Sci-Fi | Wanderings and ... wonderings.

Oct 07 2017

Blade Runner 2049.

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Seeing this Blade Runner (1982) sequel was like rendezvousing with old friends after a long hiatus and then finding your erstwhile chums to be far more successful than yourself – it’s quite possibly a better movie than the early eighties game-changer.

Throughout this extraordinary movie I was reminded of Inception (2010) in how this picture treats the concept of creating your own world within a matchbox apartment, which isn’t a risible view of the future but a contemporary reality. We create our own worlds within our private spaces, and with your rudimentary Wi-Fi and laptop any engagement with the outside circus is taken care of. In the Los Angeles of 2049 you have an absolute toilet (the go-around adjective appears to be ‘dystopian’) of a city yet within one’s four walls anything is possible.

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There are scenes of such beauty in this movie that I’ve seldom seen in recent cinema – aesthetics married to a purpose. So often these days I sit gobsmacked at the constant artillery barrage of nonsensical flicks consisting of nincompoops in capes saving the world. Ridiculous gibberish.

Anyway, you must see this film. Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling in the same movie. What a time to be alive.

Blade Runner (1982) is back.

Just think, Blade Runner (1982) predicted that by 2019 we’d have flying cars, replicants, and offshore colonies. We’ve got just over a year to go and your average human, i.e. me, still thinks doodling a cock on a steamed-up bus window is an act of comedic genius.

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What did that seminal movie get right about the world we live in today? Rick Deckard’s hover car – No; Synthetic humans – No; Private-sector space exploration – No.

The movie does anticipate Skype, if only with the added surrealism of an interaction occurring in a bar. Skype in public? I’m too scared to answer my phone on the bus. There are exceptions in my neck of the woods. Only last week, for example, I listened with great curiousity to a bloke who appeared to be on methadone scream down the proverbial dog & bone at his girlfriend for a good five minutes, instructing her in meticulous detail to purchase chicken (“Any fuckin’ kind”) for din-dins.

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The movie nails a few things, though. The late 20th century question and present-day conundrum that’s still a wee bit off being ‘hot topic’ – the moral and ethical consequences of creating intelligent life forms and how we can treat ‘them’ considering the consciousness on display. We’ve had Dolly the sheep, and that appears to be the apotheosis as of writing.

From a purely cinematic standpoint, the movie still holds up. It’s more dense and packed with breathtaking imagery than a thousand motion pictures since. I find parallels with Taxi Driver (1976). Someone (I don’t know who) once said that big cities breed loneliness, and I agree with such a sentiment. Deckard is one sad individual with not an ounce of self-awareness who ends up falling in love with a robot. There’s a lot to be said about that – the modern male’s fear of isolation and introspection. It’s easier to put your energies into someone else than figure out what you are or wish to be.

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Blade Runner 2049 (2017) is released next month. It’s been 35 years since Rutger Hauer chased Harrison Ford around those teary rooftops. I fully expect the real-life denizens of Earth circa 2049 to be driving cars using their eyelids and I also predict a gram of cocaine being a compulsory 50p breakfast choice (no more Weetabix). That’s my vision of the future.

Total Recall – Dreams of Mars.

“You’re a top operative working undercover on an important mission. People are trying to kill you left and right. You meet this beautiful exotic woman. I don’t want to spoil it for you, Doug, but you rest assured that by the time the trip is over, you get the girl, kill the bad guys, and save the entire planet.”

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Philip K. Dick wrote We Can Remember It for You Wholesale in 1966. I’ve never read the short story, only having on about 16 occasions watched the movie adaptation Total Recall (1990). As a kid I was in it for the action and Arnie one-liners. As an alleged adult it’s the purchased memory theme that brings me back, the ambuiguity as to whether Quaid’s Secret Agent adventure is fantasy or not.

Perhaps the peak Arnie flick – a blistering entertainment married to cerebral ideas and conceits – it still stands as one of the most accessible sci-fi works over the past 30 years. The future of the holiday here is the downloading of data, the transcending of air travel. Returning with artefacts aside, what are journeys but the accumulation of memories, imprints which serve as building blocks of the id.

The movie – and, I presume, the short story – was way ahead of its time, and still holds up.

Quaid’s Rekall program: Blue Sky on Mars.

Tagged Arnie, Mars, Philip K. Dick, Sci-Fi, Total Recall

Wanderings and … wonderings.

Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

Blade Runner 2049.

Blade Runner (1982) is back.

Total Recall – Dreams of Mars.