rra
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Post by rra on Dec 30, 2007 3:36:43 GMT -5
BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT (1982) - ***** - Masterpiece"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe!" People want to call BLADE RUNNER a dystopic tale, but I disagree. Most dystopian fare revolve around an exaggerated, hyperbole grim future to argue a fantastical future, all in all to make social commentary. The futures seen in LOGAN'S RUN or THE MATRIX are not impossible, but really improbable at this rate. I would argue instead that the 2019 Los Angeles as seen in RUNNER has realistic chances of occuring within our future. The difference though from my 2007 outlook is that such an ugly, overpopulated, and ecologically polluted megalpolis won't happen in Los Angeles or anywhere in North America. Instead, it'll either happen in Latin America and/or in Asia. Hell, Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro are on their way, since such regions either don't care, or economically can't afford, to clean up the toxic waste and outsource lousy menial jobs elsewhere. Nevermind the current issues of overpopulation or massive unemployment that'll stay unanswered for years to come. What's more amazing than the continuing relevancy of BLADE RUNNER is what happened to me..... and I really don't know how to explain it. "Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate."I had always believed ALIEN to be Sir Ridley Scott's technical masterpiece, with BLADE RUNNER as his artistic legacy. I admired RUNNER as a great if flawed visual acheivement for sci-fi cinema. I've seen both the "Voice-Over" edit and dubiously-called "Director's Cut" several times, and I believed I enjoyed it. I say believed because watching THE FINAL CUT for me was akin to a baptism, or an atonement for my cinema soul. I knew the music, the story, the scenes, everything....and all that meant squat. To witness Scott's completed vision of humanity's destiny after some 25 years, I was practically watching BLADE RUNNER for the very first, and Jesus Christ I'm free. For the very first time, I've realized a startling truth. There are no more flaws. RUNNER is a cerebral and quietly emotional masterpiece for cinema that defies genre, a lushiously layered dream for the senses. This is crack cocaine for your eyes, and the mechanical-yet-organic music of Vangelis is the heroin for your ears. This movie created millions of hopeless junkies before, but THE FINAL CUT will be a goddamn epidemic because even more poor hooked bastards will come back for their next fix, and then another.... "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain."It's funny, but I always was so caught up with RUNNER's action-plot, I never noticed before the direction of Scott's narrative. With the cold, simple, and sterile opening credits and its prologue, there is a clear difference between humans and replicants, what is real and what is simply a knock-off. "Retire" is the word for murder because how could something not alive in the first place be killed? All these these bio-robots have the protocol-memories implanted by their overlords, with similarly-designed emotional responses so that the masters could keep a close eye on their "fake" slave-stock. The problem is, these replicants display the raw and very real ardor that is missing from the "true" humans, like empathy. They fear being exterminated, they have the burning desire for revenge, and very much feel death's final grip itself. With these fugitives fighting for life, and Harrison Ford becoming more attached with their case and that of Sean Young's replicant-in-denial, the "barrier" between creator and the created becomes more and more blurred. By the time of Rutger Hauer's finale, we have a villain that has done alot of horrible things, much of which he regrets, and now a chance to gain blood vengeance upon one of the hunters that has persecuted his kind. Yet by accepting his fate, Hauer gives life as its drains away from his flesh. The bleak skies of darkness over Los Angeles briefly depart, for a soul has escaped into the heavens. People insist that the ending of BLADE RUNNER explains the truth behind Ford's reality, but now I think the shot of the tinfoil-unicorn doesn't answer anything. It's more of the last sharp poker, like Robert DeNiro's smile in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. The question shouldn't be whatever Ford is a replicant or not, but "what's the difference?" He's as human as they are. "Time to die."
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Post by Aaron E. Dangerously on Dec 30, 2007 3:39:56 GMT -5
rra, I loved reading this review. You have sold me on this movie. I might go and get it in the near future.
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rra
King Koopa
Posts: 10,145
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Post by rra on Dec 30, 2007 3:53:54 GMT -5
rra, I loved reading this review. You have sold me on this movie. I might go and get it in the near future. That's the greatest compliment a critic can receive.
