Visually Stunning

Differences:

No Iris

Andy’s are now called Replicants. They are declared illegal on earth after an uprising.

Bounty Hunters are called Blade Runner Units.

Replicants are nicknamed Skinjobs.

There is no mention of Mercerism, Empathy boxes, or mood organs.

Takes Place in LA November 2019

The movie opening really shows how messed up the world is.

Instead of an opening scene with Iris, the opening shows the interview Holden conducts with Leon. Right away, there is a focus on the eyes!

While there is no mention of Buster Friendly, there is dialog being played on the blimps and tv’s that are exact quotes from his dialog in the book.

The world is a melting pot, and very packed. There is a major Japanese and German influence. In the book, World War Terminus. Maybe the Axis powers won in this world?

There are advertisements everywhere.

Rick seems more confident compared to the book.

Timestamps

3:48 Movie opens with an extreme close up of an eye.

6:15 Mention of a tortoise

8:25  “Buster” says “Start over in a golden land of opportunity” This was what was told the chinese rail workers in the early 19th century, who emigrated to the US. These Chinese workers were basically slaves, just like the Replicants.

12:20 Rick is retired, and he is better than Holden.

14:30 They are military Androids

15:10 They have 4 year life spans, so that they don’t gain true sentience.

17:20 Meets Rachel, Pretty obvious that she is a robot. The actress performs like a robot.

24:25 Rick has a handler, Gaff. He is a new character. Makes Origami, that show Ricks moods and thoughts.

25:15 Roy is breaking down.

28:30 Morphology and longevity are mentioned. Chew deals with eyes. Cold environment, symbolizes that the androids are cold inside.

28:55 “Chew, if only you could see what i’ve seen with your eyes.”

J.F. Sebastian is the onscreen version of John Isidore.

32:00 Deckard is single. Rachel doesn’t know she’s a replicant. False memories, she is a copy of Tyrells niece.

33:00 Spider brought up again

During this whole interaction, Roy has more empathy towards the Replicants than in the book.

35:20 Rick looks at pictures that are Leons.

38:00 Priss meets JR. Feigns being weak and scared. Like a chameleon.  Dark Makeup, to hide her eyes?

40:30 JR is a designer, not some random grunt like character.

42:00 First appearance of the Unicorn in Ricks Dream.

46:20 Animals are not as important as in the book.

47:30 Man is holding a bird cruelly.

Animal Market… Artificial Snake

51:49 Miss Salome and snake, snake that corrupted man? Dances with replicants.

56->58 Chase scene. Salome dies surrounded by Mannequins. With her own kind?

1 hour mark. Rick is drinking… again. Seems to be how he deals with it. Every instance of him meeting with a Replicant results in him drinking.

1:02:00 Leon wants to know how much longer

1:06:00 Rick empathetic to Rachel. her eyes glow now.

1:07:20 Rachel asks Rick if he’s ever taken the test. Alludes to him being a Replicant.

1:11:00 Rick is very forceful with Rachel. Borderline Rape.

1:13:00 Pris is painting her eyes, then the clock makes coocoo sound.

1:17:20 Sebastian knows they’re replicants. Unlike Isidore

1:19:00 Replicants talking to JR. As he starts to show fear, the water starts to boil. Nice camera angle. JR’s dna was used in their creation.

1:26:00 Roy meets and kills his maker. Pushes his finger through Tyrells Eyes!

1:32:20 Pris is hiding among mannequins. She also dies among her “sisters.”

1:35:00 Roy is sad over Pris’s death.

The hunter has now become the hunted.

1:41:50 “that was irrational of you.” Roy hints that deckard is acting human?

1:46:25 “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.”

1:47:21 Roy dies. It is interesting that of all the replicants, he died “naturally” yet was the most vicious. In the end, he realized what it was to be human? Dove flies away.

1:48:20 Gaff “You’ve done a MANS job, sir.” then tosses Deckard a gun.

1:51:50 Last scene, There is a Unicorn Origami left by Gaff. Is this a way of Gaff telling him that he knows what he dreams?

Themes:

Eyes – Everyone is being watched. The blimp illuminates everything. Gaff is always watching Rick. Roy goes to chew, a EYE DESIGNER to help learn of his origin. Chew shows them the way to Tyrell. Roy tells Chew, if only he could see what he’s seen.

