Movie Flashback: Blade Runner

Blade Runner was released in June of 1982.

I remember the film well because it was the first movie my family ever rented on VHS to watch in our rented VCR.

I remember watching the movie for the first time and my general reaction was “Huh?”

I didn’t “get it”…

It was slowly paced, moody, had little action, had way too much dialogue, and was a world away from the action-packed SciFi that Harrison Ford had starred in with Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.

Then, I got older and wiser, and came to appreciate the movie to the point to where it is now one of my favorite SciFi films of all-time. This film was not meant to be Star Wars and I realize that now. At its roots, the film is a love story between Harrison Ford and Sean Young’s characters, set in the future, with a SciFi backdrop.

The movie boasts real impressive special effects considering it was 1982 and CGI effects at that time were minimal at best. The film received an Academy Award nomination for its Special Effects.

This was Sean Young’s first major starring role after a minor role in “Stripes“. Harrison Ford, though he had enjoyed tremendous success with Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, was not the first choice to star in Blade Runner. The producers originally wanted Dustin Hoffman. Today, I cannot imagine anyone but Harrison Ford playing Rick Deckard.

The film boasted a great villain in Dutch Actor Rutger Hauer who played Roy Batty. It’s takes a pretty good actor to be killing people right and left in one part of the film and then have the audience actually sympathize with his character by the end of the film. Rutger Hauer has said that Blade Runner is his favorite film of his long career. One of the members of Batty’s gang of killer replicants was played by a then little-known Daryl Hannah. Other supporting roles were portrayed by a pre-Miami Vice Edward James Olmos and a pre-Newhart William Sanderson. (Hi! I’m Larry…this is my brother Darryl and this is my other brother Darryl)

The film was a modest success at the box office but has become very much a cult classic in the years since it was released. Seven different versions of the film have been released theatrically or on VHS/DVD since the film was made.

One major question that remains unanswered from the film is whether Rick Deckard was himself a replicant. There is no definitve answer. Director Ridley Scott says that he perceived that Deckard was a replicant. The writer was ambiguous on the question.

The film was set in Los Angeles of 2019. Seeing as how that year is less than a decade away, we have quite a ways to go in order to see a world of flying cars and killer replicants being hunted through the rainy streets of LA.

It rains in LA?

Who knew…..