'BLADE RUNNER' - FOREVER

I watched "Blade Runner" again last night, for the four-hundredth time.

I love this movie; it’s on my list of all-time greats. I always get completely caught up in the experience of it, the look, the feel, the music, the story, the unforgettable characters. It transports me completely.

I love the ‘40s film noir atmosphere combined with the futuristic man-has-spoiled-the-planet setting; the way the story proceeds from clue to clue; the way the replicants’ actions mirror the humans’ actions (the replicants follow clues, too; when Deckard has trouble with his right hand, so does Roy the replicant); and the theme, that the humanoid machines are “more human than human.” They are more human than many of the humans in the movie. And many in real life.

I love this movie partly because it is about something. Not having a theme is the great failing of most mystery/thrillers, whether movies or books. For example, the latest Oliver Stone movie "Savages" ultimately fails as a story because it is not about anything. It's only purpose is to keep jacking up the audience until the final credits roll.

The classic mainstream thrillers "Presumed Innocent" and "Gorky Park" are unsatisfying because they lack themes. So are most mysteries and thrillers. Weirdly enough, the Stieg Larsson thrillers are about something: neo-Nazis and the denigration of women.

"Blade Runner" is from a novel by Philip K. Dick, "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep." So it is a well-worked-out story and not just a quickie script hacked out in Hollywood. Philip K. Dick had literary and artistic ambitions and sensibilities, which usually produce better stories than those with merely commercial intentions.

Last night, I watched the theatrical version, which I prefer to all the other cuts. I will watch the so-called director's cut and the final cut again and again, no doubt. (I bought them all, in a boxed set through Amazon, on sale, a good deal.)

Here are ten (or eleven) more movies that I love: 

1. THE GODFATHER
2. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
3. ONE-EYED JACKS
4. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
5. ALIEN
6. BULLITT
7. FATAL ATTRACTION
8. PULP FICTION
9. THE BOURNE IDENTITY
10. THE TERMINATOR (1 & 2)

I love these movies. They are almost as much fun as movies were when I was a kid. I'm always looking to get back to that experience of being transported to a world that is more exciting and more satisfying than than the one in which we all live.

-- Roger

Copyright © 2012, Roger R. Angle

TOO MANY BLADE RUNNERS

My favorite movie for many years was "Blade Runner," a 1982 sci-fi classic starring Harrison Ford, about a cop in a corrupt and decadent Los Angeles of the future. 

The cop, Deckard, is a blade runner, i.e., he hunts down and "airs out" rogue replicants, humanoid robots that were programmed as warriors, workers, entertainers and "pleasure models" to meet the needs of humans.

Four or five replicants have escaped together and are on the loose in L.A. and up to no good. Deckard is assigned to terminate them. You can't really "kill" them because, technically, they aren't alive.

But they sure seem like it. Deckard falls in love with a hot babe (Sean Young) whom he thinks may be a replicant. Turns out, she is.

What I love about the movie is its use of 40s film noir transported into a vision of a future, in which androids are "more human than human," which is the motto of the corporation that makes the replicants.

I think it is deliciously ironic that humans have ruined the Earth, and the only good people are not people at all.

Seven different versions of "Blade Runner" exist, and there has been a lot of controversy over the years about which is the best.

My own favorite is the originally released theatrical version, which is not the one preferred by the director, Ridley Scott.

In the movie Scott wanted to make, Deckard himself turns out to be a replicant. An ironic twist. Here is a "man" who risks his life to destroy his own kind.

But to me, that is the wrong theme. What is more interesting, I think, is that Deckard finds the replicants preferable to humans and ends up in love with one, and he takes her away to protect her from other blade runners. 

To me, Scott's version is a terrible letdown. So Deckard has been killing his own kind. No honor among androids. But I think that is a less interesting twist.

In 1982, "Blade Runner" was a flop at the box office and with most critics, according to the NY Times. It could not compete with "E.T." and it disappointed moviegoers, who expected something like "Raiders of the Lost Ark," both more mainstream but without as much depth, I thought.

If you haven't seen "Blade Runner," I recommend it highly. It is still great, after all these years. No matter which version you prefer.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle