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| Blade Runner (1982) |
For clarification's sake, I saw the 1992 Director's Cut of the movie, simply because that's the version I was given to watch. I usually try to watch the theatrical cuts of films like this, since that's the version I'd have seen had I gone to see it in cinemas like all the new releases I get a chance to see. However, the copy of the movie I was given was the Director's Cut, so that's what I saw. Anyway, this movie is gorgeous. By that, I of course mean 'gorgeously decrepit', but the way this world is brought to life is just great to see. The practical effects that are used throughout are fantastic, and the limited CGI never stands out too much, which tends to happen with movies like this. I will say that it is a little noticeable later in the movie when the movie doesn't so seamlessly hide the fact that it is a movie. There's one specific shot right towards the end that was clearly shot in a different location than anything else, with a blue sky visible for the first time ever. The sky itself may have been symbolism for what was happening at the time, which I do understand, but the surrounding buildings looked nothing like anything else we'd seen in the movie up until that point, so it just made the whole moment seem cheap. Aside from those one or two moments, however, the entire thing was great to look at, and the world the movie presented constantly felt alive and bustling. I always love how, in these older movies, their idea of a future society still contains technology equivalent to the time they were made. It's honestly really charming, and for a sci-fi, it can tell a story of when the world began to change in relation to the world we exist in now, which is some great unintentional world-building.
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| Sean Young as Rachael |
This movie is essentially a story in world-building. There's a lot that goes on here, and while not all of it lends itself towards the main stories that are being told, all of it goes towards further establishing the world, which leads to further defining the stories being told. We're not told how the world of Blade Runner came to be, as it's largely irrelevant. The main focus of the story is on the 'Replicants', and these are extremely well established. It's their story, so it's only natural that the bulk of the back-story goes towards them and how they function and not towards why Deckard initially resigned from the Blade Runners to begin with. We don't need to know that. It's more of a pressing matter to explain how the Replicants work and what they want and what makes them different and what makes them the same as us. All of these are explained wonderfully through some really clever dialogue and some very intelligent 'show-don't-tell' story-telling. Most importantly, like all good sci-fi, it shines a light on the human condition. The moral grey area with the Replicants is great to see, as any other movie like this would have made them straight-up bad guys. Opening with Rachael's story really helps with that, as does the multiple different stories they tell with the different Replicants, and even human characters, throughout the film. All these tales from the metropolis tell a different story that come together in the end to discuss the themes the movie wants us to consider, and it's handled brilliantly by the end.
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| Daryl Hannah as Pris |
I say 'by the end' as it's not the smoothest journey to get there, at least, for some people. Because, yes, the movie is slow-paced, especially for a sci-fi movie. At times, maybe even too slow. I can forgive it for the most part, however, as this movie isn't just a sci-fi. It's also a detective movie. The mystery element isn't necessarily in the forefront. There's no real mystery for the audience to solve, as we have none of the information that the characters in the movie have, so it essentially becomes us watching this guy do all the work, which is why the movie slows to a halt at times. In a regular detective movie, the audience is usually working off the same information as the detective is, and the best ones will have the audience piece things together at the same time the detective does. Here, with the world being so different from our own, this can't happen, so you feel lost at times. However, like I said, since this isn't a mystery movie at its core, and rather uses the detective story as a vessel to tell the sci-fi story, it works well enough, and Harrison Ford carries these sections of the movie. I don't think I've ever seen him in a role and not liked him. He's just so charming, and he does this amazing thing with his characters where he manages to portray all the years of experience he has been through almost effortlessly. Seeing him in this role, and many others, you want to know his stories, you need to see his past adventures. He wears it all on his face at all times, and it's a big reason why this role worked as well as it did.
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| Harrison Ford as Deckard |
The rest of the cast do fantastic jobs as well. Sean Young does an excellent job with the really rather hefty role she was given. It's quite a complex character, and a super compelling one at that, but Young makes it look easy. She does such an amazing job at making you sympathise with her plight, as well as get across all the themes that the character was there to explore. The other Replicants are great as well, with Daryl Hannah given a lot of the spotlight amongst them, but they all play their parts well. The MVP of the piece, however? It's got to be Rutger Hauer. Oh, my God, he absolutely crushes it with this performance. Talk about wearing your experiences on your face, Hauer nails it. Batty is just such a complex character, and his conversations with both Deckard and his creator are easy highlights of the movie for me. The 'tears in the rain' moment has obviously been beaten to death in pop culture by this point, but it was still incredibly powerful to see where it originated here. These ideas of trying to conquer death and the creator vs the creation and the line where humanity begins... these are just interesting topics of discussion for this world and, really, for our own. These are relatable issues for our own world without being 100% things that actually properly affect us in our lives. They're just interesting things to talk about, and that's honestly what I love in a good story like this. There's a reason this movie is left as open-ended as it was (at least in the cut I saw, anyway). Some of these questions have no real answers, and I love that not all of these issues, or even story-lines, are given answers here. It's far more realistic that way, and this extra sense of realism is another thing that helps ground the world and stories of the movie and make for some goddamn entertaining science-fiction.
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| Rutger Hauer as Batty |
Blade Runner (1982) is a fantastic movie, and I imagine it ages flawlessly on repeat viewings for it to have lasted as long as it has. I hear the sequel is even better than this one it, and I'm certainly eager to get around to that at some point. For now, though, this original movie still holds up extraordinarily well. 9/10.
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