DWB MC: Blade Runner, Scott, 1982.

WMD's first pick:

(Posted Image)
Links:
Blade Runner on IMDB.
Blade Runner on Wikipedia.
Blade Runner on Rotten Tomatoes.

Previous Picks:
Escape from New York - July 28, 2008 (Metrodome)
The Big Lebowski - August 10, 2008 (The Swigg Lebowski)

Discuss!

Good, this is another one I've been meaning to rewatch.

Good choice WMD. Great flick.

Yes, finally a movie I have. I swear to god every rental place around me didn't have EFNY and their copy(ies) of Lebowski were checked out. Fucking frustrating. Will watch this again tonight or tomorrow.

Haha, I feel your pain, Krone, at least on EFNY. I actually ended up buying it at Best Buy just because Blockbuster only felt that people wanted to rent Escape from L.A.

Ah, one I've never actually watched. This should be interesting

Watched this over Christmas break last year with my dad, I think it won him over. Looking forward to watching it again.

Visually, this movie is stunning. But it still feels like a bit of a letdown to me. I'm sure it's because of the fact I read the book (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, By Philip K. Dick) first, and that always skews my opinion of things.

I think that, even without having read the book, I'd still find the film a bit hard to follow at places, although some of that may be intentional (I should watch it another time, this time with Scott's commentary.).

I still like this film a lot, and still think everyone should see it, but I'm not positive I'd rank it as one of the all time greats.

Question for the Blade Runner fan: which version of this is the "one to see"? I know they have 3 or 4 different versions of the flick out there.

When it was released, this movie bombed. I remember Marvel Comics had a mini-series adaptation and I think they may have had some mild merchandising, too. I want to say that I remember seeing a Blade Runner car being sold in toy aisles; similar in size to Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars. Making "matchbox cars" for your movie or TV show was pretty common back then. I remember seeing cars for "Cannonball Run", "Baretta" and even "Rocky II".

I'm assuming last year's "Final Cut" release is tops (they even went as far as to release a limited edition 5-disc briefcase set). As for me, I only own '97's "Director's Cut", which isn't really a director's cut at all, as Scott wasn't directly involved and had little say with what went into it. So I'll be watching that version unless I decide to go rent the newer version (which I've thought about, especially now that I can rent Bluray). Will probably get around to watching this early next week.

I had a Rocky III limo.

As far as Blade Runner...it was OK. I'd watch it again, and probably will...but nothing special really. Did anyone else think Harrison Ford was pretty darn bad in this? I've never heard anyone say that, but there wer times I was like..you're kidding me.

I think Ford was typecast in this flick: the leading sci-fi hero. Considering he didn't do any new sci-fi roles after this (returning to Han in 1983 wasn't "new"), it's possible that he was less than thrilled with the flick. There are rumors that he intentionally gave a shitty reading for the film's voiceovers.

I think Ford works best as the somewhat sarcastic and cool rogue. To paraphrase Carrie Fisher: "we like him cuz' he's a scoundrel". It's tough, because at this time he was two of the most iconic roles in cinema: Han and Indy. For me, it's STILL tough to see around those two roles.

But he also works as a straight-laced good guy, as we saw in stuff like "Mosquito Coast", "Air Force One" or even "Firewall". In "Blade Runner", the role is more of a hard egg. It's not a cool and sarcastic rogue...it's a guy who's been beaten around. I could see Bruce Willis in the role, but don't feel it fits Ford well. Pull Willis from "The Fifth Element" and toss him in "Blade Runner" and it'd work.

Meanwhile...Rutger Hauer is fucking awesome.

Dustin Hoffman was the original choice to play Deckard, although he wondered why he was asked to play a "macho character". According to Ridley Scott, Hoffman was interested, but wanted to make it a whole different kind of character.


Deborah Harry was reputedly the original choice to play Pris.


The shooting of the film was supposedly such a strain on the cast and crew that crew members had T-Shirts made saying "WILL ROGERS NEVER MET RIDLEY SCOTT" (a reference to Will Rogers' famous statement that he never met a man he didn't like).


While the film is loosely based on Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", the title comes from a book by Alan Nourse called "The Bladerunner". William S. Burroughs wrote a screenplay based on the Nourse book, and a novella entitled "Blade Runner: A Movie." Ridley Scott bought the rights to the title but not the screenplay or the book. The Burroughs composition defines a blade runner as a person who sells illegal surgical instruments.


Philip K. Dick claimed that footage of the film was exactly what he had envisioned when he wrote the book. However, Ridley Scott, who was notorious for having gotten exactly the visual look he wanted, claimed to have never read Dick's source novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"


Exasperated crews often referred to the film as "Blood Runner".


