Bladerunner would be forgettable without the soundtrack.

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So did Philip K.Dick also invent cyberpunk? In 1968? I always knew he was a genius!!

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I bought the collectors edition blu-ray a couple of weeks back. I already had the final cut on blu-ray but this one has all the versions. I had never seen the US theatrical version with the voice-over before. I have nothing against voice overs, the first Sin-City is one of my favourite recent movies but my god the narration dialog was so bad in Blade Runner I had to shut it off after 15 minutes. I'll go back to it and watch the whole thing eventually but not just yet. :scared:

As for the movie itself (the final cut being the definitive version) I have to be in the right mood to watch it. I always think the scene where Deckard is pretending to be a reporter with the funny voice as a bit out of place, for both the overall mood of the movie and the character of Deckard himself. He's this generally sombre, borderline grumpy guy who all of a sudden decides to do some unnecessary light-hearted imitation. Although this scene and some parts in the Indiana Jones movies showed that Ford could easily handle humor something we never saw so much since.
Last edited by lotus2035 on Mon Sep 22, 2014 1:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Movies are often the sum of their parts, especially those that rely a lot of elements other than the acting.

I don't know that without the soundtrack it would be a bad film, but it might be a lesser film. To be honest I've never thought of the soundtrack as being that great so perhaps I wouldn't miss it.

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Bladerunner is awesome :love: (I'm not a review writer, so I'm not going to try...),
its soundtrack is ok... (I like some parts better than others)

But that's my taste in music ofcourse ... e.g. I love this one:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096251/ (Tetsuo (1989))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROMTzJsfOI
And John Carpenter's stuff is pretty great too!
Last edited by T-CM11 on Mon Sep 22, 2014 2:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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mikusan wrote:So did Philip K.Dick also invent cyberpunk? In 1968? I always knew he was a genius!!
Dick was primarily preoccupied with the nature of both human identity and reality, and there was very little of what would normally be associated with Cyberpunk in DADoES. Maze of Death from '68 does include references to a virtual reality, though, the mechanism behind the shifts of reality the protagonists unknowingly experience.

Its not alone for addressing VR in that timeperiod; for example Ben Bova's "The Duellng Machine" detailed immersive VR in 1969.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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whyterabbyt wrote:
mikusan wrote:So did Philip K.Dick also invent cyberpunk? In 1968? I always knew he was a genius!!
Dick was primarily preoccupied with the nature of both human identity and reality, and there was very little of what would normally be associated with Cyberpunk in DADoES. Maze of Death from '68 does include references to a virtual reality, though, the mechanism behind the shifts of reality the protagonists unknowingly experience.

Its not alone for addressing VR in that timeperiod; for example Ben Bova's "The Duellng Machine" detailed immersive VR in 1969.
For some reason William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' seems to get the credit for 'inventing' the concept, yet Blade Runner (and of course DADoES) predates it.

Realistically it is probably something that has no point of origin and only the term has a point of origin.

The works of Dick have often been cited, yet if we look at it in terms of the use of future technology in media, I have heard a convincing argument that Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' is a forerunner of the concept.

I think the only thing we can really say with any certainty is where the term originated from.

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robojam wrote: For some reason William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' seems to get the credit for 'inventing' the concept, yet Blade Runner (and of course DADoES) predates it.
BR vs NM is parallel evolution I think. Gibson admits that just seeing the first 20 minutes of BR was enough to make him think that NM was going to be forever seen as derivative of BR. What NM, and the 'mirrorshades' cyberpunk brought to the picture as 'new', really was bringing the hacking-as-combat aspect. Dystopia had been done, cybernetics/bionics had been done, VR had been done, even to the CR-as-combat level, but there was very little that focussed on that hacker/cracker thing in quite the same way. Not that it hadnt been done (Brunner's Shockwave Rider is the archetype IMO) but the synthesis of that neo-military/neo-criminal aspect to hacking and VR is what defined cyberpunk, I think.
robojam wrote:The works of Dick have often been cited, yet if we look at it in terms of the use of future technology in media, I have heard a convincing argument that Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' is a forerunner of the concept.
As a predecessor of the notion of 'replicant', absolutely; and Frankenstein in turn, crudely, was a revisitation of the stories of both Prometheus and the Golem etc.

