Blade Runner (1982) Full Length
Added 2025-01-18 23:01:34 +0000 UTC
Comments
Glad to see the gang cover another classic. I got to this one late myself. And yet, Blade Runner 2049 is a damn masterpiece and favorite of mine. Acting, score, visuals, drama... just amazing.
Toddrow101
2025-01-20 04:26:57 +0000 UTCI really really recommend Ex Machina if you want to keep exploring androids and AI! Ok, so a bit of worldbuilding from the book: Cities are dilapidated because people went to Mars. Rich people went first, and then most of the rest. Those who remain on Earth are seen as weird, stubborn, odd, or were "damaged", too poor or disabled and so got left behind. People who went up there got promised a Replicant as a slave, to do all the work of colonization in a new planet. They are incredibly strong because they do all the hard labor duties on Mars without rest. Roy, Pris and the rest had a revolt, killed their masters/owners and came down to Earth, in search for their creator. In the book, places are succumbing to entropy and "kippel". Kippel is basically ruins: abandoned buildings, crumbling cement, dereliction, squalor. Sebastian lives in the Kippel because he's an intellectually disabled man who was denied his ticket to Mars. He is nostalgic and a dedicated collector, he rescues objects and vintage things and takes them home to repair or clean or to build his toys with. He lives in a sort of museum of mundane human objects from the 20th Century. The test to check for replicants is based on unconscious physiological responses: the peach fuzz hair on your face standing on edge, or your pupils involuntarily dilating in response to a question. A machine wouldn't have that. The questions are based on things that have become taboo in this world: anything to do with dead animals (like a fur or leather wallets, or eating oysters, or a turtle struggling to get up) is seen as extremely revolting and anxiety inducing, because there are no animals left anywhere, not even flies. In the book, everyone has a "pet" (not taking care of an animal is considered disrespectful) but all the pets are electric/mechanical. There's a pet catalog where people can buy their artificial pets. Mice would be cheap, sheep are mid-priced; owls are the most expensive animal. Deckard is trying to save for an owl, but has a sheep on his roof, that eats grass and bleats and shits and everything, but it is robotic. Hence why the title of the book is "Do android dream of electric sheep?" Something from the book that doesn't even appear in the movie is the "Mercer empathy mountain": every day, everybody on Earth connects to a device with a screen and a handle, where they all watch a man, named Mercer, try to climb a mountain and never actually make it. Every day, there are different obstacles and suffering: an avalanche, rocks falling, harsh winds, dehydration, exhaustion. And every day he starts at the bottom again, he never ever makes it to the top. When people connect to the device, they experience what the man is experiencing: his suffering, his physical struggle, his exhaustion, then his fight, his hope, his determination. And everyone can also feel each other's presence experiencing this, everyone on Earth together as one. But there's never a victory. The book actually has a very different ending from the movie. I won't reveal it in case anyone wants to read it. This is a case where both the book and the movie are incredibly influential masterpieces at the same level of greatness!
Lola Lirola
2025-01-19 03:59:22 +0000 UTCI love it! I'm glad you guys had a good time with it. Looking forward to 2049!
Ill Gill Bates
2025-01-19 01:36:58 +0000 UTCAbout the "it takes place in the future": The book was written in the 60s, so the action is supposed to take place in... 1992!! Back in 1992 they released a special edition of the book. I was 14-15 years old. I started reading it in the morning on the bus on the way to school, and when we arrived, I couldn't stop, so I skipped all classes that day and kept reading. And then I got to the end, and immediately flipped the book over, and started again!
Lola Lirola
2025-01-19 00:25:13 +0000 UTC
