Italian architect Antonio Sant 'Elia.[51] Scott hired
| Syd Mead as his concept artist; like Scott, he was influenced
| by Metal Hurlant_
|
| So, err, no. Metal Hurlant was 1974, cyberpunk itself started
| in the 1960s.
|
| It's based on a book from 1968 after all. Judge Dredd first
| came out in 1977.
|
| It didn't come up with the aesthetic, it popularized it.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| Great stuff. Thanks. Gotta love the data tape reels on the
| "home" computer.
| asiachick wrote:
| also inspiration from Metropolis
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=metropolis&tbm=isch
|
| and also Things to Come
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Things+to+Come&tbm=isch
| nico wrote:
| There is also the failed attempt of Jodorowsky to make a Dune
| movie:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky's_Dune
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)#Early_stalled_a...
|
| The documentary is pretty fascinating. Jodorowsky managed to
| put together a stellar team, among them H.R. Giger, Dali and
| the script writer who would later write Alien.
| CyanBird wrote:
| Yeah, it is thanks to these two movies that modern scifi and
| its visual development side of things exists basically
| Retric wrote:
| They popularized these styles but they existed in other
| mediums.
|
| What's fascinating is looking at all the different styles
| Dune the dune book covers had over time to see how various
| mediums influenced things. https://www.biblio.com/dune-by-
| herbert-frank/work/3104
| CyanBird wrote:
| That's a good angle
|
| But that's the thing, jodos dune came as an aggregate of
| "non-movie" mediums, because jodorowsky was not a
| cinematographer by trade he was an avant garde theater
| person, giger, Dali, moebius, Foss, neither of them "were
| part" of the "movies" medium, they all and the rest of
| the crew were painters or writers or musicians, comic
| book artists, not cinematographers per se, in that sense
| what jodorowsky set to do was not even a movie as we
| might think of one today, but an agglomeration of
| different types and styles of art with all their own
| individual Influences mixed in
|
| I think today, it would be nearly impossible for "works"
| to exist and not have been inspired themselves in some
| degree by the downstream effects and inspiration that
| jodorowskys movie had, just think that starwars itself is
| inspired by it
|
| But anyhow, it is a quite interesting food for thought
|
| If anyone knows of some niche modern scifi books or works
| which might not be influenced by this failed dune movie
| let me know, I love this stuff
| walrus01 wrote:
| > Jodorowsky
|
| I recently got a copy of this and could only come to the
| conclusion that they were doing _a lot of drugs_ in the
| 1970s:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Mountain_(1973_film)
| rastignack wrote:
| Don't forget moebius
| smoldesu wrote:
| Does this mean that theaters should prepare for the Moebius
| Sweep?
| shaftoe444 wrote:
| These links are excellent and I hadn't heard of Syd Mead
| despite being a long time fan of this film. Thank you for
| posting.
| colordrops wrote:
| I would disagree and posit that 2001 is the GOAT. Most scifi is
| heavily influenced by it. The artistry is unsurpassed. The scope
| and depth of the story is mind blowing.
|
| I was at lunch talking with coworkers about scifi movies. None of
| them even heard about 2001. It was quite shocking to me. I was
| the oldest at the table, but I'm not _that_ old.
| mhh__ wrote:
| 2001 is a very different type of film though. Blade runner is a
| film I could get my marvel-loving friends to watch, they would
| not watch 25 of chimp on chimp action
| easeout wrote:
| Just an incredible film. Even the slow parts, and there are a lot
| of them, have so much rich setting to marvel at.
|
| The love scene comes across as nonconsensual and it makes me
| uncomfortable every time. Whether that's intended discomfort or
| an artistic regret, I don't know.
|
| Other than that, it's one of my all time favorites for the
| reasons others are mentioning. I recommend the 2007 Final Cut.
| gambiting wrote:
| I was bored with it when I first saw it, I'm still bored with it
| having seen it again recently. It's just so....full of itself.
| Like oh my god, you think you're trying to say something deep and
| meaningful, but you really aren't. The cinematography is still
| incredible and the film deserves all the praise in that
| department. But the whole philosophical argument being made there
| has the depth of a teaspoon. I just laugh when the villain makes
| his monologue at the end, you can almost feel the writer behind
| those lines straining with all their might to write something,
| anything that would be interesting in any way, and just failing
| completely.
