http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=14724
Been waiting on this one a long time... Long awaited 3 Versions of Blade Runnner!
Been waiting on this one a long time... Long awaited 3 Versions of Blade Runnner!
Geeks rejoice!
- Thread starter pax
- Start date
Heh, I never really liked Bladerunner, but it's an 80s classic and I've been missing it from my DVD collection. I wanted to make my life a little more complete by buying it a couple months back, but was told it had become out of print so to speak.
Guess I know why now...
25 year anniversary, hmmm. Guess that's good enough reason to go to a cinema and see it on the big screen then.
Guess I know why now...
25 year anniversary, hmmm. Guess that's good enough reason to go to a cinema and see it on the big screen then.
pax said:
The old directors cut made it perfectly clear that D was a replicant.
Besides the horrible narrative (reminded me of the "Police Squad" show), the ending was just completely contradictional to the fatalistic theme of the movie in the original release.
Director's cut fixed all these issues.
I'd love to have that movie in HD format, the cinematography is outstanding.
Cheer
Well actually it took years before Scott actually came out and said he was a replicant. The dir's cut hadnt made it that obvious tho it drove speculation on the part of fans.
The theatrical to me was the perfect blend. The slightly added ending isnt that much a happy ending. For all we know Rachel dies in a few years. And in anycase the movie emphasizes death and mortality so much I really dont see how its affected by 2 min of sunlight and mountains. The narration hated by both Scott and Ford simply worked. Most fans agree. It took a sci fi movie and made it better as also a classic film noir...
The theatrical to me was the perfect blend. The slightly added ending isnt that much a happy ending. For all we know Rachel dies in a few years. And in anycase the movie emphasizes death and mortality so much I really dont see how its affected by 2 min of sunlight and mountains. The narration hated by both Scott and Ford simply worked. Most fans agree. It took a sci fi movie and made it better as also a classic film noir...
pax said:
The origami unicorn in the end makes it perfectly easy to infer Deckard is a replicant. The unicorn dream is private to Deckard, the same way the spider dream is private to Rachel. The dream could only be known to Gaff if Deckard is a replicant.
That's besides all the other clues....
pax said:
Huh, not a happy ending? It goes from fatalism to Disney in 30 seconds.
The narrative is moronic, it's commenting, not reflecting. It never states anything that you can't see for yourself. It's like movies for blind people. As for fans liking it, that must be for a very specific (narrow) selection of fans.
Cheers
I find it reflective in many instances tho it was obviously quickly written up (couldve used a few rewrites but its pretty good as is... it adds great style if not that much substance...) as the movie seemed too pointed towards those who had read the original book and was failing in test showings... Most of the fans grew up on the theatrical. Dirs cut came out only 10 years later. Its hardly narrow in the fan base as the cult began long before the dir's cut came out... And its the fans that have been demanding a new dvd release that includes the theatrical for many years now.
To each his own...
Im looking forward to seeing the international ver for the first time as well as the new dirs cut. Tho I have to say one of the things that I liked about the theatrical is that Deckard is not understood to also being a replicant. With so many characters as replicants in the new versions (and Deckards being there as replicant not really explained at all... unlike Rachel and the rogue slaves...) you spend too much time second guessing characters instead of pondering the technology behind it all and the ethical issues it raises... They are good versions in their own right as a well done whodunit. But the original version where you arent second guessing the entire movie that Deckard is also a replicant is a nice way to view the flick. But who knows maybe the new dir's cut will make that more palatable over my current preference for the theatrical which I thought allowed for more contemplation of the moral setting of the story. Ive seen the dir's cut many times but I find it rushed if not more so in its own way than the tacked on narration. Must be something to that as many fans havent taken to it and Scott seems to dislike it quite a bit...
To each his own...
Im looking forward to seeing the international ver for the first time as well as the new dirs cut. Tho I have to say one of the things that I liked about the theatrical is that Deckard is not understood to also being a replicant. With so many characters as replicants in the new versions (and Deckards being there as replicant not really explained at all... unlike Rachel and the rogue slaves...) you spend too much time second guessing characters instead of pondering the technology behind it all and the ethical issues it raises... They are good versions in their own right as a well done whodunit. But the original version where you arent second guessing the entire movie that Deckard is also a replicant is a nice way to view the flick. But who knows maybe the new dir's cut will make that more palatable over my current preference for the theatrical which I thought allowed for more contemplation of the moral setting of the story. Ive seen the dir's cut many times but I find it rushed if not more so in its own way than the tacked on narration. Must be something to that as many fans havent taken to it and Scott seems to dislike it quite a bit...
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pax said:
The theatrical version was all we got!! Fans loved the movie for the cinematography, the attention to detail, the settings, the grit, the atmosphere and the story. Regardless of liking it all (you) or loathing the narrative and the ending (me) the original theatrical movie is still a fantastic movie.
