Interficium
Banned
wow what a shocking thing to read on neogaf
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Help Me Appreciate Blade Runner
- Thread starter Nepenthe
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wow what a shocking thing to read on neogaf
I guess meandering might not be the right word, but the first time watching I didn't get a general sense that things were progressing reasonably or comfortably to its conclusion. It's difficult for me to get a sense of the replicants' abilities in comparison to Decker's because there's no real information given about comparative strengths and weaknesses, meaning build up within the plot itself feels a bit unearned? He dispatches the first two replicants with relative ease but then gets absolutely fucked up by Roy who slowly fumbles his way into a Jesus-like state after having just killed Tyrell in the most obviously metaphorical way possible. On top of that is the fact that I failed to gain any emotional stakes in anyone aside from Rachel who got dumped early on, so the monologue falls to a thud regarding my own empathy for Roy and what his humanity means in the end. I feel like if I were in Deckard's situation I'd think "Huh, so that's what happens when replicants just phase out naturally-- what the fuck, a dove."
And yeah; Androids does have Christian symbolism, but I feel Mercerism is worked better into the story's culture, and the eventual reveal of it being false ties back into how we can perceive strong empathy and feelings and humanity in things that aren't real or biological. It makes more sense to me than Roy suddenly becoming symbolically crucified at the end right out of nowhere.
Because I'm interested in other people's perspectives, particularly over a film that I find genuinely enigmatic in its appeal. It's been a good discussion, and I got a nice video out of it.
I think the overall feel and implied questions makes it a worthwhile movie. The city is a character, and arguably the true villain of the film. There's a moral uncertainty to everything that's happening in the film, and it's fun to think about. It's more about the experience, rather than the plot. But so many good films are.
Escape Goat
Member
It's ok not to like thing.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
this is how i view it, tried 2 or 3 times couldnt get in to it
I think that villain aspect stems from PKD's work. I have read a lot of his works and most are about a persons experience not some moralistic fight between good and evil.
Messofanego
Banned
Totally get you, and agreed on the big idea stuff of 2001. I don't love Blade Runner completely, it is meandering in the plot compared to Ghost In The Shell which is more focused on just one character's search for humanity. I could watch Blade Runner in pieces, but it's not the most engaging. You don't have to love Blade Runner, no one is judging you as less of a person, your opinion is well-reasoned. I have other sci fi movies I hold in higher regard because of an emotional connection like The Fountain, Solaris, Stalker, or Arrival.
Spiral Insanity
Banned
The book didnt get put on the map by the film..
Razorback
Member
40's aesthetics and film noir sensibilities plus art deco mixed with 70's french comic book sci-fi visuals. A pacing that allows you to soak in every drop of that wonderful world. A mix of melancholy and oppression form a truly unique synth soundtrack. A sparse and simple story about what it means to be human put together like a poem. No cliched villains or tropes.
It's not about words, it's about mood. It's like trying to explain a painting. You don't, you just feel it.
The only reason it's not my favorite movie is because 2001 exists.
It's not about words, it's about mood. It's like trying to explain a painting. You don't, you just feel it.
The only reason it's not my favorite movie is because 2001 exists.
Watching Blade Runner without sound should be a criminal offence.
More Fun To Compute
Member
I would say that the weak point of Blade Runner as a film is that Ford plays it too much like a cool action hero or noir detective. It doesn't really communicate how flawed the main character is supposed to be. But that's a limit of the medium.
The common reference between the book and the movie is the source inspiration. Dick based the book off his experience of reading diaries of guards in Nazi concentration camps.
The common reference between the book and the movie is the source inspiration. Dick based the book off his experience of reading diaries of guards in Nazi concentration camps.
yes
Back-In-Black
Banned
Just watch this, I don't know why it hasn't been posted yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVarn-m7o9k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVarn-m7o9k
You know what they say. If you've only watched Blade Runner once, then you've only watched 1/5th of Blade Runner.
True Savior
Member
Pop the soundtrack and listen to it once or twice. If it doesn't motivate you to rewatch it you might as well never watch it again.
ZeroTheShadow
Member
Step One: Accept that Decker is human.
NumberThree
Member
Blade Runner is one of the few movies that make me want to get a projector and surround sound system. I just want to be fully enveloped in its world.
True Savior
Member
This stuff is getting out of hands. This is the equivalent of the flat-earth conspiracy theory. It's just dumb.
