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So what’s better than watching the Blade Runner: the final cut? (the Matrix series, but for this blogpost, this answer is not admissible).
The answer to that one, ladies and gents, in to get to see and listen to the producer of the movie talk about it. That’s right, soon after Harrison Ford realised his android fetish (on the rather small screen at the BFI, map below), the stage was graced by Michael Deeley, who spoke about various movies (including the Italian Job and Wickerman, among others) and especially on Ridley Scott’s Ground breaking film (if your wondering, which one that is, re-read the title of the post).
While movie buff’s might already know most of what I am going to say, I was quite shocked by two things: first, that the first two attempts to change ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep?’, a book by Phillip k Dick, into a movie were rejected by Deeley (the third attempt and the various re-releases became Blade Runner) and second, that the lack of CGI is what makes this particular movie do ‘organic’ and real. While these revelations make sense in retrospective, they are hard to reach on your own. For sure, Blade Runner, was THE movie that brought Cyberpunk and dystopic-dark Sci-fi into popular thought, but it was its believability that made this possible. In comparison, sure the Matrix series seems to be a more thought out project, however with it’s clean cut neon indulgence and slick black leather, it feels purely created or generated (It can be argued that this was the purpose behind the movie). Blade Runner’s backgrounds, on the contrary, look like they were grown. In a essence, it looks like all the metal-plastic junk on all the sets, were created when the garbage disposal of the city failed; they don’t like they were put there on purpose. This makes background then becomes the perfect stage for a nearly drained out, police approved killer, to look for his deranged and murderous victims and to eventually fall in love with one of them.
Yes, I can go on, on this topic for the next 50 years.
My geek suggestion, make your way to the BFI and see what they’re playing. Since BFI is celebrating its 75 anniversary, you can get hold of good yet cheap tickets. And if you’re lucky, you might just bump into a producer/ director.
I will also use this oppourtunity to introduce the 'Cyberpunk Review'. They talk about this movie here.
The BFI website is:http://www.bfi.org.uk/ (this map is for their Southbank hall)