PKD took it deeper, though. Frankenstein's creation couldnt pass for human; Dick though was more interested in the point where you couldnt tell who was human and who wasnt, and that had a darker folklore/mythology/psychology: it was about the fear of changelings, malevolant doppelgangers, the identical replica who might completely replace you, unknown to everyone, and be better than you...
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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Interesting - I didn't know that Gibson had thought that.

Good point about the hacking aspects though - probably wouldn't have come to mind to anyone in the late 60s when the forerunners of the internet were almost unknown to the public, but by the early 80s many of the necessary technologies were in place and somewhat widely available.

To be honest I'm a bit out of my league as I'm not really a cyberpunk adherent of any sort, but there are definitely a few representative books and films that I know well.

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robojam wrote:Interesting - I didn't know that Gibson had thought that.

Good point about the hacking aspects though - probably wouldn't have come to mind to anyone in the late 60s when the forerunners of the internet were almost unknown to the public, but by the early 80s many of the necessary technologies were in place and somewhat widely available.

To be honest I'm a bit out of my league as I'm not really a cyberpunk adherent of any sort, but there are definitely a few representative books and films that I know well.
I'd certainly say Bladerunner is pretty definitive for cyberpunk 'look and feel' ; the massive corporations, the wealth disparity, the chinatown-everywhere neon ambience. It contributed pretty significantly to the tropes of science fiction itself, in a way that very few other films have ever done.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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Well, if we look at the concept of "virtual reality" I think it got brought up several times in the 60ies and 70ies already. Maybe sooner - I'm not that much of a book reader lately. Though wasn't this also already somewhat addressed in books like 1984 (released in 1949) as well?

But I do remember that the concept of "The Matrix" and "13th floor" definitely already date back to early "Twilight Zone" episodes, which were picked up again as well in "Outer Limits". So it is indeed hard to pin down "who" defined the genre and when it was defined. But the concepts are definitely really old - yet those that "stood out" get the clear definition.

It's like with music "genres" - we saw some of them years ago, but only at a later state were they "tagged" and "defined" as a new "genre".

GaryG wrote:IMHO Bladerunner still looks fantastic, so real and earthy. Compare that with something comparable today (I, Robot or Minority Report maybe). Very sterile, especially the extras, just walking around CGI augmented ets, looking lost. Compare it with other films from that era too, stuff like Dune, absolutely awful in comparison.
Well, Dune and Blade Runner used props. Good or bad ones lies in the eye of the beholder in comparison to the books (personally I prefer the Sandworms from David Lynch, but I do prefer the design of the universe from the John Harrison version from 2000). Same with "Lord of the Rings" compared to "The Hobbit" - I actually prefer the "Ring Trilogy" more than the new "Hobbit Look" due to less 3D model usage.

But yes, movies like "I, Robot" and "Minority Report" were just sterile 3D action bollocks. Compared to the indy production "A Scanner Darkly" - that's definitely worlds apart!

whyterabbyt wrote:I'd certainly say Bladerunner is pretty definitive for cyberpunk 'look and feel' ; the massive corporations, the wealth disparity, the chinatown-everywhere neon ambience. It contributed pretty significantly to the tropes of science fiction itself, in a way that very few other films have ever done.
I'd say comics and certain animated shows contributed way more to that. That, and to a certain extend the Pen&Paper fanbase.

Again: Bubblegum Crisis, Masamune Shirow manga (Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed), Judge Dredd comics (Megacities) - these instantly come to mind.
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Compyfox wrote:Well, if we look at the concept of "virtual reality" I think it got brought up several times in the 60ies and 70ies already.
I already said as much, yes
whyterabbyt wrote:I'd certainly say Bladerunner is pretty definitive for cyberpunk 'look and feel' ; the massive corporations, the wealth disparity, the chinatown-everywhere neon ambience. It contributed pretty significantly to the tropes of science fiction itself, in a way that very few other films have ever done.
I'd say comics and certain animated shows contributed way more to that.That, and to a certain extend the Pen&Paper fanbase.