The Bradbury, the building used in the final chase scene between Decker and Roy, was the same building used in the 1964 episode of the original "The Outer Limits" (1963) titled "The Demon With a Glass Hand" starring Robert Culp.


The ending titles contains unused footage from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). These were extra shots of the main title sequence and none of the shots contain the road that was seen in The Shining.


The opening sequence has been identified as a shot of the I.C.I. Chemical Plant in Wilton, Teesside, UK. It was actually a diminishing perspective miniature landscape set nicknamed "Hades". It measured 18 feet wide by 13 feet deep.


In the sequence where Deckard and Gaff approach police headquarters in a spinner, a model of the Millennium Falcon (Harrison Ford's spaceship in Star Wars (1977)), disguised as a building, can be seen in the lower left corner of the frame. The model was a personal project of one of the film's model builders, and was used as a building at the last minute.


A model of the Dark Star spaceship from the film Dark Star (1974) is also used as a building. It can be seen behind the Asian billboard when Gaff's spinner is approaching the Police building.


The mold used for the rooftop of the Police Headquarters building was originally a mold used in the Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). It is the saucer-like ceiling Richard Dreyfuss stands under after he enters the Mothership.


Securing financing the film was very complicated after Filmways Pictures abruptly pulled out. Initially budgeted at $13 million, it was now estimated to cost about $20 million. Ladd Co., who would release the film (through Warner Bros.) agree to a $8.5 million deal. Hong Kong film mogul Run Run Shaw put in another $8.5 million for foreign rights. Finally, the rest was to be covered by Tandem Productions in exchange to the rights to video and other ancillary rights.


Titles considered for the film included Android, Animal, Mechanismo, and Dangerous Days.


Originally, the novel (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) was set in 1992, although later editions brought the date forward to 2021. The film makers initially identified the date as 2020, but settled on 2019 because 2020 sounded too much like the common term for perfect vision, 20:20.


At first, Ridley Scott's original cut, without the voice-over, among other things, was thought to be non-existent. It was in 1989 that Michael Arick, the director of assent management at Warner Bros. stumbled about a 70-millimeter print of the film while looking for footage from "Gypsy". Several months later, Cineplex Odeon Fairfax theater was having a classic-film festival featuring specifically 70-millimeter prints. This print was slated to be screened one morning in May.. However, no one has seen it and the surprise during the show was great. The director came in to see it and said that it was not his final cut. More screenings of this version, where theaters were fully packed, convinced Warner Bros. to pay for a real Director's Cut, released in 150 cities in 1992.


Philip K. Dick's ideal choice for Rachel was Victoria Principal.


According to a vintage "Starburst magazine" of the time, 'James Caan' was also a possible for the role of Rick Deckard.


The computer screen in Gaff's police spinner shows the same computer sequence (with the word "Purge") that the Nostromo displays in the film Alien (1979) (also directed by Ridley Scott).


A female gymnast was hired as a stunt double for Daryl Hannah in the scene where Pris attacks Deckard, but director Ridley Scott rehearsed the scene so many times that when they were ready to shoot the scene she was too exhausted to do anything. The scene was filmed with a male gymnast that they had been able to track down during the lunch break.


The incept (birth) date of Pris (Daryl Hannah) is 14 February 2016.


Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer)'s odd meld of "father" and "fucker" after he says to Tyrell, "I want more life" is deliberate. Hauer was instructed to pronounce it in such a way that it could be both.


When Gaff talks to Deckard in the Japanese restaurant he speaks partly in Hungarian, he says: "Azonnal kövessen engem" which means "Follow me immediately", and "Lófasz" which can mean "bullshit" or "no way", although more rude (verbatim: horse penis). Evidently, Hungarian moviegoers find this fantastically funny. Gaff continues in Hungarian. He says, "Nehogy már, te vagy a Blade Runner," which means, "No way, you are the Blade Runner." After this, he switches to another language.


Deckard's apartment, drawn by set designer Charles Breen and built on stage at Warner Bros., was inspired by the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis-Brown House in Los Angeles. Breen actually had plaster casts taken from the textile blocks of the Wright-designed house and used them for the walls in the stage set.


In the final scene where Deckard believes Rachael to be dead, there are televisions in the background which have interference superimposed on them and the eerie wind noise, both effects are taken from Alien (1979), a previous Ridley Scott film.


This was one of the first major films to be reissued years later in a "director's edition" in which the director was allowed to restore edited footage or otherwise make changes more closely reflecting his original vision. Today, such later "revision" of films is commonplace.


When Deckard (Harrison Ford) stops Rachael (Sean Young) from leaving his apartment, he pushes her away from him. The expression of pain and shock on her face was real. She said Ford pushed her too hard and she was angry with him.


In a survey conducted by the UK newspaper The Guardian in 2004, 60 scientists selected this movie as the best science fiction movie of all time, just ahead of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).


