This should be my second film review in the form of an independent subtitled chapter. The last time I did this was when I was writing the "Ghost in the Shell" version of Mori Oshii. Coincidentally, the two works are both science fiction films, and both use "gene engineering" as the subject, which may be just a coincidence.
Two names
Let me mention two names. The first is Philip Dick. He is a well-known science fiction writer. The most famous novel is "The Man in the High Castle", which has won the Hugo Award. "Blade Runner" is adapted from his other novel "Does Robots Dream of Electronic Sheep?" . His works often contain very serious thoughts about humans and history. After "Blade Runner", more and more of Dick's novels were adapted into films and television works by Hollywood, such as Paul Van Hoven's "Total Memories", Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report", Wu Yusen's "Memory Rift", etc. However, in the eyes of this writer, Hollywood does not understand his novels, including the script of "Blade Runner". It is worth mentioning that Philip Dick died before "Blade Runner" was completed in 1982, and he did not see the true nature of this adaptation with his own eyes.
The second is Ridley Scott, the director of the film. At that time, Lao Lei could only be regarded as a newcomer in the film industry, but he gained considerable fame due to the filming of "Alien" in 1979. Initially, when the original author Dick took "Do Robots Dream of Electronic Sheep" to ask him whether he could direct the adaptation of the film, Scott politely declined, but he did not expect that the final script was still in his hands. At that time, he was stuck in the slow progress of another sci-fi movie "Dune". At the same time, he also encountered the sudden death of his brother, which hit him hard, so he took this book again (by the way, "Dune" was thrown away. David Lynch).
As for the name "Blade Runner", Hampton Fancher, one of the screenwriters of this film, stumbled upon a book called "Blade Runner" (the author is William Burroughs), which coincided with the directors Trying to get a special title for the police assassin department where the protagonist Dikard belongs, Scott readily accepted this catchy phrase. Later, they found another book with the same name on the market. In the end, the producer bought the rights to use these two names for less than five thousand dollars. Interestingly, Lao Lei once thought about naming the film "Gotham City", but he was strongly opposed by Batman creator Bob Kane and had to give up.
Editor·Director·Perform
The production process of "Blade Runner" can be said to be full of hot spots, and there have been constant disturbances from the beginning of the script. There are two screenwriters for this film, one is Hampton Fancher mentioned above, and the other is David Pepples, but the script was not discussed together by the two. It was Fancher who wrote the outline of the script at first, and it took him two years to persuade the producers, and his ideal starring role is Dustin Hoffman. However, investors, producers, and directors did not like his script. The producer felt that it was not commercialized enough, and the director Scott felt that it was not cinematic enough, so they united and secretly took Fancher and found Pipples. Modify the script. Afterwards, Fan Che almost shed tears when he saw the unrecognizable notebook, but it was done, and he had to accept the reality.
Next on the set, it was Ridley Scott's turn to have a conflict with the production department. Lao Lei is British, but the set is in the United States, and the actors and staff are also American. There will inevitably be differences in the working methods of the two sides. At that time, Scott had already become well-known in the industry with "Alien", and he naturally poured more energy and ambition in "Blade Runner", so he was on the set with a vigorous, vigorous, and almost demanding style to make the staff. After all, after all, computer CG technology was not as mature as it is now, and many special effects scenes need to be hand-made and real shots to complete. Due to the increase in workload and some discord in the work (even Harrison Ford was often left alone for several hours, which made him very uncomfortable with Scott later), many American staff members had troubles. There were resignations and strikes. It wasn't until the producers finally came out to round the scene and asked Scott to take the lead in wearing a jacket printed with "Xenophobics are bad guys" and went to the set to gradually resolve the contradiction between the two sides.