| norin wrote:
| I've pretty much owned every copy of the first movie. I still
| hear Roy's haunting message as a razor blade going through my
| skull.
| jansan wrote:
| "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on
| fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in
| the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be
| lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."
|
| For me probably the best monologue in movie history.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| > Time to die
|
| Timed just perfectly, the spectator's soul has been prepared
| for death at this exact moment. Time to die.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I'd get rid of the C-beams bit. Feels too much like
| scifibabble
| nabla9 wrote:
| Blade Runner suffers from the same problem as every other
| important classic.
|
| Younger generations who see it today have already seen 100s's of
| movies and TV-series, anime etc. that are based on aesthetics and
| narrative of Blade Runner. The original has little originality
| left for new viewers because it has been endlessly copied and
| they have already been immersed in it.
|
| Another great example is Friz Lang's M (1931). It has influenced
| everyone from Hitchcock to everything in Film Noir. If you watch
| it now it's almost comical. It has every trope of serial killer
| movie. Except everyone else is copying M. Even if you have not
| watched the movie, you have already seen the movie thousands of
| times.
| gravelc wrote:
| It's long been my favourite film, so I guess that makes it the
| GOAT. That soundtrack never fails to resonate. The moral
| ambiguity of everyone is so well balanced. The set design and
| props. Everything, really.
| mhh__ wrote:
| 2049 is probably a better film in almost every way and yet the
| original is better just by virtue of the clarity of vision it
| had.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I have a personal opinion about voice-overs that were removed in
| later editions. Typically, people hate them, and truly, they are
| somewhat out of place when you hear them.
|
| However, they get much better on subsequent viewings of more
| modern cuts, when you don't _hear_ them, but you _remember_ them.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The idea of a gruff but charismatic Harrison Ford ticking the
| story along isn't a bad one I suppose.
|
| It just ended like https://youtu.be/m__PBksZ0zA
| hedora wrote:
| Oh crap; they cancelled Raised by Wolves:
|
| https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/raised-by-wolves-ca...
|
| Unbelievable!
|
| (Ridley Scott was involved with it.)
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| it wasn't particularly good, I really really wanted to like it
| and persevered through the whole thing... and it's just a mess
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I really enjoyed the aesthetic of it, I enjoyed the tone and
| even many of the major story elements but I found it so hard
| to track the story.
|
| It's unfortunate because the show had the great thematic
| elements (Mithraic vs atheist war -- mother as a godlike
| angel etc) and had amazing small details but lost itself
| somewhere in-between. Why was there a giant worm and why did
| everyone forget about the giant worm in Season 2 ?
|
| This might be a Ridley Scott problem, because, everything I
| said can also apply to Prometheus.
| jghn wrote:
| It's a Ridley Scott problem.
|
| Everything I've seen in the last several years that he's
| had a hand in (another example is Taboo) is visually
| amazing but confusing.
| browningstreet wrote:
| It was better than Foundation...
| freeflight wrote:
| Foundation feels like it's singlehandedly carried by by the
| performance of Lee Pace as Brother Day.
| alexalx666 wrote:
| It was better than all other recent sci-fi shows, I mean it
| was a serious conversation about religion, I felt like Im
| treated like an adult for a change. Foundation failed to be
| both serious and entertaining / engaging
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I have a love/hate relationship with that show. I love the
| unique weird concepts throughout. And the actors portraying the
| androids were phenomenal. But many of the script/screenplays
| were just bad? Despite being bad, I really wanted to see where
| the concept was going!
| javajosh wrote:
| Sometimes I wish shows like this would be open to doing other
| stories with the same settings and actors. Like, you already
| have all the resources, so why not remix them? This kind of
| thing could work really well for Fantasy stories - you already
| have the locations, costumes, practical FX, actors - it seems
| like the script (and the setups) are just about the easiest
| thing to change. Meanwhile all the rest, music, editing,
| lighting, catering...it's already setup! Has anyone done this
| before? Is it a terrible idea?
| ur-whale wrote:
| Yeah, well ... very interesting series, with lots of
| unusual/interesting ideas and really creative visuals, but
| sorry to say, the storyline was a complete mess _and_
| unexciting _and_ depressing.
