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March 29, 2024, 07:07:27 AM

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Blade Runner is shit. There, I said it.

Started by The Region Legion, April 06, 2010, 08:13:32 PM

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Mary is not amused

Quote from: j_u_d_a_s on April 07, 2010, 12:52:47 AM
You know what else is shit?

Watching highly regarded films you've not seen before with a view to declaring them shit like a 5 year old boy discovering his own cock.

Toddler's bloated bladder nightmare ends in tepid torrent.

Still Not George

Quote from: Mary is not amused on April 07, 2010, 12:58:11 AM
Toddler's bloated bladder nightmare ends in tepid torrent.
You're quite right, I really regretted that download.

Ginyard

Its an utterly compelling film in the Harrison Ford golden era, when, unlike now, he proved that his range extended further than a groundhog day snail.

Mary is not amused

Quote from: Still Not George on April 07, 2010, 01:01:35 AM
You're quite right, I really regretted that download.

You were fooled by the 'Cleo Laine Golden Shower' link bait too?

Spoiler alert
'Scat porn' is my lame joke, here.  Thank you for reading.
[close]
[/sub]

Old Thrashbarg

Quote from: j_u_d_a_s on April 07, 2010, 12:52:47 AM
You know what else is shit?

Watching highly regarded films you've not seen before with a view to declaring them shit like a 5 year old boy discovering his own cock.

Even more so when you're not really watching the film and attempting to understand it, but appear to be spending the whole time making notes of things you think are flaws.

MojoJojo

Quote from: An tSaoi on April 06, 2010, 09:55:32 PM
Actually, scratch that. Deckard found them out himself during the interrogation. Remember how he had to ask her loads of questions? The film sort of fades over the long line of questions, she must have brought up those memories then. And even if she didn't there's always the Tyrell explanation. No point having the audience see Tyrell tell Harrison Ford something that he then repeats in the next scene.

I don't really care, but I just want to point out this makes no sense. If she'd told him during the interrogation, Deckard telling it back to her later wouldn't prove anything. And the question are all prepared in advance; the answers aren't important, just the response. It's not an interrogation that goes anywhere.

I'd like to see a cut where they reinstate the stuff they cut from the book, like the robot sheep, pet-based religion and virtual reality system that everyone logs into to push a rock up a hill.

Captain Crunch

Quote from: wasp_f15ting on April 06, 2010, 10:33:58 PMCan you list some of your favourite dystopian films?

I would like to recommend 'A Boy and his Dog' and 'Idiocracy'.  There's this list from a while back which is arguable to say the least but a fair place to start:

Top 50 Dystopian Films

For what it's worth, I couldn't even finish Blade Runner, tedious wanky guff with silly hairdos. 

copylight

Quote from: rudi on April 06, 2010, 11:17:36 PM
I think it's a great film. I'm afraid, TRL, that your points just illustrate that you just didn't get it (or weren't paying attention); everything makes sense if you're of the mind to understand. Fair enough, your loss...

Or that his disbelief wasn't suspended enough by the eye candy and for moi, it's Rachel Rosen all the way to the wankbank.

I saw the film, was taken in. In time I read Do Androids Dream along with most of Dick's other stuff, then revisited the film on countless occasions. It doesn't get better nor worse, rather just appears really short in comparison to the first few times I saw it.





jutl

Quote from: j_u_d_a_s on April 07, 2010, 12:52:47 AM
You know what else is shit?

Watching highly regarded films you've not seen before with a view to declaring them shit like a 5 year old boy discovering his own cock.

...unless they are shit, in which case it's perfectly sound behaviour. Incidentally what did you do about urinating for the first five years of your life?

Vitalstatistix

I've always believed people who don't like Blade Runner are soulless cretins, and this thread proves me right!!!

jutl

Quote from: Vitalstatistix on April 07, 2010, 10:16:39 AM
I've always believed people who don't like Blade Runner are soulless cretins, and this thread proves me right!!!

Theories like that don't require proof. What they do require you clearly have in spades.

Vitalstatistix


Vitalstatistix

I mean... wait, what? I was only joking you're not all cretins jutters, just soulless!

My brother's favourite film is XXX with Vin Diesel (apparently, although I suspect he may be exaggerating) and he always thought Blade Runner was boring. My theory is borne out of this simple yet significant fact.



jutl

Quote from: copylight on April 07, 2010, 01:23:36 PM

How so?

