My Second Favorite Movie

Blade Runner

1982

D: Ridley Scott

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Pros: Visuals, Story, Characters, Theme, Score, Special Effects

Cons: The Rape Scene, Some Stilted Dialogue, Narration (Theatrical Cut)

         When I first heard of the upcoming release of a belated Blade Runner sequel, it struck me as a remarkably bad idea.  However, my anticipation for it improved upon finding out that they actually got some really good people working on it: Denis Villeneuve as director, Roger Deakins as cinematographer, Hans Zimmer and Jόhann Jόhannsson as composers, and Harrison Ford’s returning as Deckard.  The trailer looks promising, but this clip with Jared Leto not so much.  I hope it does justice to my second-favorite film of all time.

          If there’s one thing Blade Runner is known for, even more so than its story, is its visual style.  It’s one the best looking movies ever made.  Its cinematography and special effects convey a dark, grimy atmosphere in a way that’s actually beautiful.  The overall picture quality even makes up for some questionable costume choices.  Still, there’s plenty of great design in the movie.  The great Syd Mead does a great job instilling a futuristic style, obsolete CRT screens notwithstanding.  On a side note, I prefer his design for the Black Hole Gun over Deckard’s blaster.  The movie’s visual style has had so much influence on sci-fi that the rainy cyberpunk setting has become a cliché.  You’d think it would have been improved upon with modern special effects, but few subsequent sci-fi films can compete with Blade Runner visually, especially not the slew of bad cyberpunk movies in the 90’s.  Not that the movie uses it as a crutch, but I'm willing to forgive not liking it if it's acknowledged as the visual masterpiece it is.

          Vangelis’ score also contributes to the atmosphere.  I’ve always observed that synth soundtracks often vacillate between sounding effective and goofy.  This one, on the other hand, is consistently effective.  Most of the time it reinforces the ominous cyberpunk tone while occasionally reminding you with jazz-like motifs that the movie is also futuristic neo-noir.  Some people may be disappointed that the movie is not an action movie and is rather slowly paced, which is appropriate for the contemplative film it is.  There are brief moments of violence that are sometimes disturbing in a way the aids the atmosphere, but nothing on the level of that of a horror movie.

         Blade Runner takes place in a dark, polluted 2019 Los Angeles.  Off-world colonies are desirable destinations on which a form of android called a replicant is used.  Replicants are artificially produced organic humans produced by the Tyrell Corporation.  Their high degree of intelligence enables them to develop emotions in some time, giving them the will to rebel.  As a fail-safe engineers began to design them with a four-year lifespan.  After a violent uprising, they were banned from earth, and special policemen called Blade Runners were tasked with “retiring” them.  They use special devices called Voight-Kampff tests to identify them.   

         I have a little problem with this premise.  I understand that, if sapient AI was possible, it would be inevitable that someone would eventually develop it, but I don’t understand why anyone would want to.  It seems to impose an ethical dilemma on us as if we don’t have enough of those already.  It’s also rather odd that we would create something that looks and thinks like a human only to use them as slaves.  The intelligence part only makes sense in regards to some of the tactical military models, but then again we could have human officers for that.  Still, this is nitpicking, and the important thing is the theme that the replicants are unjustly persecuted people.

        A group of replicants led by a military model named Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) escapes imprisonment and has infiltrated earth in search of a way to cure themselves of their shortened lifespans.  When another Blade Runner (Morgan Paull) is injured in an unsuccessful attempt to catch them, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is forced out of retirement by police captain Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh), who sends an origami-loving officer named Gaff (Edward James Olmos) with a permanent limp to arrest him.  Deckard is a broken man: he occasionally drinks, broods, and at one point has a mysterious dream about a unicorn.  Despite his adamant reluctance, Deckard agrees to eliminate the replicants after vague threats are made by Bryant.  He travels to the Tyrell corporation get information from its founder Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel).  He talks Deckard into giving his secretary Rachael (Sean Young) a Voight-Kampff test so he can see what a negative result looks like.  She tests positive, but doesn’t know she’s a replicant.  Tyrell reveals in her absence that he’s been experimenting with memory implants to make the replicants more emotionally stable.  As Deckard continues his investigation, Rachael confronts him over the matter, and Deckard breaks the news to the heartbroken woman.  He forms a relationship with her, which exasperates the already strong guilt and doubt he feels over hunting down and killing the replicants one by one.  Bryant orders him to kill her, but he refuses. 