But wiggly horned unicorns.
It's in my top 5 movies & I've watched it enough that I can pretty much quote the thing verbatim, but I get why the OP doesn't like it.
I saw it for the first time on TV in about 1984 or 85? Anyway, I was 13 year old SF fan, and I watched it as it was then commonly presented - a SF noir in the style of Marlowe, complete with VO narration. It posits some questions about who am I, are my memories my own and so on, but for me they're secondary to it as a piece of pulp genre filmmaking with an aesthetic that defined and visualised what was then a brand new sub-genre called cyberpunk. I read Neuromancer about 2 months later and the two things just coalesced.
To an extent I think the critical revision of the last 15-20 years has placed too much expectation on it for those who are just now coming to the movie. On first viewing the plot is all over the place, the characters are stylish but lack depth...until you've watched it 100 times, when the repetition has allowed you to fill in those characters, to make them more than the ciphers they largely are. Which is the position a lot of those writing modern criticism of it are coming from.
Don't get me wrong though - I'm just about to rewatch the DC, which is not my favourite version (I still prefer the original TC for my sins) but goddamn, I need to hear Holden interrogating Leon; see Batty's breath steaming in the EyeStore; watch that slow camera crawl over LA toward the Tyrell Corp pyramids...
'I mean you're not helping. Why is that, Leon?'
I saw it for the first time on TV in about 1984 or 85? Anyway, I was 13 year old SF fan, and I watched it as it was then commonly presented - a SF noir in the style of Marlowe, complete with VO narration. It posits some questions about who am I, are my memories my own and so on, but for me they're secondary to it as a piece of pulp genre filmmaking with an aesthetic that defined and visualised what was then a brand new sub-genre called cyberpunk. I read Neuromancer about 2 months later and the two things just coalesced.
To an extent I think the critical revision of the last 15-20 years has placed too much expectation on it for those who are just now coming to the movie. On first viewing the plot is all over the place, the characters are stylish but lack depth...until you've watched it 100 times, when the repetition has allowed you to fill in those characters, to make them more than the ciphers they largely are. Which is the position a lot of those writing modern criticism of it are coming from.
Don't get me wrong though - I'm just about to rewatch the DC, which is not my favourite version (I still prefer the original TC for my sins) but goddamn, I need to hear Holden interrogating Leon; see Batty's breath steaming in the EyeStore; watch that slow camera crawl over LA toward the Tyrell Corp pyramids...
'I mean you're not helping. Why is that, Leon?'
I hated Blade Runner the first time I watched it.. I tried a second time and still wasn't a fan. For some reason I finally 'got it' after a third viewing.. and now it's one of my favourite movies.
It makes me wonder what other films I might enjoy better with repeat viewings. If I watch it 5 times, Suicide Squad might actually be the best movie of all time.
It makes me wonder what other films I might enjoy better with repeat viewings. If I watch it 5 times, Suicide Squad might actually be the best movie of all time.
Sanctuary
Member
Sorry, can't do it. Blade Runner used to bore me to tears the first few times I tried watching it, and I usually couldn't make it to the end without falling asleep. It was a visual marvel, but just so boring aside from that. Eventually I grew to "like" it I suppose, but it's not a film that I can rewatch more than once every five to ten years.
Octavianus
Banned
Fixed that for you.
Imp the Dimp
Member
The movie was boring. I'm pretty sure nobody on the internet actually enjoyed it but everybody's too afraid to speak up.
One of my favorite movies ever. It's a film with remarkable visual and auditory charisma, if you're not super impressed by these sorts of things there's not a whole lot to take from it aside from the performances and dialogue, which are admittedly inconsistent. The occasionally corny imagery (the unicorn and the dove at the end are just ridiculous and out of place) haven't aged well and clash with the tone, even if they are symbolically significant parts of the film's message. It's also incredibly slow, lots of lingering shots and long conversations with a LOT of dramatic pauses. It's hard to say the film is exactly entertaining all the way through. But it's definitely interesting.
Knowing what we know about the troubled production cycle it had, it's easy to see why the film is so divisive. It's sort of a beautiful accident it turned out any good at all, so in that way it's not quite the deliberate Kubrickian masterpiece a lot of people would lead you to believe it is. And not liking it doesn't mean your taste is broken. I'd say it's certainly a divisive film, but there's nothing quite like it and for that I love it to bits.
