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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Pass the Voight-Kampff Test -- **The Blade Runner Thread**

Discussion in 'Archive: SF&F: Films and Television' started by Dal--Intrepid, Jan 3, 2006.

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  1. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    Just thought you might like this interview with Ridley Scott.

    There is a link to the whole interview that goes to Wired.

    Excerpt:
    Wired: Some of that ambiguity got squeezed out of the original version. It seems like you've been making up for it ever since.

    Scott:I read an article recently saying that one of the reasons the film has found an ongoing audience is that it was incomplete. That's absolute horse****. The film was very specifically designed and is totally complete. In those days, there was more discussion than was welcome, as far as I'm concerned. [Screenwriter] Hampton Fancher, [producer] Michael Deeley, and I talked and talked and talked ? every day for eight months. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of me in this script. That's what happens, because that's the kind of director I am. The single hardest thing is getting the bloody thing on paper. Once you've got it on paper, the doing is relatively straightforward.

    Wired: It was never on paper that Deckard is a replicant.

    Scott:It was, actually. That's the whole point of Gaff, the guy who makes origami and leaves little matchstick figures around. He doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. If you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is a Nexus 7, he probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully human. Gaff, at the very end, leaves an origami, which is a piece of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet, and it's a unicorn. Now, the unicorn in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that, it's Gaff's message to say, "I've read your file, mate." That relates to Deckard's first speech to Rachael when he says, "That's not your imagination, that's Tyrell's niece's daydream." And he describes a little spider on a bush outside the window. The spider is an implanted piece of imagination. And therefore Deckard, too, has imagination and even history implanted in his head.


    Are there any more doubts about Deckard being a Replicant?

     
  2. Koohii

    Koohii Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 30, 2003
    ***never mind***
     
  3. Koohii

    Koohii Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 30, 2003
    There was an interesting article in the August 20th issue of The NewYorker on PKD and his writing style. A fairly good, concise review of his work, both positive and negative.
     
  4. Leto II

    Leto II Jedi Padawan star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 23, 2000
    I loved when Harrison Ford was cool.

    If Deckard is a Replicant, Bryant could be a frigging actor installed by Tyrell, while Gaff is really running the show. This would, of course, have the police in Tyrell's pocket, which isn't exactly a leap.

    As for Deckard not having super-powers...Tyrell, "more human than human," remember? Tyrell has created a Replicant that will perhaps beat the Voight-Kampff. The next model up from the failed Rachael. He's basically playing a kind of chess-game with his new creation. How better to test his "humanity" than by putting him up against a bunch of supercharged Nexus-Sixes?


    I don't think Deckard being a Replicant is any more of a stretch in credibility than a big chunk of the once-human cast of Battlestar Galactica being revealed as Cylons. In the same way that the Cylons evolved from toasters to skin-jobs, Tyrell's obvious (and fatal) pride in the perfection of his Nexus-6 creations is what allows them to evolve from being easily-identified machines into being more human than human.

    That said, the film never outright states that Deckard is, in fact, a Replicant. It merely asks the question. So did the PKD novel, in its own way. I think Scott understands his own movie. Design before soul is what the whole movie is about, right?

    Clearly, Replicants were designed without the creators caring too much about how the actions of super smart, really hot, humans who knew they would die in four years would manifest. Either Tyrell didn't think about it, or he didn't care. I think it's the latter, since Blade Runner's entire world is presented as one of waste and indifference.

    The overall effect of the film is perfectly matched to its universe. It's one of the great perception shifts in all of cinema: Batty's quest is suddenly, tragically noble, while Deckard's search-and-destroy gig has plummeted from gumshoe-sleazy to outright villainy.
     
  5. darth_paul

    darth_paul Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2000
    I caught the Final Cut on the big screen in D.C. the other day. Boy was it something. Although I'm interested in what a big point is being made of this cut actually following Scott's desires, as opposed to the previous. I've seen the "Director's Cut" DVD a number of times, and while I thought there were a few shots in this version I didn't recognize, the new cut hardly changes the movie at all.

