Moviedrome #2: Dick and Dystopia
VOTE:
Moviedrome is sharing the love. As well as offering my own picks (beware, Japanese horror is next) I will go around the KB gang offering the chance for Moviedromeification and otherwise co-ordinate the series, post the blogpolls etc. This is Elisabeth’s choice:
Okay, so my Steel Magnolias vs. Stepmom Moviedrome got shot down. I had to go with my second choice: Blade Runner vs. Minority Report (hat tip, meems).
For all you science fiction skeptics out there, these are good movies. GOOD movies. Especially Blade Runner. This movie is an iconoclast (woo-hoo! I’ve been WAITING for an opportunity to use that word in the right context!) – Blade Runner sets the baseline from which all other science fiction movies are made. And as part of your cultural literacy, you should watch it.
So here’s the scoop: these are two movies based on stories written by Phillip K. Dick. Blade Runner was made in 1982, and takes place in the year 2019. Minority Report was released in 2002, and takes place in the year 2054. Check out the different ideas the directors had of the future (2019 isn’t that far away from now, yikes!). And also, the characters/actors: Tom Cruise vs. Harrison Ford.
Disclaimer: Blade Runner is rated R, but it was made in 1982, so it’s pretty much the same as watching T.V. shows such as “24″ (with one or two f-words thrown in for good measure). Minority Report is PG-13. A bit more violent and some yucky stuff happens to Tom Cruise’s eye.
My favorite quote from Blade Runner:
Pris: Must get lonely here, J.F.
J.F. Sebastian: Not really. I MAKE friends. They’re toys. My friends are toys. I make them. It’s a hobby.
I’m a genetic designer.
(Check out Wikipedia on these movies (cooler than IMDB) here and here)
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Moviedrome Winners so far:
Spirited Away
I adore Blade Runner, but the film was mis-managed from the first reel–confusion over the script, a rushed production schedule, and it’s financing was complete Ponzi scheme. The originally released film had a completely out-of-place voice-over from Harrison Ford and a tacky ending with some footage Ridley Scott stole from Stanley Kubrick; the “definitive version” is better, but still a rush job. Ridley has gone back and really, finally, thoroughly cleaned up and re-edited the film…and of course that version can’t be released, because no one knows who the hell actually owns the rights to the film anymore.
Minority Report, by contrast, is a clean and smart film all the way through. The only problem is that the ending–the final 20 minutes or so–are almost stereotypical Bad Spielberg: a lame, too-tidy, emotionally idealistic and hence false wrap-up to all that went before. If the film had ended with Cruise being locked away forever, that would have been a properly chilling thriller.
With all it’s problems, I go with Blade Runner.
Comment by Russell Arben Fox — January 24, 2006 @ 10:17 am
Yeah, lame ending to MR.
So, why was PKD such a genius at this stuff?
Comment by Ronan — January 24, 2006 @ 10:27 am
I don’t like either, but I choose Blade Runner, which still has a reputation for being a cutting edge sci-fi after 25 years, even though it wasn’t ever good, and it wasn’t successful.
Minority Report, is too ludicrous to be entertaining.
Comment by D. Fletcher — January 24, 2006 @ 11:27 am
Blade Runner all the way, no question. Minority Report comes nowhere close to asking the questions it should have.
Comment by Supergenius — January 24, 2006 @ 11:56 am
for a good PKD discussion, see Wired’s article here.
Comment by Supergenius — January 24, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
Other PKD movies:
Paycheck (crap)
Total Recall (quite good)
Anyone seen any of these?
Comment by Ronan — January 24, 2006 @ 12:07 pm
[...] Ronan: Moviedrome #2Supergenius: Moviedrome #2Supergenius: Moviedrome #2BTD Greg: Caldecott, Newbery and KingD. Fletcher: Moviedrome #2Ronan: Moviedrome #2Russell Arben Fox: Moviedrome #2Allison: Caldecott, Newbery and KingBryce I: Caldecott, Newbery and KingAllison: Caldecott, Newbery and KingAllison: Caldecott, Newbery and Kingmeems: Caldecott, Newbery and KingPris: Caldecott, Newbery and Kingchronicler: Tonight… Tonight Is ARoastedTomatoes: Tonight… Tonight Is A [...]
Pingback by Kulturblog » When Did Harrison Ford Give Up? — January 24, 2006 @ 2:11 pm
They’re both strong, in different ways.
Minority Report is _almost_ as good of an idea as Blade Runner. Blade Runner questions the nature of what it is to be human. Minority Report questions how we build our narratives from information that may be flawed.
On the question of leads, I think they’re also pretty well matched. Tom Cruise is serviceable and even good, in a complex role. Harrison Ford makes Blade Runner work, too. Neither excels, but neither abuses the material.
