Blade Runner (Final Cut): Retro Review
This one was difficult for me. I had only seen this movie once as a child and I hated it back then. My less sophisticated mind wasn’t very impressed by the story and I was definitely turned off by the snail’s crawl pacing. I did like the few action sequences, tone and visual effects though, but that just wasn’t enough to get me interested in a second viewing. I have just avoided talking to people about it this long to avoid being judged for disliking what is largely known as Ridley Scott’s greatest work. Personally, I would rather Alien or Gladiator, but people say Blade Runner (which didn’t do very well upon release) is his swan song. As an adult, I see why the movie’s pacing bothered me so much
Philip K. Dick was a fantastic author and I highly recommend the majority of his work. That being said a lot of his works have been adapted to films, including Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly and a few more, but this was the first. Sadly enough, even though he has been quoted saying the look of the movie was exactly what he imagined, he died only a few months before the film’s release. I wonder what he would have thought about this movie that’s based on his novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Especially since Scott admitted to never having read the source material.
Dick was an author who wrote extensively about what it meant to be human by comparing us to machines and pointing out the strength of corporations and human consumerism. This film has a lot of those themes, so I think he would approve of its thought provoking nature. In the story, retired “Blade Runner” Rick Deckard is enlisted (and threatened) by his old boss to track down four replicants (androids who are similar to humans in every way, except emotions) and kill them since their kind is illegal on Earth.
The replicants are the latest and most sophisticated models, dubbed the Nexus 6. They are vastly superior to humans, so in order to keep them from being too dangerous, they have been given a very short lifespan. Once they discover this fact, they go to Earth to demand longer lifespans from their creator and hijinks ensue… Just kidding, they murder people to get what they want and when they don’t get it, they murder more. Luckily Deckard stops them… by murdering them.
There is an interesting subplot along the way that involves another Nexus 6 replicant named Rachael. The head of the corporation that made them, Dr. Tyrell, has created her with implanted memories from his niece as an experiment in enhancing her emotions. It is said that the reason replicants can’t feel is because they don’t have enough time to gain the experiences that develop these emotions. She and Deckard end up falling in love, after one of the most awkwardly forceful kisses in film, showing that Deckard has enough empathy to care about replicants, which are derogatorily referred to as “Skin Jobs.”
What’s interesting here is the fact that during their journey the replicants show multiple emotions. In fact, the entire basis of their mission is the fear of death. Even more, they show passion, anger, revelry and pride in almost every thing they do. They could even be described as being a strange combination of hedonistic and masochistic. The leader of the group even seems to enjoy his own death, as he spares Deckard’s life while giving him a speech about what it is to be human. Considering their short lives and the missions they’ve been on, it definitely lends to the theory that experience creates emotions.
It’s a brilliantly written movie and, though kind of dated four years before its setting of 2019, the visuals are still pretty amazing. There is a lot of style and substance to be found here, but it’s definitely the kind of movie you HAVE to pay attention to, or you’ll get dreadfully lost. The pacing is still very slow, but luckily the characters are interesting enough for you to care all the way through. I just hope the final cut of this movie is actually the final cut so Ridley Scott can go back to making quality movies instead of things like “Prometheus” or “Exodus: Gods and Kings.”
Jonathan Thomas Jones is a speculative fiction author and founder of geekhavenreviews.com. He has been passionate about all things geek for his entire life. See more about him at jonathanthomasjones.com and follow him on twitter @jtgloryjones.
