So, checking out movie news today and I found THIS. You don't have to read the whole thing, I'll summarize; Alcon Entertainment is in the final stages of negotiating the rights to make a prequel/sequel to Blade Runner.
I'm one of the biggest Blade Runner fans you'll ever meet (where do you think my daughter Rachel got her name?) and I've gotta say... screw this. Seriously.
I've known this was going to happen for a long time. The Idea Mines in Hollywood are made up of all the old movies we treasure (and some we don't). If it's liked, enjoyed, or watched by a group of people bigger than fits in a bus, they'll remake/prequel/re-imagine or spin off it. Considering Blade Runner has been held as one of the most visually influential films of all time, this isn't surprising.
They've written novels set in the Blade Runner world. They aren't that good. They've made Blade Runner video games. They were pretty dull. They even made a movie with Kurt Russel supposedly set in the Blade Runner world (Soldier). I didn't think it was as bad as critics said, but it certainly wasn't great. Sure, these products weren't absolute crap, but in every single case I'm left with the feeling that they would have been better if they'd just gone and done their own thing (Soldier did mostly, the connection to Blade Runner is tenuous at best, utterly unnecessary.) None of it was really worth it.
I don't always mind remakes. There are some damn fine remakes out there I actually like more than originals (I'm looking at you Night of the Living Dead). A good remake captures the spirit of the original, updates the quality, and has different subtleties on account of the actors. It's a different take on the same story, but essentially, (unless they fuck it up like they often do) it's the same story.
Prequels? Sequels? Spin offs? These are all new stories, new ideas, new plots forced to graft themselves onto old plots and squeeze into old settings. Some movies and stories lend themselves to this. Indiana Jones or anything comic book based, sure. They're made to just keep going and going. Blade Runner wasn't.
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| I wish there were a Voight Kampf test for bad Hollywood ideas to they could be "retired". |
Well, too bad Blade Runner, you survived sequel-ing a lot longer than Alien, 2001, and Predator.
If we're lucky this project will die in pre-production.
P.S. If anyone wants to start an argument over whether or not Deckard is a Replicant; he's not, but I love discussing it!
All right, I'll bite. I thought that recent editions of the film made it pretty clear that he was a replicant. More importantly, I thought that it was fairly important to the theme of the movie that he realize he's the same thing he's been chasing. I would be interested in hearing evidence to the contrary.
ReplyDeleteThe point of the movie, I think, is an empty man with no feelings and the opportunity of life coming into conflict with these supposedly not-real people who have all sorts of human feelings but no lifespan. It's basically about him learning to value his existence.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots and lots of differences between Deckard and the Replicants, literally dozens of ways the movie illustrates they are "fake" humans and he's real (old vs. new photos, every human in the movie is handicapped -including Deckard- and the replicants aren't, their eyes reflect, humans don't, they're stronger, quicker, smarter, etc..). People use the one dream sequence and the unicorn origami to validate that he's a replicant because "how else would Gaff have known?". Plenty of ways, he is a detective. I don't automatically jump to the conclusion its an implanted memory. Why did Gaff make a human origami the first time he met Deckard? Why, since he's a cop who's job it is to retire replicants, wouldn't he just shoot Deckard at the end instead of giving him his gun back? Why does he say "You've done a man's job" at the end?
Because he's a man.
He said he'd done a man's job because as a replicant, he had. Also, the original line was "You've done a man's job sir! But are you sure you are a man? It's hard to be sure who's who around here." This was in the original rough cut before the unicorn even made it in there. Deckard's eyes also glow red in the "What if I go North?" scene.
ReplyDeleteMy film studies tutor taught us 'nothing in film is accidental'. Like it or not, Deckard is a replicant.
As for the extension of Gaff's line. It's not in the screenplay and there is no mention of it in Film Noir, the making of Blade Runner book, and this is the first I'm hearing of it. I don't doubt you that it exists, and if it were in the movie, perhaps it would change my opinion, but as it stands it's not in the movie, so I'm only going to make decisions by what made it in.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I buy the red eyes in the "What if I go North" scene as being intentional. Rachel's eyes are being reflected in the exact same scene. Deckard is in the background, blurry, out of focus. The filming technique to get the red eyes requires light to be shined on the actors. If they wanted it on Rachel, and Deckard was in the background, it's possible it wasn't intentional. I know that most things in film are intentional, but I'm not sure on this one in light of all the other evidence he's human, and how him NOT being human, alters the entire theme of the story.
This is a movie where the flying cars have antenna that go all the way up into the sky (accidentally visible cables) and Bryant can't even count the number of Replicants right (in the screenplay the 5th Replicant was hiding in Leon's bathroom when Deckard searches it and he find the fish scale in the tub when he kills him.) I don't automatically rule out his eyes as another accident.
Before I believe he's a replicant I'd need to understand answers to the following questions.
Why is he weaker than a pleasure model?
Why is he wandering around jobless?
Why is he an alcoholic?
Why does he have old family pictures as opposed to the polaroids the others have?
Why is he emotionally dead when all the other replicants are vibrantly emotional?
Why would Tyrell bother making something like him and then just releasing him?
Why would Bryce say "It's been a long time", implying they've been friends for a while, when he sees him if he's a short lived Replicant?
Until these things make sense I don't see how Deckard as a Replicant makes sense.
> As for the extension of Gaff's line. It's not
ReplyDelete> in the screenplay and there is no mention of
> it in Film Noir, the making of Blade Runner
> book, and this is the first I'm hearing of it
Really? Its quite well known. Check out the deleted scenes on the special features, it was definitely shot. It just wasn't used (probably because it's not really subtle).
> I'm not sure I buy the red eyes in the "What
> if I go North" scene as being intentional
Well it wasnt fixed in the Final Cut (Ridley's definitive version), so if it WAS accidental it would have been fixed, right?. This is the edit where they fixed everything from Spinner wires to removing Deckard's wound on his cheek (because he wasn't meant to get it till he fights Leon) and other small errors. Incidentally, this error was due to shifting the footage around after the removal of the sixth replicant. As it stands, if Ridley went to so much bother making this red eye effect for all artificial beings, I am sure they wouldn't let this one slip and fixed it for the Final Cut.
> Bryant can't even count the number of
> Replicants right
This was because originally there were 6 replicants, but due to time/budget constraints, they cut one out. This error is fixed in the Final Cut, where Bryant now says "Two of them got fried" - leaving, of course, the four we know. Obviously they covered their asses by shooting different takes. This correct line is also in the workprint. Ridley was fired when he was editing the film, so its not surprising he overlooked some stuff or couldn't finish effects in time -- hence his Final Cut. They were over budget and Yorkin and co werent happy.