Knowing what we know about the troubled production cycle it had, it's easy to see why the film is so divisive. It's sort of a beautiful accident it turned out any good at all, so in that way it's not quite the deliberate Kubrickian masterpiece a lot of people would lead you to believe it is. And not liking it doesn't mean your taste is broken. I'd say it's certainly a divisive film, but there's nothing quite like it and for that I love it to bits.
afraid to speak up? are you using a different internet to me?
deadscreensky
Member
Today it's one of my all-time favorite movies, but the first time I saw it I honestly found it kind of boring and sleepy. (It seems like I'm not alone with this on GAF.) Aside from the amazing aesthetics it's a film that grows on a person rather than impresses outright, and for most people maybe one viewing isn't enough. There's a good chance there's nothing wrong with you or how you approached it, you just might need to give it six months and try to watch it again.
That said, from your first post it is possible you're missing its major theme: it's simply about authenticity, specifically in the modern world. It's about characters who come into an already manufactured world. Everybody's history is given to them from other people, from dialogue to old photos to untrustworthy memories, their personalities leaning towards the cliché. (The genre elements work well here.) Advertising and the immortal corporate ideals it represents are everywhere. There's nothing new or original, all the characters live in a universe of preassembled thoughts (art, architecture, language, the sciences) all jumbled together with no reason or structure. Animals and the natural world are gone. (This is incredibly significant, and the film kind of underplays it.) There are no great adventures left, at least on Earth. Everything's been done and the only path to any possible glory seems to lie in degrading transgression. Even your own dreams aren't unique or secret. How do you be somebody real and genuine when even human beings are now literally manufactured? Can you? Does it matter?
I don't feel the game film actually answers any of these questions in a definitive way, which is to its credit. And while certain of its obvious sci-fi trappings are just that, its general mindset and reality is absolutely valid for us actual human beings watching it today. We're very small pieces in a very large and old society, and wondering about these things even at oblique sci-fi angles holds very real merit.
But hey, apologies if you already got all of that (for real). It's just the main thing I find valuable in the film, and none of your summary in my reading particularly scratched that. In that case just try to enjoy Deckard's kitchen, because it's a really damn cool kitchen. I wish my kitchen looked that good.
That said, from your first post it is possible you're missing its major theme: it's simply about authenticity, specifically in the modern world. It's about characters who come into an already manufactured world. Everybody's history is given to them from other people, from dialogue to old photos to untrustworthy memories, their personalities leaning towards the cliché. (The genre elements work well here.) Advertising and the immortal corporate ideals it represents are everywhere. There's nothing new or original, all the characters live in a universe of preassembled thoughts (art, architecture, language, the sciences) all jumbled together with no reason or structure. Animals and the natural world are gone. (This is incredibly significant, and the film kind of underplays it.) There are no great adventures left, at least on Earth. Everything's been done and the only path to any possible glory seems to lie in degrading transgression. Even your own dreams aren't unique or secret. How do you be somebody real and genuine when even human beings are now literally manufactured? Can you? Does it matter?
I don't feel the game film actually answers any of these questions in a definitive way, which is to its credit. And while certain of its obvious sci-fi trappings are just that, its general mindset and reality is absolutely valid for us actual human beings watching it today. We're very small pieces in a very large and old society, and wondering about these things even at oblique sci-fi angles holds very real merit.
But hey, apologies if you already got all of that (for real). It's just the main thing I find valuable in the film, and none of your summary in my reading particularly scratched that. In that case just try to enjoy Deckard's kitchen, because it's a really damn cool kitchen. I wish my kitchen looked that good.
HIGH DEF JEFF
Banned
Slaves have feelings too!
Plus all the atmosphere and such.
Plus all the atmosphere and such.
Corpsepyre
Banned
I didn't appreciate it as much as I could have on the first viewing. It took me a number of viewings and reading on it to love it to pieces the way I do today. I think it's a science fiction masterpiece, and we won't be getting anything like it ever again. The film was years ahead of its time, and it clearly shows today.
I'd recommend you watch the final cut again along with the Dangerous Days documentary. It's an absolute musty see along with the film.
Check this bit out as well. Tears in rain? Why Blade Runner is timeless
I'd recommend you watch the final cut again along with the Dangerous Days documentary. It's an absolute musty see along with the film.
