chris kilby
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Joined: 31/3/2010
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ORIGINAL: chris kilby
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Blade Runner 2.
LEAVE BLADE RUNNER. ALONE!!
Yeah, it'll probably be rubbish. Most belated sequels are. And yet... And yet... Blade Runner was always so compromised from the start, long before anxious financiers (and idiot preview audiences) forced that "Irving the Explainer" voice over and tacked-on happy ending to its original theatrical release.
Blade Runner lost a lot of expensive, hard-to-realise setpieces during its equally tortuous pre-production (Deckard's arrival in LA by train; Batty and co's escape from the off-world colonies, etc) which maybe Scott would still like to realise now effects technology has caught up with his imagination and he has the clout and resources to achieve them.
While I'm not sure about a direct sequel to Blade Runner, I for one would dearly love to see more of that world and maybe a further exploration of its rich, er, Dickish themes of memory, identity and humanity - there are plenty of unfilmed Philip K Dick novels along similar lines which could serve as the basis of a Blade Runner sequel. (The film of Minority Report was originally going to be Total Recall 2 remember!)
Blade Runner is one of my all-time favourites. Always has been, always will be - I too was there (in an empty cinema!) back in the day. But there is no denying it remains a flawed, hopelessly compromised film (even in its 'Final Cut' form) and far from what Scott originally hoped to achieve. Now while that is exactly the sort of forced compromise which often results in great art (necessity being the mother of invention and all that - unlimited resources didn't make The Phantom Menace a better film than Star Wars, did it? Quite the opposite) there is still a lot of 'tell don't show' in Blade Runner. And I don't know about anyone else, but I would quite like to see attack ships on fire off the Shoulder of Orion; C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate; I want to see things you people wouldn't believe!
So yeah, a Blade Runner sequel would probably suck. Most sequels do, belated sequels especially. But you never know. It might not. It might even be good. So benefit of the doubt, eh guys?
(And even if 'Blade Runner 2' sucks the paint job off a star destroyer, it won't detract from the original one whit, so what's the problem? The Godfather Part III doesn't adversely affect Parts I and II in the slightest. Nor, if you are that way inclined, does Prometheus 'harm' Alien any more than some of its sequels did. These things are always easily-ignored if you so wish. Besides, Scott first mooted what became Prometheus more than 30 years ago, so I'll believe it when I see it!)
Does it really need a sequel when the Blade Runner PC game of the late nineties was beyond perfect and captured much of the ethos of the original flick? (I do feel sorry for those that never had the opportunity to play the game).
Before I saw Prometheus, I was quietly confident and getting quite excited about the prospect of a Blade Runner sequel/prequel/follow-up (whatever the hell it's gonna be), especially considering Hampton Fancher's involvement. But then I saw Prometheus...
I'm still intrigued, though, and I think it could be good - I blame a lot of Prometheus' (many) short comings on the story and the script, which was nowt to do with Ridders of course, and we know that when it comes to Ridley Scott, a good story and good script are at least 50% of his good films (I know that goes for most films, but few other directors' films are affected so badly when the script and story aren't that good). The trouble is he will sign up to pretty much any basic premise that interests him (I believe he signed up to most of the films he's made in the last decade or so based on premise alone and before any proper script was in place) and doesn't tend to get too involved with developing the story, even if it is sub-par. But Fancher's a good writer and he hasn't done so much work that the years have burnt him out. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and hoping.
But whatever happens with it and whether it'll be any good or not, I just hope that he doesn't cast Russell Crowe.
If Blade Runner was made today there's a good chance it would star Russell Crowe. (Ten years ago it would have been Bruce Willis.)
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RE: LEAVE. GEORGE AND RIDLEY. ALONE!!! - 
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