Just happened to stumble over an airing of “Blade Runner” on IFC, which I haven’t seen in years. It was the Director’s Cut, made quickly obvious by the lack of Harrison Ford’s obviously recorded-under-protest voice over narrative. Ariel was watching it with me as I tried to explain to her that a lot of stuff you pretty much take as standard tropes in SF and movies first turned up in “Blade Runner.”
I still remember when I first saw it: At an advance screening for licensees, since Marvel published a “Blade Runner” tie in comic book. The volume was cranked up to the roof and beyond, and I came out of the theater so deaf that it put me off the film for years because I associated it with ringing in my ears. But I finally caught up with it again when the DC came out on laserdisk, and boy, was it a revelation once I could truly appreciate the film itself.
I still remember when they first introduced a gigantic screen in Times Square that had huge commercial images on it. I stood there looking up at it, and I heard more than one person muttering around me “Blade Runner” before shaking their heads and walking away. One step closer to a dystopian, bleak society of perpetual rain and darkness?
PAD
• 
Recent Comments