Check this bit out as well. Tears in rain? Why Blade Runner is timeless
The Last Wizard
Member
Honestly I was expecting something else when I first saw it and ended up disappointed after seeing it but I had bought that 5 version bluray so I kept watching and it clicked with me eventually. But it was definitely the atmosphere, visuals and music that did it. Blade Runner Blues is just sublime.
the_batman
Banned
seriously, if you don't like something then so be it.
I watched it for the first time recently and had the same reaction. It feels very... flat, I guess. The characters don't have enough depth or nuance to make me care about the philosophical questions they're asking about themselves. Like, is Decker a human? Of course not. He's a character in a movie. He's not written or performed well enough to seem like a real person.
The atmosphere is great, of course, but it's mostly an historical curiosity for me, since I'm watching it after 30 years of cyberpunk media that's expanded and evolved the genre.
I think mismatched expectations is really the problem, though. It's a cult classic - a funky little movie that shows glimmers of real beauty and inspiration mixed in with some major issues and half-baked ideas. I think watching it from the point of view of "an amazing sci-fi classic" is going to end in disappointment every time.
That being said, the "tears in the rain" monologue fully justifies the rest of the film. So perfect.
This is such a goofy thing to say. It's not like your thoughts on a film can't change after discussing it, rewatching it, reading/watching analyses of them. Maybe there's a layer or angle you missed on your own the first time through.
"I don't like it, so I don't like it" is such a shallow way to think about things.
The atmosphere is great, of course, but it's mostly an historical curiosity for me, since I'm watching it after 30 years of cyberpunk media that's expanded and evolved the genre.
I think mismatched expectations is really the problem, though. It's a cult classic - a funky little movie that shows glimmers of real beauty and inspiration mixed in with some major issues and half-baked ideas. I think watching it from the point of view of "an amazing sci-fi classic" is going to end in disappointment every time.
That being said, the "tears in the rain" monologue fully justifies the rest of the film. So perfect.
This is such a goofy thing to say. It's not like your thoughts on a film can't change after discussing it, rewatching it, reading/watching analyses of them. Maybe there's a layer or angle you missed on your own the first time through.
"I don't like it, so I don't like it" is such a shallow way to think about things.
Agreed but i feel it is also a movie that grows on you the more you watch it. First time I saw it I was like, "this is old and boring as shit." Then I started thinking about what I saw, watched it a few more times and it just "clicked." I saw the Final Cut in 4K in theaters earlier this year and it was incredible on the big screen
beyond_death
Member
This was one of my study topics in high school. I'd love to watch it again to see if I can enjoy it after analyzing and writing essays about it.
Funny this thread pops up. I had no idea there was a sequel coming out. I just decided to finally watch the first one this weekend. And i second those saying there movie is all atmospheric and soundtrack. I legit was bored to sleep by every other part of the movie. Althoug will say Fords peacoat was something serious.😀
ClivePwned
Member
I've seen Blade Runner 3 times. Once in the cinema when it first came out and twice on Bluray (the Final Cut). I may have seen it on video or TV but I don't remember it that well.
It has some spectacular art direction/production design, cinematography, visual effects, costumes, music and
.
I will see the follow-up since I think the people assembled might make it work.
It has some spectacular art direction/production design, cinematography, visual effects, costumes, music and
and utterly lacking in plot, dialogue and acting. I don't count Rutger Hauer's speech at the end being anything that amazing. I do like Harrison Ford's bored/weary performance, for once it suits the role
I will see the follow-up since I think the people assembled might make it work.
I saw it the 1st time when I was like 12 on tv or something. I was just getting into Asimov and this blew my fucking mind.
There's 5 versions right? so i'm never certain which version i have seen, i know it dragged a bit the first time i watched it, but the visuals were awesome, i think i saw the version with the narration? Last time i saw it was about 2000 so 16yrs ago already, damn.
Recently bought Final cut though so i need to watch that version.
Recently bought Final cut though so i need to watch that version.
Baron von Loathsome
Member
I'm pretty sure that's the theatrical cut.
Just watch or listen to a good podcast retrospective. SF DEBRIS, Nostalgia Critic, Gooberzilla, few others I can't recall. They'll help you appreciate the film and acknowledge the fact a lot of people find the film boring. Me personally, i love the aesthetics, the music and I appreciate the film's cultural impact but the film puts me to sleep.
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