Finally, let's talk about the actors. The protagonist of the film was originally scheduled to be Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino and others were on the list, but finally Harrison Ford was found. Ford has played "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones", both of which are very brilliant roles. It is also cool to put on the outfits in the movie during the audition, but he himself doesn't like "Blade Runner" very much. The problem was that on the one hand, he was set as a detective, but he did not do much work as a detective. On the other hand, because of the needs of the scene, the filming time was always at midnight, and the environment was extremely humid and dirty, which made him exhausted. Exhausted. Another thing that makes him uncomfortable is that the director hardly directs his acting. What did Lao Lei do? He spends all his energy on training the heroine. Shaun Yang, who plays Rachel, has good looks and temperament, but his acting skills are not good. The crazy old Lei had to ask the performance coach to give him a face-to-face instruction while in person. The most surprising thing is that the last episode of "Tears in the Rain" played by Rutger Hall, who plays the role of the Bionic People's Congress Boss Roy, is pure improvisation. Unexpectedly, the unintelligible remarks turned out to be a classic monologue. .
Salted fish stand up
"Blade Runner" originally had a budget of about 15 million U.S. dollars, but afterwards Scott continued to increase it, all the way to 30 million, and the producers had to bring in a few more production companies (including the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong) to fund the emergency. The film not only overspends, but also delays repeatedly, causing Warner to send a lawyer's letter to the producer threatening to fire them, so that the crew was forced to shoot for 27 hours before calling it off.
In order to collect money quickly, the film was set on June 25, 1982, and the film was set to fight against "Mad Max", "Electronic World Contest", "Rocky 3", "ET Alien" and other films. Moreover, Warner, who owns the right to edit the film, was not satisfied with Scott's cut version. He added extra narration by the protagonist Decade and changed it to a happy ending. Scott and Ford disagree, but their opposition is invalid. As a result, the film was not well-reviewed, and the box office results were disappointing. Public opinion overwhelmedly believed that this slow-paced film did not match the expected action-adventure genre, and did not know what the director wanted to express.
It was similar to the situation in "A Westward Journey", until about 10 years later, the advent of family videos and DVDs brought "Blade Runner" to the market again, allowing people to re-recognize and review this work. Surprisingly, audiences and film critics who criticized him before (such as the famous Roger Albert) unexpectedly changed their original intentions and praised it as "the pinnacle of science fiction movies." Even the British "Guardian" conducted a survey in 2004. Among the best sci-fi movies selected by 60 scientists with veteran sci-fi fan status, this film defeated "2001 A Space Odyssey" to top the list.
In fact, there are seven edited versions of Blade Runner so far, and the theater version that was originally shown in theaters was considered the worst version. Later, Ridley Scott published several more edited versions, the more famous of which was the 1992 version and the final edited version for the 25th anniversary in 2007. Especially for the latter, the development of digital technology after the new millennium has facilitated the production of this version. Lao Lei participated in the editing and restoration work throughout the process, and added some unused clips (including the complete unicorn scene). , This is also the most satisfactory version approved by the director. I also read this edition.
Cyber scene
After talking about the anecdotes and tidbits, let's talk about what is so good about Blade Runner. In fact, the biggest contribution of this film is to define a new vision for future science fiction films, open the Pandora's Box of cyberpunk science fiction films, and establish a classic paradigm for later generations. In the original script of the film, most of the scenes are indoors, with only a limited number of street scenes. According to the screenwriter Fan Che, this is a small film with a black detective style in the 1940s. However, the director Scott did not agree with the script. He insisted on considering the setting of the external world and shooting more outdoor scenes. In his vision, the future world of 2019 is a dark, dirty, chaotic, multi-dimensional society that can be observed from close range.
As we all know, Lao Lei has always had obvious advantages and disadvantages, weaker than complex narratives, and good at image expression. This has a lot to do with his experience as an advertising director for more than ten years, and he is very good at accurately conveying his ideas through sophisticated images. Unlike many sci-fi movies that are full of technological sense, the environment is spotless, as if there is no fireworks in the world, the Los Angeles we see in "Blade Runner" is a gloomy, depressed, damp and run-down, dead city without green plants. There is always acid rain in the sky, the factories on the periphery of the city are spewing thick smoke and flames, and the streets in the city are flashing neon and bizarre, full of immigrants from Asia. It feels dirty and messy, but there is no lack of market atmosphere. Since then, the so-called "high-quality technology, low-quality life" style in cyberpunk science fiction has been established and has been repeatedly used for reference.
