Blade Runner Is The Best Sci-Fi Film 972
Delchanat writes "Now there's scientific proof: according to 60 of the most influential scientists in the world, including British biologist Richard Dawkins and Canadian psychologist Steven Pinker, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) is the best science fiction film. Late Mr. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) finished 2nd, followed by George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)." There are several other stories as well: favorite authors, the basics of science fiction, and an excerpt of a new Iain M. Banks novel.
Logan's Run (Score:5, Informative)
Brazil (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Non sequitur (Score:5, Informative)
Except that 2001 does indeed have a plot. A rather complex plot at that.
If you simply "don't get it", try a Google search -- there are lots of websites out there that will describe the plot for you.
It's admittedly a complex movie. Many people "don't get it" the first time, but subsequent viewings usually bring out important items you might have missed.
Yaz.
They missed Aliens 2 (Score:2, Informative)
Some of the quote here [garnersclassics.com]
Blade Runner (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Clarke's Three Laws (Score:5, Informative)
Clarke's First Law:
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
Clarke's Second Law:
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
Clarke's Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
The sibling post was quicker on the gun with the third law, though it's obviously from memory.
Blade Runner not all that special (Score:5, Informative)
My favorite scene is Harrison Ford talking to the computer to examine in great detail the random digital photograph for clues. Each time I consider buying a digital camera, I wonder if it can get a level of detail described in that scene.
The greatest science-fiction film ever is La Jetee (1964) by French director Chris Marker. This was the inspiration for 12 Monkeys, but it is a much better film. It's quite short at 29 minutes, but still leaves people in deep cinema shock whenever it gets shown in festivals or on campus. It's widely available in video and may be at your local library for checkout. It's a collage of black and white photos zoomed and panned like Ken Burn's documentaries with narration and music. French with English subtitles. It was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when the Americans and Soviets came far too close to nuclear war than anyone wants to talk about.
2001 was OK, but extremely slow. It does hold up after 35 years only if you have a lot of patience and are not expecting a Star Wars type of movie.
Science Fiction is always better in books than it is in film. It's a genre that needs one's individual imagination projecting imagery from written text.
Because they were intended to replace humans. (Score:3, Informative)
Replicants were outlawed on earth, elsewhere they were made to take the jobs thar were too dangerous for humans, or that humans just didn't want to do. Just like scientists today are doing research into robotic faces to convey emotion, the scientists of tomorrow will, if possible, make robots near human in form so as to make people feel more comfortable with them.
Only earth is worried about replicant infiltration - on the colony worlds replicants are in use and accepted - hence no need to 'mark' them.
Also, and this is more of a plot device - if the replicants didn't look the same, then the whole implication that Decker (or anyone) could be a replicant and not even know it falls down.
Re:I'd have to agree. (Score:4, Informative)
The music was by Vangelis [uibk.ac.at] who composed the soundtracks for many other movies including "Chariots of Fire" and "Antartica".
One of my favourite tracks was "I'll find my way home" which was really a haunting melody.
Scientists, please explain Blade Runner to me (Score:5, Informative)
Wouldn't some sort of DNA test, or blood protein assay, work a lot easier?
(But then there wouldn't be much of a movie, would there.)
"Do Androids Dream..." was written in 1968, but the idea of genetic assays might not have been known to Philip K Dick. But the film was not until 1982...
Bonus points if you answer the following questions:
1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
2. What do Electric Sheep dream of?
Re:Non sequitur (Score:5, Informative)
Link [kubrick2001.com]
2001 based on an Arthur Clarke story (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Logan's Run (Score:1, Informative)
That might be the best spelling error ever.
Re:ALIENS! (Score:2, Informative)
Sigourney Weaver kills hundreds of aliens in a Rambo style machine gun and flamethrower rampage, and then has a bitch fight with the alien queen in what can only be described as a 'mecha forklift'. Bill Paxton is best supporting actor with his hysterical 'we're all going to die' performance. What's not to like?
Re:Scientists, please explain Blade Runner to me (Score:2, Informative)
If it was as simple as getting a blood test it would be a much more boring book!
Re:Star Wars? (Score:4, Informative)
That's not a good definition. I'll quote a bit of Wikipeadia on science fiction [wikipedia.org]:
"Science fiction is a form of fiction which deals principally with the impact of imagined science and/or technology upon society or individuals.
The term is more generally used to refer to any literary fantasy that includes a scientific factor as an essential orienting component, and even more generally used to refer to any fantasy at all. Such literature may consist of a careful and informed extrapolation of scientific facts and principles, or it may range into far-fetched areas flatly contradictory of such facts and principles. In either case, plausibility based on science is a requisite, so that such precursors of the genre as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Gothic novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) are plainly science fiction, whereas Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), based purely on the supernatural, is not. Sometimes utopic and dystopic literature is also regarded as science fiction, which is accurate insofar as sociology also is a science."
Re:Star Wars? (Score:4, Informative)
Good grief. That's a totally asinine definition of science fiction. Otherwise The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fahrenheit 451, The Caves of Steel, Timescape and many, many other science fiction classics don't qualify. Try again (and no, the definition is not "set in space OR the future OR both"!)