|
| Not surprised it was canned: however much makeup you put on a
| pig ... it's still a pig.
| freeflight wrote:
| Oof, that's sad..
|
| I really liked RbW but didn't want to get too invested because
| it felt like it wouldn't even get a second season. Then the
| second season was released, got me really invested, and now
| this, booh!
|
| At least the second season of Foundation is still being filmed,
| looking forward to that and hopefully that will last past two
| seasons.
|
| The Three-Body Problem is getting a TV show on Netflix, heard
| good things about the books, maybe the show can live up to
| them.
| modeless wrote:
| I had a professor in college who was obsessed with Blade Runner
| and had us watch it in class. I just didn't get it. I mean I love
| sci-fi, but Blade Runner was just OK. Maybe in the context of its
| time it was great, pioneering, all that stuff. But in the context
| of now, or even back when I was in college (closer to the release
| of Blade Runner than present day, yikes), it didn't seem that
| special to me.
|
| I guess now that I have kids I'll soon be on the other side
| trying to convince them that the old stuff I like is cool and
| special, and they'll prefer the new stuff.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> now that I have kids I'll soon be on the other side trying
| to convince them that the old stuff I like is cool and special
|
| Nope. Kids today have access to everything under the sun. The
| classics still resonate with them. My kid loves Queen and
| Zepplin. Enjoyed the hell out of "They Live", the Matrix and
| many other classic movies. Not so much John Carpenters "the
| Thing" which even I found a bit slow these days.
|
| A lot of this was discovered without my introduction too. Music
| in particular.
|
| Share the movies without explanation. Classics are universal.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Great movie, but many movies from the past fail to hold up
| simply due to lower production values... which also feeds into
| the storytelling element
| x3iv130f wrote:
| Don't tell the diehard fans but I prefer the theatrical edition
| as the story works better in a shorter punchier presentation.
| antishatter wrote:
| With the hilariously bad harrison ford voice over? my god
| man.
| tingol wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not opening any movie topics on HN based on
| replies to this one :D
| georgeecollins wrote:
| There are pros and cons to the theatrical version, so I think
| your opinion has merit. The original script had vo, and that
| fits with the noir movie style they were trying to achieve.
| Unfortunately Harrison Ford was not into doing vo. But it is
| a more concise version.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| The version with the VO? If so, that literally treats the
| audience like they're incapable of understanding blatant
| metaphor.
|
| Contrast the theatrical cut: https://youtu.be/AJzIT6fQ3OU (VO
| at 4:13) with the director's cut:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU
|
| The theatrical version is punchier because it's beating you
| over the head. For a film that's so heavily into metaphor (I
| mean, Rutger Hauer's character releases a dove at the end,
| maybe he just likes birds, we will never know since the VO
| doesn't explain it) it's quite boring to just be outright
| told what you're supposed to think. And even if you like your
| scenes explained in the most anodyne manner possible, it's
| well known that Harrison Ford was phoning it in for the
| overall performance but _particularly_ the VO, so it 's not
| even a well-done VO in terms of literal recording.
|
| Hardly a 'diehard fan', I like the aesthetic but it's an
| incredibly slow film, but I hate that VO with a passion.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I think if you saw it in the context of movies of its time you
| would understand the appeal, if not appreciate it. So many
| things imitate it that the most original parts seem like
| cliches.
|
| The other thing is that it holds up for most people, so that it
| is better when you go back to it because you see thing you
| missed the first time.
| golergka wrote:
| This is literally what "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope is about.
| The original, groundbreaking work gets quoted and used so
| much that a modern viewer doesn't see anything original in it
| anymore.
| JeanMarcS wrote:
| My ex wife is 16 years younger than me (from 1987). So I
| made her watch many movies from the 80's and 90's that I
| think are classics.
|
| Well,most of the time she didn't apreciate them because she
| watched a lot of TV movies in her teens, and knew most of
| the plots and twists.
| modeless wrote:
| Some things survive this process, though, and some don't.
| For example, I didn't see Alien until after I saw Blade
| Runner. I see Alien as more influential and copied than
| Blade Runner, yet I still think it's great.
| browningstreet wrote:
| To wit: I just watched Close Encounters on a plane.
| Surprised at how much Spielberg himself quoted from it. It
| feels like a mashup of ET, Indiana Jones and even
| Schindlers List.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| 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?
