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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: headdie on June 26, 2012, 06:35:58 am

Title: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: headdie on June 26, 2012, 06:35:58 am: http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/photos/the-different-versions-of-blade-runner-slideshow/the-different-versions-of-blade-runner-photo-1340641553.html

Yahoo has done a little summery of the different versions of the film, probably worth a couple of minutes of a sci-fi fan's time.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Nuke on June 26, 2012, 03:05:55 pm: blade runner i s a good movie thats hard to sit through. ive maybe seen it twice, both times it was the cut for tv version. id like to see the directors cut or the international version though.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Klaustrophobia on June 26, 2012, 11:42:17 pm: i got it when i was on my free month of netflix and ripped it, but haven't watched it yet. i'm not really sure what version it is, or if there is even enough difference between them to worry about.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: BloodEagle on June 27, 2012, 12:52:41 am: The final cut is the one you should watch. Because yes, there is enough of a difference between the various versions to worry about it.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: achtung on June 28, 2012, 10:56:32 pm: I actually just watched the final cut, I found it hard to sit through. I enjoyed the basis of the story, but I felt like huge chunks were left out.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Nuke on June 28, 2012, 11:04:00 pm: its that kind of movie. its a good movie with good atmosphere and is required to be watched by anyone claiming to be a sci-fi buff. but it has that crawling pace that makes it exhausting to watch. there are several key sci-fi movies like that. 2001 being the obvious and the first star trek movie would be another one. essential to watch once, but you never want to watch it again.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Klaustrophobia on June 29, 2012, 11:54:56 am: after watching the first star trek movie, i felt i would have been better off doing something else with my time. it was HORRIBLE. not essential to watch it even once at all.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: SpardaSon21 on June 29, 2012, 12:42:22 pm: I don't think I've ever managed to completely watch Blade Runner.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: NGTM-1R on June 29, 2012, 02:55:35 pm: Quote from: SpardaSon21 on June 29, 2012, 12:42:22 pm
I don't think I've ever managed to completely watch Blade Runner.

That's it, we're tossing you through the Tannhauser Gate.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: newman on June 29, 2012, 03:18:12 pm: Blade Runner is a brilliant movie that isn't about fast pacing, but is very much about the atmosphere, setting, and story. What it definitely requires is a certain mood to watch it - it's not your run of the mill summer flick. Ridley Scott initially refused the script, thought it was too dark and depressing. Then his brother died, and he was feeling all dark, gloomy and depressed; thought working on something would do him good, and the Blade Runner script called for exactly the sort of mood he was in at the moment. This didn't produce a movie that you can watch easily whenever you happen to slap the disk in, but it did produce a movie I consider to be one of the finest sci-fi movies all of time. It's one of those movies that could have only happened in a specific moment in time, when a very specific set of circumstances happend to occur. Probably not something that could be repeated even if the original cast and production crew remain the same; it's just not that time anymore.

I own all versions in that ultimate package they released a couple of years ago; came with a lot of goodies and extras a Blade Runner fan can appreciate. Definitely a good buy.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Nuke on June 29, 2012, 04:43:47 pm: Quote from: Klaustrophobia on June 29, 2012, 11:54:56 am
after watching the first star trek movie, i felt i would have been better off doing something else with my time. it was HORRIBLE. not essential to watch it even once at all.

now that i think about it it did kinda suck.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: castor on June 29, 2012, 04:44:08 pm: Quote from: Nuke on June 28, 2012, 11:04:00 pm
there are several key sci-fi movies like that. 2001 being the obvious and the first star trek movie would be another one. essential to watch once, but you never want to watch it again.
Well, I'm not so sure about that. The atmosphere in each of these is peculiar in such a way that you cannot possibly digest all of it completely with just one run through. I do watch them semi-regularly, several years in between though.

E: forgot an important point. You must watch them drunk also, so it's two times at minimum..
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: newman on June 30, 2012, 06:01:53 am: Watching either Blade Runner or 2001 drunk means wasting either alcohol or your time. Alcohol is for zombie movies, stuff like that, it doesn't exactly put you in the right frame of mind to actually enjoy a serious sci-fi movie. And yes, Star Trek: The Slow Motion Picture was kinda boring. Watching the Enterprise undock for 20 minutes isn't fun - who knew? This does, however, illustrate how the movie industry has changed. Movies that had an acceptable pace once seem hopelessly slow today. I remember seeing both Ghostbusters movies as a kid in the theaters, and thought they were just brilliant, didn't seem slow at all. Seen them again after many years and just kept going "get on with it already!" :)
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Nuke on June 30, 2012, 06:39:03 am: have you ever seen blade runner...

