Blade Ruiner
How Overrated Does It Get?
If you are inclined, and do a Google search on 1982's Blade Runner, you will yield a result of thirty-eight
million hits and it's legions of devotees that tediously continue to dissect and deconstruct the film's innumerable versions which include original studio prints, home releases and the director's cut. Does this film Blade Runner, truly merit this level of allegiance and attention? Critic Pauline Kael thinks not, conveying that "some of the scenes seem to have six subtexts but no text, and no context either."
While Harrison Ford whose performance was trashed and cited as being ' more cardboard than hard-boiled, remembers standing about ' in some vain kind of attempt to give some focus to Ridley's sets.'
You can never trust a Ford now can you?
Financially, it would be that most of the film's fascination had to do with it's unfinished qualities. A multitude of screen-scribes pulled Phillip K. Dick's virtually unfilmable work in various incongruous directions. Production exigencies would tack on further continuity mishaps and shambolic a plot. However these narrative no-no's are overwhelmed by the overall film's bravura, visuals and Vangelis score.
But after repeating viewings, a niggling doubt remains as to whether this film is nothing more than a sophisticated riff on the gone genre of noir's style, with all but a hazy nod to Dick's disquieting novel on the responsibilities of being human in what would be a catastrophic near future.
If you are inclined, and do a Google search on 1982's Blade Runner, you will yield a result of thirty-eight
million hits and it's legions of devotees that tediously continue to dissect and deconstruct the film's innumerable versions which include original studio prints, home releases and the director's cut. Does this film Blade Runner, truly merit this level of allegiance and attention? Critic Pauline Kael thinks not, conveying that "some of the scenes seem to have six subtexts but no text, and no context either."
While Harrison Ford whose performance was trashed and cited as being ' more cardboard than hard-boiled, remembers standing about ' in some vain kind of attempt to give some focus to Ridley's sets.'
Financially, it would be that most of the film's fascination had to do with it's unfinished qualities. A multitude of screen-scribes pulled Phillip K. Dick's virtually unfilmable work in various incongruous directions. Production exigencies would tack on further continuity mishaps and shambolic a plot. However these narrative no-no's are overwhelmed by the overall film's bravura, visuals and Vangelis score.
But after repeating viewings, a niggling doubt remains as to whether this film is nothing more than a sophisticated riff on the gone genre of noir's style, with all but a hazy nod to Dick's disquieting novel on the responsibilities of being human in what would be a catastrophic near future.
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