        Meanwhile Roy Batty and his gang interrogate replicant eyemaker Hannibal Chew (James Hong) and then contacts Tyrell scientist J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson) in order to gain access to a meeting with Tyrell.  Sebastian’s accelerated aging disorder helps them manipulate him into showing sympathy toward them, and Batty successfully uses him to gain access to Tyrell’s inner sanctum, where he is told that it is impossible for him to be cured.  Tyrell attempts to comfort him by saying that “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”  Not satisfied with being the people version of a Krispy Kreme donut, a disappointed Batty murders Tyrell and Sebastian.  It’s a disturbing enough scene, but it’s odd to show someone’s brutally murdering a man and then cut to a funny owl.  He returns home to find that Deckard has just killed his remaining friends.  In the final battle he toys with Deckard and eventually beats him, only to save him from a fatal fall at the last second and imparting some of his experiences to him in a poignant speech before expiring when his Hot Sign runs out. 

        Before returning home, Deckard encounters Gaff, who throws him his lost blaster, hinting that he should kill Rachael now, and leaves him alone after saying, “It’s too bad she won’t live.  But then again, who does?”  Deckard, with his gun drawn, retrieves Rachael from his apartment and runs away with her, facing an uncertain fate.  But not before Deckard notices an origami figure left by Gaff: a unicorn.

        If there’s one thing I don’t like about the prospect of a sequel (besides the threat of Jared Leto’s hamminess) is that it might ruin this sublimely mysterious ending.

        One thing area in which this movie shines is in its complex protagonist.  Deckard constantly struggles with what his supposed duty is, an act which he knows is murder.  It’s broken him down as a person to the point where’s a lonely, brooding alcoholic.  He constantly struggles with his act, and he tries to weasel out of it when he can.  Moreover, the unicorn dream, as well as Gaff’s familiarity with it, heavily implies that he himself is a replicant.  Even more subtly, he’s a replicant meant to replace Gaff, whose injury forced him to retire as a Blade Runner.  His skills and many of his memories are from him, and when Gaff gives him back his gun, it means that he has approved of him as a replacement.  Gaff is a surprisingly important and compelling character even to Deckard, who at first dismisses him as a sycophantic dandy.    

         In addition to a complex anti-hero, the movie has a remarkably sympathetic anti-villain in Roy Batty.  He’s willing to commit murder to achieve his goals, but he’s motivated by the well-being of his accomplices.  He’s also creepy, imposing, strong, and clever; he has all the makings of a great villain, plus complexity.  The violence displayed by the replicants is understandable considering how they were treated no better than the humans; why would they show mercy to the merciless when they were never loved enough to have been taught right from wrong?

         The replicants are fighting for their freedom and their desire to live a normal life, and this is reflected by their ironic personalities.  Leon (Brion James) was a simple replicant whose job is a load lifter, but he’s the most sentimental of the bunch.  Pris (Daryl Hannah) was a pleasure model, but she opts for a more mature romantic relationship with Batty.  Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) seems to avoid the violent work.  Only Batty, who plays the responsible leader, doesn’t allow himself the luxury.  He still seems to assign his colleagues tasks based on their natural skill sets.  Zhora’s seduction skills allow her to make money for them as a stripper, Leon is good for intimidation, and Pris is used to help smooth-talk Sebastian.   

