Blade Runner fans?

[torrzent]

Thoroughly disappointing movie from start to finish......right from the fuzzy illegible script setting up the story on the first screen(not to mention various other fuzzy captions which were obviously created for 3D).

Movie seemed to only be about special effects.  Whatever happened to a great story and great acting...where are Bogart and McCall when you need them?

[ExpatOilWorker]

2 hours ago, torrzent said:

Thoroughly disappointing movie from start to finish......right from the fuzzy illegible script setting up the story on the first screen(not to mention various other fuzzy captions which were obviously created for 3D).

Movie seemed to only be about special effects.  Whatever happened to a great story and great acting...where are Bogart and McCall when you need them?

Totally agree. I also miss movies with a great storyline, like The Shawshank Redemption.

[thaibeachlovers]

13 hours ago, NotWhatItWasnt said:

The book was much better,  the original film failed miserably to get across the main point of only humans being able to experience empathy

Girly films about empathy don't make lots of money.

Blade Runner, the movie was made to make money.

[torrzent]

6 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Girly films about empathy don't make lots of money.

Blade Runner, the movie was made to make money.

which it failed at miserably......next.....

[thaibeachlovers]

17 hours ago, torrzent said:

which it failed at miserably......next.....

Regardless of whether it made money or not, it wasn't made to be a girly movie about empathy and sitting around getting in touch with their feelings.

Death and violence- excellent.

Perhaps the problem with the new one is that it does go down the emotional route, and not enough of the ultraviolence. Same with the new wimpy version of Star Wars. Too much "girls are strong and can do anything, but are in touch with their emotions" stuff by far. Pity the real actresses can't say no to an unpleasant creep that exploits them.

[NotWhatItWasnt]

13 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Regardless of whether it made money or not, it wasn't made to be a girly movie about empathy and sitting around getting in touch with their feelings.

Death and violence- excellent.

Perhaps the problem with the new one is that it does go down the emotional route, and not enough of the ultraviolence. Same with the new wimpy version of Star Wars. Too much "girls are strong and can do anything, but are in touch with their emotions" stuff by far. Pity the real actresses can't say no to an unpleasant creep that exploits them.

thaibeachlovers the "Girly" empathy you are referring to is not mentioned in the book.

 

Philip K Dicks novels were like his life, dark, in fact, the movie was way more girly than the book, which you obviously have not read.

 

The replicants of the book were more detached and psychotic than in the original film, as they did not possess the ability to empathize, this failing being a way blade runners were able to detect them using an empathy test.

 

The Roy Batty of the book would not have made the speech about sea beams glittering in the dark or moments being lost like tears in the rain.

 

 

 

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

On ‎10‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 3:55 AM, NotWhatItWasnt said:

thaibeachlovers the "Girly" empathy you are referring to is not mentioned in the book.

 

Philip K Dicks novels were like his life, dark, in fact, the movie was way more girly than the book, which you obviously have not read.

 

The replicants of the book were more detached and psychotic than in the original film, as they did not possess the ability to empathize, this failing being a way blade runners were able to detect them using an empathy test.

 

The Roy Batty of the book would not have made the speech about sea beams glittering in the dark or moments being lost like tears in the rain.

 

 

 

 

 

Which is why films should be different to books, which require imagination.

That speech was probably the highlight of the movie, but, as you say, wasn't in the book, which I never read.

I don't see it as portraying "empathy", rather as regret as to what he was going to lose when he expired. After all, if they had no reason to regret dying, they wouldn't have come to Earth to try and extend their lives.

 

As I get older and nearer to death, it's the memory of what I experienced that makes me regret my inevitable demise, not the life I'm leading now, which is but a shadow of what was in the past, so I can empathise with the replicant on that one.

[JSixpack]

On 10/18/2017 at 8:48 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

Back to the OP, it just goes to show that the film companies are so desperate to make money that they resurrected this one and stuck Harrison in just to get his name on the billboard. They knew all us fans would go. I doubt it's going to get a cult following though. Too long, too confusing and too many special effects instead of a plot.

2

 

No, Sony, Warner Bros, and Columbia aren't by any means desperate. No, continuing the character of Deckard saved a lot of risky new storyline development by making him integral to the entire plot of the sequel. You could argue that Edward James Olmos was entirely gratuitous but he was of course welcomed by fans as well. Sequels typically and quite logically carry over characters (as w/ Olmos, and Sean Young's reproduction) from their originals. Hence the charge about sticking in Ford simply for star power is nonsense.

 

On 10/19/2017 at 7:44 AM, torrzent said:

Movie seemed to only be about special effects.  Whatever happened to a great story and great acting...where are Bogart and McCall when you need them?

 

 

1. No. 2. How many Bogarts can arise in two centuries? You mean you were impressed with McCall's performance in War Of The Satellites? Ana de Armas, Robin Wright, and Sylvia Hoeks needn't be worried about that ghost.

 

On 10/20/2017 at 2:21 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

Perhaps the problem with the new one is that it does go down the emotional route, and not enough of the ultraviolence.

 

 

No, overall the first BR goes far further down the emotional route than does second. No comparison, really. The second definitely did have some fightin' & shootin'--and sadistic violence that left no sympathy, or empathy, for the killers. The latter was one of the factors that made it a lesser movie. 