ON WEED?
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Thaeris on June 30, 2012, 10:20:42 am: And just like that, a new meme was born...

(well, it's not really new I suppose)
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Legate Damar on June 30, 2012, 12:09:05 pm: Quote from: Nuke on June 29, 2012, 04:43:47 pm
Quote from: Klaustrophobia on June 29, 2012, 11:54:56 am
after watching the first star trek movie, i felt i would have been better off doing something else with my time. it was HORRIBLE. not essential to watch it even once at all.

now that i think about it it did kinda suck.

That movie was nothing but Federation propaganda
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: headdie on June 30, 2012, 12:15:10 pm: Quote from: Legate Damar on June 30, 2012, 12:09:05 pm
Quote from: Nuke on June 29, 2012, 04:43:47 pm
Quote from: Klaustrophobia on June 29, 2012, 11:54:56 am
after watching the first star trek movie, i felt i would have been better off doing something else with my time. it was HORRIBLE. not essential to watch it even once at all.

now that i think about it it did kinda suck.

That movie was nothing but Federation propaganda

Knock it off with "I live in Star Trek" line, its old, its seriously irritating and quite frankly I am borderline punch you in the face annoyed with it.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Legate Damar on June 30, 2012, 12:39:59 pm: But how can you punch me in the face across a distance of light-years? :P
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Scotty on June 30, 2012, 12:44:06 pm: In lieu of that, we can report your posts to a moderator, citing "deliberate aggravating behavior" and try to get you monkeyed for a couple days.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Legate Damar on June 30, 2012, 12:55:33 pm: How typical
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Fury on June 30, 2012, 01:45:30 pm: How many of you have played the Blade Runner PC game that came back in 1997? I still have the CD's in the original case. :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TNyP3zuvEM
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: headdie on June 30, 2012, 01:59:15 pm: Quote from: Fury on June 30, 2012, 01:45:30 pm
How many of you have played the Blade Runner PC game that came back in 1997? I still have the CD's in the original case. :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TNyP3zuvEM

it was... interesting, also the install size was bigger than my hard drive was when it was launched lol
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: karajorma on July 01, 2012, 12:30:35 am: Quote from: Scotty on June 30, 2012, 12:44:06 pm
In lieu of that, we can report your posts to a moderator, citing "deliberate aggravating behavior" and try to get you monkeyed for a couple days.

Do that. I agree it is getting annoying.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: The E on July 01, 2012, 05:28:57 am: Quote from: Legate Damar on June 30, 2012, 12:09:05 pm
Quote from: Nuke on June 29, 2012, 04:43:47 pm
Quote from: Klaustrophobia on June 29, 2012, 11:54:56 am
after watching the first star trek movie, i felt i would have been better off doing something else with my time. it was HORRIBLE. not essential to watch it even once at all.

now that i think about it it did kinda suck.

That movie was nothing but Federation propaganda

Legate Damar, a good comedian tailors his jokes towards his audience. If the audience has started booing you off the stage and appears to rummage through their bags to find something not-too-solid to throw at you, it may just be time for said comedian to think about whether his jokes were well-chosen.

In your case, it's like this. Yes, we get it. You like Cardassians. You like them so much, you want to pretend to be one online. It's OK, there are stranger things to do in this weird format; but for the love of kittens, there is such a thing as taking it too far. Going into a thread about a genuine SF Classic, and derailing it towards your self-absorbed delusions, is just far enough out of order to warrant a formal warning.

Please confirm you have read and understood this message.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Nuke on July 01, 2012, 05:31:19 am: yea i mean i used to really like the borg. when i was 8. 22 years later and trek is pretty much dead to me. as for space nazi lizzard men, meh.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on July 01, 2012, 06:49:09 am: Quote from: headdie on June 30, 2012, 01:59:15 pm
Quote from: Fury on June 30, 2012, 01:45:30 pm
How many of you have played the Blade Runner PC game that came back in 1997? I still have the CD's in the original case. :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TNyP3zuvEM

it was... interesting, also the install size was bigger than my hard drive was when it was launched lol
Interesting indeed. I remember that the game had several ending paths. Things could go differently between two playthrough.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Legate Damar on July 01, 2012, 07:14:13 am: Quote from: Nuke on July 01, 2012, 05:31:19 am
yea i mean i used to really like the borg. when i was 8. 22 years later and trek is pretty much dead to me. as for space nazi lizzard men, meh.

