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Blade Runner at 25, Why the F/X Still Matter 454

Posted by CmdrTaco from the beware-the-thighs-that-crush dept.
mattnyc99 writes "Today marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott's dark vision of the future that changed the future of filmmaking and still stands up today, argues Adam Savage of The MythBusters (and the F/X crews of The Matrix and Star Wars). Between the "lived-in science fiction," pre-CGI master models, futuristic cityscapes and tricked-out cars, don't you agree? And after we got the first official glimpse of him from Indiana Jones 4 this weekend, isn't Harrison Ford still the man?"
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Blade Runner at 25, Why the F/X Still Matter More

Blade Runner at 25, Why the F/X Still Matter

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  • didn't know what a steier .222 looked like, found (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25, 2007 @12:50PM (#19637545)
    http://props.steinschneider.com/blade_runner/bldru nbl.htm [steinschneider.com]
    • I'm not usually into movie trivia like this, but that was a pretty neat article. Their single-minded devotion to creating the exact prop from the film is a bit eerie, though.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by OECD ( 639690 )

        . Their single-minded devotion to creating the exact prop from the film is a bit eerie, though.

        Savage is (or was) a prop guy. That's what they do. I know one who made a working replica of the Logan's Run Blaster just for grins. (Working in that it spews green flames, not in that it terminates runners.)

        Oddly, today I happened across some '04 Mayoral candidates that were given the Voight-Kampff test. [thewavemag.com] (The Nexus 7 won.)

        • " I know one who made a working replica of the Logan's Run Blaster just for grins. (Working in that it spews green flames, not in that it terminates runners.) "

          Too bad they didn't try to do the 'gun' in the movie Logan's Run more like the gun in the novel..it was MUCH more interesting, and deadly. Having the homer fired at a runner was a nasty thing....would have made for interesting special effects watching it unravel his entire nervous system.

          That was one movie where the book was SO far ahead of it bet

          • Hi. Thanks for your post; it brought back some memories from my youth. I agree, the book had a lot of stuff that would've been cool to see in the movie (and not just more of the gun). But from my memory of the book, a lot of it probably would've given the movie an "R" rating. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that it was only PG as it was. But things were different back in '76.

            I still enjoy watching the movie to this day, though. Perhaps this is because it holds a special place in my heart... it was the first

  • Special edition DVD? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by James_G ( 71902 ) <james AT globalmegacorp DOT org> on Monday June 25, 2007 @12:52PM (#19637571)
    What happened to it? I've been waiting for years now. The latest update here [brmovie.com] seems hopeful, but nothing since.. and it was suggesting a release in time for the 25th anniversary..

    • Re:Special edition DVD? (Score:5, Informative)

      by edawstwin ( 242027 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @12:55PM (#19637613)
      http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=36328 [scifi.com]

      "Blade Runner: Final Cut will arrive in 2007 for a limited 25th-anniversary theatrical run, followed by a special-edition DVD with the three previous versions offered as alternate viewing."

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by edgrale ( 216858 )
      You can find more information on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. (Fall 2007)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Qhue ( 1119913 )
      There is a trailer for it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fAm7qOY7Vg [youtube.com] it was aired on the American Film Institute's top 100 movies special last week (where Blade Runner was added to the list as well) Apparently they are considering a re-release in theaters as a way to help recoup the costs of the reshooting they did earlier this year.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tji ( 74570 )
      I don't know about the DVD, but I was happy to see it broadcast in High Definition on HDNet Movies. Seeing those old movies in HD format, in their original aspect ratio, it the next best thing to seeing them on the big screen (or, maybe even better.. in the controlled environment of your own home).

      For some of those movies I originally saw in a butchered 4:3 VHS version, the Hi-Def widescreen presentation is like seeing another movie.

  • Dystopian future (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25, 2007 @12:55PM (#19637603)
    Still living with my parents 25 years on

  • Just remove the wires, OK? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ashitaka ( 27544 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @12:57PM (#19637627) Homepage
    The one thing that did distract from the movie was the extremely obvious wires holding up the spinner in several scenes. That's one "enhancement" I could stand the Special Edition DVD having.

    "All this will be lost, like tears in the rain"

    "Time to die"

  • Maybe? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25, 2007 @12:57PM (#19637629)

    And after we got the first official glimpse of him from Indiana Jones 4 this weekend, isn't Harrison Ford still the man?
    Maybe he's still the man ... I thought that he was "the android" in Blade Runner.

