Feels like yesterday i started this blog, now I'm on post 50. For this post i thought i would pick a special movie to talk about. Everyone has a special movie from there childhood, some may pick Raiders of the lost ark(1981)or Star Wars(1977)(Harrison Ford spells childhood memories). To me its always been Blade Runner.
Blade Runner has been a favorite movie of mine ever sense i saw it at age 11. Seeing this movie for the first time opened my eyes to film as not just entertainment but as a touching art. Every scene left me in amazement from start to finish. Since then its remained a favorite of mine where every time i see it, I found something new to love.
Blade Runner is set in Los Angeles in the year 2019, wheres theres human clone like androids called Replicants. 4 of these replicants have escaped from a mining planet and have returned to earth. One is discovered and murders a human, so the police send in a ex Blade Runner, named Deckard(played by Harrison Ford) to track and kill them. While doing so he meets Rachel(played by Sean Young), a women he soons discovers is a replicant. Once Rachel is told shes a replicant,it destories her frame of mind and makes Deckard question his own like and job.
Meanwhile Roy(played by Rutger Hauer), the leader of the 4 replicants, is trying to find anyway to prolong his life,once he finds out theres a life spand of only a few years on each replicant. He goes thur the city searching for any clue to save him. Little knowing that Deckard is searching for him. As the 3 of them go on, they all soon discover what life means to them.
Blade Runner is a odd bird of a movie. It takes the scifi genre and makes a huge beautiful movie with a little but large at the same time question, What's life about and what makes us human?. It never answers that question, but it leaves you with a numb and at times life changing view of the world. Everything in this movie visual is extremely well detailed, from billboards to ships to little glass cups in Deckards apartment. All this adds to how we view things and how images can stay in are minds, rather it be placed there or is actually remember by us. This is the theme of Blade Runner, without real memories we are not human.
Acting wise everyone is at the top of there game. Harrison Ford, up until this point, got hero types or funny comedic types, With BR he gets a quiet tragic hero, who at the end can't do his job with a clean head. He also gets into action, but unlike Raiders or Star Wars, hes extra human in the fact that during all his chases he either almost dies or gets the shit kicked out of him by one of the replicants.
As Rachel, Sean Young is a mysterious beauty who fits the droid look. Tho at times she plays it cold, she is in the end a tragic soul who you can feel is trying to regain hope in life. Rutger Hauer as Roy is scary at times then playful in the next scene,hes a brave person who wants the longer life span that he deserves. He too is a sad character,who may be powerful and smart but who's still only really a four year old.Edward James Olmos plays a second hand character who we never find out anything about,hes just a odd bystander who adds to the mystery.
In a early role here, Daryl Hannah plays Pris, the love mode of the group. Shes a panther in hiding who can strike at any moment. She and Rutger have many great scenes together, they give off a weird relationship bond that's underscored thur out the movie. Now I'm a huge M. Emmet Walsh fan, in this he has a super small part as a boss for Deckard, but still it's great to see him in anything.
Another thing amazing about Blade Runner is it's music score by Vangelis. It's a great mix of jazz, electric, and classical music. It fits every scene perfectly, with my favorite being the forced love scene between Deckard and Rachel.It takes what could be a dull scene and turns it into film legend.
In many ways, Blade Runner helped start the now famous style of Cyberpunk. The film's views of cities and the style of the characters have been copied countless times for future based novels and other future based movies,as well as many anime movies and shows. To add to the punk feel of it,it's also a neonoir of the best kind. It's a film noir with all the fixings, troubled cop,woman in trouble and a bleak view of the world. All mixed up for one hell of a stunning cocktail.
Blade Runner, all in all is simply a movie,once seen not easily forgotten. It's a breathtaking looking movie that changes how we look at the world and it helps us discover what it is to be human. Easily a masterpiece and should be seen by every movie buff many times.
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