I am not a Nazi. But fine, I won't pester people anymore.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Flipside on July 01, 2012, 07:27:46 am: Look, just please try to ease off on the character a little bit, we know you like Cardassians, but some people get really irate at it being rolled out time and time again. There's nothing wrong with the odd characterization, Dekkers' 'hatred of Zods' is a prime example, but overstretch the metaphor and you end up with people getting fed up with hearing it.

On a personal level, I don't really have a problem with you posting 'as a Cardassian' from time to time, but overstretch the metaphor and you'll end up making a rod for your own back.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Bobboau on July 01, 2012, 07:43:48 am: honestly, I find Damar's consistency with it funny, but I'm insane, so that probably isn't helping his case.

as for trek, if they would have kept going, I probably would still like it, the Borg are still a damn cool bad guy, even if they did get gimped by firstcontact/voyager.
(note first contact was awesome, but it left the borg in a less sustainable state)
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: headdie on July 01, 2012, 07:49:56 am: Quote from: Bobboau on July 01, 2012, 07:43:48 am
as for trek, if they would have kept going, I probably would still like it, the Borg are still a damn cool bad guy, even if they did get gimped by firstcontact/voyager.
(note first contact was awesome, but it left the borg in a less sustainable state)

By the end of voyager I think they were starting to run out of borg ideas and that is where things started to unravel plot wise with them. but yes they are certainly up there with the better recurring badguys.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: newman on July 01, 2012, 07:54:48 am: Quote from: X3N0-Life-Form on July 01, 2012, 06:49:09 am
Interesting indeed. I remember that the game had several ending paths. Things could go differently between two playthrough.

Things almost always did go differently between the playthroughs - I should know, completed this game a lot of times :) IIRC the game was advertised as having 11 different endings, but in reality it had about 3 or 4 endings that were really different, with some subvariations on each. It was a great game, probably the best I've seen that was based off a movie.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: BloodEagle on July 01, 2012, 12:03:42 pm: Quote from: Bobboau on July 01, 2012, 07:43:48 am
honestly, I find Damar's consistency with it funny, but I'm insane, so that probably isn't helping his case.

This.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Flipside on July 01, 2012, 12:30:09 pm: On a purely personal level, it doesn't bother me much at all, but it obviously bothers some people, and that's enough to put Admin in a position where a decision has to be made. That has been done, I can understand how overkill of it can get up people's noses.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Nuke on July 01, 2012, 05:56:52 pm: Quote from: headdie on July 01, 2012, 07:49:56 am
Quote from: Bobboau on July 01, 2012, 07:43:48 am
as for trek, if they would have kept going, I probably would still like it, the Borg are still a damn cool bad guy, even if they did get gimped by firstcontact/voyager.
(note first contact was awesome, but it left the borg in a less sustainable state)

By the end of voyager I think they were starting to run out of borg ideas and that is where things started to unravel plot wise with them. but yes they are certainly up there with the better recurring badguys.

my issue with both of those is that the borg were always kind of a metaphor for communism, more or less (the cardassians were always a metaphore for facism, hince nazi lizzard men). so when they introduced the idea that the borg have a queen, the communism metaphore breaks down, now its a ****ing monarchy with drones and an eleitest leadership class. for first contact this was kind of a requirement for the story, you need a bad guy who isnt just a big blob of multiple consciousnesses all networked together. in fact the early borg episodes of tng if you go back and watch them were kind of dry in terms of the borg's character. they addressed this in best of both worlds with the assimilation of pacard, now the borg had a persona "omg its evil pacard!!!".

fast forward through tng's borg episodes, like i borg where a single drone is disconnected from the hive to give them an appropriate level of personality where the borg have none. this was really a setup for the season 6->7 transitional 2 parter descent where the borg were no longer part of the collective allowing a certain character's evil twin to take control of them, now the borg had personality. so when first contact came around they had a dellima of how to give actual borg a personality. so we introduce a new leadership class to act as the borg's persona. to make the movie more palatable for non-trekkies and generally improve the story.

of course this then led voyager to abuse the living **** out of the concept and make the borg a panzy sissy race.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: karajorma on July 01, 2012, 07:35:15 pm: Yes but the problem with that is why do the borg need a personality? Treat them like a force of nature. I don't remember anyone deciding that in The Perfect Storm we needed to give the hurricane a voice and have it talk to George Clooney. :p
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Nuke on July 01, 2012, 08:01:23 pm: exactly, but...