    But, let me say this: if the limited release of the Final Cut comes anywhere near you, and you have never seen this movie in the theater, go see it! It was about a two hour drive for me, and worth every minute. I always knew the existing DVD was a bad transfer, but never until seeing this release did I realize how bad. The movie looks and feels great in ways I had never appreciated before. Because the emphasis isn't on action and spectacle, I had never realized how much the movie was helped by the big screen, but it really is. I'm very glad to have seen it, and I strongly recommend it.

    I'm having a bit of a dilemma about the new DVD releases, though. I definitely want to swap out my old DVD, particularly now that I know just how badly it captures the movie. Now, I'd like to see the new versions we're getting -- especially the theatrical version, since I've read so much about the differences, and the workprint version, since I'm very curious. However, I expect I'll only watch those once or twice each, and will in general go with the "Director's Cut" or the Final Cut when I just want to watch it (as I said, I hardly noticed a difference, so which version doesn't really matter to me). I don't know what to do, since I don't want to spend a lot of money on things I'll never watch, but I also don't know how else I'll get to see those other versions.

    I guess maybe my best bet would be just to hold off, and think about picking up the five-disc when I have an HD-format player. I don't need that silly briefcase, but that's the only way to get the five-disc on DVD; however there's a regular, everyday five-disc version on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

    -Paul
     
  6. Leto II

    Leto II Jedi Padawan star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 23, 2000
    We both went to see this a couple of weeks ago, in a 35mm print (not digital, as we would've preferred). The print still looked extraordinary, though. We ordered the 5-disc Blu-Ray briefcase set several months back, and the days leading up to its release are too long. Much, much, much too long.

    I've never experienced such a serene public before. There were 15 long seconds of silence (black screen) before the Ladd Company logo appeared, and all during that time, you could hear a pin drop. Not only are the touch-ups perfect, they're done with respect to the film and the fans. All the "flaws" are gone. The galloping unicorn of the reverie feels more integrated into the scene. Somehow, the movie feels tighter and more confident than the 1992 Director's Cut. In fact, I think the latter is obsolete from now on.

    A couple of things I noticed:

    I'll likely get slammed for this, but this was the first time I realized why L.A. was, for the most part, a rundown ****hole. Everyone who can is leaving Earth. The only people who are left are the people who either can't afford to leave, or those who are employed by Tyrell. In a way, Earth is populated by slaves. Perhaps the reason Replicants aren't allowed on Earth is not because they're dangerous, but because they could incite people to an uprising.

    Second, I can understand why some folks still don't completely buy the Deckard-as-Replicant bit, but the possibility of it doesn't bother me very much. With Deckard and Rachael as Replicants on the run, perhaps this is the start of some new evolutionary leap in Replicants in general. There isn't room for it in this film, but I wondered as I saw it whether or not an A.I.-like coda would be interesting, where there aren't any humans left on the Earth, and all that's left are Replicants who have evolved past humanity's limitations of them.

    Here's the thing, which I suppose Ridley can't fix in this cut, if that's what he really wanted (which I'm leery of):

    The unicorn has to be in relationship to Rachael, because Gaff just gave Deckard a ride home. Deckard might be running for his life because he's absconding with her, but Gaff just saw him after he finished the assignment. Gaff had to have left the unicorn. The way Ford nods is acknowledgment of respect, not one of paranoia. Because Olmos also tells him, "It's too bad she won't live!"

    Without the dream, I love the idea of the transition from chicken to c ock-of-the-walk-dude to unicorn. It's his origami evolution. Having developed his empathy, the unicorn is both about Rachael and about himself. He's achieved some sort of transcendence. Or at least that's how I always read it. I prefer this reading of thinking of a unicorn as emblematic of how he thinks of Rachael, etc.

