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Blade Runner Is The Best Sci-Fi Film
Delchanat writes "Now there's scientific proof: according to 60 of the most influential scientists in the world, including British biologist Richard Dawkins and Canadian psychologist Steven Pinker, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) is the best science fiction film. Late Mr. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) finished 2nd, followed by George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)." There are several other stories as well: favorite authors, the basics of science fiction, and an excerpt of a new Iain M. Banks novel.
Although Logans Run is one of the best sci-fi films from its era (possibly ever), most people have never heard of it, including people who have actually watched it. And this is coming from an avid fan of the series. Oh, you didn't know they made a series too? That's exactly the type of ignorance I'm talking about.
Mathematics is not a crime.
Brazil should have made top ten if for anything because of its visual and somewhat frightening view of the future. Of the best sci-fi movies Brazil is one of the least outdated (technology wise). Its theme, very similar to 1984, I suspect will always be relevant.
Except that 2001 does indeed have a plot. A rather complex plot at that.
If you simply "don't get it", try a Google search -- there are lots of websites out there that will describe the plot for you.
It's admittedly a complex movie. Many people "don't get it" the first time, but subsequent viewings usually bring out important items you might have missed.
Yaz.
I only have a problem that the Aliens movie (the Cameron second one), didnt make the list. The list of quotable lines and dark belly laughs from that movie is second to none imho.
Some of the quote here
aka "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was dam good book too.
Clarke's First Law:
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
Clarke's Second Law:
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
Clarke's Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
The sibling post was quicker on the gun with the third law, though it's obviously from memory.
Actually Blade Runner didn't seem all that special. It was a 1940's detective story with a few 22nd century visuals. It is Humphrey Bogart film set in the future with Harrison Ford as Bogart. Rutger Hauer and Daryhl Hannah looked great in the film, the best-looking film for either of them.
My favorite scene is Harrison Ford talking to the computer to examine in great detail the random digital photograph for clues. Each time I consider buying a digital camera, I wonder if it can get a level of detail described in that scene.
The greatest science-fiction film ever is La Jetee (1964) by French director Chris Marker. This was the inspiration for 12 Monkeys, but it is a much better film. It's quite short at 29 minutes, but still leaves people in deep cinema shock whenever it gets shown in festivals or on campus. It's widely available in video and may be at your local library for checkout. It's a collage of black and white photos zoomed and panned like Ken Burn's documentaries with narration and music. French with English subtitles. It was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when the Americans and Soviets came far too close to nuclear war than anyone wants to talk about.
2001 was OK, but extremely slow. It does hold up after 35 years only if you have a lot of patience and are not expecting a Star Wars type of movie.
Science Fiction is always better in books than it is in film. It's a genre that needs one's individual imagination projecting imagery from written text.
Remember Pris, the pleasure model? Of course she's going to look human - would you want to engage in sexual activities with a green bodied replicant? No!
Replicants were outlawed on earth, elsewhere they were made to take the jobs thar were too dangerous for humans, or that humans just didn't want to do. Just like scientists today are doing research into robotic faces to convey emotion, the scientists of tomorrow will, if possible, make robots near human in form so as to make people feel more comfortable with them.
Only earth is worried about replicant infiltration - on the colony worlds replicants are in use and accepted - hence no need to 'mark' them.
Also, and this is more of a plot device - if the replicants didn't look the same, then the whole implication that Decker (or anyone) could be a replicant and not even know it falls down.
man is machine
Blade Runner is awsome. Everytime I see the cityscapes and the hear the music that was used in those scenes I get chills down my spine. I'd love to live in a dark, gritty Blade Runner style world.
The music was by Vangelis who composed the soundtracks for many other movies including "Chariots of Fire" and "Antartica".
One of my favourite tracks was "I'll find my way home" which was really a haunting melody.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Can anyone explain how the replicants are physiologically superior to regular humans, yet the only way to identify them is to ask them stupid questions while videotaping their irises?