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Joie De Vivre
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There's always next year.
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Post by Joie De Vivre on Dec 30, 2007 4:20:56 GMT -5
Wow and by coincidence, I just edited my myspace look into something Blade Runner inspired Great review, I still have to get my hands on this version. You always discover something new about this film everytime you watch it.
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Post by K7 - WC's Crowd Extra on Dec 30, 2007 5:11:39 GMT -5
dammit rra, my Blade Runner set hasn't arrived yet, and your review makes me want it more!!!
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Post by chibidiablo on Dec 30, 2007 6:29:03 GMT -5
I only watched this for the first time in the last couple of months and it was f***ing brilliant
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Post by krill on Dec 30, 2007 6:37:32 GMT -5
I heard a rumor once that the millenium falcon made an appearence in Blade Runner. I wouldnt know cause I have seen it.
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Post by DrBackflipsHoffman on Dec 30, 2007 8:19:27 GMT -5
I went to see this at the cinema and was absolutely blown away. I seriously can't reccomend this movie and the 5 disc DVD set it comes in enough. I really do not miss the voice over at all, or anything cut and fiddled with since the directors edition. Defenitely my favourite version out of all five.
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Jiren
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Post by Jiren on Dec 30, 2007 9:25:23 GMT -5
it was alright
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rra
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Post by rra on Dec 30, 2007 12:54:17 GMT -5
I went to see this at the cinema and was absolutely blown away. I seriously can't reccomend this movie and the 5 disc DVD set it comes in enough. I really do not miss the voice over at all, or anything cut and fiddled with since the directors edition. Defenitely my favourite version out of all five. I agree, either the Briefcase or the 4-disc DVD edition is a MUST BUY. As for the Voice-Over, for the film-noir story material, its a good idea. The problem is, it just doesn't work. I'm with Darabont in that Ford's narration kill-joys Hauer's finale. Out of the features I expected to enjoy....Scott's commentary, the excellent DANGEROUS DAYS documentary, the various BR edits..... The surprisingly enjoyable feature turned out to be the featurette where filmmakers/people argue back and forth whatever Ford is a replicant or not. From Del Toro arguing "yes" to Frank Darabont making a compelling case for why BR is better if Ford is human........good stuff. The way I see it now, Ford is a replicant. He's been implanted with the memories/experiences based off real Blade Runners, perhaps even duplicated a real Dekkard who's either deceased or moved off to the colonies with his wife. Why search the cosmos for the "real" thing if you can snatch up a duplicate that is also expendable? "You've done a man's job indeed!"
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rra
King Koopa
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Post by rra on Dec 30, 2007 12:55:31 GMT -5
Scott really is Britain's best living director....until he retires and Christopher Nolan takes over the throne.
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rra
King Koopa
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Post by rra on Dec 30, 2007 12:56:33 GMT -5
I heard a rumor once that the millenium falcon made an appearence in Blade Runner. I wouldnt know cause I have seen it. I think I saw it as among the buildings in the background of those flying-car sequences.
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Jiren
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Post by Jiren on Dec 30, 2007 12:57:32 GMT -5
i need to watch it again
it was too much for 1 viewing.
i don't know whether to keep with final cut or change to a different version.
