Blade Runner Day

The year 2019 is one that's cropped up in speculative scifi movies across the years (mostly in decades gone by). This year, now in its twilight weeks, was when Neo-Tokyo exploded, when Arnold Schwarzenegger did the Running Man, and when Italy knocked off Escape from New York. But for me, the most noteworthy fictional date was that of one of my favorite science fiction films--favorite films period, in fact--November 2019, specifically the 20th as confirmed by the sequel--Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

I could natter for hours why I love the film--well, the Final Cut as it is, anyway, and we'll get to the rest later. The effects and atmosphere have truly stood the test of time, with the opening model shots of the future-no-more Los Angeles looking absolutely incredible. Gorgeous model sets, combined with the right lighting, in essence created the cyberpunk look right then and there, with neon-saturated commercials adorning kilometer-high monolith skyscrapers just being the icing on the cake. Vangelis' amazing ethereal score that mixed synth with noir-flavored sax, the questions asked of the viewer on the nature of humanity, and Rutger Hauer's performance...sure, we chuckle at the offworld colonies that never materialized, but I guess we can just view it as an alternate history now.

As to what did materialize? Well, Los Angeles is still smoggy and littered with garbage as I understand it. Digital, overbearing advertising is certainly a thing, on the side of buses and buildings and every surface marketers think is just not being exploited enough. Humanlike replicants aren't there yet, but that day inches disturbingly closer with every announcement from a certain Boston company. Climates shift, putting a perpetually overcast southern California perhaps closer to reality.

The film is also just part of a legacy left by the infamously tripped-out writer Philip K Dick, whose repertoire mostly consisted of unsettling scenarios of false memories, subjective realities, or, as in the Man in the High Castle, all of that combined with alternate timelines. Dick himself was consumed by his own addictions and paranoia, ending up on a level of sanity just slightly below a Flat Earther, but between Electric Dreams, Minority Report, and the glorious Total Recall, his work proved ripe for mining by Hollywood for decades--and with surprisingly not terrible results. I have skimmed the original novel--Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep--and while it certainly delves deep into concepts only skimmed by the film, it still has some of that acid-fuelled haziness that can make Dick's work hard to follow sometimes. This is one instance where I certainly prefer the movie version, just for the imagery it conjures, and being just a little more straightforward.

And while myself and many others praise Blade Runner now, it certainly wasn't always regarded as a classic. The first theatric cut was the result of a somewhat troubled production that went through an avalanche of drafts and unrealized ideas, and the studio mandated a narration from Harrison Ford just to make it clear to supposedly clueless viewers watching what was going on. Even the ending was changed from the questioning ambiguity of the final shots we know now to some sappy nonsense about him and Sean Young's Rachel escaping to a bucolic countryside. I hear that criminally this is the version shown on Netflix in some areas--in that case, you're better off cracking out the blu-ray.

As to the performances? Harrison Ford got to show off more sides beyond a wiseass space cowboy or a wiseass adventurer archaeologist. Joe Turkel made one of his last roles his most iconic; and even the minor roles, like Daryl Hannah as Pris or Brion James as Kowalski, made for indelible cinematic imagery. Hell, the character of Pris would even appear in makeup commercials in Japan, which especially took a liking to the film (anime and videogames alike inspired would abound). But to me, the real star was Rutger Hauer--who, tragically, would not live to see the future he helped convey become the present.

Many buffs can quote Hauer's speech at the end verbatim--and to think it was supposedly all improv. But even before that, you can feel the desperation, the charisma, the increasing derangement of a dying toy soldier that just wants what everyone else has--a chance at life. Compared to the rather impassioned Deckard, Roy Batty is only doing what he knows to do to stave off oblivion for him and his comrades. In the sagas of fictional artificial beings, like HAL  or the Bicentennial Man, it's little wonder that Roy has stood out over the decades for being, well, more human than human.

Besides the incalculable visual influences--even reaching the '93 Super Mario film, of all things--Blade Runner had continuations even before the 2017 sequel, including a series of novels (which also tried to bring in elements of the Dick book, as far as I know?) and a 1997 adventure game title that was pretty ambitious for the time. Nevertheless, the film even had its own nifty interactive experience in London not too long ago, where for a time, an East End warehouse was turned into the gloomy streets of 2019 LA. Visitors could do it all from interacting with Replicants, or just hang around in Taffy's bar and get drunk.

That's just some of the thoughts I have on this favorite of mine, which I found a good an excuse as any to talk about. Blade Runner may no longer be the future, but it'll be something I'll gladly rewatch for decades to come. We have a few years yet before we catch up with the sequel, or the machine wars of 2029, or the 2050s of Minority Report. Enjoy these current futures while you can--it's too bad most will never live. But then, who does...