Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (1982)

3. Blade Runner

“Alien” would be Ridley Scott's first box office success and his first science-fiction film. He would follow both of these interests by agreeing to direct a long-gestating adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel “Dune.” The project was ultimately doomed and Scott would leave the project after toiling on it for seven months. Scott would next turn his attention to Philip K. Dick's “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” A film adaptation of the book had been floated for a while but none had gained much traction, partially because Dick was skeptical of Hollywood. Scott, however, was determined to bring Dick's vision to life with cutting edge special effects. Taking a title from a William S. Burrough's book, “Blade Runner” would be born. In time, it would become regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction films ever made.

If you're reading this blog, you probably know the plot of “Blade Runner” already but I'll add a synopsis anyway. In 2019, Earth is a sprawling, polluted city and humanoid robots named replicants work on distant space colonies. Replicants only have lifespans of four years. This has led to a rebellion, led by a male replicant named Roy Batty, on one of the colonies. As the replicants return to Earth, a private detective that specializes in hunting down the machines – known as a Blade Runner – named Richard Deckard is employed to track Batty and his compatriots. As Deckard investigates, he develops a relationship with Rachael, the replicant daughter of Tyrell, the inventor of the machines. 

One cannot undersell the impact “Blade Runner” had on the world of science-fiction. The film begins with a stunning fly over the futuristic city setting, cutting away to a single starring eye. As flying cars float by and fire belches from rooftops, pyramid-like structures in the distance, one is immediately awed by this world. Yet this world is far from an inviting one. The cities are crowded, polluted. Filthy looking neon lights bath almost every street corner. The flying car spew white smoke and its seemingly always raining. The sheer amount of detail on-screen immediately gives us an idea of what this world is and what it is like. The enormous video billboards that line the skyscrapers have practically become a cliché of the “cyberpunk” subgenre. Yet “Blade Runner” looks just as impressive now as it did in 1982, largely thanks to the utterly stunning miniature effects and production design. 

The amazing sets and effects are not the only thing that so expertly creates an alternate world in “Blade Runner.” In one of the earliest scenes, a man speaks a strange language to Deckard. Slang terms like the titular phrase or “skin job” are tossed around liberally, without much in the way of explanation. We visit night clubs and businesses that don't look like anything from our world. The technology is advanced enough as to appear alien. It's obvious that “Blade Runner” is a fully thought-out fictional universe, with a culture all its own. We are stepping into a different world here and every decision on a creative level – whether that meant writing, special effects, or costumes and set – reflects that.

What makes “Blade Runner” even more of an impressive visual experience is how Ridley Scott shoots it. From the beginning, the mastery of light and cinematography that was displayed in “The Duellists” and “Alien” is also on display here. The shots of Deckard standing inside the Tyrell building, the sun setting behind him, are iconic. So is every moment of light passing through an empty building or a fan creating flashing brightness on a character's face. Scott also continues to fill every frame with as much information as possible. The cluttered, toy-filled apartment of J.F. Sebastian or the grimy street food carts, usually bathed in sickly blue-green light, gave such a wonderful impression of what this place is. The amount of personality in every minute of “Blade Runner” is truly commendable. 

The world-building in “Blade Runner” is outstanding. But what about the story? The film is, essentially, a film noir pastiche. Richard Deckard is deliberately in the mold of any hard-boiled private dick. Cases get passed his way by a hard-talking, ball-busting police chief. He spends most of the movie investigating leads, looking for clues in photographs or digging through apartments, in order to track down his targets. Ultimately, like every noir protagonist, he gets way in over his head. With his trench coat and distinctive firearm, he even looks like a cinematic detective. Pris the replicant is a classical femme fatale, disguising how dangerous she is by pretending to be helpless around easily smitten men. Rachael is the virginal, “pure” love interest that represents the other type of women most commonly seen in noir. The film's presentation of sci-fi tropes were groundbreaking and new in 1982 but its narrative intentionally hearkens back to older traditions. 