It has been rumored for years that Harrison Ford purposefully gave a bad reading of the voiceover narration added during post production in hopes that the studio wouldn't use it. Ford has denied this vehemently, stating that he gave the voice over six different readings and neither version came out sounding right and that the narration didn't work simply because the film wasn't originally made to have one.


Director Trademark: [Ridley Scott] [Mothers] Leon shoots his interviewer just as he is asked a question about his mother.


Ridley Scott carried a photo of Edward Hopper's famous painting "Nighthawks" with him during shooting to show it to the crew members, to give them a feeling what kind of mood he wanted to create in the film.


Batty paraphrases William Blake's poem "America - a Prophecy" when he appears in Chew's laboratory. The original phrasing from the poem is "Fiery the Angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll'd around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc."


When Ridley Scott was casting the character of Roy Batty, he remembered Rutger Hauer's performance in Paul Verhoeven's Soldaat van Oranje (1977) and contacted the Dutchman about the role. At first, Hauer was hesitant because he couldn't understand the concept of a replicant. After Scott showed him some of Lawrence G. Paull's scenic production designs, Hauer accepted the role willingly.


Joanna Cassidy (Zhora) was at ease with the snake around her neck because it was her pet, a Burmese python named Darling.


The moves that Roy plays to checkmate Tyrell are from a famous game played in 1851 by the German chess master Adolf Anderssen. It is known to chess enthusiasts as "The Immortal Game" where Anderssen does actually sacrifice his Queen in order to force checkmate the very next move as in the movie.


Producers Bud Yorkin and Jerry Perenchio were the movie's bond-completion guarantors, which meant that they received rights to the movie when it went over budget.


It was editor Terry Rawlings who suggested that the voice-over should be excluded. Prior to the release of the director's cut, Ridley Scott eliminated all the voice-overs and the result was a better rating given by film critics.


Outside of the eye scientist's lab, on the left hand side of the door is some graffiti in Japanese/Chinese characters that reads: "Chinese good, Americans bad."


The brand of cigarettes smoked by the characters Rachael, Holden, and Pris are Boyard, French cigarettes.


On the right side of the door to the eye specialist is the sign, "l a Eyeworks" which is a reference to a trendy eyeglass store in LA. The type-style is the same as the store.


Initially a box office bomb, the movie gradually amassed a vast cult audience over the years after its release, thanks to the issuance of the esteemed director's cut. Ridley Scott had expected it to fare better than Alien (1979) at the box office and blamed New Yorker critic Pauline Kael's scathing reviews for its failure.


In the strange Japanese advertisement shown on the side of a blimp, in which a Geisha-like woman is swallowing a pill, the loud speakers play a line from a Japanese Noh play, saying "Iri Hi Katamuku," literally "the setting sun sinks down."


Cityspeak was Edward James Olmos's idea. He has since been amazed at how prescient it was vis-a-vis the increasing multicultural influence Los Angeles has experienced in the intervening years.


For the Final Cut DVD, Ridley Scott re-shot scenes with Joanna Cassidy to clean up some of the film continuity. Cassidy was very excited that the original Zhora costume still fit over 20 years later.


Ridley Scott told NPR's All Things Considered that he originally wanted Deckard to wear a 1940s-style hat throughout the film, but Scott decided against that once he saw Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones costume (including the brown fedora) for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), which was shot directly before Blade Runner (1982).


In the early scene, where Gaff and another officer approach Deckard while he is eating at the noodle bar, the other officer says "idi wa!" which is Korean for "let's go" or "come with me".


The film was rushed to completion because of an imminent strike by film technicians in Hollywood. Cast and crew were completely on edge one day before the strike was to start and the climax of the film still had to be shot. Rutger Hauer was so exhausted from the long working days that he excused himself from the production for a night. When he returned the next day after a good night's sleep, the strike had been averted, and the last scene could be filmed without pressure.


Ranked #6 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Sci-Fi" in June 2008.

I watched this last week. It was raining and thundering outside the night I watched it, and it really added to the movie.

Anyway, I forgot why I hated my copy: In the Director's Cut they remove the narrations from Ford. Sure he sounds like he doesn't want to be there when he's talking, but it really added to the noir feel when I've seen it with them. My copy also has significantly less gore than the other version I've seen (ie: when Roy sticks his thumbs in Tyrell's eyes it pans away, when Deckard kills Pris it's not as violent, etc.)

Other than that, I've always liked the added 'unicorn dream' sequence. Really adds to the "is Deckard a replicant?" theory and still leaves it ambiguous. Just another reason I need to pick up the Final Cut Edition soon.

Either way though, this is a Top 10 movie for me, the perfect combination of noir and sci-fi, very memorable characters, and great action throughout.