Last movie watched...

[Mabs]

I've never seen Blade Runner. I'm starting to think maybe I should make the effort. It certainly inspires a lot of passion.

You haven't watc...what?!!! 

You should watch it a.s.a.p! (I recommend the Directors Cut/ Final Cut so you can better understand what everyone's on about!).

[Goaty]

Blade Runner: the Final Cut. 26th Sept. 10pm BBC4.

[Mabs]

It's worth remembering that Blade Runner was yanked out of Scott's hands by the studio before he was finished and neither he nor Ford ever liked the happy ending. Not forgetting the final cut is perfect example of how you use CGI years after a movie is released for a reason, unlike Lucas' tinkering with Star Wars, changes like removing visable wires, correcting out of out of sync speech and digitally replacing the stunt womans face with real actress's face, digitally stabilising the horn stuck on the horse, fixing the matte lines on some shots, fixing the day skyline when it's supposed to be night etc. etc.

I'm not a fan of creators tinkering with their movies years after the fact but I think Blade Runner is a good exception.

It definitely is a good move sheldipez. Also they didn't want to over do it too, there's some stuff they still left in apparently as it had become fan favourites! But the Final Cut improves the film visually, the first time I watched it my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets! The colours were really lush, and the dark dystopian feel of the film was exemplified. The CGI work is barely unnoticeable, and I for one love this version. Not forgetting Ridley also had proper input into its restoration and improvement.

Talking of restorations, did anyone watch the remastered version of the Godfather trilogy? It looks simply magnificent, hell even Part III feels like a different film! 

[TordelBack]

Of course, Barthes's own thesis suggests we shouldn't place any importance in what he meant to try to tell us about the respective roles of author and reader when interpreting a text.

'At's the problem with yer foreign models, tendency to vanish up their own hermeneutics.

[Dandontdare]

I agree. If Gaff knew Deckard was a skin job why tip him off? Just waste him and collect the bounty.

You could equally conclude Gaff is a replicant himself or he's a human who empathises with Deckard's plight as an innocent replicant, if we are hypothesisng the plot and not the theme to that degree.

It just occurred to me that Philip K Dick would be loving this.

What if we're ALL replicants? 

[Frank]

It just occurred to me that Philip K Dick would be loving this. What if we're ALL replicants? 

It wouldn't matter - we're still driven by the same irrational desires. That's the point of the version of the film which doesn't make it clear whether Deckard is a replicant, and that's what's suggested by the title of Dick's story.

[Jim_Campbell]

It wouldn't matter - we're still driven by the same irrational desires.

Not even that irrational, really: "I want more life, fucker."*

Cheers!

Jim

*I much prefer this line to the sanitised version.

[Mabs]

It wouldn't matter - we're still driven by the same irrational desires.

Not even that irrational, really: "I want more life, fucker."*

Cheers!

Jim

*I much prefer this line to the sanitised version.

Same here, you could almost see the shocked look on Tyrell's face when Roy Batty utters that. Whereas 'father' does not have that same shock value. We already know the father/ prodigal son allegory and don't need it reinforced. That was the only weak note for me in the Final Cut.

[Recrewt]

It just occurred to me that Philip K Dick would be loving this.

What if we're ALL replicants? 

Well, he was! 

[Jim_Campbell]

Well, he was!

The robot Philip K. Dick went missing, you know. I have a half-written proposal somewhere in which Robot Phil was 'liberated' by Hunter S. Thompson and they went on a road trip across the rust belt of the USA...

Cheers!

Jim

[Frank]

It wouldn't matter - we're still driven by the same irrational desires.

Not even that irrational, really: "I want more life, fucker."

I was thinking more of the desire to have ourselves validated by the love of another person - even if that person is a grab bag of other people's memories, which is motivated by its own irrational desire to have its existence validated by the love of another person. That's Dick's point, isn't it, that our selves are artificial creations; that we're all just taking random memories and assembling them in a way which constructs the person that we want to be?

[Recrewt]

Well, he was!

The robot Philip K. Dick went missing, you know. I have a half-written proposal somewhere in which Robot Phil was 'liberated' by Hunter S. Thompson and they went on a road trip across the rust belt of the USA...

Cheers!

Jim

Ha!  Sounds like a good read, you should knuckle down and get it finished.

It's a much better ending than it being in some scrap metal dump or worse..... dressed up like a lady in some obsessive P K Dick fan's basement! 

[von Boom]

Ha!  Sounds like a good read, you should knuckle down and get it finished.

It's a much better ending than it being in some scrap metal dump or worse..... dressed up like a lady in some obsessive P K Dick fan's basement! 

Keep your nose out of my basement!

[Hawkmumbler]

'Feels awkward because, despite all the shit Hawkmonger HAS watched, he has never seen Blade Runner'

[Frank]

Feels awkward because, despite all the shit Hawkmonger HAS watched, he has never seen Blade Runner

BBC Four, 10:00 PM, Thursday 26th September 2013

I suspect it hasn't aged well. One scene in particular, where Indiana Jones does a bit of Roffman-style photographic enhancement to discover a lead, was really impressive at the time but will probably pass without remark from anyone born after 1990.

There isn't much too much narrative or characterisation, and the concentration on atmospherics means it moves at a glacial pace. The meat of the film really is all the metaphysical bollocks reproduced above. I suggest watching the second Matrix film directly before Blade Runner - it'll feel like a pacey model of cogent diagesis by comparison.