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.
I'd have to agree. (Score:5, Insightful)
SOMEONE FUCKING SHOVE A DICK IN MY ASS PLZ (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:5, Insightful)
Contact (Score:5, Insightful)
Brainstorm (Score:4, Insightful)
Very underappreciated.
60 of the most influential? (Score:3, Insightful)
That, and what do they mean by 'best'? The one that most closely aligns to my worldview? Prettiest?
This is no better than those fluff 'top 100 whatever' pieces from the popular press. Meaningless and divisive.
It was supposed to be boring. (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine the first people to fly to Europa. It would be exciting for the first, say, month. After that, you'd start to get bored and wig out.
"What's on the scanner / out the window?"
"Uh, nothing. Same as yesterday."
"Ah. Want to play cards / Doom3 / on the holodeck?"
Nothing exciting happens, and that's the point.
Re:I'd have to agree. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:omg (Score:5, Insightful)
I am of the opinion that the exact opposite is true: I'd be exceedingly suprised if a group of scientists didn't include it in their top 10. Indeed, I'm rather suprised it wasn't in the #1 position.
2001: A Space Odyssey still stands today as one of the most scientifically accurate Sci-Fi movies. And when you consider that it was produced prior to man's first landing on the moon, that's quite a huge feat.
Not only that, but the story is vastly moree thought provoking than your typical sci-fi fare intended for mass consumption. It deals with issues such as human evolution, human exploration, the role of artificial intelligence, man's attempt to "play god" gone terribly wrong, and man's place in the universe.
It's not a movie for people with a closed mind, or people who don't want to think about the story for themselves. I don't think there is anything wrong with people who want to go to a movie that tells them a simple to understand story (like, say, anything in the Star Wars series) -- but that doesn't mean there isn't a place for well through, thought provoking films in the genre.
2001: A Space Odyssey is simply brilliant. There's a reason why it appears on virtually every top movies list (like the AFC Top 100). And even thought the movie was filmed nearly 40 years ago, it still stands up as scientifically realistic in its portrayals of computer science and space travel.
How many movies out there can say that?
Yaz.
Non sequitur (Score:3, Insightful)
I have seen many movies with outstanding acting performances that lacked a plot, or great plots with poor cinematography, etc. They are what they are - good performances, plots, etc., but still not good movies. The movie is the unified whole. The greatest directorial performance in history would not make a plotless movie good, it would just make it a bad movie with great direction.
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:5, Insightful)
Get your stories straight, lads. (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says "Blade Runner was the runaway favourite in our poll." followed by 2001 which was "A very close second". Which is it?
Re:Non sequitur (Score:5, Insightful)
voice-over is a no-no (Score:2, Insightful)
Why Blade Runner... (Score:5, Insightful)
The other reason I enjoy Blade Runner is that science is not the scapegoat. Almost every other movie I've seen has made scientists and intellectuals (not that I count myself as either) as "evil". Technology running rampant destroying the earth is a common theme (Terminator, various post-Apocalyptic movies, "mad scientist" blandness). Even movies that celebrate the triumph of the intellect eventually bow down to superstition (the scene of an Aborigine praying to unseen gods to help a lunar module land safely sticks in my mind).
So yeah, I'm glad that Blade Runner is up there.
Re:I'd have to agree. (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought that was supposed to be a dystopic vision of the future.
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw 2001 when I was in grade school and I was completely fascinated, totally absorbed by what was happening on the screen. Not that I understood it, of course. :-)
How about the scene in ep 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:3, Insightful)
LS
Re:Star Wars? (Score:5, Insightful)
(so we can all point and laugh...) Laugh at you, maybe. Star Wars isn't science fiction - it's space fantasy.
Yes, it's entertaining. Yes, it is (or was, before Lucas dorked it up) a fun movie to watch. The point the grandparent was trying to make is that, strictly speaking, it's not really SCIENCE fiction because there's no science. Read some real science fiction(*) and compare it to Star Wars and you'll see the only thing they have in common is that they're set in space. (*) Some real Sci-Fi titles to check out:
The Essence of Good Sci Fi (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps one measure of a truly great sci-fi film is the extent to which it becomes a popular metaphor afterward. For that reason, unlike others here, I'm not surprised Matrix is on the list. I hear people make reference to it a lot.
