This was my second time watching Blade Runner. The first time I was it was several years ago, and at the time I didn't like it that much. This time around I enjoyed it much more. I was able to appreciate aspects like the film noir inspiration more, and the christian symbolism at the end. Harrison Ford was great as Deckard, and he was able to recapture the detective noir from older detective films. I think Rutger Hauer was the best though, and had the most powerful screen presence. His goal to find his creator and get the other replicants to live past their four year life span shows a being who has more humanity than those on Earth. The dystopian society that Earth has become has diminished the humanity left on Earth, and those left are bombarded with advertisements of a better life off world. It's a dystopian world with the dream of a utopian life that most will never reach. That idea was also used recently in the Neil Blomkamp film Elysium. The off world was shown, but those left on Earth are lower class, in a broken, totalitarian life. That's just one of many examples of the inspiration that Ridley Scott's film has had.
Ridley Scott's Blade Runner was ahead of it's time, with ideas and great effects for the time to create the a postmodernist and brilliant depiction of a futuristic Los Angeles. Klein's article states how there were enthusiasts of the film who after its release wanted a Los Angeles built in the same fashion. That idea in itself is odd to me, because the city is overpopulated it seems, grimy, and doesn't seem like a desirable place to live. Aesthetically it's a very cool city and has some really good designs, but it would not be a good place to actually live in. As far as the claims of style over substance, I do get what critics meant by that. There is a heavy, and awesome style to the film, but there is still a good deal of substance, especially in analysis like we had in class. The religious symbolism, the idea of the replicants being more human than the actual humans. Also Ridley Scott's films pretty much always have some great substance to it, and Blade Runner doesn't fail in that aspect to me, and that's something I didn't appreciate as much when I had seen it when I was younger.
I also want to mention, I really like the point that was made in class about the possible connection between Scott's Blade Runner and Alien and how the Tyrell Corporation may have been a competitor for the Weyland-Yutani corporation. It's interesting because both corporation created organic beings that were essentially slaves.
