“Did she just fall in love with her rapist?”
For years whenever the subject of Blade Runner has come up people were shocked by the idea that I’d never seen it. With the sequel, Blade Runner 2049, out now I can confirm I’ve now seen the original twice and… I don’t get why people were shocked I’ve never seen it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the worst film in film history. It’s got its charms. The principle behind it is quite cool as well. But I wasn’t overly impressed with the film as a whole, in either the theatrical version (which I saw a few months ago) or the Final Cut (which I saw last night).
Some of my comments may seen “unfair” considering it’s a film from the early 80s and you could argue that it’s not exactly fair to judge it by today’s standards, so if you want to make that argument then fair enough. I won’t comment on it being a bad film in terms of the CGI or anything else, because in those ways it wasn’t. It was actually very impressive visually. It’s just everything else about it that I wasn’t ovelry keen on. Now I’ve heard nothing but good things about the new one, so I’m quite excited to see that, but when it comes to the first one I have to say that with the level of build-up it received from people utterly astonished that I’d never seen it I was disappointed that it didn’t hold up to the “classic” film I had in my head that this film must be if it was that important that I should have watched it before. Perhaps that’s my fault for building it up so much in my head, and I will say that it’s far from terrible, but… well, there’s one thing in particular about the film that’s stayed with me and I just can’t let that go. But we’ll get to that later. First, let’s begin like this…
The Setup
The film begins with a few paragraphs about the world as it is, and about the fact that there are “Replicants” – artificial human being like robots – who are used for mining and other services for which they are ideal. However, after some of them killed people they were “retired” by being killed, and a specialist unit set up called Blade Runners who are tasked with killing them. Then we begin the movie proper. It’s Los Angeles in 2019, the distant future when this film came out, and the world is very different. The city goes on for as far as you can see with solid buildings, there’s very little greenery, and there are flying cars. It’s here that we meet ex-police officer Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) who, while ordering food, is arrested by another officer, Gaff (Edward James Olmos) and taken to see his former supervisor, Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh). Bryant explains that there’s a situation and they have four replicants on the loose, and he tasks Deckard with coming out of retirement to find them and eliminate them, since he’s apparently the best option.
He shows Deckard a video of another Blade Runner administering the “Voight-Kampff” test on a replicant who ultimately kills him. This test is designed to focus on the eyes to judge for emotional responses, as the replicants are unable to experience emotions, and thus it’s the best way to tell a replicant from a regular person. Deckard watches the interview several times, learning about this particular replicant, Leon (Brion James), and learns of three more that all came to Earth at the same time, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) and Pris (Daryl Hannah). They’re unsure why they’ve come back to Earth, but as we then find out by following the replicants they’ve come to Earth to try to find a way to stop themselves from dying, as the replicants have a pre-programmed life-span of just four years from when they were put into service, and they want to find a way to save themselves.
Deckard then goes out to hunt them down and do his job. He starts by interviewing Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel) who insists that Deckard administer the test on his assistant Rachael (Sean Young), who it turns out is a more advanced replicant. Eldon explains that she’s more advanced because she doesn’t know she’s a replicant, and has been programmed with false memories to make her easier to control, as she thinks she’s human. Deckard must then deal with the knowledge of this, and with Rachael’s discovery of her own origin, while also hunting down the four replicants he’s been tasked to “retire” before they can get to Eldon Tyrell, or they can run amok and cause more damage to other Tyrell Corporation employees.
The Delivery
Ok, let’s start by reiterating an earlier comment to say this isn’t a BAD movie. I’m not impressed by it, however. There are several reasons for this. To start off with, they tend to spend so much time showing off the landscape and the general look of “the future” that they almost seem to forget to properly introduce the characters initially. Rather than just letting us accept that this is the future and it’s very different to “today” (that being the early 1980s) they instead want to show us long shots of the city and massive video screens advertising some kind of pill and, of course, advertising Coca Cola (awesome product placement for Coca Cola though). I immediately feel like this ruins the pace of the early film. They fly around in a cop car for what seems like forever to get to where they’re going so they can show off the city, with no actual conversation taking place in the car to develop the character of Deckard or Gaff, the latter of whom could really have used this opportunity to develop something to do with his character considering his reappearances later in the film had me wondering who the hell he even was when I first saw it. That feels like a hugely wasted opportunity, and it was only in favour of showing off a flying car and completely slowing the pace of the film to the point that it’s almost hard to stay interested in the early going.