If the film's story trades in familiar ideas, bolder thematic concerns wrestle throughout the runtime. “Blade Runner” is a movie that asks the weighty question of what it means to be human. Throughout the film, it's repeatedly floated that the replicants Deckard are chasing are more human than he is. Deckard has hardened his heart against killing, callously expressing how easily he can get over the shock of pulling the trigger. Rachael and Batty, meanwhile, seem shaken to the core every time they encounter death. In the climatic scene, Batty spares his enemy's life, showing how empathetic these inhuman machines truly can be. Rachael and Leon, an earlier replicant, have their heads filled with implanted memories. Which brings into question how mutable our own memories are, how much of our minds are our own. Whether we are fully formed humans or, like the replicants, “created” by our experiences and the people around us.

Another contrast between the humanity of “Blade Runner's” hero and its villain are their approaches to romance. Roy Batty is always tender with Pris, the sex-bot that has become his lover. Deckard and Rachael, meanwhile, have a very strange romance. They are antagonistic towards each other at first. He, almost unintentionally, reveals to her that she's a robot, which shakes the girl to her core. Shortly afterwards they have an intensely uncomfortable seduction scene, where Deckard practically forces himself on her. Yet there is something strangely compelling about this romance. Rachael seems utterly enraptured by Deckard, completely overwhelmed by him. He, meanwhile, is enamored of her purity. Like in a hundred noirs, the girl is the only good thing left in a crazy world.

“Blade Runner” has greater pretensions than just grappling with what humanity exactly is. The film is peppered with religious and mythological allusions. Batty repeatedly compares himself to Lucifer, quoting “Paradise Lost.” Much like Satan, he is rebelling against what he considers to be an unjust God. Tyrell grants life to his creations, making them as conscious and aware as any person, yet only giving them four years to live a full life. When he confronts Tyrell, he's assured that he lived more in these four years than most humans do in a life time... Yet this does little to pay back Roy for the suffering he's endured, which is why he squeezes Tyrell's head until it bursts like a tick. The film goes even further near the end, when Batty drives a nail through his own hand, suggesting he's meant to be a perverse Christ of some sort too. 

If you want to dig even deeper into the supposed deep meaning of “Blade Runner,” you certainly can. Animals are used as interesting symbols throughout. Tyrell has a robotic owl in his office, a symbol of both wisdom and occult gods. The bird watches from on-high, observing but never interacting, much like how a cruel and unjust god would. A snake – bringing the Garden of Eden to mind – also puts in a prominent appearances. There are repeated references to cats and dogs now being rare species, suggesting how loveless this future world is. And then there are those origami swans and unicorns, which fans have pondered over for decades. To me, the unicorn represents Deckard's longing for an idealized, fantasy world  - running away to be happy with Rachael – that probably doesn't exist.

Yet we probably wouldn't be talking about “Blade Runner's” symbolism and philosophical themes if it didn't function as an exciting thriller too. Much like in Scott's previous two films, there's a frequent air of tense unease here. From the first scene, where a twitchy Brion James is interrogated before shooting a man through a wall, the feeling that horrible violence can happen at any minute is never far away. This is most apparent in the moments when Deckard is caught off-guard by replicants, each time getting closer to being punched, slammed, or squeezed to death. Deckard's vulnerability, as a mere human, is made all the more apparent in the climatic fight with an increasingly unhinged Batty. Scott shoots this scuffle similar to the tense chases in “Alien,” where a howling and implacable Batty is pursuing a panicking Deckard through a foggy and wet abandoned building. Much like the chestburster scene, violence also hits here with a horrible strength. Bodies twist and burst with blood, twitching wildly as life slips away. 