Re:ALIENS! (Score:2, Insightful)
So i'm having to disagree with you there. having watched both films back to back recently (didn't bother with the rest of the series). or maybe you didn't mean to add that 's'?
Sorry, I just don't understand why the sequel consistently seems to rate higher with the general public..
Re:Star Wars? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, Star Wars is sci-fi as much as Dune, Foundation, and Ender's Game are. Star Wars was always geared a little more for the mass market, but it is still quite an epic tale spanning generations and civilizations.
I can't believe... (Score:5, Insightful)
History (Score:5, Insightful)
It was Ridley Scott's follow up to Alien, and it just doesn't have the narrative drive and shock value of Alien. Of course it grows on you with repeated viewings, but it really didn't go over very well initially. What really cinched Blade Runner's reputation was the advent of home video. People got a chance to look at it again and really appreciate it. I know I do. It is one of my favorite movies.
Not more favorite than 2001: A Space Odessey, however. I'd quibble about the 1 - 2 placement. I vastly prefer 2001. I don't know exactly what it is, but the combination of impressionism and cold realism is completely gripping. Its never quite the same movie twice. Its driven by ambiguity and it is exceptionally beautiful. Nothing else even comes close.
Re:Brazil (Score:5, Insightful)
Brazil doesn't really make any contributions other then its gorgeous visual design, and the irony of being a rip-off of 1984 the book while simultaneously being a better movie then 1984 the movie :)
Re:A film without heros or villans (Score:5, Insightful)
Possibly because he was programmed that way?
(Cue huge original theatrical release vs. directors cut flamewar)
Re:I'd have to agree. (Score:4, Insightful)
Bladerunner with Dialog, or without? ;-) (Score:5, Insightful)
Brazil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Contact (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were to add a film to this list, it would likely be "Contact". The opening shot is the best explanation of "space is big" I've ever seen, it deals with the big science-vs-religion flamewar in a way that seems respectful to both sides and it says an amazingly large number of things about science. I didn't like the movie at first, but it's really grown on me the more I've thought back to it.
(although I do think it should have ended at the limo - that's when it had made its point and that's when it was done).
Re:Contact (Score:3, Insightful)
(hint: the aliens are a plot device... the story is about the search for truth/god/meaning )
Re:Non sequitur (Score:1, Insightful)
The fact that people are still arguing as vehemently over the movie 35 years after its release does mean it's a good movie.
Re:Gattaca (Score:2, Insightful)
Another movie "signs" makes the same point. The characters in the movie survive the aliens not despite of their defects but becouse of their defects. Both movies draw attention to the idea that no system or buisness or government or even cultural standard can truely and acuretly suscribe what is a defect and what is an adventages quality in a human being.
stendec@gmail.com
About the flamewar (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent post is referring Ridley's direction that Decker is a replicant [bbc.co.uk] -- although he was not in the book. As for how Ford acted the part, you can just as easily that he didn't act anything. The action star hated being in the film. (or more precisely, the director).
The director's cut eliminated the cheesy voiceover. Voiceover narrations almost never work (Dances with Wolves comes to mind, ug) except when done by John Cusack.
Your hole is really a lack of imagination (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Some sizable fraction of replicants are sex slaves like Priss. In this case you certainly want as human as possible.
2. While humans are supposedly going off world to work, we don't meet anyone that has actually come back. The replicants can survive extreme environments. Perhaps humans are just being killed and all off world work is done by replicants, only the general populace doesn't knows this because any video shows off world activity full of human looking replicants.
3. Working with someone offworld that looks in-human might engender mistrust.
4. Any obvious cosmetic change like color could be overcome with makeup.
5. When we first started making them, it never occurred they would come back and start killing people. Making new replicants visually different would highlight the original oversight, and governments rarely want to do this.
Re:You got the wrong "omg" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You got the wrong "omg" (Score:4, Insightful)
Replicants aren't robots at all. They're bioforms crafted from DNA. That's why they look like people; they are people. Really tough, capable, designed-for-function people. Not to mention that products like Pris, which are designed for, er, "service", will generally do better if they look like people. So will soldiers, as they're properly built to deal with weaponry that was designed for human handling.