Wouldn't some sort of DNA test, or blood protein assay, work a lot easier?
(But then there wouldn't be much of a movie, would there.)
"Do Androids Dream..." was written in 1968, but the idea of genetic assays might not have been known to Philip K Dick. But the film was not until 1982...
Bonus points if you answer the following questions:
1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
2. What do Electric Sheep dream of?
This site does a very good job.
Link
Of course it's a good movie. It's based on a 1948 short story by Arthur Clarke called The Sentinel.
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
Sigourney Weaver kills hundreds of aliens in a Rambo style machine gun and flamethrower rampage, and then has a bitch fight with the alien queen in what can only be described as a 'mecha forklift'. Bill Paxton is best supporting actor with his hysterical 'we're all going to die' performance. What's not to like?
the definition of science fiction basically says "set in space"
...
That's not a good definition. I'll quote a bit of Wikipeadia on science fiction:
"Science fiction is a form of fiction which deals principally with the impact of imagined science and/or technology upon society or individuals.
The term is more generally used to refer to any literary fantasy that includes a scientific factor as an essential orienting component, and even more generally used to refer to any fantasy at all. Such literature may consist of a careful and informed extrapolation of scientific facts and principles, or it may range into far-fetched areas flatly contradictory of such facts and principles. In either case, plausibility based on science is a requisite, so that such precursors of the genre as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Gothic novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) are plainly science fiction, whereas Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), based purely on the supernatural, is not. Sometimes utopic and dystopic literature is also regarded as science fiction, which is accurate insofar as sociology also is a science."
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Good grief. That's a totally asinine definition of science fiction. Otherwise The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fahrenheit 451, The Caves of Steel, Timescape and many, many other science fiction classics don't qualify. Try again (and no, the definition is not "set in space OR the future OR both"!)
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
although he was not in the book
The movie and the book have VERY little in common. Their connection is tenuous at best. In the book this strange pseudo-religion "mercerism" was a key part of the story, as was this mood organ that people used to make them happy or content. In the book at one point Deckard comes across another detective and each thinks the other must be a replicant. The two stories share characters and a dominant theme (is it right for us to enslave 'people' we've manufactured), that's about it.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
If you liked the movie, read the book (by Carl Sagan). It's much better..
Yes, it was a financial failure and got very bad reviews from critics. It was only later that it was accepted as a classic.
If you are a fan of the movie and want to know everything you could possibly know about it, check out the book Future Noir. It covers the making of Blade Runner and it's quite interesting.
I was disappointed to read that the top 10 list of sci-fi authors in a recent post neglected to include one of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein. He was the author of such books as The Puppet Masters, Time Enough For Love (a personal favorite), his irreverent Job: A Comedy of Justice, and Starship Troopers. Most of Heinlein's works dealt with social models, interspersed with science. In Farnham's Freehold, the main characters are thrown into the future through a rip in the time-space continuum when their bomb shelter is at ground zero, stranding them alone, as the only survivors of their race. In Job, Heinlein looks at the gods themselves in a story of one man who is tested (hence, Job), and eventually sees the apocalypse and the resurrection, though neither is as he expected. Aside from interesting social examination, Heinlein's works are interesting, irreverent, and original.
move 'sig.' for great karma
Parent post is referring Ridley's direction that Decker is a replicant -- although he was not in the book
You say he wasn't, but the book doesn't.
In the end there is no answer to the question "Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?"...but we know that Deckard does.
--
While I have to agree that Philip K. Dick has written some of the best scifi ever, it is also important to note that he was also quite insane, and as a result many of his stories make little to no sense.
The main thing about PKD is that he wrote large numbers of stories in varying states of lucidity. Many of them work wonderfully, but others either just fall completely flat, or build up to what looks like it will be a profound ending, but rather just leaves you wondering what the hell he was thinking.
If you have never read PKD before, I would suggest you try Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the basis for Blade Runner).
In deed. The movie and the book were created at the same time, influencing each other. "The Sentinel" was just the starting point.
