Blade Runner is one of the more gaping holes in the list of films I haven’t seen (or at least, don’t remember well enough to talk about). Yesterday’s viewing of The Martian got me thinking about Ridley Scott’s past work so here I am.
I really should have done this sooner.
L.A. 2019, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a ‘Blade Runner’ - a policeman whose sole purpose is to hunt and kill replicants; machines almost indistinguishable from humans, yet banned from Earth. Four have been detected on the planet so he is called up to hunt and kill them.
Scott’s dystopian LA draws you in and holds you captive for 2 hours. This is a masterfully shot, timeless, beautiful piece of work. Every single frame is a work of art. The visual effects are not only highly effective, but incredibly creative and unique; never has anything like this been made before or since.
The plot is simple, one man chases another. However it’s driven almost entirely by its central themes; what is it to be human? Who deserves to live or die? Are we responsible for the things we create? What happens when our creations surpass us? All of these questions go unanswered, yet Scott somehow revels in the ambiguity.
Decker is a blank canvas of a character. The replicants he is chasing are complex, unique individuals. It’s no accident that Rutger Hauer plays the most human character in the film. His is the stand-out performance here, if only for the closing monologue.
Still fresh & still relevant, Blade Runner is indeed a modern masterpiece.
http://benoliver999.com/film/2015/10/31/bladerunner/
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Which version did you watch?
Shout by DRNKMNKY
One of the worst and most hyped films I've ever seen. I absolutely don't get what this flick wants to tell me.
Besides that, it is neither thrilling nor entertaining, so I can only hope that there is a message and deeper meaning to it that I just don't get... However, I would recommend to stay away from it if you expect a SciFi thriller because I know for sure that Blade Runner is not thrilling at all.
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@drnkmnky I just checked your history. Your favorite movie is Frozen and your favorite TV show is The Big Bang Theory. This comment was expected of you.
Shout by DRNKMNKY
One of the worst and most hyped films I've ever seen. I absolutely don't get what this flick wants to tell me.
Besides that, it is neither thrilling nor entertaining, so I can only hope that there is a message and deeper meaning to it that I just don't get... However, I would recommend to stay away from it if you expect a SciFi thriller because I know for sure that Blade Runner is not thrilling at all.
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@drnkmnky go rewatch Frozen for the eleventeenth time ya Mary
One of the most depressing films I have ever seen in my entire life. I do not recommend this one to anyone emotionally struggling during the pandemic. Awful, awful ending.
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@carlos-teran really good point. Seems totally tone deaf to release it now.
It feels like a nice TV pilot episode, it has excellent action scenes and the acting is overall good. Michael B. Jordan does a decent job as a lead, and for a German movie, it's quite good. However it has nothing to do with Tom Clancy's novel, and that's a shame. Hope the follow up movie doesn't mess with the novel they mention in the after credits scene.
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@carlos-teran You just reminded me of the first thing Tom Clancy says in his audio commentary for The Sum of All Fears: "Hi, I'm Tom Clancy, I wrote the book they ignored."
It feels like a nice TV pilot episode, it has excellent action scenes and the acting is overall good. Michael B. Jordan does a decent job as a lead, and for a German movie, it's quite good. However it has nothing to do with Tom Clancy's novel, and that's a shame. Hope the follow up movie doesn't mess with the novel they mention in the after credits scene.
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I like your review, I was surprised you still gave it a 10. Now I think I want to read the book to see how different this movie actually was.
It looks great, better than anything on the recent trilogy. The lore is building up and the acting is on the dot. My only problem is the pacing and that the damn episode is too short. I was expecting a 1 hour show, but this is shorter even than network television prime time shows.
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@the_argentinian Actually, yes. It complies with the beats and feel of the original trilogy and sets the scene for about 5 hours of story in a time period never explored before. Also, the second season is filming right now, so you're gonna get 5 more hours next year, and so on. The films can't afford that kind of time to develop arcs.
14 minutes of wasted & inconsistent time. Deeply disappointing even as a webisode.
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@wetwidwendy She didn't began the intruder alert protocol, that any Command candidate knows is the first step after discovering anyone on the ship, that conveniently has no security protocol during war time?. The dialogue and editing feels choppy and compressed, because it's 10 minutes between the characters. The ship isn't orbiting the planet of the alien (the opening shot shows the ship in open space) and the transporter range can't beam the alien back. To make things worst, she didn't alert the captain (this shot is set after Lethe, because she just informed her mother that she is applying to the Command training program, so Mirror Lorca is still the captain) who would be berzerk about all this. It doesn't deserve a review, just a comment.
Absolutely disappointing rehash of the first trilogy. Disney had a real opportunity to do something new and exciting with this ipr but resorted to rushed writing with an extremely compressed story that makes no sense and fails to make anyone care for the characters or events. Emo Kylo is an outstanding metaphor for the whole deal.
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Yep, it got so boring at some point that I almost left the theatre.
Absolutely disappointing rehash of the first trilogy. Disney had a real opportunity to do something new and exciting with this ipr but resorted to rushed writing with an extremely compressed story that makes no sense and fails to make anyone care for the characters or events. Emo Kylo is an outstanding metaphor for the whole deal.
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I couldn't agree with you more...the story is completely crap!
