Bladerunner 1982 Directed by Ridley Scott

Bladerunner 1982

Directed by Ridley Scott 

“You were made as well as we could make you.” Eldon Tyrell

    A quick note, I will be spoiling parts of the movie here but the damn thing is as old as I am.  There's a limit to demanding a spoiler-free life folks. 

    Bladerunner is a movie that can and has fueled a small industry on the story of its troubled birth, examinations of its troubled childhood (as I extend the metaphor) and its rise into a celebrated and respected mature pillar of science fiction film.  There have been documentaries, books and more about it.  So this review cannot comprehensively cover everything, so I will simply attempt to hit the highlights.   Let's start at the beginning, 1968 when the novel is released, it gains attention quickly.  Martin Scorsese was interested in filming the novel but never made any move to buy the rights to it.  In the early 70s a screenplay was written but was widely regarded as terrible so never got close to filming.  In 1977 a screenplay was optioned and producer Michael Deeley convinced director Ridley Scott to direct it, although he had originally passed on it to try and direct Dune (that would fall through and David Lynch would direct Dune but that's a topic for another day).  What changed Mr. Scott's mind in many accounts was the death of his brother Frank from skin cancer at the age of 45.  This was a harsh blow and this left Mr. Scott in a grim and somewhat downcast mood understandably and you see this in the film.  Mr. Scott never read the novel, to be fair that was normal for the time and neither anyone else working on the movie.  They didn't even use the title, strangely enough, the title comes from a completely unrelated book written by Alan E Norse written around the idea of black market doctors and the men who smuggle them medical supplies called Blade Runners.  It's probably fitting that the movie that has an almost Frankenstein like beginning given it's about a race of people created in labs to be slaves.  

      The role of Rick Deckard proved hard to cast, months were spent in discussion with Dustin Hoffman, only for that to fall through, various others were also considered, Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, and Burt Reynolds but in the end, Harrison Ford won out based on his performance in Star Wars.  The role of Roy Batty however easily went to Rutger Hauer and to be honest I struggle to imagine anyone else doing as well as he did in the role.  Actress  Daryl Hannah landed the role of Pris, a female replicant who is basically the second female lead of the movie.  The role of Rachael, the main female lead had a lot of competition as well and required several ladies to undergo repeated screen tests with Harrison Ford before Sean Young landed the role (bit of a side note, Philip Dick saw a picture of her and was instantly smitten, he asked to be introduced to her in a very, Philip K Dick style note to Mr. Scott, who perhaps wisely decided not to do so).  Of course just as the casting was nailed down the money was pulled, as the company that had signed on to finance the production pulled out, Michael Deeley would in two weeks, however, drum up millions of dollars to replace the lost funds and he would gonna need every dollar.   Because Ridley Scott was determined to make a perfect film, even if he had to kill everyone involved in the most expensive way possible to do it.  Worse as filming began, it became unclear if was murder was actually off the table.  Mr. Scott a British director was not used to American Union rules and by American standards was a micromanager.  This would also set off a brief war by T-Shirt as an unfortunate remark about how British Crews were easier to work with because you just give them orders and they would comply spread to the crew and they responded.  Luckily Mr. Scott was able to break the cycle with his own T-Shirts.   Mr. Scott would set up a video playback booth because he was frustrated in his attempts to get ahold of the camera at times (one of the things that infuriated the crew in the first place).  This leads him into conflict with Harrison Ford who now felt isolated from the director and wanted to work more closely with him as he had his own creative ideas.  Remember at this point Harrison Ford was coming off of not just Star Wars but Indiana Jones so he was a tried and tested veteran who wanted to be a partner with his director, not a minion. This fed into artistic conflicts, Mr. Scott wanted to run with the idea that Deckard was a replicant (I'll talk more on that later) and Mr. Ford hated the idea.  On top of that Ms. Young and Mr. Ford disliked each other so much that the crew called their love scene the hate scene.  Mr. Scott drove the movie over budget and the producers begin to threaten to take the movie away from him (so he was feuding with the crew, his star and now the producers, I feel like this movie was really just an extended super expensive session of conflict therapy in a way), on top of that there was the looming threat of a directors strike.  Mr. Scott's reaction to this?  To whip the crew and cast through several marathon filming sprees and finish the movie.  In fact, when they filmed the final scene of the confrontation of Roy Batty and Rick Deckard, everyone had been working for a straight 36 hours.  