    Oh, shit! Put a spoiler alert above that!

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by chris_mahan ( 256577 )
      There are no androids in BR. Only replicants.

    • Re:Maybe? (Score:4, Funny)

      by jonnythan ( 79727 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:35PM (#19638121)
      The replicants in Blade Runner are 100% organic.
  • there is no more perfect science fiction movie to me

    the problem with most science fiction movies is that the sampling of the philosophical implications of their subject matter is too shallow (or they are outright fantasy riffs without any attempt at philosophisizing). you don't get that with a good sci fi book. a good sci fi book gets you to really think and wonder. a good science fiction movie just usually entertains you... sometimes entertains you REALLY well, but the thinking part isn't usually there

    but blade runner really got to me. especially the scenes at the end, with deckard and batty, the movie collapsed all of the science fiction trappings into meaning: the essential human struggles with life and death and what is the whole damn point anyway? blade runner really sticks with you. every time i watch it i think of something new

    i really don't know of a better example of how deeply a 2 hour scifi movie can really get to you in a deep way

    well maybe contact [imdb.com], but contact comes second in my mind to blade runner

    • Re:i love blade runner (Score:4, Interesting)

      by green453 ( 889049 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:22PM (#19637977)
      I like Gataca a lot as well. I think it goes beyond shallow subject matter--it forces you to think about the ethical implications of the movements in science. It might seem shallow at first, but think about when it came out. Dolly had just been cloned. Biotech was on the minds of people and when they saw the movie when it first came out, they had to think about whether or not we should always let science advance for the sake of science. It made us think about the 'essential human struggle with life and death.' It told us the whole point -- the human spirit is triumphant but we have to be careful that our zeal for advancement doesn't ever quash our humanity. I'm not trying to say Gataca > Blade Runner. I like both a lot and they take us into slightly different areas, but both force us to think about what it means to be human. For me though, Gataca gets me more deeply than Blade Runner does. Maybe just because I'm a limited nerd that wants to triumph rather than a uber-cool cop (alright, I could identify better with Deckard in DADoES, but we're talking about the movie here...)

    • Re:i love blade runner (Score:4, Insightful)

      by samkass ( 174571 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:26PM (#19638015) Homepage Journal
      The thing is, both Blade Runner and Contact are a pale shadow of their books. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", on which Bladerunner is theoretically based, contains many times the depth and probably only takes you the same couple hours to read. In Contact, the entire point of the book was more or less missed by the movie-- in the book, the dichotomy between faith and science is addressed by the ending. The movie makes it into a gimmicky twist.

      I agree that Blade Runner is one of the best science fiction movies of all time. And it stands up amazingly well to modern special effects and scenery. But the movie is still a movie-- entertainment with tunnel-vision, spoon-fed philosophy.
      • a good sci fi book will always makes you think and wonder about 100x more than a movie ever could. a book shares thoughts better than any movie, simply as an aspect of one medium versus another

        however, like life, thought alone is nothing. thought must be combined with action in real life to have any meaning. we denigrate, for good reason, action without thought (in movies, politics, etc.). but i think the corollary: thought without action, is just as bad

        the point being, movies are better than books. simply

      • Re:i love blade runner (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rossifer ( 581396 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:57PM (#19638415) Journal

        "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", on which Bladerunner is theoretically based, contains many times the depth and probably only takes you the same couple hours to read.
        I disagree, sorta. They're such different stories, with such different protagonists, themes, and antagonists, I don't think the comparison is apt. An earlier post said it pretty well: there's no way of saying whether a movie that closely followed the book would be great. The movie "Blade Runner" is great, so let's enjoy it for what it is.

        As for one being deeper than the other... personally, I find the movie's resolution of the synthetic/authentic dichotomy more satisfying. The book says that the synthetic is never as "good" as the authentic. The movie says it can be.

        This analysis is consonant with my impression of Penrose re: AI's potential. Penrose says we can't simulate intelligence using Von Neumann computers because intelligence relies on quantum-mechanical nondeterministic computation to evade Godel's incompleteness theorem. I say that Penrose has made at least three significant errors: 1) his argument that human intelligence does successfully evade Godel's incompleteness theorem is pure speculation; 2) simple electrochemical models of brain operation include nondeterministic elements (neurotransmitter diffusion, etc.), without any need for quantum-level effects; and 3) that it would be difficult to add probabilistic operations to Von Neumann systems if nondeterministic elements were found to be necessary to simulate intelligence.

