Almost 40 Years Later: Why "Blade Runner" [1982] is Still So Amazing

Sci-fi is by far my favorite type of movie, which makes me all the more aware of the genre's unique Achilles Heel -- aging poorly. A movie set in 1982 that is also shot in 1982 doesn't have this problem, and neither does a movie set in 1882 that is shot in 1982 [except maybe the hairstyles]. But a movie set in 2082 or even 3082 but shot in 1982 is hard to pull off, and like I said they often age poorly. Obvious special FX, dated clothing and mannerisms, there are just so many give-aways that a movie was shot in year X ...

Which is why it is so amazing that some sci-fi movies don't seem to age poorly -- I won't give examples because I don't want to debate those specifics -- but very, very rarely there's an even more impressive trick. A true black swan event. Every once in a while a sci-fi Director does the seemingly impossible and creates a movie that IMPROVES with age. How is such a thing possible? Well, let's look at Blade Runner [1982] as the archetypal example of how it happened.

For sure, the original Blade Runner was all style like Don Johnson's Miami Vice but that’s what made it so real, ironically — it was an accurate representation of a future LA where style has completely replaced substance. The stilted dialogue, the corny fashion, the half-assed feelings, all the things that should date the movie, instead they manifest as perfect portrayals of LA’s inevitably superficial and absurdly nostalgic cyberpunk future. And yet all that was simply the setup for Ridley Scott's greatest trick ever ...

And then the magic happened: Through a miracle of pure unadulterated synchronicity, the cyberpunk subgenre of sci-fi is itself intrinsically linked with a very specific point in the time-space continuum, namely the 1980s-megacities because that is when-where it was created; it's a similar scenario to how Christianity will forever be linked with ancient Judea, it's just a historical fact that we accept and build upon. And so somehow the genius of Ridley Scott managed to merge all this and create a movie that to me is the best example ever of a sci-fi movie that improves with age.

Thanks for listening, all thoughtful feedback is welcomed :)

Submitted April 23, 2021 at 11:04PM by monkeymania7 https://ift.tt/3vfHdUi