I've been pretty positive about “Blade Runner” so far and, yeah, I think this is a great movie... But I've never been sure how to feel about Richard Deckard. He's played by Harrison Ford at the peak of his eighties sex appeal, so obviously we're inclined to think he's cool and appealing. Yet his behavior doesn't actually follow that. I suppose he's a pretty good detective but, unlike super slick tough guy Han Solo or the inventive and determined Indiana Jones, Deckard spends the entire movie getting his ass kicked. He has a bad habit of running into a situation, assuming he can handle it, before realizing he's completely out of his element. When combined with his roughness towards Rachael and his cold acceptation of his job's brutality, I believe Deckard is actually meant to be a subversion of the traditional hero roles Ford had played up to that point. 

Further supporting this theory is that Roy Batty is a much more sympathetic character than Deckard. Ford is playing an asshole slowly stumbling towards redemption. Batty has been denied a real life and desperately wants it. Naturally, the legendary “tears in rain” sequence cements that a deep thinker and complex person is lost when Batty's battery runs out and he accepts his fate. No matter how sympathetic the replicant may be, Rutger Hauer makes him an intimidating villain too. The naturally steely intensity behind Hauer's blue eyes suggest someone always willing to go to extremes to achieve his goals. Throughout the film, Batty seems like a tightly wound trap, ready to go off at any point. That point is the end, where a shirtless and bleeding Hauer becomes fully unhinged while chasing Ford and tearing through walls with ease. 

The film also contains an iconic and eclectic supporting cast. It was Daryl Hannah's first film role, as Pris, and an early role for Edward James Olmos. As Pris, Hannah is enchanting when need be but grows increasingly alien-like as she reveals how deadly she can be. By the time she has Siouxsie Sioux style war paint on, she's become a snarling killer, as graceful and deadly as a panther. Olmos, meanwhile, grumbles through strange dialogue as the film's most mysterious character. Sean Young has a certain degree of attitude in Rachael's earliest scenes but seems more vulnerable and wounded for the reminder of the film. Joe Turkel brings a precise eccentricity to Tyrell, seeming all-knowing but remote. William Sanderson, meanwhile, is deeply child-like as Sebastian, a genius inventor with a lonely streak. Even the smaller roles are inhabited by familiar faces like M. Emmet Walsh, perfectly cast as the asshole police chief, and James Hong, as a panicked eyeball specialist. 

If “Blade Runner's” special effects paved the way for countless video games and anime, then its score defined the sound of eighties sci-fi. Vangelis' pulsating electronic score recalls the past and predicts the future. In keeping with the film's noir roots, the music often evokes a variation on the boozy saxophone music, or simple piano-driven romantic themes, we associate with the genre. Yet it's the throbbing electronic tones that most people remember. They are expertly paired with the film's sci-fi vistas, the movie summoning a sense of awe. The score is also more divergent than that, incorporate world music sounds during visits to Chinatown or the exotic dancer's club. That the music is still widely imitated to this day goes to show how immediately iconic it became. 

When discussing “Blade Runner,” one also has to discuss which version of “Blade Runner” you're talking about. There's no less than seven different cuts of the film in existence. For this review I watched the 1982 U.S. theatrical cut, the 1992 director's cut, and the 2007 “Final Cut.” The theatrical cut is widely loathed, due to Harrison Ford's monotone voiceover, but I don't actually dislike it. The narration is another nod to the private detective genre and the voiceover helps clear up the film's sometimes vague plot. The differences between the Director's Cut and Final Cut are less obvious. Both contain the notorious unicorn dream, which launch speculation that Deckard is a replicant himself, but the Final Cut has remastered color and visuals as well as the more explicit violence from yet another cut of the movie.

Even if the narration is sometimes cumbersome, any version of the film is about equal. (The Director's Cut is probably my fave, for what that's worth.) I actually don't love “Blade Runner” the way many people, who claim it as one of their all-time favorite films, do. I've always found the plot a little hard to get invested in and, as I said, Deckard a tricky protagonist. Yet I can't deny what an incredible accomplishment it it is from a technical perspective. Even after being imitated countless times, it's still an impressive achievement. Weaving deeper themes throughout makes it an endlessly rewatchable movie too, which can be discuss over and over again. It is a groundbreaking classic of the science fiction genre for good reason. [Grade: A-]