Blade Runner

Next one is the sci fi epic Blade Runner, aka Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I'm a big fan of Philip K. Dick, and its unfortunate that some directors have ruined his stories with awful movies, like Total Recall, Paycheck and Next. I have seen and loved A Scanner Darkly, but I knew that this was a completely different kind of movie. I was impressed that even though its now 26 years old, the special effects do not look dated whatsoever. Too often sci-fi movies are taken over by the effects, and try to show off what they are capable of. More than often, the characters and story are seriously lacking, and ruin the movie. This may be the best combination I've seen of creative, artistic special effects and a character/plot driven story. The only issue I had was I wished Deckard had better developed motivation to come out of semi-retirement to do a job he seemed to be glad to be free from. Being told he was the only one who could be trusted for this job didn't seem like enough to me.

The first things I noticed about the movie was its shooting style. Firstly, the camera is almost always moving, and when its not, the lighting is moving. I have not seen this done often in any film before, and it was a very interesting element. It made me feel like there was constant action, and that things were always changing. It was also interesting to see that there were essentially four colours used in almost every shot. Combinations of blue and green lighting, with bright white highlights and pitch black shadows were all that were noticable. The film is also overly dark, wet and dirty, which helped the feel of a dystopian future. The only times I noticed it deviated from this was in Sebastian's apartment/abandoned building.

One of the strongest points of the film was the villain, played by Rutger Hauer. The dude was absolutely crazy with rage, fueled by revenge for those who made him and his race slaves. This was balanced perfectly with his seemingly sophisticated relationship with Sebastian, a loner who genetically designs his own friends in his apartment. But my favourite part of these scenes was Pris, played by Darryl Hannah. The character initially reminded me of Iris in Taxi Driver, because when introduced she was young, lost and scared. But as a replicant, she's later revealed as a warrior fighting for the same things Roy was. What caught my eye was the relationship these two (Pris and Roy) formed with Sebastian, with Pris acting very flirtatious and gracious towards him, to help endear him to Roy who needed information from him. It seemed very much like the Joker & Harley Quinn relationships I've seen in the Batman comics, and is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for in the upcoming Dark Knight film. Sadly I don't think they're going that way, in an effort to avoid the Spiderman 3 blunder of too many villains, but I think with Chris Nolan in charge, and with talented actors like Heath Ledger and Brittany Murphy (who would be a perfect Harley Quinn), I have no doubt they could pull it off.

Now I understand that one of the main controversies over this film, and the reason that 5 different cuts of the film exist is because of the inference that Deckard was himself a replicant. Apparently Ridley Scott claims that that was his aim, but I wonder why if he believed this, why he wouldn't have at least hinted at it more. It does not quite make sense to me, as there are moments that infer that Deckard has lived a full life, not just a four year lifespan that is about to expire. If Scott had truly believed this was a crucial plot point, I see no reason to be so subtle about it. While I watched it, I thought the unicorn references were meant to reference Rachael.