when you go see a perfect storm, you're expecting a man vs nature kind of movie. go see a scifi movie, and you expect the good guys to pewn the badass alien. you usually have an intelligent leader and some dumb by comparison goons which is the formula scifi has been using for years for its evil factions. its the classic set up, darth vader has storm troopers, general grievous has his battle droids, behemecotyl has his bugs, etc (sorry 2 starwars references my scifi memory sucks today). they used that formula and gave the borg a queen. now you have an individual with whom people can relate, instead of a cerebral concept that maybe 60% of trekkies and 10% of normal people really understand. you would have had to see the 4 tng episodes (6 if you cout the 2-parters as individual episodes) about the borg to get the full backstory, but because its a movie and you want to attract a bigger audience than just trek nerds to make the movie profitable, you dumb it down so everyone can digest the story. that they carried on this dumbing down of the borg into voyager is really sad (they didnt do it for the sake of the trekkies, they did it for the average movie goer, but of course it had picard in it it must be cannon). i was also rather disappointed that ds9 never got a single borg episode (pilot not inclusive), they could have really done something with that.

startrek 2 had a back story in the original series, but because kahn is such an obvious badass it really didnt need to go far beyond "he tried to steal his ship and murder him" from the guy who wasnt even there. because st1 kinda flopped and noone liked it, they said "lets just do moby dick in space" (ironically they did the same thing in first contact and again in nemesis).

i hate to say it but trek != blade runner. though this is kind of a good convo i might splet it out later when im ~~not playing starcrack~~ feeling more ambitious
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: BloodEagle on July 01, 2012, 08:25:46 pm: Quote from: Nuke on July 01, 2012, 08:01:23 pm
exactly, but...

when you go see a perfect storm, you're expecting a man vs nature kind of movie. go see a scifi movie, and you expect the good guys to pewn the badass alien. you usually have an intelligent leader and some dumb by comparison goons which is the formula scifi has been using for years for its evil factions. its the classic set up, darth vader has storm troopers, general grievous has his battle droids, behemecotyl has his bugs, etc (sorry 2 starwars references my scifi memory sucks today).

Your analysis has one fatal flaw: Star Wars isn't Science Fiction, it's Science Fantasy (and there is nothing wrong with this).
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Nuke on July 01, 2012, 09:52:28 pm: i just had trouble spawing other references from my psychotic mind. im not a huge star wars fan.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: karajorma on July 01, 2012, 11:53:00 pm: Oh I know why they thought they had to include the Borg Queen. I'm just saying that perhaps they should have instead not tried to dumb things down. We are on a thread talking about Blade Runner of course. There aren't many better examples of how cerebral sci-fi can make money (and also that the suits attempts to make it more accessible result in a much worse movie).
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Flipside on July 02, 2012, 07:32:46 am: Blade Runner did have a slow pace, possibly too slow at times, but then, the movie was as much about atmosphere as storyline. The problem was that it was trying to tackle a difficult subject, i.e. whether life is a scientific or subjective state, and the desire not to die, which seems to have pushed the simulants, like humans to evolve and try to find ways to prevent it, leading to a machine that was programmed as a cold blooded killer giving one of the most moving speeches in movie history, i.e. Tears in the Rain.

That sort of thing was never going to hard-sell to a popcorn munching audience, but it is the sort of movie that builds a cult following over time.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: achtung on July 02, 2012, 09:04:48 am: The premise, and the philosophical underpinnings, of the movie are great. The speech at the end is great too, as well as the "romantic scene". These things rise questions, but the movie was executed in such a way that out felt fractured to me. I feel as if portions of the interactions between Rachel and Deckard were missing. Or maybe
Spoiler:
That was supposed to be as much of a rape kind of scene as I think it was

The rest of the choppiness can probably be pinned to time limits/budget. I feel like this movie could haves been much longer.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: Flipside on July 02, 2012, 10:50:42 am: I think the scene was intended to be a rape scene, maybe a statement on objectification and how our own desires define what we consider to be an 'object' when it suits us. I could, of course, be reading too much subtext into the situation, it's one of the weird things about Ridley Scotts' work is that he can go from generic blockbuster stuff like Gladiator to deep introspective human-condition stuff like Blade Runner and Prometheus, I suppose it depends on what he is given to work with in the first place.

The story would have been better presented as a mini-series I think, but in the early 80's such things were pretty much unheard of, it was either a 'standard' TV series or a one-off movie.
Title: Re: 30 years of Blade Runner
Post by: z64555 on July 02, 2012, 12:44:32 pm: Was looking through my parent's VHS tape collection yesterday, and was a bit surprised to find one of Blade Runner. Although I haven't watched it (don't have VHS player with me), I think it has a few deleted scenes from the theatrical version.