Seen Unbelievable Things? Part 1 of 2 Half Decade into A Past

Flim review: Blade Runner (1982)

As the heat pauses to rise yet the rain continues to fall for days here in the city hosting miHoYo global headquarters, I started to look for film suitable for raining nights. So, 1982’s Blade Runner came up. This year’s August will mark two full decades since my first view of the film. It also had been five years since the film turned from near future to alternative history. Why not watch it again now I had read 3 Greek Tragedies by Euripides? And then give its equally flopped sequel another look past that post-Trump blues in a later date.

The Angolo-American Connection

It would be fair to say that Ridley Scott had a complicated relationship with science fiction. Many would call him one of the most influential directors worked in the genre, which yours truly and the likes of Dan O’Bannon would see him not as a sci-fi guy. When James Cameron put together that show for AMC during the early year of Trump administration, one of the interviews was with Scott. Again, in print but not on air, Scott said that he liked H G Wells as a young lad but never able to enjoy Issac Asimov. The point will be discussed farther below.

Ridley Scott’s trouble in LA with this one would be somewhat mirrored by James Cameron’s trouble in Pinewood with Aliens. Even with a shared language, foreign directors are handful. The obstacle was not in language alone. Scott thought and still think he was smart to “only” litter the Bradbury set where the light would be, yet the crew still thought that was meaningless labor. And that bullshit about whether Rick Deckard played Harrison Ford? I really do not give a rat’s ass, neither does the 2017 sequel after all.

Hardly the foundation of future noir

1982’s Blade Runner is a movie better with supplements. I did not actually start to enjoy watching it until I was 26 years old and just finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep by Phillp K Dick. So, it’s more of a seeing what’s kept and what’s cut out from the book kind of enjoyment, much like reading Future Noir or watching the Dangerous Days documentary to see which parts of script did they cut out during shooting.

Funny thing is, the PKD novel is actually closer to farce in tone. I would even call it a parody since I read it right after Cave of Steel by Issac Asimov. And the fact that neither director Ridley Scott and nor co-writer Hampton Francher had read Asimov is obvious at this front. Those 2 gentlemen thought they were blazing new trails with a film noir with future setting while Cave of Stell blended science fiction and noir detective story together decades before Blade Runner was made.

Asimov himself did not use this N word in French, he just called those “detective stories”. Given they were written in the 1950s, I say such French word does apply there. And that’s even before we get to the plot of those novels. Cave of Steel and its sequel Naked Sun feature one meat-bag cop from Earth and a robot made in another human colony partnering in homicide investigations. Due to the delicate situations they find themselves in, the 2 would identify the killers but could not go public with the knowledge. Thus, keeping it a secret between them and the readers. If that’s not noir, then what is?

Of course, the “parody” is not without its merits. It’s not like it didn’t add anything. PKD is a paranoia through and through, even his praise for Blade Runner’s visual effect is seeded in that paranoia saying that it was as if his brain was hardwired and the vision was just taken out. The vibe would be picked up by the likes of William Gibson thus made Cyberpunk into a more or less real thing.

More “little person” than cop

The late Rutger Hauer really spoke for many of us in the audience before any of us got to see this film. He referred to Rick Deckard played by Harrison Ford as “that fucker” during his on-set discussion with director Ridley Scott. The scene is one of the last in the film both in terms of chronology and shooting schedule, where Roy Batty played by Mr. Hauer picked Deckard up before the latter was about to fall to his death.

Deckard is a typical Greek soldier outside the wall of Troy, a barbarian at the gate by the order of state he is forced to serve. One of those faceless menace hurting and exploiting the titular Trojan Women in Euripides’ play. The 2 situation Deckard did his job of “retiring” Replicants, he shot 2 unarmed women. Granted those 2 women did try to kill with bare hands before and in case of Pris, the last 2 shots can almost be seen as mercy killing. Still, Deckard is certainly among the scum of scums in the pantheon of noir anti-heroes, many of who do not actually have body-count.

If that’s how Deckard treats his enemies, his friend is not treated by him any better. The love interest Racheal saved Deckard life by shooting Leon and what’s her reward? Practically getting raped by Deckard. Shitheads imagined by Japanese creators such as EVA’s Shinji Ikari and NieR Automata’s 9S certainly got an ancestor in Deckard.

On the other hand, the Replicant leader Roy Batty is a tragedy hero more worthy of sympathy. He is much like Euripides’ Bacch and Meada combined, with the former’s playfulness and the latte’s self-awareness (Saying “I’ve done questionable things” before doing a couple of more, like killing his maker because the maker cannot prolong his life.). Well, the film’s co-writer David Peoples and Mr. Hauer at least gave the guy the fitting dying speech after all.

Deep Real

2004 was a time 3 years too early for me to see Blade Runner. On the personal level, I was only 14. Had I waited 3 years, I would have watched it for the first time with Final Cut. But alas. I think I liked the voice-over. But that was probably because I watched with Mandarin dub with no flag like this screenshot shows.

Blade Runner before its final cut should be taught in text book as the wrong way to do voice-over. 8 minutes into the movie and a switch of point-of-view later, Deckard started to moan about no ads for killers like him. It’s beyond jarring. R Scott did state Apocalypse Now as an example of good voice-over narration and I agree completely. Martin Sheen delivered one of the best open lines (“Saigon. Shit! I’m still only in Saigon.”) merely 4 minutes in and no switching pov. Well, there are certainly good reasons why Sheen was cast in the 2 Mass Effect sequel instead of Ford, one fellow AP cast member of his.