It's ponderous and tedious. Its dialogue is largely comic-book claptrap. It's misogynistic. It barely tries to engage the audience beyond wallowing in its oh-so-gritty production design. It's little wonder that it inspired so many ads - it's scarcely more substantial than an ad itself. The plot makes little sense. Ford's performance is the dry run for all his latter-day no-effort roles.

More than this though, I feel it's a movie that was evolved rather than released. The original version - which was the first version I saw on its rental release back in the early 80s - had been patched up into something more overtly Chandleresque with some much needed cuts and the Marlowe-style voice-over. Even back then it was common knowledge that there was a 'much better' version out there that the studio had 'butchered'. When this eventually emerged over the course of multiple money-spinning special editions years later, it was hard to judge it as a separate film. Most people had seen the 'doctored' version (which I consider to still be shit, but better shit) and it had already been declared an epoch-making classic because its schtick was so easily lifted by 80s ad execs. So the expanded, more flaccid and incomprehensible version that emerged was bound to be lauded to the skies - despite its basic flaws as a movie -  because

(a) sci-fi fans forgive a lot from the genre they love

and

(b) designers don't care that much about plot

Anyone outside these two camps is - I'd assert - unlikely to get much from the movie. 

Serge

Quote from: rudi on April 07, 2010, 12:34:57 AM
Again, you just weren't paying attention. It's asking isn't it the case that it's us that have "got on that bus" and that's why we all 'ate Blakey. Keep up man.

Oh, I understood that alright. It's just a shame that the funding never came through for the projected fourth film in the buses quadrilogy, 'Harmony On The Buses' in which Blakey shaves his head and runs away to join the Children Of God sect, whilst Stan and Jack carried on Fleetwood Mac withou....hang on.

wasp_f15ting

Quote from: Captain Crunch on April 07, 2010, 09:40:41 AM
I would like to recommend 'A Boy and his Dog' and 'Idiocracy'.  There's this list from a while back which is arguable to say the least but a fair place to start:

Top 50 Dystopian Films

For what it's worth, I couldn't even finish Blade Runner, tedious wanky guff with silly hairdos.

Cheers for this list. Lots of interesting films on there.

I'll be checking the bargain bins of the net shops to find a few of those.

Vitalstatistix

Quote from: jutl on April 07, 2010, 01:59:11 PM
More than this though, I feel it's a movie that was evolved rather than released.

I don't get this. The main reason you don't like it is because there's different versions?

Quote

(a) sci-fi fans forgive a lot from the genre they love

and

(b) designers don't care that much about plot

Anyone outside these two camps is - I'd assert - unlikely to get much from the movie. 

I would assert that Blade Runner is massively popular, loved even, by many thousands of people who are neither proper sci-fi fans  nor designers. Me and my mum, for example!

jutl

Quote from: Vitalstatistix on April 07, 2010, 02:52:12 PM
I don't get this. The main reason you don't like it is because there's different versions?

No, because the version that gets lauded so vigourously benefited from a convoluted 'legend-making' history. To quick-precis:

(1) First version bombs at cinema due to being shit
(2) Many ad execs rip off the film's look, meaning that it's a frequently cited film without being 'popular' in any normal sense
(3) By the time that the various new cuts are being released this frequent citation means that cinephile self-educators take it up as a 'classic'

I think having seen it before it became a 'classic' makes it easier to see its massive flaws.

Vitalstatistix

Quote from: jutl on April 07, 2010, 03:00:42 PM
No, because the version that gets lauded so vigourously benefited from a convoluted 'legend-making' history. To quick-precis:

(1) First version bombs at cinema due to being shit
(2) Many ad execs rip off the film's look, meaning that it's a frequently cited film without being 'popular' in any normal sense
(3) By the time that the various new cuts are being released this frequent citation means that cinephile self-educators take it up as a 'classic'

I think having seen it before it became a 'classic' makes it easier to see its massive flaws.

An interesting theory, but a little too neat. Why would ad execs rip off a film which bombed 'due to being shit'? Do you really think  people only started liking it because of the retroactive classic status its found due to citations from the advertising world? Is it so hard to believe people might just think it's a really fucking great film?