Olmos wasn't supposed to be Japanese. The story was saying that cultures were merging, that's all. There were tons of other examples. Punk style, traditional cop sleaze, high tech advertising, corporate hegemony, DNA manipulation at the "street stall" level and leading to designer pets and props (remember the snake that was instrumental in the "detective" oriented portion of the plot?)
The Vangelis score is certainly a matter of taste. I found it quite apt. I preferred the narrated version of the movie to the director's cut, though - the mood was more apparent and fit the score better in my mind.
Re:Brazil? (Score:3, Insightful)
Brazil is a great movie but I don't think it spun off anywhere near the amount of say the Terminator did. We've seen references to terminator in campy punch line cartoons and shows, as well as many B-type movie rip offs.
Brazil has not had that kind of influence.
Why wasn't Clarke higher? (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I agree with Asimov being ranked first in the authors polls. I would have put Clarke second. Certainly before Wells, Hoyle and Wyndham.
Every time I read a book by Clarke it routinely blows my mind. Take Childhoods End for example, that is probably the best sci fi book I have read. I originally read it when I was 15 and even after many rereads I am still blown away (I find it somewhat depressing)
Not a plot hole, and this is explained in movie (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:lucas should not be on this list (Score:3, Insightful)
I do have to agree with many other posts I've seen so far in that Star Wars is NOT science fiction. Yes, it takes place in space and makes heavy use of advanced technologies to foster it's appeal, but I've never felt Star Wars to be at all based on reality. I think we can all agree that the BEST sci-fi takes concepts that are already existent today and either expands on them or twists them around in such a manner that we view them from an entirely different perspective.
Re:2001 (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not knocking Blade Runner, which is a fine piece of film on its own. I'm merely countering those who don't think 2001 should have been on the list (which can't be all that hard -- after all apparently I have 60 of the most influential scientists behind me on that one :) ).
It deals with some theoretical AI issues that have been bandied about by computer scientists since Turing. What is it to be sentient? Can computers be sentient? If we give them artificial intelligence, can we control them? Will we be able to produce a knowable result?
These are the areas where 2001 shows some scientific acccuracy in the realm of computer science. True, it is fantasy, and it is dealing with only one possible outcome. But all of these topics are dealt with. in the BBC interview, we learn that while HAL appears to simulate a person, he is viewed as non-sentient, but instead as merely a complex simulation. At the same time (which we learn later), HAL is given conflicting programming (no distortion or withholding of information, the protection and health of the crew, the need to complete the mission at all costs, and the keeping of the true nature of the mission a secret from the crew). These orders come into conflict.
Now if we do create a human-like AI system like HAL, how will it react to conflicting orders? Conflicts in programming in current "dumb" systems usually results in a dead-lock situation, but what if the machine can make a value judgement to resolve that deadlock? Will it make the right choice?
In this case, HAL made what most people would consider a wrong choice. Faced with the need to keep a secret and violate his primary design in doing so, he became, for lack of a better description, psychotically ill.
It is still fiction of course -- but these remain important questions and aspects of modern computer science. Clarke thought that by 2001 we'd be wrestling with the practical implications of these questions -- but instead we're still wrestling with them in the theoretical realm.
Yaz.
Sci-Fi isn't about science; it's about "What If?" (Score:5, Insightful)
All of these movies are obviously sci-fi, since they all feature neat-o technology and such. But there are others that I'd call sci-fi that aren't so obvious. For example, about half of Jim Carrey's movies are sci-fi: Liar, Liar asks "What if I couldn't lie?" The Mask asks "What if I lost all of my inhibitions?" Bruce Almighty asks "What if I were God?" -- just like Frankenstein (only different).
Now, as for Star Wars, it doesn't ask "what if." Star Wars is just a classic Greek epic, set in space. It's more similar to The Odyssey (by Homer) than 2001: A Space Odyssey (by Clarke/Kubrick).
