By now you must have been made aware that November is Blade Runner month. The social media-verse has been absolutely teeming with posts to remind us but I have to say that all the digital hot air currently befouling the ethernet was made by what I like to call the Reo -Speedwagon-bois. You know, the heard it from a friend whooooo, heard it from a friend whooo, heard it from another how awesome the Blade Runner movie is. They don’t know jack but want us to believe how speshul they are because they’ve jerked off to the movie a thousand times in babusya’s basement.
I can be derisive, you see, because I was THERE, bitchez! I saw the original Blade Runner movie in 1982 at what was then probably one of the last drive-in movie venues. It was an amazing 2-for-1 Saturday night in July at the old drive-in starting with Escape From New York and topped off with BR. I was just starting HS (Yes, I am that old) and it was a loooooooong night of two of sci-fi’s greatest hits.
Ah yes, I remember it well—greasy burgers & fries washed down with a 40-gallon drum of Coca-Cola flavored with real sugar (NOT the chemical shit storm it is today) from the concession stand and followed up with a 2-mile trek through children of the corn land to get to the restroom. And let’s not leave out from our misty water colored memories the tantalizing treat we dove into AFTER consuming our transfats & caffeine–Velveeta melted and poured over Doritos (before they contained chemicals that cause anal leakage.) Yum! Overkill, yes, but delicious, nonetheless. The official term, Nachos, had not been coined or maybe it was because Mexican culture hadn’t yet displaced Americana. All this was yours for a mere $8.50 including the price of admission for as many bodies you could cram into the Buick. Use of the trunk not necessary since there was no limit.
If you take a stroll around the net today and read some of the posts others have made about BR month, you’ll fast determine that most of them (the bitter little trolls who have nothing else to say) either want to jeer at BR’s popularity for no other reason (that I can discern) than having zero appreciation for the movie, the fan-clan that developed around it, consequently, OR they want to bloviate/whine about climate change and/or the tech in the movie and the lack of it having developed during contemporary times. Yes, really. Apparently, the speshul snowflakes need a safe space to cry about how DARE reality NOT live up to fake news media tech expectations.
Blade Runner was based on a shitty short story written by Philip K. Dick and published in 1968 entitled, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The only similarities it shares with the movie are Rick Deckard and six escapee Nexus-6 androids set during the post-apocalyptic future. But for Ridley Scott, the book would have been relegated to the kindling pile and Harrison Ford would have gone through his life as being known only for playing a dimpled chin, bumbling bounty hunter whose chief claim to fame was banging bun head Lea in a cheesy space opera that ripped off Frank Herbert’s Dune books.
Scott transformed a mediocre book into a kick ass piece of sci-fi folklore and released the movie in 1982. Dick had set the year to 1992 but Scott set it mere thirty-seven years into the future in 2019 which was perfect according to my teen self’s opinion, thank you, very much. The time frame was close enough to what was then, the current year, to stay firmly rooted in reality, and just far off enough to enable dreaming about the day when we’d have flying cars, human-like androids and off-world colonies.
BR is essentially a love story between Deckard (Who may even be a replicant himself–the flame wars still wage today) and Rachel, who is introduced as the niece of the CEO of the Tyrell Corporation but who is really a unique prototype replicant with implanted memories from Tyrell’s niece and whose lack of longevity is not an issue in the same manner as the Nexus-6 sociopaths. The rest of the story in between is a high tech wet dream set to a soundtrack created by Greek musician and composer, Vangelis. In fact, the music is a very much overlooked, undervalued absolute masterpiece as musical accompaniment goes.
The fact that we’re even having a discussion about an event that was referenced in a thirty-seven year old movie speaks volumes all by itself, so if you haven’t seen it then you’ve missed out, loser. Go break three of your fingers–one for each of the killer skin jobs Deckard retired.
I leave you with my favorite scene –
Prattle On, Boyo 