jobloffski
Posts: 1836
Joined: 30/9/2005
From: elsewhere
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True, Blade Runner didn't do very well on initial release. But people didn't know what they were walking into and were unprepared for the slow nature of the film, etc.
It would be insane to make a movie making judgements based on initial receipts instead of a sequel to a film that has a THIRTY YEAR history of becoming more and more appreciated, valued and loved.
What's more, films featuring 'tortured heroes' are much more commonplace in mainstream film than they were when BR first came out. And if BATMAN can be brought to the screen with the level of darkness and creeping dark mood that it has in recent years, I'm pretty sure Blade Runner, with, I repeat THIRTY YEARS worth of people discovering and rediscovering it can be made with integrity.
That said, what I am about to say will probably be considered heresy...
I don't think the story should be massively different structurally from the first one, given that that alternating between the work of the Blade Runner and the parts featuring Replicants are what helped create the mood of buld up to the final payoff.
Additionally, I wouldn't mind if all speculation about whether Deckard is a replicant or not is finally put to be, thusly:
The main character walks through the neon lit, rains soaked streets to a stall where he sits and orders noodles. Before he has a chance to tuck in properly, he is accosted by a police type, and there is a conversation that involves the stall owner saying
"He say you Brade Runner"
And the main character being taken in to return to work reluctantly...
The name of the character: Rick Deckard...
Rick Deckard is a standard 'hunter killer' Replicant set of implanted memories/personality type, brought online whenever there is a messy Replicant problem to deal with. The first desire he has, upon being 'incepted' is to go and buy noodles from a particular stall. He is, as part of the routine taken from there to have a terse conversation with his old boss about not being a Blade Runner any more, then briefed for his mission.
He goes on his mission. WE know he is a replicant. HE doesn't. Some of the old BR themes are automatically in play just by having the story begin this way. His character type and mannerisms will be familiar from the first film, his mission will be familiar. He has a different visual appearance to the previous model so that people who may have seen the previous model don't become confused/start rumours.But because we know 'Deckard' is just an android who dreams of electric sheep (because he has been made that way) a slightly different story is being told, but with enough familiarity for the story to totally belong in the same world as the previous one..
And depending on the nature of the quarry, who may well be similar to the previous quarry (they are designed to be off world workers, so their 'types' wont necessarily be too variable), a different central theme can be explored. BR has already explored the point at which created servants 'become sentient/human' so there is a little sense repeating that. But a protagonist who believes himself to be human, Replicants who have been inspired by the efforts of Batty, who has become a legend among Reps, and the existential crisis waiting for the hero who believes himself to be human when he finds out (perhaps by way of hints gleefully dropped by his quarry who wants to start a wider rebellion againsts their creators, and sifting of security footage evidence revelaing to Deckard that the person in the footage going after replicants is also called Deckard) and then the conflict between perhaps joining the Replicants and doing his job can provide some good, slow burning screen imagery, with the necessary ambivalence between black and white goodie baddie/turf to make it a thoughtful rather than slam bang action movie, with the world of the story being moved forwards by increments, rather than radical reinvention.
And I suggest that Karl Urban isn't the right man for the role. I'm not kidding about this...I suggest the world weariness of the face seen in the rain should belong to...Josh Hartnett.
The graphic deaths of the Replicants Deckard hunts down can build on the melancholia of the last film by presenting each one as a tragedy, reacted to ambivalently at first by Deckard, then gradually taking on the tragedy of these deaths in his reaction, ready for his discovery that he has been 'killing his own' kind. And by the time he encounters the leader of his quarry, he is as desperate as them in his knowledge that he was created to serve and as limited in lifespan as them.
The big choice for Deckard, will he behave as the human he previously believed himself to be, or join with the Replicant leader and be responsible for many more deaths, as part of a Replicant plan to recolonise earth with themselves, make a home of a planet that is becoming too harsh an environment for their creators, with only the lingering dregs of the gene pool, too poor to to leave remaining of the human race (who, despite basically being doomed, will fight for whatever life they are able to have, because, well, alive is alive, in whatever circumstances you happen to be).
And there will be an eerie, empty sadness, in seeing the Replicant who believes himself to be human behaving and acting and living exactly as the previous Deckard did, adding an implicit, unspoken condemnation of the cruelty of the creators making such puppets of their servants to the events of the film, and feeding into the drama of 'will Deckard join the Replican t revenge on such heartless creators).
< Message edited by jobloffski -- 22/9/2011 9:48:52 PM >
_____________________________
Yes, dreamers dream and doers do. But if dreamers DON'T dream, doers don't have anything TO do. Everything that is only here because people exist, only exists because someone thought of it., or in other words, dreamed it.
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BladeRunner II - 
. Also, Harrison is far too old to return in that role. Four year life expectancy and there is no telling how long he had been about when Bladerunner begins. He could have expired mere days after he fled with Rachel. Think Scott will avoid these characters all together. 
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