    But because the origami follows the writers' "rule-of-threes," he's obviously not thinking about chickens, so if the unicorn dream and origami are supposed to reveal he's a Replicant, and Gaff knows it (but the nod that Deckard gives never felt like an acknowledgment of self, it felt like a "we're on the same page" nod)...eh. I can't go that far. Also, the protecting of the "other"...Gaff is obviously not white, and perhaps has some empathy based on discrimination. Even though the film features few black people, you can't have slave-labor in America, and not invoke a reading of race.

    I'm so glad I saw this in the theater. It really must be seen on the big screen, if possible. It's like an entirely new movie, and the modelwork makes CGI look like kids drawing with crayons.

    But just imagine the unholy Blade Nerd apocalypse if they had changed the last echo-y Gaff quote from "It's too bad she won't live!" to "You've done a man's job, sir!" (Which is a line I've frequently been known to randomly utter, post-coitus.) That would pretty much wrap things up on the Deck-A-Rep? front.
     
  7. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    What's new in Blade Runner: The Final Cut?

    A few words changed, some violence put back in, Zhora's death reshot, some scenes extended, some cut down, visuals and sound enhanced, and so on.

    A couple of things this reviewer misses:


    That?s not to say that it?s flawless. Detectives in the future, for example, appear to lack some basic common sense: when Bryant shows Deckard profiles of the Nexus 6 replicants, it?s clear they know exactly what they all look like. So why didn?t Holden, whom we see in an early scene giving a Voight-Kamff test to Leon, already know that Leon was a replicant? Didn?t anyone give him the mug shots?

    Exactly. You answered your own question.

    Equally, if Deckard really is a Nexus 7 created to work as an exterminator, why is he lacking the strength of the inferior Nexus 6 models he is chasing? He seems to spend a large part of the film being bashed to a pulp.

    "More human that human", according to Tyrell. Therefore things like super strength go out the window.

     
  8. Koohii

    Koohii Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 30, 2003
    Anyone else like the Total Recall 2070 series?
    Kinda a mix of BladeRunner and Total Recall into a semi-coherent whole.
    Heck, the pilot episode is good, and as a general rule, pilot episodes are the weakest episode of a series (at least the first season).

    But that's just me.
    I seldom like a show right off the bat, but this one worked for me.
     
  9. Leto II

    Leto II Jedi Padawan star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 23, 2000
    The following is a bit long, but bear with me, as this comes from the new love in my life (not counting my S.O.), and is kinda off-the-cuff and extemporaneous:

    So I ordered my Blu-Ray briefcase from Amazon in August, selected one-day shipping, was thrilled that it shipped out Monday, but annoyed to see that it had a scheduled delivery date of Wednesday. Against perhaps my better judgment, I stopped at Best Buy on the way home from work yesterday and just bought a briefcase, figuring I could return the other one to Amazon.

    It was absolutely, completely worth it. Watched the Workprint version last night, the "All Our Variant Futures" documentary, and the deleted/alternate scenes, and finally a little of the Paul Sammon commentary on the workprint before I finally had to concede that my body required sleep. This is without a doubt the release of the year, from what little I've been able to watch of this so far. My deepest appreciation and congratulations go to Charlie de Lauzirika and everyone else who worked on this set, from the people who researched and restored elements, all the way to the people in Warner Bros. Legal who had to clear everything; they all had their work cut out for them, and delivered big-time.

    It's really something when you can be reading about a DVD release for months before it comes out, know exactly what's on it, and still be blown away. This isn't just a home run; it's a grand slam.