The movie went to Jupiter for the simple reason of the artistic team not being able to create the satisfying model of Saturn and its' rings. For that reason, Kubrick decided to move the plot into Jovian world. If you are a 2001 fan, I recommend Clarke's "The Lost Worlds of 2001". Kind of like "The Making Of" for both the book as well as the movie.
I'll never forgive Clarke for writing 3001 (which is, IMO, by far the worst of the series), or - even more - for giving his blessings to the 2010 movie (which is a horrible, cliche ridden trash).
- The Shape of Things to Come (1936) based on the H.G. Wells novel of the same name.
- The Man in the White Suit (1951) speculative fiction with Sir Alec "Obi Wan" Guinness.
- The Fantastic Planet (1973) Psychadelic animated european sci-fi.
- Wizards (1977) Ralph Bakshi, 'nuff said.
- The Quiet Earth (1985) freaky end-of-the world stuff.
- Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure (1989) <simpsons voice="comic book guy">Best! Time-Travel! Movie! Ever! </simpsons>
- Until the End of the World (1991) with William Hurt and Sam Neill, oddly catches the essence of Gibsonian cyberpunk without the punk.
- Just about anything by Hayao Miyazaki but especially Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) or Nausicaä (of the Valley of the Winds) (1984) (but not the god-awful Warriors of the Wind from 1986).
</self_indulgent_obsessive_list_making>> Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars (that's who actually
> wrote the screenplay for the movie, not George
> Lucas.)
Alan Dean Foster wrote the novelization of the movie, and some other Star Wars books. George Lucas wrote the screenplay.
Honest. Go rent/buy it and see for yourself. When you then learn who was involved with the movie, you'll understand why. Ridley Scott is an SF cinema wannabe.
Actually, no. That's not why.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Except that 2001 does indeed have a plot. A rather complex plot at that.
Technically, while I disagree with the parent's idea that a plotless movie is necessarily bad, your contention that 2001 has a complex plot is incorrect. I think you're confusing the sophistication of the metaphors, themes, and ideas of 2001 with 2001's plot itself, which is pretty simple.
The plot of a story is synonymous with the story's plan. Here's the basic plot of 2001...
Dawn of Man
1. Monkeys get beaten up by other Monkeys.
2. Monkeys from beaten-up tribe find and fondle the monolith.
3. Monkey from beaten-up tribe discovers a possible use for a bone as a weapon.
4. Monkeys with bones beat up the Monkeys without the bones.
The Lunar Journey (forget the actual name of this section...)
1. Scientist goes to orbital moon base.
2. Scientist has discussion with Russians, who ask about a possible outbreak. Scientist stonewalls Russians.
3. Scientist meets his team, thanks them for understanding the inconvenience of the outbreak story.
4. Scientist and team go to monolith. Scientist fondles monolith, monolith sends out signal to Jupiter.
Jupiter Mission, 18 Months Later
1. Astronauts hang out with HAL.
2. One astronaut sees through HAL's masqueraded psych evaluation.
3. HAL announces a communication unit is going to have a failure. Astronaut checks it out, they can't find anything wrong with it.
4. Astronauts have a secret pow-wow and talk about the possibility of having to shut HAL down. HAL lipreads.
5. When they try to replace the unit, HAL takes over the pod and kills one Astronaut. Second Astronaut goes to rescue, gets the body, but HAL locks him out of the pod bay. Astronaut returns into the ship via an emergency entrance, does a little zero-gravity gymnastics to survive in the airlock.
6. Astronaut shuts HAL down, and learns about the ship's secret mission.
Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite
1. Astronaut reaches Jupiter, he sees monolith (monoliths?), things go a little koo-koo.
2. Astronaut goes through an accelerated evolutionary stage, grows old in the chamber, dies, is reborn and is in what is assumed to be a new evolutionary state for man.