 

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I don't see it as portraying "empathy", rather as regret as to what he was going to lose when he expired. After all, if they had no reason to regret dying, they wouldn't have come to Earth to try and extend their lives.

 

 

The objective isn't "portraying empathy," which the replicants did to some degree among themselves, but creating it in the audience, which in fact BR did through Batty's speech and Harrison Ford's reaction to Batty. You admit as much in reference to yourself:

 

Quote

As I get older and nearer to death, it's the memory of what I experienced that makes me regret my inevitable demise, not the life I'm leading now, which is but a shadow of what was in the past, so I can empathise with the replicant on that one.

1

 

And this was prepared in Batty's saving Ford earlier and very purposefully implanting the seeds of empathy with a little speech about "that's how it feels." Now you probably feel that during every visit to Thai immigration, no?

 

Furthermore the predicament and deaths of the other replicants are treated with some sympathy, especially that of Zhora, which is elevated into a tragedy. There she was a working girl with no work permit just tryin' to make an honest credit . . . . Even when they're killin', they're given some halfway understandable motivation, except for the cases perhaps of Chew and J. F. Sebastian--which happen off screen, if they happen. It all feeds into the pathos of the love between Rachael and Deckard. The heart of the original BR is a tragic love story ("Too bad she won't live") referenced but not shared by the sequel.

 

Edited October 25, 2017 by JSixpack

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, JSixpack said:

 

1 hour ago, JSixpack said:

No, Sony, Warner Bros, and Columbia aren't by any means desperate.

 

You could argue that Edward James Olmos was entirely gratuitous but he was of course welcomed by fans as well. Sequels typically and quite logically carry over characters (as w/ Olmos, and Sean Young's reproduction) from their originals. Hence the charge about sticking in Ford simply for star power is nonsense.

 

 

The objective isn't "portraying empathy," which the replicants did to some degree among themselves, but creating it in the audience, which in fact BR did through Batty's speech and Harrison Ford's reaction to Batty. You admit as much in reference to yourself:

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://variety.com/2017/biz/asia/losses-at-sony-pictures-division-cut-group-profits-1201976056/

Sony..........while its Pictures division posted a loss of $719M year-on-year, driven by box office underperformance

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros.

On October 22, 2016, AT&T reached a deal to buy Time Warner for $108.7 billion

 

Columbia is owned by Sony.

 

I'm guessing they do need all the help they can get financially.

 

LOL. I didn't even realise it was Olmos till the paper bird clue. He did look rather different in the original, as did most of us that long ago. I certainly doubt that anyone went to see it because of him.

Anyway, his contribution while not pointless did little to advance the story IMO. His contribution was so minor that it got no mention at all on the Wikipedia review.

I'm afraid that I missed quite a lot as I found the movie so boring for so much of it I tended to tune it out till a bit of the ultra violence came along.

 

I certainly developed empathy for the replicants, given that humans made something that looked like humans, acted like humans, had emotions like humans, and then treated them like disposable slaves. A theme explored in more than a few excellent films, notably the Battlestar Galactica series, in which our friend Olmos features.

I think by the end, I was rooting for the replicants over the humans, especially seeing as how humans had stuffed the planet, and were then deserting it to go destroy a bunch of other planets. Not many were sympathetic characters that I remember.

 

Anyway, my benchmark for a great film, rather than a good film is if I remember it after I've seen it without prompting. Blade Runner fits that category, but honestly, if not for seeing this thread, I haven't given B R 2 a thought. It just didn't push the right buttons for true greatness, IMO.

 

 

 

[JSixpack]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

 

 

http://variety.com/2017/biz/asia/losses-at-sony-pictures-division-cut-group-profits-1201976056/

Sony..........while its Pictures division posted a loss of $719M year-on-year, driven by box office underperformance

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros.

On October 22, 2016, AT&T reached a deal to buy Time Warner for $108.7 billion

 

Columbia is owned by Sony.

 

I'm guessing they do need all the help they can get financially.

 

 

Sony forecasts its highest profits in 20 years

Expectations for fiscal 2017 mark reversal from years of writedowns

 

Seems you don't know really understand mergers, not surprisingly. And Warner Bros has been doing well.

 

Sony produced a number of recent pics that didn't do so well at the box office, such as Arrival and Passengers. Arrival got a lot of critical acclaim. In fact BR 2049 did well w/ the critics on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. It'll surely be profitable in the end. So there's no reason to single out the production of any sequel per se as an act of "desperation" any more than the other pics were produced out of "desperation." Just hot air. 

 

Quote

It just didn't push the right buttons for true greatness, IMO.

 

Now you merely have to discover what those buttons actually are.

 

Just because you don't like a movie doesn't warrant trashing it for spurious reasons and wasting people's attention on the forum. 

Edited October 25, 2017 by JSixpack

[bazza73]

23 minutes ago, JSixpack said:

 

Just because you don't like a movie doesn't warrant trashing it for spurious reasons and wasting people's attention on the forum. 

Ah, Jsixpack. Love your posts, especially when you are exercising your famous tact and diplomacy.