        Don't get me wrong. I love reading PKD's stuff and am a huge fan. I just happen to disagree with his thesis in that story ("Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"), and that disagreement leads me to be more satisfied with Ridley Scott's variation on the story.

        Regards,
        Ross

    • there is no more perfect science fiction movie to me

      Except for those god-awful '80s hairdos and makeup... Barf.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by spun ( 1352 )
      I don't know, I put it in my top three. For me, it ranks with Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

      Uhhhh, Contact? Good lord. Okay book, awful movie, IMHO.
      • Mods like Contact? WTF? Are you ALL on crack? IT SUCKED ASS! It wasn't just bad, it was dreadful. The kind of people that liked it are the kind of Sci-Fi dilettantes that liked The Matrix or Cocoon. Posers.

        Waste your damn mod points modding this troll, it's my honest opinion. I don't give a rat's ass what someone dumb enough to like Contact thinks anyway.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Control Group ( 105494 ) *
          If I had mod points, I'd fix the glitch.

          You're right: Contact was abominable. That's one of only a few movies I disliked so much I actually want my two hours back.

    • Re:i love blade runner (Score:4, Funny)

      by suv4x4 ( 956391 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:05PM (#19638535)
      well maybe contact [imdb.com], but contact comes second in my mind to blade runner

      Contact is definitely first in my list, because of the "my daddy is an alien" and "your mind can't bear how we actually look" cop-out ending.

      You gotta be very brave to masterfully build suspence for hours in this otherwise great movie, and end with daddy talking condescendingly to the main protagonist "honey, you're too stupid to even have a look at me".

      I mean, what the hell could they be? Really ugly fat green gelatinous blob monster? Seen that [darkhorse.com]. Gaseous purple clouds? Seen that, too (although the comic version [wikimedia.org] looks kinda different).

      I mean WHAT, what the hell did it look like? Maybe they all looked like middle-aged average dads and this is why all the lies. Outer space jerks.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by hazem ( 472289 )
        Contact is definitely first in my list, because of the "my daddy is an alien" and "your mind can't bear how we actually look" cop-out ending.

        A really nice echo of that theme was in the Venture Brothers episode "Twenty Years to Midnight". That was probably one of the best episodes of one of the best cartoons for geeks.

        spoiler:
        "Jonas": Alright, fine! You wanna see?! Here! ["Jonas" starts to rip open his face; we only see everyone's looks of horror and a bright light from "Jonas"'s direction] There! That woul

    • Re:i love blade runner (Score:4, Informative)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:21PM (#19638747)
      Batty's assertion of his own humanity at the end is still one of my favorite science fiction scenes of all time. It's so subtle and simple, yet so powerful. Rarely do you see so much meaning condensed into just a few lines (and kudos to the great Rutger Hauer for his performance).

      There is a lot of good "grown-up" science fiction in movies out there for those willing to look for it. I would add movies like "12 Monkeys" and "Primer" (rare serious looks at the ramifications of time travel) as personal favorites, as well as (of course) "2001: A Space Odyssey," one of the few science fiction films to treat alien/human (or is it God/human?) contact in any serious way. "Gattaca" was also good, but a bit heavy-handed for my tastes. A lot of people hated "The Fountain," but I thought it was an interesting meditation on human mortality.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Angostura ( 703910 )
      I think Forbidden Planet had the biggest impact on me as a kid, and still holds up well today.

      I have a rather soft spot for Dark City as well.

      Ah well. ... but yes, Blade Runner is splendid.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ben_white ( 639603 )
      Check out this npr story [npr.org] that ran today on "Day to Day" (Windows Media or Real, podcast available here [npr.org]).

      Very interesting take on a comparison between the LA of Bladerunner and the current LA.

  • For a 50 year old guy... (Score:4, Funny)

    by HardCase ( 14757 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:00PM (#19637677)
    ...Harrison Ford's holding up pretty damn well.

    Oh...what? Damn!

  • On today's Mythbusters... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:03PM (#19637725)
    On today's episode of Mythbusters, Jamie and Adam examine the myth that a four-paragraph article should be spread across four pages.