Personally, I adore the film's slow pacing, its ambiguous nature, its gorgeous visuals and believable atmosphere. I think all the performances are absolutely spot on: Ford looks tired and pissed off (because he really was), Sean Young is brilliantly cold and alien, Daryl Hannah and Hauer are electric, slimy dude from Deadwood is devastatingly sad. The film is pitched just right. It's seedy and damp, the world created is believable in a way most sci-fi films aren't. The plot has substance, thematically, it raises questions about what it is to be human, cloning, the use of technology, death. Despite its speed, it's tight, it builds to an exciting and touching climax. There's no easy answers, there's ambiguity in every moment, every relationship.

It's damn near flawless, for me.

jutl

Quote from: Vitalstatistix on April 07, 2010, 03:13:29 PM
An interesting theory, but a little too neat. Why would ad execs rip off a film which bombed 'due to being shit'? Do you really think  people only started liking it because of the retroactive classic status it's found due to citations from the advertising world? Is it so hard to believe people might just think it's a really fucking great film?

Yes, to me it is. I think there are a fair few 'classics' that avoid real criticism because they have been blessed into the cinephiliac canon. Also, why is it hard to believe that a movie can have attractive production design but be shit? It's the former, not the latter, that attracts plagiarism from the world of advertising.

QuotePersonally, I adore the film's slow pacing,

It's boring

Quoteits ambiguous nature,

It makes no sense

Quoteits gorgeous visuals and believable atmosphere.

visuals and set design are OK for first ten minutes, then get tediously foregrounded far too much

QuoteI think all the performances are absolutely spot on: Ford looks tired and pissed off (because he really was),

That's not a performance then

QuoteSean Young is brilliantly cold and alien,

or wooden

QuoteDaryl Hannah and Hauer are electric,

... or just robotic. Hannah is tedious and Hauer is bloody awful (although he is given some of the most plonking, wanky lines in cinematic history)

Quoteslimy dude from Deadwood is devastatingly sad.

Not sure whom you mean. They're probably shit too though.

QuoteThe film is pitched just right.

Which version? The one Scott disowned but which makes sense or the soupy expanded editions? (NB - not a real question)

QuoteIt's seedy and damp, the world created is believable in a way most sci-fi films aren't.

It has a certain gritty realism that most sci-fi avoids it's true. It gets old very quickly though, and there's not much else there to entertain once it's palled.

QuoteThe plot has substance, thematically, it raises questions about what it is to be human, cloning, the use of technology, death.

Well it mentions those things, like a student name-checking their reading list. I'm not sure it has much to say on the topics once it's raised them though.

QuoteDespite its speed, it's tight, it builds to an exciting and touching climax. There's no easy answers, there's ambiguity in every moment, every relationship.

It fizzles, in whichever version you pick, after a comedically poor chase scene.

Unless it doesn't go without saying - this is all just my opinion of course.

Zero Gravitas

I think they're supposed to be some form of bioengineering rather than electrical machines.

MojoJojo

The book has a somewhat puzzling scene when Deckard is feeding his pet sheep, and his neighbour makes some admiring comment about. Deckard then opens a maintenance hatch on the side of the sheep, and explains they had received a sheep as a wedding gift but it had got sick and died, so they had to get a replicant one.

It alaways struck me as odd that something which couldn't be easily distinguished from real had a maintenance hatch.

(although I suspect the human-replicants were bioengineered in the book rather than robots, I can't remember because it's ages since I read it)

All Surrogate

In Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, the androids are organic e.g. they have bone marrow.  The androids being inorganic would detract from the ideas that Dick was dealing with, I think.  The book is very good; it's been a while since I saw the film, so I can't adequately compare.  I think the book is probably 'clearer' than the film, in some sense.


rudi

Quote from: jutl on April 07, 2010, 03:00:42 PM
(1) First version bombs at cinema due to being shit

You can prove this, right?


rudi

Quote from: jutl on April 07, 2010, 11:09:57 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner#Reception

And that proves what? That some people didn't like it and it wasn't massive, only later was it lauded as a classic by fans?

Oh look, I've just described Pet Sounds...

jutl

Quote from: rudi on April 08, 2010, 12:36:39 AM
And that proves what? That some people didn't like it and it wasn't massive, only later was it lauded as a classic by fans?

...or you can take my view of how it got where it is.

QuoteOh look, I've just described Pet Sounds...

...which is also overrated, I'd say.