If you look closely at the buildings in the film, you can find not only the combination of Eastern and Western elements, but also the fusion of ancient and modern elements, and you can also find the shadow of high-tech architecture. The most famous building in the whole film is the headquarters of Teri Company located in the city center. The shape is basically copied from the Egyptian pyramids, and the details are high-tech techniques, highlighting the industrial and mechanical sense, and the metal etching pattern It is like a circuit board processed by graphic art. The whole building is both ancient and modern, and it also bears the symbol of slave society (an allusion to the bionic people produced by Terry Company as slaves), showing the extraordinary value of this fictional building. In the year when computer technology was still underdeveloped, almost all the buildings in the movie were miniature models built by humans. The entire project took 13 months of the crew. The diligent pursuit.
It can be said that the influence of this film on later generations is not only the environment setting of cyberpunk, but also the architectural style of postmodernism. After "Blade Runner", in all Hollywood science fiction films involving future cities, you can see the traces of the film more or less in the buildings. Even in the real world, everything from architectural design to interior design to clothing design has absorbed nutrients from this film, which also confirms the film’s classic on one side.
Zhesi Core
After the birth of cloned goat Dolly in 1996, sci-fi movies on the subject of human cloning or genetic engineering suddenly increased. However, "Blade Runner" had touched this subject with a pre-conscious mind for more than a decade. Although compared with those later movies (such as "The Sixth Day", "Moon", etc.), this film has not raised the human rights issue of human clones (bionics) to a moral level, but it has already been marked as "the relationship between technology and human nature". The distinctive mark of entanglement. Moreover, the "Sybo" at the time was neither a computer artificial intelligence system like the "Skynet" in "Terminator", nor was it like the cyber consciousness body that "Motoko Kusanagi" was incarnate in the last "Ghost in the Shell", but Living human beings, their appearance and way of thinking are closer to humans, and this closeness will bring deeper troubles-who am I? What is human nature? What is reality?
As the ancestor of cyberpunk, the difficulty facing "Blade Runner" is that it created bad guys represented by the bionic Roy, while at the same time it had to sing praises for bad guys. In this regard, Ridley Scott’s approach is that the protagonist Deckard has become increasingly dehumanized and lost in the process of hunting down the bionics as a special policeman, while the bionics have gradually revealed a more human side. Such as their friendship and unity, their desire to survive. Especially for the role of Roy, the subversive exchange between him and Deckard has pushed this contrast of humanity tension to the extreme. He pierced his palm with a steel nail, and at the last moment of the duel with Decade, he saved the life of his opponent. Not only did he show a strong sense of autonomy, but it also contained religious metaphors of divinity. His death was also Rebirth in another sense.
If we go to a deeper level, science fiction is actually a reflection of the world. The future society depicted in "Blade Runner" is a dark and pessimistic picture. People live in an Orwellian environment, with industrial oppression, mixed ethnic groups, complex humanities, and large companies relying on technological totalitarian control to control the masses. . Humans living in this situation show obvious characteristics of dehumanization. The humans represented by Sebastian in the film lead a lifeless, non-reflective, robot-like life (contrasting the bionic Vigorous). This is Lao Lei’s anxiety about the present world: under the advanced industrial civilization, the rapid development of science and technology and the conquest of nature by man have not liberated man from alienated forces as expected, and obtained free and comprehensive development. , On the contrary, it makes people fall into a deeper alienation. Almost all human creations become alien powers that dominate people under certain conditions, thus forming a living state and cultural model of alienation of human beings, and technology has finally become the one that swallows the world. monster.
Ridley Scott sings the praises of the bionics is to sing the praises of humanity and cry for the return of humanity.
♑
View more about Blade Runner reviews