The Final Cut being made in 2007 was partially due to technology. Like some painstaking process would inspire Deep Fake of these days. With an “And” crediting in the opening, Joanna Cassidy was back to act in some reshoot. Full make-up, partially costumed and acting in front of green screen so her face instead of a stun double’s is seen during Zorah’s painfully beautiful death scene.

Other noticeable changes include one Ford Jr. coming in to do lib sync for dad and new “matte painting” for Batty’s death scene. This version is not just definitive, it’s also the only version streaming here in miHoYo’s country of origin while the older versions were lost in time like tears in rain unless one’s willing to track down home media release. But it’s a good way to see this film with seal of prove from Ridley Scott, so really no loss there.

Homages from writers

In Three-body, I’ve seen things most people wouldn’t believe. World torn in halves by power behind tides while its oceans boiled in larva. I’ve seen sun coronas consuming one planet after another like arms waving in the air without any ruth nor care. Yet those moments are merely waterdrops in the face of universe. All will be lost in despair like rain in sea.

---- Lines from the Three-body Problem show in Chinese, practically Shen Yufei’s final words written for the show. Translated from Chinese to English by yours truly.

The Chinese language adaption of the Three-body Problem likes to have end credits fuckery. So, it’s only safe to click “next episode” when a sexy male voice starts to sing “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe” in English. As if that homage to Blade Runner is not enough, the writers had to do this: by episode 16 of the show’s 26 episodes “Anniversary (Just without no ads actually.)” cut, someone made the monologue above shortly before she shot herself in the head.

The character Shen Yufei can be seen as the first line of defense against an alien invasion. As she desperately trying to get that hubby of hers to solve the titular three-body problem so the aliens can stay put in their home system of 3 stars. Even though official XCOM treats her as an enemy within. Something that book burning routine (I was mad at Troy back in 2004. Now I had read Iliad and browsed IMDB, I am just mad at David Benioff. There is no book too old or too new this motherfucker’s budget-saving screen-writing type would not butcher, no matter the source material came to existence 20 centuries or years ago.) over at Netflix burnt out completely. She is a homicide victim without famous final words whatsoever in the book, so I guess it’s nice to give her some additional monologue after three-body problem proved insolvable through maths. Of course, in typical “Chinaman outdoing Yankee by hook or crook” fashion, everything got to be bigger. Celestial bodies instead of starships, sea shallowing rain instead of rain washing away tears.

Much like Ridley Scott helmed Alien before it, Blade Runner is beloved among science fiction novelists after it. The aforementioned Chinese screen writers’ handiwork is merely a recent example of a long tradition. Legend has it that William Gibson almost gave up on his Hugo rocket catching novel Neuromancer because how close his vision of a Sprawl was to the ever-raining night city of Los Angeles. Then again, this American turned Canadian is known to like R Scott’s early works. 1979’s Alien was where Gibson get the idea of “high tech low life” from.

7 years after Blade Runner flopped in the box office, a man named Dan Simmons put a space opera novel titled Hyperion, also got him a Hugo rocket for Best Novel. In this book, Simmons envisioned a spacefaring civilization known as human Hegemony and its World Web. Interstellar travel can be as easy as stepping through portals called Farcasters.

The noir detective chapter of the book is about a lady detective falling in love with android man. This chapter also have an action scene than can only called an interstellar foot chase. The lady detective chasing a suspect through one Farcaster after another, in part as the author’s way to show readers what kinds of worlds are in the World Web. When I read it in 2016, I imagined it more like foot chase scenes in Bourne films with John Powell soundtrack playing in the background. But came to think about it, Simmon might be expanding on the Deckard chasing Zorah scene in Blade Runner, with no music just different noises on busy streets of all those human colonies.

Then there is Hideo Kojima, who somehow found time to write and publish a review of this flick’s final cut during the death march to finish Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of Patriots. MGS4 and Snatcher both feature gun totting man wears a brown trench coat, but I want to dig too little deeper. Starting with this line I can always recall, when Byrant talks about Zorah.

The obvious place to go with this is of course MGS4’s rogue gallery dubbed the Beauty and Beast squad. But allow me to go farther back. This line is undoubtedly a one-liner. The kind of one-liner featured only in 1998’s Metal Gear Solid, as Colonel Roy Campbell would crack wise about each member of Foxhound. Too bad neither MGS2’s Dead Cell nor MGS3’s Cobra Unit got the same treatment. This rewatch made me realize that there is a one-liner behind on Leon. No, calling Roy Batty “Probably the leader” is too little of wise-cracking.

Across 3 languages I can read and 3 different media forms, Blade Runner’s finger prints can be seen when one starts to look for those. Ultimately, I am still a naysayer regarding the film, but I got to admit that it is influential. I just would recommend the influenced over the influencer. I certainly enjoyed anime series Psycho-pass more. That show has a clown fuck serial killer calling his motive as he hates the Philp K Dick story society he lives in. The Expanse will be another one, with its opening crawl closer to Blade Runner than Star Wars.

(To be concluded in Quarter Century into A Future)