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Not gonna say they're in the same league, but I quite enjoyed
| Possessor, Annihilation and Arrival.
|
| 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.
| thevardanian wrote:
| I would argue that we have much more original content today
| than ever before and so it's far more difficult to actually
| make anything truly groundbreaking. The narrative landscape
| today is far more complex, diverse, and refined than from
| even the early 2000s, let alone anything prior.
| lmm wrote:
| Ex Machina is absolutely up there IMO.
| gsmo wrote:
| Bladerunner 2049. :-)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Yes that one. Thanks!
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Maybe Dune, but, Dune is an unfinished sentence.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > Maybe Dune
|
| 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.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I mean the 2022 one. The 1984 one has not aged well. I'm
| quite the fan of the 2000 tv mini-series one though.
|
| 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.
| einpoklum wrote:
| I'd say the exact opposite. The 2022 version - it's nice;
| I could fault it here or there, but it has a lot of going
| for it. But... it only goes so far. It doesn't reach the
| dramatic heights of Lynch's creation, and the mystique of
| the design.
|
| (Of course one should try and watch one of the longer
| cuts with more of the dialog and establishing scenes.)
| modeless wrote:
| Does it have to look dystopian to count? I enjoyed "Her" and
| thought it was bold and original, in a different way.
| zepearl wrote:
| > _I guess now that I have kids I 'll soon be on the other side
| trying to convince them that the old stuff I like is cool and
| special, and they'll prefer the new stuff._
|
| Absolutely, hehe. (I love the old Blade Runner, not at all the
| new one)
|
| > _I had a professor in college who was obsessed with Blade
| Runner and had us watch it in class._
|
| To balance that out, our religion teacher showed us The
| Exorcist ( https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/9552-the-exorcist )
| - sounds hard but to be fair anybody who did not want to watch
| it was allowed to leave the room & come back later.
| Simplicitas wrote:
| Arguably one of the best reproduction of an artist's
|
| https://bleedingcool.com/movies/philip-k-dick-blade-runner/
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "Less gym-bro than The Terminator" That's a stupid way to sum up
| a classic like The Terminator
| deltaonefour wrote:
| Blade runner isn't even that good, thematically. But I get why
| it's considered the best.
|
| It's because in most sci-fi movies a lot of effort is spent on
| the setting and thus the story while many times is good, often
| lacks the depth of their non-fiction counter-parts.
|
| Bladerunner is one of the few movies that has blockbuster level
| visuals while maintaining a very serious story with a lot of
| depth. Gattaca is another sci-fi movie that achieves this as
| well, though the visuals in Gattaca aren't blockbuster level.
| jogjayr wrote:
| Most of _Gattaca_ is shot indoors and the sets have a very
| minimalist aesthetic. It looks futuristic, but since their
| budget was quite low* it was also a way to keep costs down. The
| visuals bear no comparison at all to _Blade Runner_. It 's an
| incredible movie nevertheless.
|
| * I quite enjoyed how astronauts wear a suit and tie even on
| spaceship launches. Out-of-universe that was probably because
| they didn't have the budget for spacesuit costumes. But in-
| universe it is still legitimately a "space suit" and might be a
| nod to how formal the Gattacca workplace setting is (I've read
| too much r/moviedetails).
| justin66 wrote:
| Nothing against Andrew Niccol, who wrote and directed Gattaca,
| but the same film with the same actors, directed by Ridley
| Scott, is really something to contemplate.
| mhh__ wrote:
| "He gets a gun put to his head and then he fucks a dishwasher." -
| Rutger Hauer in mark kermodes excellent documentary _On the edge
| of blade runner_
|
| https://youtu.be/g3mq-1jcFzk
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Mind-blowing art-direction/set-decorating/costumes when it came
| out.
|
| I have to make an excuse to get up though when Harrison Ford
| tries to play a nerdy fan in the Zhora character's dressing room.
| So bad.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Isn't that the express purpose of the scene?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-26 23:00 UTC)