Just saw I, Robot. Did anyone on set think to mention to Proyas that there already was a Bladerunner? And 2001? And that episode of the Simpsons where they go to Itchy & Scratchy Land? And that maybe they should have tried putting something, oh I don't know, original into the story?

Don't get me wrong, I love a good mindless action movie about killer robots, and I certainly wasn't expecting brilliance, but I also really wasn't expecting to be that bored. (I spent most of the film waiting for them to reveal that Bridget Moynihan's character was a robot, since she seemed to have only the one facial expression, and no emotions. Then I realized she's just a really bland actress.)

I'm also a little disturbed that the moral of the story seemed to be "Thank god for racial profiling!"

I also really disliked the design of the robots. The faces especially didn't look physically plausible to me, and so I was never able to forget that I was watching CGI.

P-Cow, the three movies that really re-set visual style in the 80s were (as you figured) Blade Runner, Road Warrior and (I think) Diva.

God, I haven't seen Diva since I was, like, 16. I think they showed it on PBS. I really need to see if they have that at the library.

"I've.... seen things.... you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhauser gate.

"All those.... moments.... will be lost in time.... Like tears in rain.

"Time.... to die."

I think these lines were revealing Batty as an introspective entity, someone who could watch a scene of destruction and death, and from a distance, find beauty in it. I've always thought of Batty, and the other replicants, but mostly Batty, as a child, who, given a longer lifespan and some guidance, could have developed a human perspective. Perhaps it's just the softhearted sap in me. But the scene he describes, above, is the only sort of experience he was ever allowed to have. And that he rose above the brute enough to see what beauty there was made him closer to human, for me. (Also, I always thought it was "seabeams", again with the romantic sap)

I actually think it's better with the voice over.

Me too. It plays more like Chandler-noir with the voiceover, and makes the outre seem just another day at the office. For me, it adds another level of juxtaposition while at the same time trying to convince me that this is just routine, mundane police work. Or, I could just have read the rest of Sean's post:

I also rather prefer the notion that Deckard was human, as that means that Roy's last act was to save a human life, to see if that would finally make him real. It also sets up the essential existential exploration of the film - that Roy's artificial humanity is more alive than Deckard's rote existance.

As it is, I'll just add a big ole "Yes!" to that statement.

Loved Soldier, with the whole cast of ER, and Angelo from The Pretender. And Wyatt Russell as Kurt's character as a kid.

I saw I Robot today, and it was fun. Will is a very pretty man, and it is absolutely no hardship to look at him onscreen in any state of undress whatsoever. And I had a lot of fun watching the robot and listening for Alanisms. Is it art? In the sense of forwarding CGI movie tech, maybe. But yeah, very pretty car.

I, Robot also borrowed from Colossus: The Forbin Project, a 1970 movie where a supercomputer decides to take over the world for our own good.

2035 Audi.

eta: more Audi.

I always thought the whole point of Blade Runner is that we don't know whether Deckard (or anyone) is human, and it doesn't matter. Everybody wants to live, and takes a wild stab at doing that, and it's some kind of maturity to admit you can't go on doing that forever because your body quits out on you.

Even Tyrell, presumptuous villain Tyrell, with his glasses and his vaguely ominous air of well-preservedness -- his death is horrible, and Sebastian is there to cry over him. There isn't a death that isn't horrible and foregrounded in its horribleness in the whole movie.

As for the narration -- the gist of the above only works if the narration is absent. Rachael doesn't know her start date, so she doesn't know her death date -- nobody does, now Tyrell is dead. She's got a life with a limit built in, and she doesn't know where the limit lies, and how is that different from Deckard right next to her?

the gist of the above only works if the narration is absent

This is very true, and I really like the way you analyzed the point of BR. I think the voice-overs could be edited or modified to still give the Sam Spade feeling and not stomp all over the humanity question.

As for Batty's last act being saving a human life, I think it was. I mean no matter what Deckard is: Even if Deckard is a replicant, Batty may not have known that. He might've suspected, but either way Deckard was the Adversary. He wasn't part of Batty's tribe, wasn't part of the slave class the way all other replicants were. For Batty, Deckard represented human. And he saved him. And Deckard, who'd been used for years by humans, got saved by a replicant.

And the "tears in rain" speech never fails to make me cry. And I've never attended a funeral where I haven't thought of that speech.

I prefer BLADE RUNNER without the narration, but I'm not sure I would have gotten as much out of it seeing that version the first time. I saw the original, w/narration, happy ending, etc., in the theater, and the voice-over does tell you a few things you might not figure out the first time seeing it cold.

There may in fact, be no definitive version. The VHS of the narrated one had more graphic violence during the Tyrell, Zhara and Priss deaths (can't remember if the kept that in the "director's" cut - I use quotes, because Scott only let them call it that because he wanted it re-released, and would have preferred to add some other stuff, but the studio wouldn't pony up).

Jessica, re your whitefont, that's actually one of the 4? 5? things they kept from the book.

There's one particular story in the book where it comes into play (also the story that makes me disagree with the idea that this is how the "inevitable conclusion" would go down. I think the robots would try subterfuge and/or deception before all-out violence/revolution )

There may in fact, be no definitive version.

Pretty much. There are at least seven versions of Bladerunner, although most of the differences are minor. The video release used the international cut, which is why it's more violent. And then there are workprints and test-screening versions and it's all madness.

And yeah, Ford hates voiceovers in general, so he wasn't happy doing them. The one they finally used was also from the third time they'd rewritten and re-recorded the narration, so he was pretty well fed up by then. Personally, I like the noir-ness of it, too.

Diva! DavidS, have you read any of the books? They are remarkably strange. And kind of creepy.

Ugh. I just got home and turned on USA, as I often will, as I don't have digicable in here, and so I never know what's on, or even what channel is what, as I've moved into a new town. Usually by the time I get home USA is playing Law and Order:SVU reruns, so I just throw 'em on.

I've since looked this up on IMDB and have ascertained that what I'm watching is Species. All I know is that a much younger of the slutty girl from Dawson's Creek just started sprouting tentacles out of her face, and I'm horrified.

Hold me.