Re:It was supposed to be boring. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sign me up, I'm sick of shit happening all the time. I mean, am I the only person on the planet that thinks that life is too fast - slow down already. Learn to meditate or something if you can't cope with doing 'nothing'.
The idea of spending months without noise and distractions sounds excellent.
Re:Non sequitur (Score:1, Insightful)
Or maybe Roy is the Hero (Score:4, Insightful)
"The principal male character in a novel, poem, or dramatic presentation".
True enough, in our simplistic "hero always wins" mass media movie form. But in some ways, I consider Roy Batty (the lead replicant played by Rutger Hauer) as the Hero, albeit a tragic one. He dies with honour, accepting death at the end and letting his rival live. And his final "Time to die" is sheer poetry, not the death grunt of the archetypal villian, but truly heroic.
A really great film.
Matrix only Number 9? (Score:1, Insightful)
Science Fiction (SF) is all about holding a story together with interesting characters in a fictional world whose fabric is speculation. It is the "spreadsheet" of literature where the initial cells are fed by chaos. Some of the best SF reflects on the nature of man himself. What if we changed his tools? His body? His mind? His social structure? His world? Does he have limits?
At what point is he no longer Man? At what point are his creations no longer toys? Does he have a soul or is that a pretty good lie that his survival circuits keep whispering to him (and he desperately wants to believe?)
So it's really no suprise that Blade Runner won even if it is an imperfect adaption of Phillip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream...". Dick's mind created more fantastic SF per unit time than practically any other writer.
Considering what a train wreck "The Matrix" trilogy became, it's become very trendy to treat the original with derision. I'm always amazed at the naive comments I heard about the original when it opened and even today. The front page review at the top of USA Today on the Friday after it opened was something like, "marginally interesting SciFi movie with flying Ninjas". Go figure.
Call me crazy, but I believe the original is a masterful SF weave of neomodern philosophy, cybernetics, virtual reality, action and spiritual/political commentary. The most amazing thing is that the original got produced at all.
The truth of the matter is that the Bros Watchowski created a memetic virus wrapped in the bubble gum of an action movie. Ironically when Neo takes the "red pill", we have already taken it.
Upon further inspection this metaphor engine is more akin to a many layered onion. The layer inside the action sequences is about virtual reality. The layer inside that is about Martial Arts. The layer inside that is about belief in oneself. The layer inside that is about self-determination and free-will. Inside that I believe it gets into the nature of reality itself and perhaps Taoist sex magick, but I'm guessing.
In retrospect I think most of the people who grokked The Matrix immediately were either computer geeks or heads (or both
Anyway, we should redo the poll here on Slashdot. I say we seriously mod up The Matrix.
Gattaca (Score:4, Insightful)
"What's your fucking number?" is still used amongst my circle of friends. :-)
And Soylent Green, which has three of the most chilling scenes ever filmed for an SF film.
Re:Blade Runner not all that special (Score:5, Insightful)
It was meant to smack of a 40's detective story, but if that was all you saw, I think real point passed you by. It was a much deeper story of "I don't want to die, where will I go when I do, what will become of everything I have experienced? Can I meet God and negotiate for more time?" We're supposed to connect with Deckard and then at the end suddenly realize that he too is a replicant (if he were merely human, the replicants would have smashed him to pieces 10 minutes into the movie).
The last scene in the movie where Roy saves Deckard we suddenly realize that the replicants are not mindless killing machines. Roy knows his pre-programmed death is near, and even though Deckard has killed his 3 friends, he saves Deckard from a fall that would certainly mean death. Roy then sits down and gives the most important lines of the movie.
Re:About the flamewar (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:You forgot Nemesis (Score:2, Insightful)
Kirk vs. God...KirkvsGod...kirkv sgod...noooo
reminds of the classic chris farley SNL bit: Hey Tad, Ditka vs. God...who wins?
DITKA!
Re:What's special about Blade Runner? (Score:5, Insightful)
Blade Runner is a story about humanity, life and death. It is about the feelings and emotions of the "people" and about seeing the moral complexity behind something that starts out seeming very black and white.
Are Roy and Pris, et al "bad guys"? Yes. But, after getting past expectations from action sci-fi, you begin to see why they are the way they are and you end up feeling more pity and relief than hatred and joy that they are dead.