    Quite frankly, this may be the greatest special edition ever produced. I don't mean to say that as a fanboy (which I probably am anyway), but just objectively looking at all of the content on it, it's hard to think of any single release that matches it, especially when one considers the interesting and problematic history of this film. Even the best sets that I can think of have something or other that make them not as good as this set. Think of the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings -- amazing sets, but they lack the theatrical versions of the films, as well as the special features from the theatrical DVDs. The Ultimate Set of Superman that came out last year was also amazing, but lacked the extended television cuts of the first two films, as well as a commentary for Superman Returns, a workprint version of Superman IV, etc. Or the Fantasia set, one of my all-time favorites, that unfortunately lacks the original Deems Taylor narration from the original film, as well as the shorter version that had been known to audiences for years, and probably should have been included anyhow.

    That's not to knock any of those sets, which are fantastic and among the best of the best. Rather, that's to point out just how good this new Blade Runner set is. Every version of the film. A huge three-and-a-half-hour-long documentary. Deleted scenes assembled as a watchable, stand-alone quasi-feature in its own right. Commentaries. All sorts of featurettes. Unbelievable what they were able to put together. And that doesn't even include "The Final Cut" itself, which wasn't originally getting a theatrical run, and was just being made for this DVD.

    With all of the bonus material here, it's easy to forget how awesome it is that there's a "Final Cut" version in and of itself. PLUS all of the other versions out there, so there truly isn't any revisionism here, no attempt to replace the earlier versions of the film or to wipe them from our memories. If you prefer either of the 1982 original theatrical releases, they're there, and better looking than they've ever been on any home video format. (I noticed that the four-disc set was only $25 at Best Buy, which is an amazing price to get "The Final Cut," the older 1992 "Director's Cut," and the original theatricals with the narration, so you can't even complain that you're being forced to spend an arm and a leg if the 1982 version is your preferred cut. Classy all the way.)

    Incidentally, I've just gotten a notification from the UPS website that my delivery from Amazon that was scheduled for today will not happen because of some sh
     
  10. jamesvader

    jamesvader Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Mar 23, 2002
    Well, unbeknownst to me there was already a thread here in regard to the film. I posted a new thread with regard to the
    5-Disc Collection and it was locked. It was late when I posted it and I very whatever reason didn't make the Voight-Kampff connection. I suggest the title be swicthed around to say: " Blade Runner": Pass the Voight Kampff Test, for fuddie duddies like me LOL!
    So, for all itents and purposes (per the mod) here is my post, copied and pasted. It clearly doesn't flow with all your previous posts, but here it is anyway:


    BEGIN ORIGINAL POST


    Late friday afternoon I was finishing off some last minute Christmas shopping at Border's, and I stumbled upon Blade Runner: The Final Cut, Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition. I totally forgot that it was officially released on Tueday, due to the fact I was home sick with a bad cold/flu all week.

    It is very cool. The Final Cut looks and sounds freaking phenomenal. The low end frequencies are clear yet warm, almost pure in analog terms. It also comes with 3 previous versions (Original U.S. cut 1982, Intenational Cut 1982 and 1992's Directors Cut)each one Digitally restored and remastered to 5.1 specifications. Plus, an entire disc dedicated to the Making of, and another disc showcasing an Ultra-Rare, Pre-Release Workprint. Additionally, a rare art folio of Syd Mead's pre-pro artwork, a mini-replica of the Spinner, Unicorn and a cool "motion film clip" encased in a clear plastic. I am totally stoked on this! I totally yearn for a true and legit Sci-Fi Renaissance after watching this.......

    Here are some pics:

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0290.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0291.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0292.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0293.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0297.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0299.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0300.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0302.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0305.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0307.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0309.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0317.jpg]

    The insanely gorgeous Nexus Six, Rachel.....

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0319.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0320.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0318.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0321.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0322.jpg]

    [image=http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/sbvader70/100_0323.jpg]



    END ORIGINAL POST


     
  11. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    It's cool that the briefcase holds a Spinner.

    [image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/BladeRunner_Spinner.jpg]
     
  12. Darth-Stryphe

    Darth-Stryphe Former Mod and City Rep star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2001
    I'm wondering, can anyone point me to a list of all the differences between the five versions (FC, DE, TE, International-TE, and WP)?
     
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