Unicorn- Mythical beast that could only be tamed by a maiden. Rick = Unicorn, Rachel = Maiden? Whenever Rick seems to be questioning himself, Gaff shows up. Last scene, Gaff leaves the origami unicorn. He knows Ricks memories.

Women are sexual objects. Pris was a sex robot. Rick is a drunk, and an asshole.

OK so i really liked the book better then the movie. I really missed the animals in the movie since they were such a main part of the book. I know they showed the owl, snake and the dove also the origami animals that were being made. The one i did not really understand was the unicorn. I know the book and the movie have the idea of artificial animals but the animals are animals that existed like snakes, owls, doves, but a unicorn in his dream (0:42) if anyone can explain what they were trying to say there please enlighten me.
Also with johns character J.F. in the movie I feel like this makes me understand why he helps them because in the book for the most part its that he is just lonely and now he has “people” to talk to while in the movie he creates his own artificial life forms and he had worked on the Nexis 6 project so its like there his children in a way. and like all parents he wanted to help what he helped bring to the world be come better than what it already was. So he takes Roy to the one that has more knowledge then even he knows (1:22).

I’m under the impression that I should have watched this movie before reading the book. After finishing the movie, I have to say it feels a bit rushed? Even more rushed than I considered the novel.

I can see how a viewer watching this movie for the first time without prior knowledge from the book could feel a bit lost. For starters why did Deckard leave the police force in the beginning of the movie? Who is the guy with the cane that follows him around everywhere? Deckard’s only motivation for killing the ‘replicants’ is that he is made to? Since there was no back story on animals in Bladerunner , the entire segment of the voight-kampff test with Rachel isn’t as impactful as it could have been(21:38). Not only the test, but all scenes with synthetic animals have less of an impact because of a lack of background information. A host of all other references or lack there of, put me at constant odds with this movie.

It seems to me that the entirety of the film was based solely on human to replicant interaction. Principally, how Deckard interacts with the replicant’s he is charged with hunting. That is all well and good, but there was just not enough character development for us to care about any of the replicants. A good example of this is ‘Miss Salome’. Instead of the depth we had with Luba Luft in the novel, we have this character that outright attacks Deckard(54:56). Without any sort of meaningful interaction with Deckard, It’s hard to see why he would be as affected by killing ‘her’, when he had no chance to get to know her. Especially since he is supposed to be a veteran bladerunner (12:27).

Deckard’s lack of back story is another point of frustration here. Who were those people in the photographs on his piano (1:08:22)? Why didn’t he move off planet? Without Iran from the novel, Deckard has no grounding facet to his character. Instead he is presented as this loner-maverick that realizes he has a thing for replicants, after having killed so many; another puzzling thing.

Another defining aspect of the film seems to be, that it relies to much on visuals to tell it’s narrative. A good chunk of screen time is dedicated to showing the metropolis. From the Tyrell pyramids to the streets of the city. It seems to want to over impress onto viewers into seeing how artificial and ‘dystopian’ the world is. I suppose that is the natural thing for movies to do, but it leaves precious little screen time for the things that matter. Namely developing the characters, and through that, opening up the possibility for layered and complex motives.

As it stands, the film leaves it up to the actors and actresses to display their intentions and internal struggles through their acting. While I applaud the actors for their work, it all ultimately falls flat do to lack of proper context and backstory. The only relationship that can somewhat make sense, is Deckard’s infatuation with Rachel. Even that is a very shaky assumption. I get that he feels bad about her short life span and borrowed memories, but is that a reasonable pretense for ‘love'(1:51:11). Rather it seems Deckard is motivated out of guilt than anything else.

In closing Bladerunner feels rushed and underdeveloped compared to the novel. The Novel shines in its layered complexity, the movie on the other hand, feels shallow in comparison. Granted I feel the Novel could have had a more satisfying end as I mentioned in my previous posts; I would still choose the novel over the movie any day. Did I enjoy the movie? I think I would have, if as I said in the beginning, I had watched it before reading the novel.