  • But Is Deckard A Replicant? Or Not? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ausoleil ( 322752 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:04PM (#19637735) Homepage
    One of the great questions of "Blade Runner" is whether Deckard (Harrison Ford) is, or is not, a replicant himself.

    "Knowing" Phillip K. Dick (through reading most of his works) I think personally the answer is a yes, but the debate has raged on for a long time, at least when the subject comes up. Others say no, and that's the greatness of the movie: you can't be completely sure.

    Read #14 of the Blade Runner FAQ here [faqs.org] and ponder it for yourself.

    For...

    Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford have stated that Deckard was meant to be a
        replicant. In Details magazine (US) October 1992 Ford says:

                    "Blade Runner was not one of my favorite films. I tangled
                    with Ridley. The biggest problem was that at the end, he wanted the
                    audience to find out that Deckard was a replicant. I fought that
                    because I felt the audience needed somebody to cheer for."

    Against...

    - Could you trust a replicant to kill other replicants? Why did the police
        trust Deckard?

    - Having Deckard as a replicant implies a conspiracy between the police and
        Tyrell.

    And so forth and so on...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )

      - Could you trust a replicant to kill other replicants? Why did the police trust Deckard?
      Why not? One of the core themes of the book and the film was that replicants lack empathy. Without empathy, there is nothing stopping them from killing, if they are going to gain something (e.g. money) from it.

    • Re:But Is Deckard A Replicant? Or Not? (Score:5, Informative)

      by way2slo ( 151122 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:35PM (#19638119) Journal
      Many moons ago.... Scott gave us the answer and we posted it here:
      http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/09/205821 7 [slashdot.org]

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 )
      I just watched this again a few weeks ago. A lot more things I noticed after hearing that Deckard was rumored to be a replicant. You left out a lot of FOR arguments:

      * Deckard was an older, presumably more reliable, model.
      * When the sergeant tells Deckard that replicants have a life expectancy of 4 years, he looks at him and apologizes.
      * The unicorn dread that Deckard has. The cop makes an origami unicorn as well. How the heck did he know what he was dreaming? A little too coincidental to me.
      * There's a

      • Re:But Is Deckard A Replicant? Or Not? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:40PM (#19639043)
        Personally, I hope that the new edition won't add anything to settle the argument... that would be a tragedy on the order of having Greedo fire first. At the end of the Director's Cut, we're left with hints that Deckard could be a replicant- that line where Rachel asks him if he's ever taken the test, the unicorn dream... but we don't know for sure. And I like that ambiguity, because it forces you to ask: well, what does it really matter if he is, or if he isn't? He has emotions, fears, dreams, memories; those exist whether or not the Tyrrell corporation manufactured him. Even if his memories are manufactured, they feel real and therefore define who he is. The only major difference is that he won't have long to live if he's a replicant, but again the movie asks, what's the difference? We all die, and we never know when it will come.

        If Ridley Scott does alter that, I think we're going to hear a lot of cries to the effect of "you ruined my childhood memories!" or rather, the memories of my angst-filled adolescence when late at night, watching TV alone in the dark, I stumbled across Blade Runner on TV...

      • Re:But Is Deckard A Replicant? Or Not? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by naoursla ( 99850 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @03:34PM (#19639787) Homepage Journal
        "You've done a man's job" -- Gaff to Deckard on the roof.

        I think Deckard was the replicant that they caught trying to sneak into Tyrell Corporation. They erased his memories, implanted new ones, and set him off to kill his comrades. The other replicants react oddly towards him. I think they recognize him and realize something isn't quite right and play along until they figure it out.

  • Gritty non-scifi scifi (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grapeape ( 137008 ) <mpope7 AT kc DOT rr DOT com> on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:04PM (#19637745) Homepage
    What made Blade Runner great was what made Dark City, Liquid Sky and the Original Manchurian Candidate good sci-fi, realisim. Yes it had flying cars, but things were still pretty much the same, people still worked, took taxi's, wore semi-normal looking clothing and ate regular food. The haunting subtle differences are what made it future we could accept as real which in turn made the "dark" future all that more scary because we belived at least for a couple hours that it could happen. Having Ridley Scott at the helm didnt hurt much either.

  • Edge (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hack slash ( 1064002 )
    In case you haven't seen it yet, the UK Channel 4 documentary On The Edge of Blade Runner [google.com].

