Subject: Retrospective: Blade Runner (1982)

From: "Dragan Antulov" <[email-masked]>
Date: 5 Oct 1998 05:10:09 GMT

BLADE RUNNER
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 1998

Sometimes in the late 1980s "Sfera", club of science fiction
aficionados from Zagreb, Croatia, asked its members to take
a poll and name the ten best SF movies of all times. The
results were printed in "Parsek", club's official fanzine
with the accompanying article that commented each film's
ranking. As many had expected, the top spot was held by
BLADE RUNNER, 1982 cult classic by Ridley Scott. However,
the author of the article didn't bother to give any broad
explanation for its success. "BLADE RUNNER is simply movie
to be seen and enjoyed", he wrote. The author of this review
was faced with exactly the same problem any time he tried to
give his reasons why he considered BLADE RUNNER one of the
best pieces of seventh art ever made. For me, every time I
watch the movie (and it happened quite a lot in the last
fourteen years) it is almost like a religious experience,
something that defies any rational discourse. Put that in
perspective with the deluge of reviews, essays, books,
studies and numerous references inspired by BLADE RUNNER in
last decade and half, and you'll also see that is very hard
to find anything original to say.

Anyway, many times I indeed tried to find the reason why I
like BLADE RUNNER so much. The closest thing to answer was
somewhat sentimental nature; when I saw movie for the first
time, it actually turned out to be the end of a period in my
movie watching habits. BLADE RUNNER was actually the last
movie that I had liked so much that I bothered to go to
cinema for the second time. Never again I was so blown away
by cinematic quality to buy tickets for repeated viewing.

The movie wasn't just the end of an era for me personally,
it was also the end of an era in history of contemporary
science fiction cinema. It was based on the novel DO
ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEPS? by Philip K. Dick, the
science fiction writer who got enormous popularity with his
works that depicted worlds of near future with the sharp
contrast between superior technology and nightmarish state
of humanity. Visions of the author (who died short before
the movie premiere) were very in line with the dominating
pessimistic trends of science fiction and futuristic films
of the late 1970s and early 1980s, like ALIEN, OUTLAND or
MAD MAX. Although probably the best of them, the movie
flopped at the box-office and was abandoned by the critics,
sealing the fate of mainstream science fiction cinema for
next decade and turning it to mindless Spielbergian
infantilism.

The plot begins in Los Angeles in November 2019, decaying
megalopolis drowning in Malthusian nightmare, permanent smog
and acid rain. The only refuge from the hopeless reality of
dying planet lies in the off-world colonies, where
artificial humans known as the replicants provide slave
labour for the colonists. However, following the bloody
off-world revolt, replicants are permanently banished from
Earth and special police force, known as the Blade Runners,
is authorised to exterminate them on sight. One of their
former members is world-weary Rick Deckard (Harrison) who
reluctantly agrees to return to his old police job for one
more time. His target is a group of new, state-of-the-art
and deadly Nexus 6 generation replicants, led by Roy Batty
(Rutger Hauer). While he tracks the group, he stumbles onto
Rachael (Sean Young), beautiful woman that doesn't know
about her own replicant identity.

On the surface, the plot of the movie looks like material
for cheap B-movie schlockfest. However, BLADE RUNNER
actually wasn't intended to be something like that and its
plot is probably the least memorable or important element of
the big picture. The audience who initially expected
conventional action thriller or futuristic horror was
probably disappointed, but almost anyone remembered
something else - characters, music, brilliant production
designs, costumes; the atmosphere in general. Perfectionist
care about even the most single details of futuristic world
and originality of artists' ideas paid off in the end, and
BLADE RUNNER is now considered to be one of the most
recognisable movies of all times. The same thing can be said
of musical score by Vangelis, whose melancholic tunes remain
one of the composer's best works to date.

After the atmosphere, the characters are strongest point of
BLADE RUNNER. Most of them have few screen time, but they
are made unforgettable through superb acting. One of the
biggest ironies of BLADE RUNNER is its lead role; Harrison
Ford played Rick Deckard so differently from his usual
all-American hero image. His Deckard is cynical,
unsympathetic chandleresque anti-hero who actually has to
wait to the final shots in order to redeems himself. To make
things even more ironic, Ford privately doesn't appreciate
his most unconventional and one of the best roles. Perhaps
that was due to the fact that the show was stolen from him
by excellent Rutger Hauer. His portrayal of Roy Batty is not
only the most remembered performance in his entire career
but also his own ad-lib intervention is responsible for the
monologue that remains one of the best in the history of
motion pictures.

The other actors were somewhat overshadowed by leading duo;
yet, almost any of them gave a strong performance. For some
of them, like Edward J. Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, James Hong
and Daryl Hannah is quite understandable why they became
huge stars or dependable character actors later on. Some,
like Sean Young, William Sanderson and Joe Turkell, weren't
that lucky and that's a real shame. Same can be said also
about director Ridley Scott, who slowly reduced his almost
divine reputation by making stylishly perfect movies bellow
the standards of BLADE RUNNER.

The strength of the movie isn't just in its popularity and
the cult that steadily grows with each new generation of the
moviegoers. It can also be seen in the influence it had on
other media. BLADE RUNNER, at least initially, didn't
influence other movies (which is understandable, because of
its commercial failure), that was compensated in the area of
science fiction literature. Because it was so stunningly
refreshing, this movie is considered to be the main
inspiration to the extremely popular sub-genre of cyberpunk,
and later to the sub-culture of cyberpunk on Internet. BLADE
RUNNER was also one of the very rare movies that dared to
predict future and to become more accurate in its
predictions as the years went by.

Some movies aren't just good because of their own quality.
They are also good because of the viewers feedback,
especially when they inspire them to ask questions and get
often very different answers. In the case of BLADE RUNNER,
the followers of cult had a great schism due to the great
replicant controversy - issue that was adressed in a 1992
released Director's Cut. Another endless debate is between
those fans who like the voice-overs in original 1982 version
as a tribute to the great film noires of 1940s, and those
who consider them as unnecessary dumbing-down. Anyway,
although some argue that those controversies can prove the
lack of perfection in BLADE RUNNER, the author of this
review thinks that they can be just another reason for
people to enjoy this movie.

RATING: 10/10 (+++++)

Review written on October 4th 1998

Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
Fido: 2:381/100
E-Mail: [email-masked]
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