Again: Bubblegum Crisis, Masamune Shirow manga (Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed), Judge Dredd comics (Megacities) - these instantly come to mind.
Bladerunner hit cinemas 1982. Check your dates for those manga, BR precedes them all. By the time Appleseed came out, which I think is the earliest of those you mention (1985) 'cyberpunk' fiction was in full swing, already reliant on the tropes Im talking about, and it had started to percolate into mainstream filmic sf.
Dredd did rely on that notion of the massively sprawling metropolis, but that in itself wasnt new to SF, and the non-cartoony elements of the society of MegaCity were culled freely from much older sources (eg Stand on Zanzibar, Make Room Make Room etc).

And by the way, Im primarily talking about written science fiction, which has always been the 'primary' source for other media. Few genre films ever influence the fiction of the genre, but Bladerunner absolutely did; a denial of that is on the order of denying the influence of the first VU album on music... it just doesnt reflect known reality.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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T-CM11 wrote:Bladerunner is awesome :love: (I'm not a review writer, so I'm not going to try...),
its soundtrack is ok... (I like some parts better than others)

But that's my taste in music ofcourse ... e.g. I love this one:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096251/ (Tetsuo (1989))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROMTzJsfOI
And John Carpenter's stuff is pretty great too!
Oh man, that trailer brought back horrible memories of suffering through that film. Like 200 Motels, I've tried to watch it again in something of a sterile context to see if there was something that I was missing. I find them both completely unwatchable. To be clear though, 200 Motels must be what they show in hell, it's either that or the entire Olsen twin library alternated with every episode of The Facts of Life, on repeat, for all of eternity.

"you can sit on my face, where's my waitress."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eN-ScHMdC0

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ghettosynth wrote:
budweiser wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:
budweiser wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:I think that the movie is somewhat mediocre.
Oh god... time for glasses.
No, you just need a bigger TV set.
You'd better admit you're a bit low-ceilinged and unconcerned by poetry. Telling a movie with such a universal recognition is mediocre is such a stupid assertion that i allows me to insist... :D
Go watch transformers !
Assertions of opinion just are, on the other hand, assertions of logical conclusion that invoke fallacy, are, as you say, stupid.

Threads like this are great, they sort out quickly for me who has something of their own to say, and who doesn't.
No offence :D ! I just felt you were asking for a small kick in the butt with such a provocative sentence, and i thought i could help a bit... :D (I'm very helpfull...)
If you don't feel the inherent poetry and philosophy behind the movie, it's just because Transformers fit better to your needs.. What's left to say ?
Take a break from Pacific rim and watch the very well documented making of included in the anniversary edition to understand how amazing this movie is, and how it was done, delivered in pain.
I'm sure if you think, you can find a better word than mediocre for such an artistic work and talent convergence...

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whyterabbyt wrote:I'd certainly say Bladerunner is pretty definitive for cyberpunk 'look and feel' ; the massive corporations, the wealth disparity, the chinatown-everywhere neon ambience. It contributed pretty significantly to the tropes of science fiction itself, in a way that very few other films have ever done.
Can't disagree with any of that.

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whyterabbyt wrote:
mikusan wrote:So did Philip K.Dick also invent cyberpunk? In 1968? I always knew he was a genius!!
Dick was primarily preoccupied with the nature of both human identity and reality, and there was very little of what would normally be associated with Cyberpunk in DADoES. Maze of Death from '68 does include references to a virtual reality, though, the mechanism behind the shifts of reality the protagonists unknowingly experience.

Its not alone for addressing VR in that timeperiod; for example Ben Bova's "The Duellng Machine" detailed immersive VR in 1969.
There's a tale in Ray Bradburys 'illustrated man' (veldt?) that has a '3d nursery', maybe more of a holodeck style VR than cyberspace. Think IM came out in the early 50s but was all previously published stuff so actual story would ~1950.

Though sure there are other examples, not starting a pissing contest I know I can't win. ;)

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