The film does eventually pick up the pace once Deckard has his assignment, but I feel again that we missed out on some opportunities. We could have seen WHY Deckard was retired, rather than it just being casually mentioned that he was. It again feels like there’s no real introduction to this, or to the character of Deckard as a whole. He’s therefore a difficult character to root for when you don’t really feel too much of a connection to him. In fact, in the early part of the film he honestly came across to me as a bit of a dick, especially in his early interactions with Tyrell and especially with Rachael. I kind of got the impression that once he figured out Rachael was a replicant he wasn’t too impressed by that – even though Tyrell points out it took him longer to figure out she was than it would a normal replicant – but this also could have been expanded on. If she was a super replicant, who was harder to tell apart and genuinely thought she was human, then this could have been introduced far better. This was only the second time we’d seen the “Voight-Kampff” and it’s only introduced during this conversation how effective it is. The way they showed time passing as he asked her questions was confusing as well. It’s only really established that time has even passed, and that we’ve not just seen a director who liked to show questioning from multiple camera angles, after the questioning was over. Even the cliché ticking clock jumping in time would have made this more obvious than the actual delivery.
One thing I can’t fault is the actual “investigation” and him finding the replicants, or the execution of their plan. The replicants plan seemed to make sense, to track down different Tyrell employees in a hope of finding a way to extend their own lifespans, and ultimately finding out that only Tyrell himself could help them. To do that they had to get access to him, which they did by manipulating another character I missed out of the “setup” section. However, this character I found somewhat weird and annoying. I get that he was a lonely guy who had robots he’d made himself – living toys, basically – as his only friends, but I don’t know if it was the actors acting, the writers script, the directors directing or the combination of the three that just made this character also hard to like. I felt more for the replicants during their involvement with him than I did for him, so I was unsure if I was meant to care when he ultimately met his end – and Tyrell did – or if I wasn’t. He was just very odd, not an inherently likeable character who got manipulated. Thus, the scenes with him and Pris also felt a lot like they dragged on a bit until Roy Batty finally arrived to properly add to the plot. Once he did arrive, however, then that whole subplot became far more relevant and interesting and the movie picked up the pace, but I feel like much of the stuff between J.F. Sebastian and Pris could have been cut out of the film and the only thing that would have happened was the film could have been faster paced and therefore better.
The other subplot is the one between Deckard and Rachael, and this is the one that gave me the most difficulty. It was quite cool when Gaff was about to beat Deckard to death, and you got the impression how much more powerful the replicants were than regular people in how easily Gaff was able to throw around Deckard, only for Rachael to save his life by blowing a hole in Gaff’s head. I can’t fault this bit at all. However, what I do fault is every other scene with any interaction between Deckard and Rachael. She goes to his apartment to talk to him, he outright reveals she’s a replicant before claiming it was a “bad joke”, and that is not a cool thing to do to anyone, whether he was serious and just shattered her world or if he was joking just to make her think she wasn’t human. It was stupid and cruel, and there’s no reason then that Rachael should have had any further interaction with him. Only she does. She goes back to his place again after killing Gaff, and is clearly shaken up. Deckard, who’s been badly beaten up, falls asleep and she has a scene in his apartment where she lets her hair down and starts playing the piano. He wakes up, sits down next to her and kisses her, and she immediately gets up wanting to leave. Fair enough, I thought when I first saw it. He’s been nothing but a dick to her, she has no reason to even like the guy. When he kisses her, replicant or not, then she has every reason to leave. She’s emotional after killing someone (even if he was a replicant). Deckard just feels like he’s taking advantage. But from there it gets much worse.
As she goes to leave he blocks the door, refusing to let her open it before forcing her back against the wall and kissing her again. She doesn’t seem like she enjoys this. He then stares down at her aggressively and tells her to tell him to kiss her. She doesn’t seem to want to, but intimidated she says it. He then tells her more things to say to him which she seems to reluctantly say, under the pressure of him standing there threateningly. It’s then heavily implied they have sex. So, what we basically just witnessed was Harrison Ford’s character raping someone. Was this how it was meant to come across? The music seems to imply that this isn’t a terror scene. The music seems to imply that this is meant to be a love scene, that this is meant to be something romantic, only it’s really, really not. It’s rape. Deckard outright raped her. And then, after hunting down and killing two more replicants, he goes back to his apartment and for some unearthly she’s still there, and is now in love with him. Seriously, how the hell did that happen? Did I skip a part of the movie? Did they cut something out of the versions I’ve seen where he was anything but a complete and total asshole to her? Is this what passes for “romance” in the 80s? Is this what they imagined “romance” in the 2010s would be? Or is this what it seemed to be – a major hero in an 80s film freaking raping a female character who subsequently falls in love with him?