Getting an invitation for a Marvel early screening was meant to be something great in the past. Sadly, I've just got it for this stinker of a movie, and lost two hours of my life. I'm a fan of Josh Trank's Chronicle, so I kept my hopes high, but not much so, as he's a competent filmmaker but more in tone with an indie vibe rather than a blockbuster, in my opinion. I'm so disappointed regarding this movie that I can resume the entire plot in the following few lines: a couple of kids (one a mild-mannered-mad-scientist-in-the-making and an honest-to-God-sports-jock) try for nearly a decade to create a functioning prototype of a phase-quantum-dimensional-shifting device (a teleportation machine, for the layman), getting the attention of a gifted scientist (who happens to have a politically correct bi-racial family) from a government-funded think-tank. Together, they spend HALF (yes, half) the movie trying to make the prototype of the device (now named "Quantum Gate") fully functional and open a portal to Planet Zero (a desolate generic CGI dimension that co-exist with ours), with the unwilling aid of Victor, a hacker-wiz kid who happens to be sadly in love with the only female character in the film, who in turn has a crush for Reed (as you might expect, Reed is utterly oblivious to her most of the film). The whole ordeal feels detached, procedural and boring, but has the very brief quality of portraying them as humans, with flaws. Anyway, as expected (because bad things do happen when you rush experiments), their visit to Planet Zero goes awry when Victor tries (as any scientist might) take a sample. The portal collapses, and Victor is left behind. I must dearly advise to you: it follows one of the most disturbing, un-glamours and painful transformation scenes I've ever seen in a Marvel movie. Their DNA is changed and they have odd molecular-phasing side-effects that can be characterised as "super powers". A great deal of the rest of the film is spent trying to - ironically - reverse the molecular-phasing disease, and we get to see a few neat scenes, while one of them is remorseful and contrite (hiding in South America) and the others begin to use their abilities to become military assets. This goes for a while until out of the blue, Victor (quite understandably bitter with them) decides to destroy our Earth using the Planet Zero portal. He's so good at it that he gets to almost destroy Earth without any complicated laboratory or technology. Then it comes the 10 minute studio-mandated battle where the characters become reluctant heroes (honestly, Reed a melee expert?) and obviously defeat Victor, who "disintegrates" (I don't believe that at all) while the portal finally collapses. After those 10 minutes of low quality CGI extravaganza, they get fully funded by the US Military, and decide to use their side-effects to protect humankind, while searching a cure for their disease (unlike the X-Men and most Marvel characters, the FF have always been in good terms with the US Government and NY authorities). In the end, I was baffled that there was not a single ounce of wonder or enjoyment from their part in their abilities, and that the characters feel underdeveloped, to the point of being hollow jokes compared to their comic book counterparts (especially the latest incarnation). With the exception of Michael B. Jordan and Red E. Cathey, the rest of the cast is AWFUL, their dialogues becoming wholly interchangeable. Really. Write down snippets from the dialogue, and any of the characters can deliver those lines. It's that bad. I'm sure I'll never watch this movie again, and I do hope the sequel never gets made. By the way: this movie isn't part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a good reason.
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Incredibly odd, I would expect something like that from an anniversary edition. The concept could be good but was just poorly executed. It was almost like they forgot what movie they were making and yes I agree it would have been more suited to a tv show, though still wouldn't be anywhere close to Agents of Shield, unfortunately I still have to watch Agent Carter and Jessica Jones (I think that's the name).
I rarely purchase a Blu-Ray or DVD if its lightweight, it has to be a favourite movie for me to do that. I certainly won't be purchasing this (even if they produced a Lord of Rings style Extended Edition)
I honestly tried to like this movie, mostly because of its great cast. But I couldn't stand their shallow motivations, egocentric attitude and silly, sentimental dialogue, that actually made me hate most of the characters (not to mention the cameos from known stars). What entirely lost me as a viewer and made me feel uncomfortable, was a rescue pilot that flees a disaster zone to fly to a far away location to rescue his daughter. I'm a medical professional and I have been a first responder in several critical situations, and I just can say that I truly hated The Rock's character so much after that stunt. After that, I couldn't enjoy the movie, despite the CGI, that I felt as outstanding. DON'T MAKE A FIRST RESPONDER THAT FAILS TO STICK TO ETHICS AND RULES YOUR MAIN CHARACTER. It's such an insult. If you disagree, I'll remind you whenever you need medical assistance and your paramedic, doctor or nurse has to leave the scene of your accident to check on her/his daughter.
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I agree. That was what I was thinking about. He used the official materials for his own personal use.
This pilot is one of the most compelling, intelligent and elegant hours of television I've ever seen. From the cinematographic standpoint, Niels Arden Oplev brought us the same original directing style that he did use in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (the first film from the original Swedish trilogy), and hoped for his audience to be mature enough to digest a plot that evolves at every step, slow paced, gritty and edgy. Gosh, the sequence with Neil Diamond's song was as surreal as beautiful, and yet sad, evoking happiness. This is how you present technology to the public: with real information, explaining some stuff, keeping the plot grounded in reality (couldn't find anything too implausible or wrong in their technospeak). I'm a KDE guy myself since 1997, and I'm typing this review on my favorite Linux distro (that isn't Ubuntu, by the way), so I'm really looking forward for the rest of the season. Then again, I don't keep my hopes too high... Universal has a true innate talent to really screw up any good show that takes more than two neuron synapses to process (when they happen to own it), without exceptions.
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Debian guy here, yo \m/