    REALLY looking forward to the super-duper-mega box set coming out, my HD to DVD conversion of the DC is nice but the 5.1 audio doesn't sound much better than the original 2.0 fed through Pro-Logic II, and getting a proper copy of theatrical version is going go to be great (no more putting up with the laserdisc transfer) - I just hope they don't copy Lucas and make it a 4:3 letterbox release like the OOT.

  • Dr. Jones (Score:5, Funny)

    by Himring ( 646324 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:13PM (#19637853) Homepage Journal
    German guy: So, Doctor Jones, boxers or briefs?

    Indiana Jones: Depends....

  • BEST MOVIE EVAR!

    If you were born before 1970, chances are you that you "get" why this is such a great film on so many levels:

    1. Based on a story by the master of science fiction for the thinking person: Philip K. Dick (PKD)
    2. Got the approval of PKD when he saw the portion that was in production before he died
    3. It was the very beginning of the cyberpunk model for all scifi films in this genre to come.
    4. Directed by Ridley Scott who has an incredible sense of visual artistry and does nearly everything very
    • Actually, Dick was rather ambivalent about the movie. Of course, he had serious psychological problems, and couldn't keep his mind made up about anything.

  • Visual density (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rbanzai ( 596355 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:22PM (#19637981)
    One of the keys to Bladerunner's look was visual density. I recall a quote from one of the set decorators that they had emptied prop houses and junkyards for miles around to get the street scenes ready. When Ridley looked at it he said "That's a good start."

    Movies that try to imitate the Bladerunner look fail because they lack the commitment and/or resources to achieve that same visual density. They end up looking like sets.

    Alien was like a test run for Bladerunner's set design. The command area is very dense, control panels are studded with screens and controls, as well as personal items, signs that the area is in use and has been for some time.

    After seeing Bladerunner in the theater when it first came out all other movies I see will be compared to it, and very few have come close to the strange combination of realism and science fiction, two words that should in a sense be mutually exclusive, but Ridley Scott brought them together better than anyone before or since.

    • Re:Visual density (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:05PM (#19638531) Journal
      realism and science fiction, two words that should in a sense be mutually exclusive

      I disagree. I think when you can blend the two successfully, you achieve a much more believable effect. This is why we don't buy the Star Trek future quite as readily as the Bladrunner (or Alien or Outland) future. We inherently believe that in our real future, things will be more or less the same as they are now. It will be the little things that will be different. We'll use cellphones instead of payphones. We'll pay with "credits" instead of "dollars". We'll have voice-controlled appliances instead of switches. We'll have a few flying cars in the air, but mostly it'll still be ground traffic. These are the things that Bladerunner brought to the table and they are partly why it's believable sci fi, even today. Especially today, when some of the little things in the film have already come to pass.

      Movies like this always remind me of those old Tom Selleck AT&T commercials: "Imagine taking a college course from the beach. You will!" Realism + Sci Fi.

  • Printable version (Score:2, Informative)

    by refitman ( 958341 )

    Link to printable [popularmechanics.com] version without 4 pages of ads.

  • The reason (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) * <Satanicpuppy.gmail@com> on Monday June 25, 2007 @01:27PM (#19638025) Journal
    The reason that the effects were so good is that they were by and large accents, rather than fabricated whole cloth. Big flashy effects still look dated very quickly, because the technology is improving so rapidly. I'd go so far as to say that the original Star Wars series (4-6) will stand up better than the newer series because the limitations of the day forced them to use more "real" models, rather than quickly dated CG.

    Blade Runner was subtle; it used environmental effects and models to create a sense of the future that the viewer could fill in with his own imagination.
  • You know, the widescreen *theatrical* version (some of us *like* the voiceovers) because Mr. Scott is pulling the same shit that Mr. Lucas does/did...only allowing us to see his "vision" of the film.

    PITA that was.

    That aside, the F/X are very good, and given that it wasn't done in CGI, more believeable and realistic IMO.

    CGI attempts to emulate reality more cheaply than can be done by traditional F/X, but with the state of CGI advancing so rapidly, older CGI flicks look worse than if they'd been done the trad

  • Are we talking FX (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:14PM (#19638649) Homepage Journal
    or design?

    Or are they the same thing?