3. Astronaut-turned-foetus returns to Earth for mysterious purpose.
That's not much of a plot -- especially for such a long movie. Don't get me wrong, I love 2001, but saying it's got a complex plot is like saying Blade Runner stars Tom Cruise -- it's just incorrect.
Even the Harry Potter movies have a more complicated plot than 2001 did. If you really want to blow your mind, try breaking down the plot of Miller's Crossing.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Wow, that's not the least bit funny.
A take on the phrase, "rum runner" when alcohol was illegal.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
The real problem that I had with "Contact" the movie is that the underlying philosophy was diametrically opposed to that of Carl Sagan, as expressed in the book.
** SPOILERS BELOW**
Carl Sagan was a scientist. His book supports the concept of empirical verification rather than taking things on faith. Thus, in the book, you have a team that takes the journey and they return with a method of demonstrably proving God's existence (through a message buried deep within the digits of pi-- and thus within the structure of the created universe). The message is is the scientific one: look for the evidence/proof.
The movie sends precisely the opposite message. While the protagonist starts believing in science, at the end she embraces faith and acknowledges that she has come to accept her experience as real, despite the lack of any objective avidence. (The evidence exists in the hours of blank tape, but she is unaware of them.) She is won over to being just another religious believer, taking things "on faith". It seems to be a waste of billions of dollars that could have been better spent on Earth.
Given the 180 degree change in philosophical direction, I don't think Carl Sagan would have approved.
Respectfully, David Tallan
and the letters in GATTACA are all genetic letters used in DNA coding.
- tristan
If this info was available on replicants and Deckard seemed strangely unnatural then how did he get hired to serve in a critical police force? I'd assume that they'd go over his past with a fine-toothed comb before hiring him and they would have found the truth about Deckard.
The police know he's a replicant - he's their replicant, their tool - but they must hide that fact from the public. The theory is that it is Gaff who is Deckard's controller. Gaff is always shadowing Deckard's activities, always in the background with a knowing smirk. The clincher is Gaff's origamis at key moments. He'll make an origami that corresponds to what Deckard is thinking, such as making the origami of a man with an erection when Rachel comes up as a subject in a conversation, and especially the unicorn origami. In the Director's Cut, Deckard has an inexplicable dream of a unicorn, and later Gaff leaves a unicorn origami for him. This shows that Gaff knows about his dream - Deckard is likely a replicant like Rachel, with implanted memories, and Gaff as his controller, knows what these memories are (also note Deckard's excessive collection of family photos...). Deckard does Gaff's dirty work for him, without knowing it.
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Metropolis is great. I'd really love to see a modern remake as long as it's respectful to the original story and doesn't try to completely remove the anachronistic 1920's view of the future. That it now simultaneously speaks something of the real past and an imagined future is one of the things I love about it.
In case any are unfamiliar with it, Metropolis is a silent movie made in 1926. There are no known complete copies, so any version you see will necessarily be an assemblage from bits of various copies. And while there's enough bits to make a full length movie, I don't think there's any version that's totally complete.
I've only seen two reconstructions of it. One was pretty much just an assemblage of whatever bits could be recovered, without any embelleshment except for a soundtrack that I think was a guess at the general kind of thing that might have been played with it at a theatre in the 1920's. The other is the one made by Georgio Moroder that has some poorly done embellishments and a soundtrack of 80's music, mostly badly chosen.
Moroder's version is widely criticized and often considered a bit insulting to the original, but I actually rather liked it in spite of the obvious warts. What I liked about it was that it seemed to tell the story better than the straight restoration, and best I can tell, without losing the spirit of it. Also, there was one musical track in Moroder's version that I think actually fit the scene very well. And that was the "Blood from a Stone" song that played during the "Shift Change" scene from the beginning of the movie.
A great old movie like this should not languish forever in such disrepair. A really good remake would be great.
There is a recent re-release by the Murnau Foundation which has a bit more footage and is set to the original score by Gottfried Huppertz. I was lucky enough to see it in the theater, but you can get it on DVD from Kino.
English is easier said than done.