Well this is my first time watching the movie Blade Runner and I have to say I’ve had my first “The book was better than the movie” moment as I preferred the book over the movie. But I do have to say there was justice done throughout the movie here-and-there. First off, NO MOOD ORGAN or EMPATHY BOX??? Why take that out of play in this story? But I have a feeling there was the reference of some sort of control system of emotions or whatever in the beginning of the movie in 0:07:27 where the lady on the big video wall was demonstrating of the intake of some sort of pill. I feel like that is significance or reference to the pennfield system. In 0:24:26 the guy who is with Rick is making a stick man out of a match, to me that is a symbol to replication of life. When Rick goes to Zhora to test her he imitates someone else’s voice and pretends to be someone else to get to Zhora and corner her. That’s ironic how even in the movie Rick is sort of a hypocrite to being a hunter of the replicants who simulate life and he’s doing the same thing, but he’s considered human. Going back to Zhora, her character is a reference to Luba Luft and instead of being a singer she is a snake performing lady. That whole scene with Zhora reminds me of the chapter in the book when Rick tries to test Luba Luft. In 1:02:28, Leon is attacking Rick and he tells Rick “Painful to live in fear” and that mention of fear comes back in the end of the movie as a lesson to Rick. Poor Isidore…uhh I mean Sebastian, I don’t like that Roy kills him I wanted to see Sebastian’s despair of loosing his only friends the replicants. You get to see more of how the andy’s/replicants use their manipulation in the movie. In the book I saw the andy’s as more fearful and misunderstood and only reacting to survive but in the movie they are seen as more of a threat, that really defeated the image I saw of the Nexus 6’s. I do have to say that the ending of the movie was weird but more enjoyable than the ending of the book.

This weekend I watched Blade Runner for the second time, last time I seen that movie was probably in early 90’s. Back then I was just a little kid who couldn’t understand much from it. I only remembered the fight between Deckard and Roy Batty, and I’m really glad that I forgot the movie since book has much richer story than the movie. Well isn’t that usually the case that we prefer books to movies? Well, maybe, unless we see the movie first. Nevertheless “Do androids dream of electric sheep” pints a bigger picture of wild post-apocalyptic world while Blade Runner focuses more on action aspects of the story.

I really don’t like how the movie discards parts where Rick Deckard obsesses about owning a real living animal. I guess this is why Bade Runner is called Blade Runner and not “Do androids dream of electric sheep” since there’s no mention of any sheep throughout the whole movie. This really kills the whole theme of the book. When we see how people in the future are obsessed about owning a real animal we can somehow imagine how their longing for a natural things hurts. The movie doesn’t show us that. It focuses more on the androids and their hunters and not on everyday existential problems of regular people left on Earth. Another thing that was left out in the movie is Mercer and his empathy boxes. I think Philip k. dick wrote about empathy boxes for a good reason, as it really adds a nice mechanic touch to the whole trans-humanist/ post-apocalyptic landscape of human experience. We can think about the use of empathy boxes as a metaphor for how humans can turn into more mechanical entities completely ruled by their will with complete disregard for useless emotions and feeling. Just Like androids are. This is important theme of the book where we draw parallels between humans and androids. It always gives us those hard questions: What it means to be real? What it means to be alive? Are emotions just chemistry or a source of passions that creates a vehicle for human spirit and creativity? Well we might never know answers to this questions but asking them gives you a good reevaluation of your own humanity.

I really like the mood of the movie, it had a very “Noire Movie” feel to it, and I love Noire movies, “eyes wide shut”, “blue velvet” “twin peaks” are one of my all-time favorite flicks. I’m also a sucker for anything cyberpunk, I thoroughly enjoyed the scenography, architecture and lighting of most of the scenes. The movie has a nice feel too it and actions scenes don’t feel that old for such an old movie. Too bad it didn’t cover all the stories that are presented in the book. It would make a perfect sci-fi flick
I’ll give it 7/10

Everything makes sense now! Why was Harrison Ford such a badass? It was because Phil Dicks Deckard was a badass. And because this movie was so great was because the book was great. granted the movie took a lot of liberties by taking out a whole bunch of stuff from the book, which were all pivotal aspects that made the book amazing, however this movie was made to both appeal to a 80s audience, as well as the fans, so of course theyre gonna make liberties to get out all the complexities of the book such as; the undertones of slavery, freedom, self awareness, loneliness, religious confusion, self actualization, realization of a bigger picture, humanity, and a whole bunch of other stuff that you can fill in for me, instead they made a movie designed to make money by generic movie goers, as well as give the book as well as its fan a proper adaptation of Dicks vision.