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rra
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Post by rra on Dec 30, 2007 13:02:22 GMT -5
Here's Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" article on THE FINAL CUT edit of BLADE RUNNER: Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982) / / / November 3, 2007 By Roger Ebert In an earlier review of "Blade Runner," I wrote; "It looks fabulous, it uses special effects to create a new world of its own, but it is thin in its human story." This seems a strange complaint, given that so much of the movie concerns who is, and is not, human, and what it means to be human anyway. Even one character we can safely assume is human, the reptilian Tyrell, czar of the corporation which manufactures replicants, strikes me as a possible replicant. And of the hero, Deckard (Harrison Ford), all we can say for sure is that director Ridley Scott has left clues in various versions of his film that can be used to prove that Deckard is a human -- or a replicant. Now study that paragraph again and notice I have committed a journalistic misdemeanor. I have referred to replicants without ever establishing what a replicant is. It is a tribute to the influence and reach of "Blade Runner" that 25 years after its release virtually everyone reading this knows about replicants. Reviews of "The Wizard of Oz" never define Munchkins, do they? This is a seminal film, building on older classics like "Metropolis" or "Things to Come," but establishing a pervasive view of the future that has influenced science fiction films ever since. Its key legacies are: Giant global corporations, environmental decay, overcrowding, technological progress at the top, poverty or slavery at the bottom -- and, curiously, almost always a film noir vision. Look at "Dark City," "Total Recall," "Brazil," "12 Monkeys" or "Gattaca" and you will see its progeny. I have never quite embraced "Blade Runner," admiring it at arm's length, but now it is time to cave in and admit it to the canon. Ridley Scott has released a "definitive version" subtitled "Blade Runner: The Final Cut," which will go first to theaters and then be released Dec.18 in three DVD editions, including a "Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition" that includes, according to a press release, "All 4 Previous Cuts, Including the Ultra-Rare 'Workprint' Version!" plus the usual deleted scenes, documentaries, bells and whistles. The biggest change Scott made in earlier versions was to drop the voice-over narration from the 1982 original. Spoken by Ford, channeling Philip Marlowe, it explained things on behalf of a studio nervous that we wouldn't understand the film. Since much of the interest in the film has been generated by what we weren't sure we understood, that turned out to be no problem. The ending has been tweaked from bleak to romantic to existential to an assortment of the above, and shots have come and gone, but for me the most important change in the 2007 version is in the print itself. Scott has resisted the temptation to go back and replace analog special effects with new GCI work (which disturbed many fans of George Lucas' "Star Wars") and has kept Douglas Turnbull's virtuoso original special effects, while enhancing, restoring, cleaning and scrubbing both visuals and sound so the film reflects a higher technical standard than ever before. It looks so great, you're tempted to say the hell with the story, let's just watch it. But the story benefits, too, by seeming more to inhabit its world than be laid on top of it. The action follows Deckard, a "blade runner" who is assigned to track down and kill six rebel replicants who have returned illegally from off-worlds to earth, and are thought to be in Los Angeles. (The movie never actually deals with more than five replicants, however, unless, as the critic Tim Dirks speculates, Deckard might be the sixth). Replicants, as you know, are androids who are "more human than human," manufactured to perform skilled slave labor on earth colonies. They are born fully formed, supplied with artificial memories of their "pasts," and set to break down after four years, because after that point they are so smart they have a tendency to develop human emotions and feelings and have the audacity to think of themselves as human. Next thing you know, they'll want the vote, and civil rights. Much of this comes from the original Philip K. Dick story, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Since replicants in general do not know they are replicants, there can be real poignancy in their lives. We feel sympathy for one in particular, Rachael (Sean Young), who finds herself involved in romance with Deckard. He loves her even though he has reason to believe she is a replicant, but a very good one, almost impossible to detect. What I have always wondered is why the Tyrell Corporation made their androids so lifelike. Why not give them four arms and settle the matter, and get more work out of them? Is there a buried possibility that Tyrell's long-range plan is to replace humans altogether? Is the whole blade-running caper simply a cover for his scheme? But never mind. What matters to the viewer is that the ground rules seem to be in place, and apply in one of the most extraordinary worlds ever created in a film. The skies are always dark with airborne filth in this Los Angeles of the future. It usually rains. The infrastructure looks a lot like now, except older and more crowded, and with the addition of vast floating zeppelins, individual flying cars, and towering buildings of unimaginable size. When I first saw the film I was impressed by the giant