It offers a poignancy most sci-fi distinctly lacks, although I have to admit I still tear up in the scene from 2010 when Chandra finally levels with HAL and trusts him/it to make the right decision. Is it a bad thing to so closely identify with a homicidal computer?
Anyway, the choice of a film noir style gives it a look and feel that seems much more rich and interesting than generic spaceship and space base interiors. And the saxophone work makes me feel like I do when I listen to "Us and Them" from Dark Side of the Moon.
As other posters have noted it definitely is a film that grows on you.
Re:omg (Score:3, Insightful)
Regarding your points, lots of otherwise very bad scientifically yet typically considered-as-SF movies (like star wars) have plenty of good science elements in them. I could go on for many paragraphs, cherry picking good science out of Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars (that's who actually wrote the screenplay for the movie, not George Lucas.) I would say that for a movie to live up to a billing of "one of the most scientifically accurate", it'd need to be rid of problems, not have bragging rights to a decent extrapolation here and there.
Also - for me, the best SF implements the fiction portion of "SF" as the storyline; it is not used as an excuse to drag in bad science, or preposterous science, or extrapolation that cannot reasonably follow. Instead, the science and/or extrapolation is as bulletproof as possible, so as to provide both exilaration and hope as a backdrop to a human (or inhuman) story. I get whacked in the eyeballs with a giant world-orbiting embryo, and trust me, the first thing that comes to mind isn't "gonna go right home and blog up how fabulous the science is in this movie!"
As I said, I really like the movie. I just don't think it meets the standard mentioned.
Finally, as to your use of "science fiction." It is very different than mine for a reason. I'm freaking old, and I have a SF (classic SF) upbringing. I still deal with the idea of science fiction the way the crew in Milford (Pennsylvania, very much SFWA's birthplace) did. I grew up there, I know (or knew, sadly) most of those people, and I'm getting pretty fossilized in my outlook. :)
Since those days, the category of SF has very much changed from "science fiction" to "speculative fiction" with (IMHO, of course) the objective of folding in fantasy elements because there are so few good writers doing actual SF. I'm not with the program, I readily admit. My feeling is that the science should be accurate or reasonably extrapolated, or it's not "science fiction", it is fantasy. Or speculative fiction, if you must. Of course, anything can be speculative fiction, because the thing is defined by a lack of rigor. Very much like religion, and for the same reason: It's quite difficult to work with the facts as we know them, and probably just as difficult to actually know them. So people tend to take the easy route, and just wave their hands wildly instead.
All IMHO, not meant to spoil your day in any way.
Calculating the future. (Score:2, Insightful)
In the Foundation series, science and maths were used to predict and plan the development of societies, a device that Mark Brake, professor of science communication at the University of Glamorgan, thinks may be a touch heavy-handed: "We can't even predict a flood in Boscastle, let alone how a society behaves a thousand years in the future."
"I predict that people in the future wont be able to predict the future"
Re:Not a plot hole, and this is explained in movie (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Minority Report (Score:3, Insightful)
All in all Blade Runner is a better movie. Minority Report is a show of special effects that don't help the plot and a parade for Tom "one face for all moods" Cruise.
Re:Off topic Mexican food rant (Score:2, Insightful)
Aliens (Score:3, Insightful)
Glad that Alien got in (that's two for ripley), but if we're going to let in Star Wars sequels then James Cameron's Aliens should have been included, and not for nostalgia reasons.
Not only does it continue the themes mentioned by the list, but also one that often chimes in sf: corporate irresponsibility. It appears to be a Scott favourite too, taking into account Blade Runner. As an extension to the argument "if it can be done, it will be done", first the Company subverts an android to do its bidding, then when that fails, employs the snakiest brownnoser (I still can't watch a rerun of Mad about You without wishing for an alien to crash through the apartment and tear Paul Reiser to pieces).
As a sequel, it's up there with Empires. Never mind that the rest bombed like subsequent Star Wars sequels.
Re:2001 (Score:3, Insightful)
The DVD edition of 2001 in the Stanley Kubrick Collection has the video of a talk Arthur C. Clarke gave at an MGM dinner for the launch (or announcement -- I don't recall which) about the future of space travel and technology, specifically by 2001.