Re:About the flamewar (Score:3, Informative)
The movie and the book have VERY little in common. Their connection is tenuous at best. In the book this strange pseudo-religion "mercerism" was a key part of the story, as was this mood organ that people used to make them happy or content. In the book at one point Deckard comes across another detective and each thinks the other must be a replicant. The two stories share characters and a dominant theme (is it right for us to enslave 'people' we've manufactured), that's about it.
Re:Contact (Score:2, Informative)
Re:History (Score:4, Informative)
If you are a fan of the movie and want to know everything you could possibly know about it, check out the book Future Noir. It covers the making of Blade Runner and it's quite interesting.
Highest Grossing Movies List (Score:5, Informative)
top 10 authors (Score:2, Informative)
Re:About the flamewar (Score:3, Informative)
You say he wasn't, but the book doesn't.
In the end there is no answer to the question "Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?"...but we know that Deckard does.
Re:2001 based on an Arthur Clarke story (Score:2, Informative)
Ah, here we go:
According to the introduction (written by Clarke), "The Sentinel" contained the basic idea for 2001, but "the two bear the same relationship as an acorn and an oak tree". While the bulk of the novel was written before starting on the movie, he was finishing the final, final version while work on the movie was going on and there was some sharing of ideas both ways.
In fact, the movie appeared several months before the book
Warning about Dick for first-time readers (Score:3, Informative)
The main thing about PKD is that he wrote large numbers of stories in varying states of lucidity. Many of them work wonderfully, but others either just fall completely flat, or build up to what looks like it will be a profound ending, but rather just leaves you wondering what the hell he was thinking.
If you have never read PKD before, I would suggest you try Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the basis for Blade Runner).
Re:Non sequitur (Score:2, Informative)
The movie went to Jupiter for the simple reason of the artistic team not being able to create the satisfying model of Saturn and its' rings. For that reason, Kubrick decided to move the plot into Jovian world. If you are a 2001 fan, I recommend Clarke's "The Lost Worlds of 2001". Kind of like "The Making Of" for both the book as well as the movie.
I'll never forgive Clarke for writing 3001 (which is, IMO, by far the worst of the series), or - even more - for giving his blessings to the 2010 movie (which is a horrible, cliche ridden trash).
my picks (Score:3, Informative)
- The Shape of Things to Come [imdb.com] (1936) based on the H.G. Wells novel of the same name [adelaide.edu.au].
- The Man in the White Suit [imdb.com] (1951) speculative fiction with Sir Alec "Obi Wan" Guinness [google.com].
- The Fantastic Planet [imdb.com] (1973) Psychadelic animated european sci-fi.
- Wizards [imdb.com] (1977) Ralph Bakshi [ralphbakshi.com], 'nuff said.
- The Quiet Earth [imdb.com] (1985) freaky end-of-the world stuff.
- Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure [imdb.com] (1989) <simpsons voice="comic book guy" [google.com]>Best! Time-Travel! Movie! Ever! </simpsons>
- Until the End of the World [imdb.com] (1991) with William Hurt and Sam Neill, oddly catches the essence of Gibsonian cyberpunk without the punk.
- Just about anything by Hayao Miyazaki [imdb.com] but especially Laputa: Castle in the Sky [imdb.com] (1986) or Nausicaä (of the Valley of the Winds) [imdb.com] (1984) (but not the god-awful Warriors of the Wind [imdb.com] from 1986).
</self_indulgent_obsessive_list_making>Re:omg (Score:2, Informative)
> wrote the screenplay for the movie, not George
> Lucas.)
Alan Dean Foster wrote the novelization of the movie, and some other Star Wars books. George Lucas wrote the screenplay.
'Silent Running' (1972) is the best SF of all time (Score:2, Informative)
Re:omg (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Blade Runner not all that special (Score:5, Informative)
The greatest science-fiction film ever is La Jetee (1964) by French director Chris Marker.
You were bored by 2001, but were on the edge of your seat through a movie composed (almost) entirely of black and white photographic stills with French naration? Sorry, but as someone who has seen and very much enjoyed this film (saw it as a double header with Sans Soleil no less) I'm going to have to say "No." I have the feeling you thought nobody else on Slashdot had seen this film?
While a very beautiful work of art (I still get chills thinking back to the single bit of motion where she opens her eyes) the story is essentially time travel with a cliched twist ending, and there is no science to speak of. What is extraordinary about the film is the style in which it was told, and the the power with which it evoked the tension of that moment. But I really would not rank it against Blade Runner, 2001, etc as science fiction cinema. It deserves its own category.
complex movie != complex plot (Score:3, Informative)
Technically, while I disagree with the parent's idea that a plotless movie is necessarily bad, your contention that 2001 has a complex plot is incorrect. I think you're confusing the sophistication of the metaphors, themes, and ideas of 2001 with 2001's plot itself, which is pretty simple.
The plot of a story is synonymous with the story's plan. Here's the basic plot of 2001...