billboards with moving, speaking faces on them, touting Coca-Cola and other products. Now I walk over to Millennium Park and see giant faces looming above me, smiling, winking, and periodically spitting (but not Coke). As for the flying cars, these have been a staple of sci-fi magazine covers for decades, but remain wildly impractical and dangerous, unless locked into a control grid. The "human story," as I think of it, involves practical tests to determine if an individual is a replicant or not, and impractical tests (such as love) to determine how much that matters to (a) people, if they are in love with a replicant, and (b) replicants, if they know they are replicants. This has always been a contrived problem, easily avoidable in practical ways, unless (as I suspect) the Tyrell Corporation has more up its sleeves than arms. But to stumble on plot logic seems absurd in a film that is more about vision. And I continue to find it fascinating how film noir, a genre born in the 1940s, has such a hammerlock on the future (look at "Dark City" again). I suspect film noir is so fruitful and suggestive that if you bring it on board, half your set and costume decisions have been made for you, and you know what your tone will be. Ridley Scott is a considerable director who makes no small plans. His credits include "Alien," "Legend," the inexplicable "1492," "Gladiator," "Black Hawk Down" and the brilliant "Matchstick Men," and his "American Gangster" opened Friday in theaters. He has the gift of making action on a vast scale seem comprehensible. I have been assured that my problems in the past with "Blade Runner" represent a failure of my own taste and imagination, but if the film was perfect, why has Sir Ridley continued to tinker with it, and now released his fifth version? I guess he's only... human. rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071103/REVIEWS08/71103001/1004
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rra
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Post by rra on Dec 30, 2007 13:09:51 GMT -5
i need to watch it again it was too much for 1 viewing. i don't know whether to keep with final cut or change to a different version. The first I saw BR, as a kid, I was bored by it. But hey, kids are stupid and easily amused by flashy lights and explosions. The thing about BLADE RUNNER is, as The Final Cut revealed itself.......it was and always will be a polarizing picture. Either folks will get behind it, or leave it behind. But for those though that are hooked by it, its a great picture. Then again, those "hooked" must be alot of people. The movie made a rather substial placement on the Hollywood-voted "AFI Top Thrills" list, and actually cracked into the recently updated Top 100 American movies list from AFI as well. Oh and back in 2004 I believe, scientists polled in the UK voted this as the greatest science fiction picture ever....even above Kubrick's 2001 and others.
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The Raven
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Post by The Raven on Dec 30, 2007 13:12:35 GMT -5
Dammit, I want to see this film so bad. I was just wondering which 'version' to go for and if the final cut was the be all end all, which you pretty much answered for me, so thanks.
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Jiren
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Post by Jiren on Dec 30, 2007 13:13:38 GMT -5
Does the Voice over explain things a bit more
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rra
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Post by rra on Dec 30, 2007 13:19:27 GMT -5
Dammit, I want to see this film so bad. I was just wondering which 'version' to go for and if the final cut was the be all end all, which you pretty much answered for me, so thanks. I've talked with 3other people who's also seen FINAL CUT, including one who actually saw it originally back in 1982.... And we all agree that considering the 5 or some versions floating out there, THE FINAL CUT is the best version of BLADE RUNNER available. Plus, TFC digitally/redubs alot of sloppy mistakes that always detracted the picture for me, like the infamous bad math used by Bryon regarding how many replicants there actually was. The same bit of data that people used for years to defend the "Ford is Replicant" argument, even though it never made any damn sense. But its just nuts how Cassidy's face was shot in 2007 to match her 25-years-younger version, and you absolutely can't tell that it was a glorius digital copy & paste job. Incredible.
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rra
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Post by rra on Dec 30, 2007 13:22:32 GMT -5
Does the Voice over explain things a bit more In some ways, but its flat delivery by Ford renders its purpose mute...if that makes any sense. It explains what "city speak" is, and I think...who cares? BLADE RUNNER is alot like another movie I love, Lucas' THX-1138, in that both movies open naked into bizarre cultures and worlds that we have to ingest our own "understanding" of how they work by watching. To put it another way, its like going to a foreign country. While you see things that you do back home, there are the exotic little details that make no sense to you, but are just simply fascinating. Then again, some people prefer the Voice-Over edit...like Guillermo Del Toro.
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TuneinTokyo
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Post by TuneinTokyo on Dec 30, 2007 13:22:52 GMT -5
one day Atari will rule again.
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