He's an excellent speaker, and you can't help but feel that the plans and timelines he espouses are realistic. You start to feel that humanity could indeed get together and achieve these ends.
Then you realize that his future is now, and we haven't achieved much of anything compared to Clarke's vision. And that's just depressing.
Yaz.
Re:Contact (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:1984 gives people too much credit (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Star Wars? (Score:3, Insightful)
Mildly entertaining but overly-derivative tripe. It was, in turns, a pastiche [reference.com] of Bradbury's Farenheit 451, Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, with a big dollop of The Matrix, and Finally a brief flash of Cube for the ending...
If you don't know that then I suggest you start reading [amazon.com]. The movie's up-side is that it introduces the dystopian concepts it borrows to new generations of the illiterati, but on the other hand it doesn't acknowledge the sources, leading people to believe that these plot-devices and themes are new.
The reason no-one else steals them so whole-heartedly is because these novels are very famous and interationally acclaimed Important Literature. 451 and 1984 even have even had very well known and reasonably faithful movies made from them. Movie makers rarely fail to acknowledge obvious sources because critics will call their works "Mildly entertaining but overly-derivative tripe."
I do, however, think the Gunkata concept was quite fun.
THX (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Contact (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right about the limo, by the way. That's Hollywood for you, specifically the Spielberg Effect. While we're on it, The Minority Report, which sort of qualifies as sci-fi, should have ended with Tom Cruise getting his head blown off.
Re:Get your stories straight, lads. (Score:2, Insightful)
So it does make sense...
"Blade Runner was the runaway favorite in our poll" since it had double the amount of votes as the #2.
"2001 was a very close second" since it was only one vote behind the winner!
Re:A film without (...): Roy not a villain (Score:2, Insightful)
As for Roy chasing Deckard, he's not doing it just for sport. Remember what he's saying during the chase ?, "Four, five, how to stay alive!". The whole chase is a lesson to Deckard, he learns what's it like to be a replicant: hunted for wanting to be free, and living in fear. When Deckard strikes Roy in the head with that pipe, Roy shouts happily "yeah!, that's the spirit!", i.e. because Deckard is acting like a hunted replicant, kill or be killed. At the end of the chase, he tells Deckard "Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?". He forced him to empathize with replicants. Not to mention that he saves Deckard's life in the end, because at that moment, when he was about to die, he loved life. Hardly a villain.
2001's greatness... (Score:2, Insightful)
Either something went horribly wrong or Clarke/Kubrick did something exactly right...
Re:I'd have to agree. (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you see D. Hannah in Kill Bill? She's *still* got what it takes!
Re:Wrath of Khan (and others) (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, Gattaca was meant to be on my list, too, but I accidentally left it off. Good catch.
Though one thing I'll say about it was that I initially (and, in retrospect, foolishly) expected it to wake up the world to the dangers of medical information sharing in a world where insurance agencies and others can make such abusive use of info they get. But it did nothing on this level. Too artsy and not-to-the-point, I suppose, for the masses. I thought it made the point well, but I guess everyone is not me.
Enemy of the State turned out to be the movie that made the point about privacy better, not by being sci-fi, but by appealing directly to things people in this day and age can relate to: video games, credit cards, and so on.
I saw a lecture by Asimov once where he talked about how he got hauled in to some government place for writing about "atomic" things, and how they let him go on doing it so it wouldn't be suspicious that they'd made him stop all of a sudden. He said for a while, only scifi buffs understood how the world worked and were allowed to talk about it. I suppose we're a harmless niche. In the same sense, maybe only scifi buffs see other coming problems like privacy as addressed in Gattaca. The rest of the world waits for a 9/11-like experience to wake them up and say "it's here now, you have to care."
Re:About the flamewar (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a pretty good paradox thing really. Replicants are getting too smart for humans, so the humans have to make special replicants to work for them to hunt the replicants, but they have to make sure the replicants think they're human.
It's probably a mistake to compare the film and the book. The film is based pretty much only on the book's concept and imagery, the storyline is very different.
Damnit, I've watched this film too many times...!