With all the hoopla over Blade Runner 2049, I thought it would be a good time to check out the original. I'd been seeing discussions and reviews and thinkpieces for a while, and I think what tipped me over the edge was a discussion on The Verge about which version is best. I'm not going to wade into that argument, but I will say the article made me decide to rent the original, theatrical cut, instead of the Final Cut that Ridley Scott released in 2007 (and which stands as the only time I've seen that movie in the theater).
What's odd is that I actually remembered very little. I could still recall the broad strokes of the plot - the replicants coming to earth to confront their creator, Deckard being sent after them - and some of the smaller moments, like when Deckard retires Zhora, the stripper replicant, or Roy Batty's demise as he tells Deckard of the things he's seen. But I didn't remember the connecting glue, how we got from one plot point to the next.
This might be down to the length of time since I'd last seen the movie (i.e. that Final Cut in 2007), as well as the fact that there are so many versions floating around, with different scenes and editing, that it's hard to keep track of much more than the big stuff. However, I also think it's related to where I was in life when I first watched the movie, vs where I am now.
As a 15 year old (or whatever age I was when I first saw it; might have been earlier, come to think of it), it was hard to see beyond the surface of the plot, and beyond the aesthetics. Deckard drinking alone in his apartment is an image that's stuck with me for decades, for example.
But this time it was easier to see the movie from the perspective of Roy Batty and the other replicants. Batty's line at the end, where he asks Deckard how it feels to live in constant fear and compares it to slavery, landed much more squarely for me this time. It's also easier to appreciate Rutger Hauer's performance as a man struggling for every last moment as the end of his life approaches - where I would have seen the menace and little else, now I can see him as the hero of his own story, in which Deckard is the villain (although the bit where Batty crushes his creator's head is pretty villainous).
It also helps that I'm considering these points both in my own life (not imminently, thank fuck, unless something happens with North Korea) and in my fiction, where I've just written my hacky robot short story. Consciousness and existence, and cogito ergo sum, and all that.
More than anything, though, I'm reminded of what a weird, singular film it is. Amazon helpfully tallies up all of the main crew and cast on the Fire TV, and shows you other movies they've worked on, so you can buy or rent those, too; of Ridley Scott's body of work I count ten movies that I've seen. They're maybe not as highly stylized as some other directors' work, like the Coen Brothers or Wes Anderson, so it's hard to draw a connecting line between Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator (to choose several at random).
In a lot of ways it has more in common, thematically and visually, with Alien Covenant, which also plays with questions about the nature of life and intelligence, while building on weird design and art for its settings. But I don't know if I'd be able to connect them to the same director, and certainly not to Gladiator or A Good Year.
That's probably the Philip K Dick influence, though even that is relatively faint, when I think back to what little I remember of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Still, it's a very weird, brooding type of film, especially if you contrast it with Harrison Ford's other big roles at that time; that, and the surfeit of edits and director's cuts is probably what's made Blade Runner such a rich trove of discussion on What It All Means.
I can't pretend to have the answer, but it was interesting to watch it this time with the knowledge in mind that Deckard himself may be a replicant. Ridley Scott has certainly implied as much, and it sounds like there's some resolution, or discussion, of this point in the new sequel.
Still, the reviews make me cautiously optimistic, as does the fact that it's helmed by Denis Villeneuve, who seems to revel in weirdness and symbolism. He, after all, also directed Arrival, which has a similar dream-like quality to it in which you never know exactly what's happening.
If nothing else, by watching the original Blade Runner, I'm up to speed and can go and enjoy the new one. Here's hoping that one also has people debating it fiercely for the next thirty years.
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