That said, I’m going with Blade Runner, absolutely. First, because Ridley Scott’s dystopia set the standard for a generation of movies. Without Blade Runner, there would be no Batman, Robocop, Matrix, or a thousand other films about dark, dystopic futures.
Second, because of Rutger Hauer, who perfectly delivers what is for my money one of the best lines in all of cinema, about memory and impermanence and lost moments and mortality:
“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 the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”
Comment by Kaimi — January 24, 2006 @ 2:16 pm
Kaimi,
What about Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)? I haven’t seen Blade Runner yet, so I can’t comment on whatever unique influence it might have on the dark, dystopic futures depicted in subsequent films. But the dark, dystopic future certainly has roots further back than 1982. The depiction of the future in Metropolis is as disturbing as any other depiction I’ve seen. Is there a specific aspect of Blade Runner‘s depiction hadn’t been done before?
Comment by Tom — January 24, 2006 @ 3:24 pm
Okay, well, I liked Minority Report better than Blade Runner. So I guess I’ll be the lone vote on Moviedrome for Minority Report – just like I was for Playlist Thunderdome with “Let it Be”. Sigh.
The Precogs are SO much cooler than the Replicants.
Comment by Elisabeth — January 24, 2006 @ 3:26 pm
Well, Elisabeth, I’m very fond of Minority Report so Blade Runner is fighting an uphill battle for my vote. I’ll have to watch it before I decide, of course.
Comment by Tom — January 24, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
Yeay, Tom! You really should watch Blade Runner - it’s very good. It’s sort of like watching grainy old movies of Olympic ice-skating, where the skaters won gold medals for a couple of double loops and a camel spin. Now, skaters have to land quad toeloops, quad Salchows and triple Axels all perfectly one after the other to get any attention from the judges.
So even though it’s much more exciting to watch ice skating in 2006 than in 1926, you can certainly appreciate the lyric beauty of the early Olympic skaters while preferring the awesome power of the triple Axel. (click here for a video of Tonya Harding landing one perfectly). Can you tell I can’t wait for the Olympics to start!?!
Comment by Elisabeth — January 24, 2006 @ 6:15 pm
I’ve only seen pieces of Blade Runner on tv. I’ve been meaning to pick up some PKD books forever and keep forgetting to. I think he did a lot of drugs?
One thing that bugs me about futuristic sci fi movies is that they’re not set far enough in the future to be realistic. MR is 30 years in the future, and there’s highways going up and down skyscrapers, etc? Yeah right. It’ll take them that long just to rebuild the waterfront in downtown Seattle.
Comment by Susan M — January 24, 2006 @ 6:21 pm
I have only seen MR once, but the ending bugged me. I’m trying to remember why… Did it have the hated “Disney ending” in which the hero spares his enemy’s life, and the enemy makes one last flawed attempt to kill the hero, only to off himself in the process?
BR is flawed but far superior.
Maybe MR vs Vanilla Sky would have been a closer battle. Or MR v AI.
Comment by a random John — January 24, 2006 @ 8:09 pm
Thanks Elisabeth.
Are we actually supposed to go and watch these films or just talk about them? It seems like everyone’s pre-voting. I want to see them back to back before I decide. I really like films where there’s a battle between human nature and technology, and the sweetness of humanity wins out in the end.
arJ; MR v. AI would be great. Would Vanilla Sky v. Matrix make sense?
Comment by meems — January 24, 2006 @ 9:03 pm
Oddly enough, I picked up a copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep at the library last week, and am halfway through i (It has the words BLADE RUNNER in bold red letters on the front, with the actual title in smaller print).
Like Susan M, I’ve only mostly seen Blade Runner (the movie). Thinking about it makes me wax nostalgic for one of the great television programs of my youth, Max Headroom (the sci-fi one, not the talk show). Was there ever a more perfect show? Matt Frewer (underappreciated comic mastermind), Amanda Pays (British hottie) and a nerdy uber-geek named Bryce. What more could you ask of a show?
Comment by Bryce I — January 24, 2006 @ 9:27 pm
Max Headroom rocked. I adored that show, and all….what, eleven episodes? My first glimpse of cyberpunk, preceding my exposure to the dystopian Blade Runner by several years.
Comment by Russell Arben Fox — January 24, 2006 @ 11:06 pm
Wow, Amanda Pays! She was in my all time absolute favorite Rob Lowe movie Oxford Blues. Good stuff.
Comment by Elisabeth — January 24, 2006 @ 11:46 pm
AI and Vanilla Sky should not be allowed in the Moviedrome, on account of their overwhelming suckitude.
This is a good match-up, Elisabeth. I’ll have to rent BR again; I remember renting it because of its mythical status and not enjoying it. I remember that half the time it was so dark I couldn’t see what was going on.