         The movie’s not completely without its flaws.  For one thing it might have a little more than its share of stilted dialogue.  There are plenty of great lines from the movie, but there’s also a little too much as-you-knowing.  But you have to ignore something like that in a gem like this.  And then there’s the infamous rape scene.  It’s important to address this as it is definitely the biggest mistake of the movie.  After Rachael saves Deckard’s life from Leon, Deckard brings her into his apartment and eventually begins to force himself on her, ordering her to ‘”Say, “kiss me.”’  Thankfully the movie cuts to another scene before it gets graphic.  I turned to the commentaries in my Final Cut copy for some sort of answer to the madness, but to no avail.  The writers acknowledge how messed up the scene is and don’t put much effort into justifying it.  Scott simply talks about his disdain for showing sex scenes (which I agree with), but disturbingly ignores the creepy buildup.  In fact, if you watch many older movies, it's amazing how often the male lead will just force himself onto the love interest like that while the movie treats it like it's nothing.  It doesn’t work much for moral ambiguity.  Deckard’s sympathetic because of his reluctance to do bad things as a result of “duty.”  He might be construed as raping a replicant as a way to justify killing others, but it doesn’t make much sense when Rachael saved his life in a previous scene.  The only forced death-to-the-author explanation I have for it is as deconstruction of obligatory sex-positivity in which casual sex is increasingly being passed off as an obligation.  Deckard has to bang to feel normal, and the love is secondary to that.  So, yeah, I just used my prudishness to justify a problematic in a sci-fi classic.  Who says conservative Christianity’s no fun?

           As someone who has read the book, Philip K. Dick’s Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?, I prefer the movie.  There are significant differences between the two.  For one thing Deckard is revealed to be a human in the book, despite his doubts.  He’s also married, whereas in the movie he’s single.  J.F. Sebastian’s analogue is mentally impaired rather than prematurely aged.  The replicants are given less development and are therefore less compelling; they’re outright described as having no empathy (although there are suggestions that this is a result of an unreliable narrator).  However, one element from the book is carried over to the movie with distractingly insufficient explanation: Mercerism.  It’s a post-apocalyptic religion that venerates all life as precious.  The word is never mentioned in the movie, but it’s probably the reason why people keep animals, simulated or real, in the city and why a Voight-Kampff survey question implies that killing insects is taboo. 

         The movie was also released in various forms.  In a legendary example of executive meddling, the original theatrical release featured a cheesy pseudo-noir narration fitting of an affectionate 90’s cartoon spoof of the genre.  There were some witty lines, but it also featured a lot of unnecessary ones like ‘The report read "Routine retirement of a replicant." That didn't make me feel any better about shooting a woman in the back’ (As if the look on Deckard’s face wasn’t enough).  If that was the reason this movie wasn’t so popular when it came out, I understand.  The studio also imposed a happier ending in which Rachael is revealed not to have an expiration date as she and Deckard drive through a lush forest.   I haven’t seen the whole thing, though. 

        I consider myself lucky to have been introduced to this movie through the 1992 Director’s Cut; a testament to how special editions aren’t always a bad thing.  By removing the cheesy narration, the movie is far more subtle and atmospheric.  It also adds the unicorn dream, implying that Deckard is a replicant, as well as the ambiguous ending.  This twist has compellingly subtle execution but it's controversial.  I understand that it screws up the theme of Deckard's losing his humanity, but I could argue that it transfers that theme to Gaff, as emphasized when the latter subtly guides him to humanity with the last line.  The 2007 Final Cut includes some more violence not present in the Director’s Cut and cleans up the picture, making more details noticeable, while adding a shinier, more modern colorized version.  The preference is subjective, I guess.  The most noticeable improvement is the replacement of “I want more life, fucker!” with “I want more life, father.”  The former was a swear so awkwardly forced it would make Shadow the Hedgehog cringe.

       A subtle moral of this movie is that proximity might breed sympathy.  That may be the reason for Tyrell’s seemingly paradoxical (and fatal) decision to tell Batty the truth rather than consent to an ineffective surgery long enough to stay Batty’s hand.  He may have bred Batty to be chattel, but he can’t help but respect him to his face.  It’s easy to ignore evil and corruption when we’re distanced from it, as the bystanders do in the movie do when they see Deckard kill a replicant.  It’s especially true when that toleration is a social expectation.  Deckard’s job was wrong but it showed him the nature of the beast, ironically putting him closer to redemption than most people in his world.  The fact that most everyone is content to ignore corruption in a comfortable society full of distraction if it doesn’t affect them is exemplified in the movie’s final line.

“It’s too bad she won’t live.  But then again, who does?”