    But they weren't done yet.  Test audiences were left confused and dismayed by the movie so it was decided to add a voice-over by Mr. Ford.  At first, was  Mr. Ford was lukewarm on the idea but he swiftly moved to hatred as he was forced to voice over the entire movie, 3 times.  Mr. Scott wasn't too thrilled either as he was mandated to film a happy ending with Harrison and Sean driving off into a lush forest.  The movie had a good opening weekend but bluntly it opened 2 weeks after E.T hit theaters and E.T just sucked all the oxygen out of the room and left Bladerunner kinda foundering in its wake.  The critics at the time weren't kind either mostly panning the film.  However, the film survived as a cult classic with fans often forming Blade Runner clubs and academics would fall over themselves to analyze the film and discuss the text and sub-text.  Cyberpunk works across all forms of media and across the planet would take visual and plot cues from the movie making a major influence going into the 21st century.  Hell, you can see its influence on things I've reviewed in the past like Altered Carbon.  New life was breathed into it with the release of the Director's Cut in 1993 with audiences declaring it a classic and Mr. Scott releasing the final cut in 2007 (which is the version I watched for this review).  Given that Blade runner finds itself deeply concerned with what is real and what is artificial, I find the fact that there are by some counts as many as 7 versions of the film to be an ironic echo of the theme.  But let's talk about the film, shall we?  Quick reminder, that for films I as always issue two grades, the first being a grade of how the movie stands alone and the second grade how it stands as an adaptation of the novel it's based on. 

    Taking place in the all to close year of 2019, Bladerunner gives us the story of Rick Deckard, a Bladerunner (a cop who specializes in killing replicants) trying to live in retirement but dragged back into the the line of duty to chase down 4 escaped replicants who are hiding out in L.A.  These replicants are seeking to find a way to gain a longer life span as they are near the end of theirs, all 4 years of it.  Deckard hunts down each one in turn while exposing Rachael, a new kind of replicant who was unaware of her lab-grown origins and implanted with artificial memories.  It's during his battles with the 4 escaped replicants that Rick Deckard resolves to save Rachael's life (as she's fair game to any other Bladerunner that finds her) and falls in love with her.  However, first, he has to survive a confrontation against a replicant that was designed to fight wars and has no problem killing to protect his own life.  Throughout these confrontations, Deckard is repeatably asked “It's painful to live in fear isn't it?” as the replicants seek to express the stress of living as a slave, of being a living thinking person who is property.  This is a life where you live based solely on the whim and desires of others.  They mostly express this by beating the crap out of Deckard but they are only about 4 years old.  Deckard's own understanding of that may be the motive for his desire to get out of the life of a Bladerunner, of course considering that Deckard is doing all of this under threat he might have a more first-hand understanding of what the replicants are going through.  After all, the only reason he took the job was the fact that his Police Captain let him know if he didn't that the police department would come down on him full force.    That can't be a very pain or fear-free way to live.

    Bladerunner is a good movie although it's a flawed movie.  The Cinematography is amazing in the movie and Ridley Scott uses the images to communicate a number of ideas and feelings.  The world seems run down and decayed, while there is no lack of luxury, it seems to exists in isolated islands amidst the smoke and haze of an L.A made up of neon lights and dirty streets.  The attention to detail in the settings and props is amazing even over 30 years later. The characters, even the human ones all seem very physically and emotionally isolated, everyone in this movie seems to live alone.  Be it Deckard, the geneticist Sebastian, the billionaire Eldon Tyrell, no matter their station or situation everyone is incredibly isolated from their fellow human beings.  No one has a live-in girlfriend or boyfriend, no one has a friend over, no one even has a generally disinterested roommate.  But that plays to the theme of how no one is above from the alienation and isolation that the society of this future has forced on humanity.  Even those who reap the benefits of that technology must suffer its negative effects.  Technology is everywhere as well (Deckard is able to go to a biologist with a powerful microscope and computers operating out of a roadside stall for example) but has not seemed to aid or uplifted humanity in general and nature is absent, in fact every animal shown in the film is an artificial creation with the implication given through dialogue that real animals are rare and incredibly expensive to get and maintain.   There are constant advertisements and encouragements to immigrate off-world to better lives.  This gives us a dark future where the planet may, in fact, be dying and mankind is fleeing out to the stars to avoid the consequences of its decisions.  The acting is great in this film as well, with Rutger  Hauer and Daryl Hannah being the stands out.  They had the difficult job of portraying replicants, lab created humans who only live about 4 years and spend those years in service doing jobs that no one else wants to do.  Rutger plays Roy Batty, who is a military model and his girlfriend Pris is a pleasure model.  Both actors were able to portray people who struggle with their emotions as they lack the context and experience to understand what they're feeling and react accordingly.  One scene that really stood out to me was when Roy is informing Pris that the rest of their band is dead, killed by Deckard and Rachael.  Rutger does this through using the same facial expressions I've seen on small children when I was tutor when they were deeply unhappy (sometimes over small things and sometimes upset over big things) and didn't have a way of expressing it.  Pris' instant acceptance of the news and her reaction combined a small child and a feral creature's.  Which made sense, for all their intellect, the replicants don't even have a handful of years and it takes humans decades to fully understand and come to grips with the emotions we're capable of.  Hell some of us don't manage it even with half a century of experience!  The replicant actors managed to convey a human being that is a mix of a small child trying to understand what they're experiencing and genius level super predator who will spare no effort to keep living.  

