Picked up the 4K HDR release as a “treat yourself” Christmas gift.
In my sea of geeky qualities, chief among them is the fact I let out an audible “Oh, wow…” after the opening cut to the LA skyline. Stunning is the only adjective I can think of to describe the visual feast the movie lays out, and this new transfer captures aspects of the sets, costuming, and overall texture which I’ve never noticed before. In fact, the degree of clarity is such that it belies the constructed nature of the world at times. You can see micro-inconsistencies in scale which reveal buildings to be miniatures, and the seams between said miniature cityscapes and matte paintings are easily detectable. Not that any of that matters. By the time the Tyrell Corporation headquarters is revealed, I had become fully immersed in the cyberpunk future of 2019.
However.
While this is undoubtedly the best the movie has ever looked, I’m also beginning to understand what Harrison Ford meant when he said (of the director’s cut version in 2000) “They haven’t put anything in, so it’s still an exercise in design.” Previously, it was easy to chalk that up to Harrison Ford being a grump, but, on this viewing, it became clear how little energy the film spends on developing Rachel’s character, which, in turn, makes Deckard’s whole arc fall flat. Granted, ambiguity is a big theme of the movie, so we were never going to get these characters to sit down and have a forthright conversation with one another about their wants and needs. I can sort of sketch in some details about why Rachel might latch onto Deckard, but it feels more like idle speculation than textual interpretation, and I have even less to go off of for Deckard’s interest in Rachel. Not to mention the slap-slap/kiss-kiss dynamic they have early on. I get that Scott is playing with film noir tropes and what not, but some things should stay in the 1940s.
So, as far as it goes as an “exercise in design”, its 5/5, top tier, awe-inspiring stuff. As a narrative feature, well, it’s got flaws, but they’re well-worth pushing past to enjoy everything else.
Final tidbit: Rutger Hauer is just amazing here. Some of the things he is asked to say are so navel-gazey and maudlin, but he manages to pull it off (with assistance from the movie’s elegiac tone, which helps the pretension go down).
Blade Runner - Final Cut
Picked up the 4K HDR release as a “treat yourself” Christmas gift.
In my sea of geeky qualities, chief among them is the fact I let out an audible “Oh, wow…” after the opening cut to the LA skyline. Stunning is the only adjective I can think of to describe the visual feast the movie lays out, and this new transfer captures aspects of the sets, costuming, and overall texture which I’ve never noticed before. In fact, the degree of clarity is such that it belies the constructed nature of the world at times. You can see micro-inconsistencies in scale which reveal buildings to be miniatures, and the seams between said miniature cityscapes and matte paintings are easily detectable. Not that any of that matters. By the time the Tyrell Corporation headquarters is revealed, I had become fully immersed in the cyberpunk future of 2019.
However.
While this is undoubtedly the best the movie has ever looked, I’m also beginning to understand what Harrison Ford meant when he said (of the director’s cut version in 2000) “They haven’t put anything in, so it’s still an exercise in design.” Previously, it was easy to chalk that up to Harrison Ford being a grump, but, on this viewing, it became clear how little energy the film spends on developing Rachel’s character, which, in turn, makes Deckard’s whole arc fall flat. Granted, ambiguity is a big theme of the movie, so we were never going to get these characters to sit down and have a forthright conversation with one another about their wants and needs. I can sort of sketch in some details about why Rachel might latch onto Deckard, but it feels more like idle speculation than textual interpretation, and I have even less to go off of for Deckard’s interest in Rachel. Not to mention the slap-slap/kiss-kiss dynamic they have early on. I get that Scott is playing with film noir tropes and what not, but some things should stay in the 1940s.
So, as far as it goes as an “exercise in design”, its 5/5, top tier, awe-inspiring stuff. As a narrative feature, well, it’s got flaws, but they’re well-worth pushing past to enjoy everything else.
Final tidbit: Rutger Hauer is just amazing here. Some of the things he is asked to say are so navel-gazey and maudlin, but he manages to pull it off (with assistance from the movie’s elegiac tone, which helps the pretension go down).