Dawn of Man
1. Monkeys get beaten up by other Monkeys.
2. Monkeys from beaten-up tribe find and fondle the monolith.
3. Monkey from beaten-up tribe discovers a possible use for a bone as a weapon.
4. Monkeys with bones beat up the Monkeys without the bones.
The Lunar Journey (forget the actual name of this section...)
1. Scientist goes to orbital moon base.
2. Scientist has discussion with Russians, who ask about a possible outbreak. Scientist stonewalls Russians.
3. Scientist meets his team, thanks them for understanding the inconvenience of the outbreak story.
4. Scientist and team go to monolith. Scientist fondles monolith, monolith sends out signal to Jupiter.
Jupiter Mission, 18 Months Later
1. Astronauts hang out with HAL.
2. One astronaut sees through HAL's masqueraded psych evaluation.
3. HAL announces a communication unit is going to have a failure. Astronaut checks it out, they can't find anything wrong with it.
4. Astronauts have a secret pow-wow and talk about the possibility of having to shut HAL down. HAL lipreads.
5. When they try to replace the unit, HAL takes over the pod and kills one Astronaut. Second Astronaut goes to rescue, gets the body, but HAL locks him out of the pod bay. Astronaut returns into the ship via an emergency entrance, does a little zero-gravity gymnastics to survive in the airlock.
6. Astronaut shuts HAL down, and learns about the ship's secret mission.
Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite
1. Astronaut reaches Jupiter, he sees monolith (monoliths?), things go a little koo-koo.
2. Astronaut goes through an accelerated evolutionary stage, grows old in the chamber, dies, is reborn and is in what is assumed to be a new evolutionary state for man.
3. Astronaut-turned-foetus returns to Earth for mysterious purpose.
That's not much of a plot -- especially for such a long movie. Don't get me wrong, I love 2001, but saying it's got a complex plot is like saying Blade Runner stars Tom Cruise -- it's just incorrect.
Even the Harry Potter movies have a more complicated plot than 2001 did. If you really want to blow your mind, try breaking down the plot of Miller's Crossing.
Re:Speech, updated from alt.sysadmin.recovery (Score:1, Informative)
It was taken from another SF novel (Score:3, Informative)
A take on the phrase, "rum runner" when alcohol was illegal.
Re:Contact (Score:3, Informative)
** SPOILERS BELOW**
Carl Sagan was a scientist. His book supports the concept of empirical verification rather than taking things on faith. Thus, in the book, you have a team that takes the journey and they return with a method of demonstrably proving God's existence (through a message buried deep within the digits of pi-- and thus within the structure of the created universe). The message is is the scientific one: look for the evidence/proof.
The movie sends precisely the opposite message. While the protagonist starts believing in science, at the end she embraces faith and acknowledges that she has come to accept her experience as real, despite the lack of any objective avidence. (The evidence exists in the hours of blank tape, but she is unaware of them.) She is won over to being just another religious believer, taking things "on faith". It seems to be a waste of billions of dollars that could have been better spent on Earth.
Given the 180 degree change in philosophical direction, I don't think Carl Sagan would have approved.
Re:Gattaca (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A film without heros or villans (Score:4, Informative)
The police know he's a replicant - he's their replicant, their tool - but they must hide that fact from the public. The theory is that it is Gaff who is Deckard's controller. Gaff is always shadowing Deckard's activities, always in the background with a knowing smirk. The clincher is Gaff's origamis at key moments. He'll make an origami that corresponds to what Deckard is thinking, such as making the origami of a man with an erection when Rachel comes up as a subject in a conversation, and especially the unicorn origami. In the Director's Cut, Deckard has an inexplicable dream of a unicorn, and later Gaff leaves a unicorn origami for him. This shows that Gaff knows about his dream - Deckard is likely a replicant like Rachel, with implanted memories, and Gaff as his controller, knows what these memories are (also note Deckard's excessive collection of family photos...). Deckard does Gaff's dirty work for him, without knowing it.
Re:I can't believe... (Score:3, Informative)
In case any are unfamiliar with it, Metropolis is a silent movie made in 1926. There are no known complete copies, so any version you see will necessarily be an assemblage from bits of various copies. And while there's enough bits to make a full length movie, I don't think there's any version that's totally complete.
I've only seen two reconstructions of it. One was pretty much just an assemblage of whatever bits could be recovered, without any embelleshment except for a soundtrack that I think was a guess at the general kind of thing that might have been played with it at a theatre in the 1920's. The other is the one made by Georgio Moroder that has some poorly done embellishments and a soundtrack of 80's music, mostly badly chosen.
Moroder's version is widely criticized and often considered a bit insulting to the original, but I actually rather liked it in spite of the obvious warts. What I liked about it was that it seemed to tell the story better than the straight restoration, and best I can tell, without losing the spirit of it. Also, there was one musical track in Moroder's version that I think actually fit the scene very well. And that was the "Blood from a Stone" song that played during the "Shift Change" scene from the beginning of the movie.
A great old movie like this should not languish forever in such disrepair. A really good remake would be great.
Re:I can't believe... (Score:3, Informative)