MR was slick-looking, but not all that deep.
Comment by NFlanders — January 25, 2006 @ 2:58 am
The only thing wrong with Vanilla Sky, was that you couldn’t see Tom Cruise’s real face for most of the movie.
Comment by meems — January 25, 2006 @ 7:18 am
Meems,
You want rules?! OK, 1) watch the movies, and 2)come back and vote next week (when I will post a blogpoll on this post, as I did for #1). In the meantime, discuss away and suggest other films by all means.
Comment by Ronan — January 25, 2006 @ 7:38 am
Ronan, thank you! I guess I’m not very abstract random right now.
Comment by meems — January 25, 2006 @ 9:51 am
Ned Flanders rightly pointed out the suckitude of Vanilla Sky– Matrix vs. Dark City, I think would be a better comparison (the first Matrix only; the other two brought new meaning to the word “suckitude.”
more on Dark City:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_city
Comment by dc — January 26, 2006 @ 8:13 pm
dc,
how come I’ve never heard of Dark City. looks really good.
Comment by Ronan — January 27, 2006 @ 11:35 am
It is really good. I don’t know why Dark City is overlooked. Ebert listed it as best movie of the year when it came out, and gives a great audio commentary on the DVD (he should do more of these–his commentaries are superb).
Matrix and Dark City cover much of the same ground– Dark City as Sci-fi Noir, Matrix as sci-fi action.
Comment by dc — January 27, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
I watched Blade Runner and rewatched Minority Report. Minority Report wins.
Before I pick my fight with the BR lovers I should say that I liked it a lot. It’s very thoughtful and thought-provoking. It’s just that MR is superior.
The biggest advantage that MR has is the narrative. MR is a more engaging and more complex story and it is a much better-told story. It’s perfectly fluid, perfectly paced, and perfectly put together. BR suffers, I think, because it can’t decide on a protagonist. I understand that you’re supposed to sympathize with both Deckard (the Harrison Ford character) and Roy Batty (the Rutger Hauer character) so that you’re conflicted during the climactic confrontation between the two and I think the film accomplishes this. But the dual protagonist thing, at least the way it was done here, makes for a clunky narrative. There is too much time in which the title character is not onscreen. Not only that, a lot of the onscreen action is entirely inconsequential to Deckard. You don’t get the sense that Deckard is even actively pursuing the replicants for much of the time and what is shown of the pursuit is disjointed. The viewer doesn’t fully participate in the pursuit from either perspective. Additionally, Scott spends too much time showing us the Future itself, as opposed to the characters’ interaction with the Future, which detracts from our engagement with the characters’ plights. All of which makes for a viewing experience that is less engaging and less entertaining than the purely protagonist-driven narrative of MR.
Here’s my hack Monday morning filmmaker suggestion for a better way to handle the BR material: re-title it Replicants, make Roy Batty a stronger protagonist, and make Deckard a sympathetic (to the viewer) antagonist along the lines of the Tommy Lee Jones character in The Fugitive. I think this could’ve been done without losing the philosophical elements of the material and it could make for a film that’s more enjoyable to watch.
SPOILER ALERT!
I agree somewhat with the MR detractors that think the resolution of the story is too emotionally tidy. It didn’t bother me as much as it bothered others, though–for the most part the characters acted as one would expect them to. Which brings me to my problem with the ending of BR. I’m trying to understand why Deckard decided to run away rather than finish Batty off with the gun, why he didn’t pick the gun back up when he dropped it, and especially why Batty saved Deckard’s life. I’m trying to come up with an answer other than, “Because the movie needs to end with Deckard alive listening to Batty’s dying man monologue,” but a lot of the final sequence felt a bit contrived. Does anybody have a more satisfying answer?
Comment by Tom — January 29, 2006 @ 11:37 pm
Wow, Tom! Fantastic comment. Thanks for the review. Ditto on why MR is better than BR. Although, BR gets kudos for being an excellent film and a trendsetter, MR is a much more watchable and entertaining movie (kind of like recognizing that you have to slog through “War and Peace” at some point, but that you’d much rather be reading “People” magazine). Thanks!
Comment by Elisabeth — January 31, 2006 @ 9:00 pm
Aw, man! Minority Report almost pulled off the upset! It’s obvious that Ronan prematurely declared the winner to ensure the Bladerunner win. Scared, aren’t you Ronan? You and the rest of your thirty-something KB friends don’t want to face the obvious truth: the 80′s were a cultural wasteland. Well I’ve got news for you: rigging the results to ensure a Bladerunner win over the clearly superior Minority Report won’t change that fact. Also, it’s not cool to pretend to be a Jedi and Erasure were not talented. Face it!
Comment by Tom — February 7, 2006 @ 9:59 pm