I can’t let that go, and it makes me feel uncomfortable for the rest of the film, which isn’t too bad. Deckard tracking down J.F. Sebastian’s apartment after his death at the hands of Roy Batty only to fight with Pris, have Pris almost kill him before he kills her, was good. Her death scene was weird as hell, with her shaking on the floor and him repeatedly shooting her, but that was ok. Then his fight with Roy Batty was… entertaining, but weird. Roy is clearly beginning to die but he’s easily able to disarm and frighten Deckard, and then terrorise him throughout the building as Deckard tries to escape. The terrorising however is also very, very weird. Why does Roy Batty howl like a wolf? Why does he take so long taunting Deckard, rather than just killing him? Why does he constantly go in different directions to Deckard, rather than just chasing him down? And, in the end, why does he save Deckard’s life before finally dying? Even more, why is he clearly mourning Pris’ death if replicants can’t experience emotions? Is he developing them? They did mention this earlier in the film, that the theory was that they might eventually develop emotions and thus they have a shorter life span to prevent that, but if that was what was happen why was it not in some way properly referenced or talked about? Why isn’t Deckard more shocked that this replicant did develop emotions? Why doesn’t he report it? Why does he just go about his business afterward? And why doesn’t Gaff do anything about it either?
Then there’s the bit with Gaff as well. He’s clearly found Rachael in Deckard’s apartment, tells her it’s “It’s too bad she won’t live, but then again, who does?”, before Deckard decides to run away with her and then finds the unicorn on the floor that I’m assuming Gaff left there (as he made similar things earlier in the film to seemingly taunt Deckard with, although it’s never really explained why or what the relationship is between them to warrant this). Does this mean Gaff has approved of them? Does this mean he’s now going to hunt Deckard (and Rachael) down? Was this meant to be a tease for a potential sequel? I don’t know what the answer to this is, save for the fact that it was a somewhat weird way to end the film, but then not any weirder than her running away with the guy who basically raped her!
The Verdict
If you want to know more about the way I rate films, check out my new post explaining exactly that. That can be found by clicking here: The Verdict: Ranking Systems
Now, this could be because I’m watching the film as a modern day viewer for the first time, rather than watching it in the 80s when possibly it was visually one of the more stunning films, and it’s more eccentric things didn’t seem as out-there as they are to me judging it today, but despite this being a cult-classic that people seemed shocked by the fact that I never saw, I have to say that other films from the 80s around the same time are much, much better. As a result, in spite of it’s cult classic nature, I can’t recommend this as a great film, or even as a good film. I’m going to have to give the film one of the lowest ratings of the films I’ve given to date, and that’s say that this film is decidedly average. There are a few things about it that are half-decent, the concept is very good (and the concept for the sequel looks even better, so I have high hopes for that), but as a whole Blade Runner just didn’t live up to my expectations of it, and seeing it a second time didn’t do anything to help me like it more.
Rating:
Average
Watch It On Netflix
If you’ve never seen it, I would recommend giving it a watch and judging it for yourself, obviously, but I wouldn’t recommend paying money for it. I now own a version of it (although I only paid £5.99) but even at the lower price I still feel like I possibly overpaid. The bad things about the film far outweigh the good, and honestly the whole “love scene” element to it left a bad taste in my mouth, and caused me to turn to my friend and ask the question that I started this verdict with. The worst part about the film, from my point of view, is that the characters are never properly developed and that only makes it all the worse at the end when the character Rachael falls in love with Deckard out of nowhere, when he’s been only an asshole to her and at best pressured her into sex with him and at worse outright raped her. That is my lasting impression of the film, and therefore I can’t say it’s good, which is disappointing. I’m hoping for far better things from the sequel.
If you disagree, or you want to defend the film, then please feel free. Maybe you can help me see something in it that I didn’t see. Or maybe you agree with me and you want to let me know that you didn’t like it either, and make me feel less like I’m a disappointment for not liking a film that people apparently rave about and list as one of the best of all time. You can agree or disagree with me on Facebook (facebook.com/ajebdon) or Twitter (@AlexisEbdon). Thanks for reading. I hope to bring you the Verdict of Blade Runner 2049 soon, and hopefully it’ll be far better than the original.