    One of the most convincing Sci Fi movies of all time was The Day the Earth Stood Still. The key to that movie is the relentless ordinariness of the sets, the way the scenes are short, and the actors (other than Michael Rennie whose phsyiogamy is a special effect in itself).

    It seems to me that (relying on my twenty five year old memory of the movie) Blade Runner's hybrid noir/ginza landscape works in the same way, suggesting that the people who inhabit it are overstimulated on the outside and empty on the inside. The most human people are those who are the replicants, who at least aspire to something.

  • Maybe I'm too young - I didn't find BR special (Score:3, Informative)

    by SpecialAgentXXX ( 623692 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:16PM (#19638681)
    Sure, I guess way back in the day when Blade Runner came it, it must have been visually exciting to watch. But as a younger person, I only saw it for the first time last year. Personally, I find most of today's modern CGI movies to be the same or more interesting than Blade Runner.

    Do other younger /.'ers feel the same way? The only sci-fi movie that I can think of that I enjoyed from that pre-CGI era was Star Wars and Star Trek 2.

    • Re:Maybe I'm too young - I didn't find BR special (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:39PM (#19639013)
      But does it all just come down to eye-candy for you?

      The point about BR (at least for me) is that it was one of the last Sci-Fi movies that had a great plot, which meant the special effects were really secondary. Even without any special effects, its still a great story. It was also largely responsible for a whole new dark dystopian view of the future, which still feels infinitely more probable than the standard sterile white corridors and ray guns of nearly all the other Sci-Fi movies of the same period.

      Its sad but it seems video games and most movies have all gone the same way of relying on ever-more dramatic graphics/CGI/effects to make up for the lack of a decent plot (or in the case of games, intellectually challenging gameplay).

  • No, he isnt 'still the man' (Score:3, Funny)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:28PM (#19638841) Homepage Journal
    He never was a *man* he was a replicant.

  • I've always kind of wished (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Adult film producer ( 866485 ) <van@i2pmail.org> on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:32PM (#19638895)
    that the umbrellas in Blade Runner with the neon/glo-stick cores would have caught on in real life.. that was the one of those little things about blade runner that made it so appealing for me at least, much more so than the special effects, it was the atmosphere & aroma that the producers built into the blade runner future, you could almost smell what it was like in the era of replicants.

  • Models and F/X still "Real" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by writerjosh ( 862522 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @02:32PM (#19638897) Homepage
    Props and in-camera F/X shots still hold up over time because they are shots of something real. What I mean is, a physical model has a depth and weight that a CGI model has difficulty replicating. Think of that Star Destroyer chasing Princess Leia's ship in the opening scene of A New Hope. Doesn't that Star Destroyer just "feel" huge and heavy? It lumbers across the screen as though it's a real flying fortress. Cut to the mega-ships of Revenge of the Sith. Yeah, they look great and fancy, but do they feel as "real" as the model ships of A New Hope? IMHO, no. CGI ships float in an unreal realm. Models have real depth and weight that translates to the screen as "real." Another example would be the puppet Yoda vs. the CGI Yoda. Which one is more real and true in your mind?

    Also, consider the more modern pseudo-sci-fi movie Children of Men. Now there's a fantastic example of F/X and set design over CGI. Every shot feels like it comes from a real place because every shot is a "real" set piece or "real" in-camera F/X. Don't get me wrong, CGI has made movies explode into our imagination (Lord of the Rings, for example), but real models and in-camera F/X shouldn't be lost to the ages. Yes, they're more expensive and time-consuming, but the long-term effect is worth it.

  • Why is it a good movie? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Monday June 25, 2007 @04:05PM (#19640113)
    Somehow I never managed to see it until recently. I've seen all the other geek classics, but not Blade Runner, even though I was certainly aware of the movie. And I've read a collection of Philip K. Dick stories, too. So finally watched it Blade Runner last year (the Director's Cut--yeah, I know).

    And, wow, was it a waste of my time. It's moody, it has nice special effects, but it's such a flimsy and boring show. I actually kept losing interest and hoping something would happen to move it along. The characters were flat. The ending was generic action movie stuff, but less exciting than most action movies, and I still cared nothing for the characters.

    I don't understand the fawning all over this one. Please don't say it's "deep," and I'm too pop-culture. I watch art films all the time. I just don't get what makes this an interesting movie. In 1982, maybe, purely because the effects (think "TRON"), but today?

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