Geek Movies From The Summer of 1982 - Blade Runner

Blade Runner is a movie that you either love or hate (for the sake of this article I’ll be referencing the 1982 US original cut of the film).  I am in the camp of those who love Blade Runner.  Here you have Harrison Ford taking a departure from his normal role as Han Solo to play a grittier character in Rick Deckard.  As luck would have it this movie was released in between Empire and Jedi.  Blade Runner is a movie that I watched on video when it came out back in the early 80’s and have been a fan of it ever since.

 

The year is 2019 and Rick Deckard is a Blade Runner. A blade runner is someone who kills or retires replicants.  Replicants are used on the outer colonies but they have a limited four year lifespan. Replicants are illegal on earth and are hunted down and killed if they end up here.  A group of them make it to Los Angeles and Rick Deckard is taken out of retirement to hunt them down and eliminate them. 

One thing that Blade Runner teaches me is that it is always raining in the future in 2019.  So I’m thinking of stocking up on rain coats and umbrellas for the next seven years.  But seriously what Blade Runner teaches us is what it is like to be human.  Or at least that is what the replicants teach Deckard.  Or at least Roy and Rachel do which is probably why he runs to the sunshine at the end of the movie. 

 I was attracted to Blade Runner at first due to the fact that I was a Harrison Ford fan.  Han Solo was my favorite character in Star Wars and Blade Runner appeared to be in the mold of Star Wars.  Well I was wrong.  In fact Blade Runner was a movie that is gritty and much darker than Star Wars and I loved it. 

In fact it is a lot grittier and darker than a majority of the sci-fi films of the time.   The darkness of the movie is probably what turned a lot of people off as they were probably turned off by it thinking they were getting something like Star Wars with the Star Wars actor at the helm.  How wrong they were.  In fact I enjoyed the grittiness of the movie and enjoyed the story that was being told.

There are so many versions of this film with scenes being deleted and added and material taken out but I still have a soft spot for original even with the happy ending and the narration.   Yes The Final Cut is the definitive version that people love but I still enjoy the original.   It has a certain charm to it.  I don’t know is it too much of a bad thing to see Deckard and Rachel have a happy ending driving away from that dreary rainy Los Angeles. 

I love the setting this movie took place in.  The futuristic Los Angeles with the rain and all the Times Square and Tokyo imagery was pretty cool.  I loved seeing the flying cars and watching Deckard maneuverer around the futuristic market place.  All pretty cool and you can see a lot of this influence in sci-fi movies today. 

The Replicants were a pretty neat character.  Yes they were killers but what they really wanted was to have a longer life.  That was the main key for them.  That is probably why Roy saved Deckard at the end instead of letting him fall to his death.  Cause in his dying moments he knew life was worth living.

Blade Runner is just one of those films that, if you like it, you can watch over and over again.  I really liked this movie and enjoyed watching Rutger Hauer as Roy.  Loved it when Roy was chasing Deckard and howling like a wolf all through the building was really a great moment and was freaky too.  In fact the whole movie is a tad bit freaky and that is just part of Blade Runner’s charm.

Blade Runner is one of my favorite’s movies of all time and one of my favorites from the summer of 1982.  It was such a treat to watch the 1982 version again after watching the Final Cut all the time you forget how great and enjoyable the original version is.  Even though it bombed initially this movie had a strong movie and is well acted and tells a message of life in general and how precious it is.  Blade Runner has some interesting characters Like Sean Youngs Rachel and Rutger Haur’s Roy that make you remember them and feel for them.

Blade Runner still is an entertaining movie and has aged well considering it is 30 years old.  Blade Runner has spawned a lot of clones but it is still better than a majority of the sci – fi movies that are out there today.