If you're really interested in the background of the movie, read "Future Noir" by Paul Sammon to get a good idea of all the work that went into the movie, including the fight with studio executives.
Cheers
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Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
I saw a recent interview with Harrison Ford where he was asked about Ridley Scott's recent confirmation that Dekard was a replicant, and Ford said that was exactly the opposite of what he belived. He said that at the time he has thought he had come to a pretty clear agreement with Scott that Dekard was a human.
Ford explained that he wanted there to be at least one human character for the audience to identify with. Without Dekard being human, there was no link between the audience and the plight of the replicants, and nothing to show that in essence the human protagonist and the replicants were the same. The fact that Dekard falls in love with a replicant woman who thinks she's human becomes a lot less evocative if Dekard is a replicant too.
Besides, I don't think that Scott can just proclaim Dekard a replicant. Dick left it deliberately ambiguous, and the following canon books by Jeter confirm Dekard as human. While Scott adapted the story to the cinema, the story is still Dick's.
As to the unicorn dream/origami: could be coincidence, Dekard could have had his memory read at some point (the implanted memories come from an original human subject), or it could be a reference to the eastern unicorn (the character that makes the origami unicorn is oriental).
Called "Kilin", it represents both the female and male unicorn and signifes good omens or the birth of a great leader, and is able to fortell future events. It also appears as a warning to men. That's all just too relevent to the end of the movie to not be a message from Scott.
Ford explained that he wanted there to be at least one human character for the audience to identify with. Without Dekard being human, there was no link between the audience and the plight of the replicants, and nothing to show that in essence the human protagonist and the replicants were the same. The fact that Dekard falls in love with a replicant woman who thinks she's human becomes a lot less evocative if Dekard is a replicant too.
Besides, I don't think that Scott can just proclaim Dekard a replicant. Dick left it deliberately ambiguous, and the following canon books by Jeter confirm Dekard as human. While Scott adapted the story to the cinema, the story is still Dick's.
As to the unicorn dream/origami: could be coincidence, Dekard could have had his memory read at some point (the implanted memories come from an original human subject), or it could be a reference to the eastern unicorn (the character that makes the origami unicorn is oriental).
Called "Kilin", it represents both the female and male unicorn and signifes good omens or the birth of a great leader, and is able to fortell future events. It also appears as a warning to men. That's all just too relevent to the end of the movie to not be a message from Scott.
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Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Well that's the whole point of the book. If something looks human, acts human, thinks it's human, then how's it different from us? How's it any less valuable or important?pax said:
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
Straight quote from "Future Noir":
But even without spelling it out in the director's cut there are still a lot of clues in the original:
1. Deckard lives a completely isolated existence, yet his appartment is full of pictures (of family members?)
2. Deckard has a piano in his appartment, and can play it - since there are no other attempts to display Deckard as a non stereo typical hard cop, this tells us something.
3. He survives multiple encounters with super strong replicants.
Cheers
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Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
I agree, this ethical aspect is really the core of the movie (and of the book) IMO.
It just seems a bad idea to produce human copies to work as slaves, complete with limited rights and lifespan.
IMO, Deckard being a replicant fits the sentiment portrayed in the movie: Killing rogue replicants is dirty and dangerous work, work best left to replicants.
Cheers
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Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
In that case Scott has completely misinterpreted the book and changed its very fundamentals. If Dekard is a replicant and is just a terrible tool to do a terrible job against other terrible tools, then Scott confirms that humans are better than replicants. Humans do the good deed of giving replicants life, where replicants do horrible things to each other and to the much "better" humans.Gubbi said:
Scott makes the ambiguity about whether Dekard is human or not. Dick makes the abiguity about whether replicants are morally or philosophically as "valuable" as ourselves. More precisely, Dick makes the ambiguity about whether the replicants are as "human" as the humans are. Dekard and his actions are that representation of what it is to be human.
One of the core aspects is that Dekard doesn't want to do the job of a Bladerunner anymore. He comes to think that what he does in killing replicants is wrong, and even more so when he falls in love with Rachael, who is nothing but a construct with someone else's memories. Rachael becomes human to Dekard, despite how she was created. He empathises with her and the replicants he has to kill, and that empathy is what makes him human. That's why the test for detecting a replicant is an empathy test.
For Scott to decide that Dekard is a replicant simply undoes all the meaning and weight of a human coming to empathise with (and even love in Rachael's case) the replicants as he would another human. The whole point of Dekard's character is for Dick to say of the replicants "they are like us, they are our children". Make Dekard a replicant and everything he is and represents becomes a fake, constructed, valueless viewpoint. We believe in what Dekard feels because he is one of us. If he can empathise with the replicants, then so can we. And if the replicants can empathise with us, as Rachel does with Dekard, and Batty does in his dying speech, then they truely are as human as we are.
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