    This makes Roy's decision to save Deckard's life at the end all the more memorable since it would have taken no effort to let Deckard die.  I've seen a lot of argument about it and frankly being arrogant enough to review this movie and the novel, I'm of course going to pitch in my 2 cents.  Roy saved Deckard for a lot of reasons, but I don't think forgiveness was one of them as I've seen suggested.  Rather I think it was a mix of Roy realizing he was dying whether he killed Deckard or not and thus killing him would be meaningless, a very human desire not to die alone and a simple point blank rebellion against his creators.  Roy was built to kill, to be a war-machine that destroyed whoever he was told to without question or mercy. During his time on Earth, he continued this behavior has he murdered his way to his creator and when he was told that a longer life simply wasn't happening, he killed his creator as well. He also killed the one man who showed him nothing but kindness, the genetic engineer Sebastian.  Which might be the one killing that he honestly regrets, as his last words to Sebastian are an apology.  This time, this one time, Roy would show mercy on his own terms and prove he was his own man, not just a biological machine fulfilling its biochemical programming.  Whether or not Deckard deserves to be spared is kinda irrelevant to the thought process here.  It's about Roy making a decision as to whether or not he's going to spend his last moments as the piece of rampaging, malfunctioning military equipment everyone says he is or as the man he knows he is.  Whether that gives Deckard any grace is completely up to Deckard's actions I would say.   As you might guess this moment really stuck with me.  

    However, there are things I didn't care for.  The pacing is kinda all over the place managing somehow to be a slow film that doesn't get enough character interaction to really cement the relations to me.  Additionally, there's Mr. Scott's idea that Deckard is a replicant.  I just don't see it in the film, I mean yes it's odd that Deckard doesn't have anyone in his life and there's the now-famous ending with one character leaving a unicorn origami in Deckard's apartment when he had earlier had a dream of a unicorn but that frankly lends itself to several interpretations.   My own first thought was the fact that unicorns are often symbols of worthy but impossible goals.  Deckard's unicorn is leaving behind an empty of violence to live in peace with a loved one and Gaff leaving that unicorn in his apartment was a silent encouragement to pursue his unicorn even if it was doomed pursuit.  Because when it comes to a goal like that, the simple act of struggling to achieve it is worth something in and of itself no matter how doomed the struggle.  I'm also going to note that I don't see the point of going through the trouble of making a replicant only to strip such a person of all the physical advantages that would bring.  Deckard is clearly physically weaker than all of the replicants, even Pris the smallest and weakest of the replicants being meant for life in a whore house is able to physically beat the crap out of him without much effort.  If you're going to design a policeman in a lab, you might as well make him capable of standing toe to toe with the people he's fighting or it's just a pointless waste.   After discussions with friends who were big fans of the movie, the theory seems mostly held up by circumstantial evidence and a lot of reaching.  If you disagree please, walk me through it!  I would really like to hear from you in the comments.

    That said let's wrap up.  I think Bladerunner has earned its status as a strong science fiction influence and the film even in the face of its issues.  So as a stand-alone movie I give it a B+.  However as an adaptation?  The plot bears next to no resemblance to the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.  The only thing they really have in common is a police agent hunting rogue lab-grown human slaves in California.  Entire plotlines are chopped out, characters changed (Deckard is vastly different, as is Rachael and their relationship) and erased and the whole thing is barely recognizable beyond sharing the same visuals and starting idea.  So as an adaptation I'm going to have to give it a D+.  See it for its own sake but read the novel as well because you can look at one without having any idea of the other.  

No editor this week as he is moving across the continent to further his career.  Please join me in wishing Dr. Allen well and hopefully he'll rejoin us soon. 

Next week, we tackle Blade Runner 2049 to see if any of Philp Dick's influence reached it.  Keep Reading!

No editor this week as he is moving across the continent to further his career.  Please join me in wishing Dr. Allen well and hopefully he'll rejoin us soon.