So they kinda changed up my man J.R. Isisdore, which was meh, and probably unneccesary but it was the 80s, anyway i digress, they made him into J.F. Sebastian, a genetic designer, in order to make him essential to the plot of this movie, they remade him and instead of being the chickenhead i know and love whos soul crushing loneliness defines him as a character, and whos connection with Mercer, tells us a story of a lost and damaged soul, we got a guy who makes friends with “toys” hes made as his hobby, who are in reality midgets dressed up in a bear and drummer boy costumes that were meant to either get a cheap laugh from the audience or to really emulate how much of a socially awkward and scared human he must really be. Either way, it was a weird direction that they went with that one, but it makes sense to the plot of this movie. that being the replicants want to find answers as to why they exist and do so by seeking out their creators, one of them being J.F. (this is why they kept the second most important character from the novel, to have an overly dramatic scene between creator and created, but in actuallity know that the real J.R. could never in a million years be confronted by an agressive Roy Batty, thats just food for thought), which also gives the Androids purpose and motivation for being on earth in the first place, as opposed to them leaving in search for a better life and freedom from the abusive nature of their previous arrangements off world. The movie just really gave me an enhance visual for the book, its like when you see who the announcer on the radio is, you now hav a face to mach the voice, and thats kinda fun when you get right down to it. It was really fun when I get to see Deckard as an emotianol person, or the world he lives in, and how he functions. Now would that have all been better if they put the whole book in the movie? Fuck yeah, but they didnt and thats sad, i would have loved to see how they implemented Mercerism into all that, how they would have blended a cyber punk world with a false religion, that would have been great. But what we ogt was just as good and impressive, the ending too was a nod to what the androids wanted to leave, and escape from, a horrible past full of destruction, things that no one will remember, for just like tears in the rain, no one would ever know it happened.

So I can go on talking about the beginning of the movie which all in all evened itself out as what I believe is normal Science fiction movie behavior. Besides the fact that people seem to be able to run around with guns held out shooting at anyone they please without causing a commotion on a crowded street. That and the fact that right after their seems to be a clean up crew ready to clean up the body was just as interesting. But, Forget all that,

WHAT WAS WITH THE ENDING!!!???!!!?

So lets get to the Tyrell Corporation where Roy takes the time too kill his creator Dr. Tyrell who view Roy as the Prodigal son of the Nexus 6 and then murder(maybe) Sebastian the human who housed and understood them as he suffers from a disease that cause him to age faster compared to their inability to live past 4 years. Although he can murders these people who help him on his cause for a normal life he allows the blade runner Rick to live. First off He killed his love interest Pris, (who was a complete fluke in the first place) She got him with a sneak attack and began the process of beating him senselessly, she even managed to smash her fist against his ears which should have with her strength leave him unable to retaliate. Yet, after victory is close to being hers she releases him and run away to deliver a finishing blow….. WHAT THE FRUIT LOOPS!?!?!! JUST CHOKE HIM TO DEATH OR SOMETHING!!

So Roy walks in on his dead girlfriend which was in my opinion one of the most interesting well thought out scenes in the movie. For Humans loss of a love one create very powerful emotions of sadness and revenge. For Roy The emotion I felt may have escalated far above that points as now he realized the concept that humans view his kind as monsters and with the loss of what he feels is his love one, he evolved mentally into the beast worth fearing.

I feel that Roy chasing Rick in just his boxers was interesting as it showed that hes was now officially insane which would cause Rick deep fear. But…. what killed me the most… was the part where Roy saves Rick. I understand that he wanted the human too understand what its like to live in fear of being chased by others and help him empathize with Androids but still…. he killed ya girl! I Understand they needed a way to help Rick feel for Rachael but still they made a psychopath go sane… teach a lesson… and die. Oh AND what where the hell did Gaff come from. He magically popped up on a rooftop and began to say crap like “It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?” like he knew that Rachael was at his place and that he need to love her while she was still operational. The ending was WRONG!!!