Two Reasons You Need to Watch Blade Runner

Ridley Scott has had an extremely prolific and successful career as a director. The man is responsible for Alien, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator (and, Thelma & Louise, strangely enough), just to name the highlights. Sure, he also made G.I. Jane and Kingdom of Heaven, but every talent has their slumps (you’re currently reading your way through one of mine. Hiyo!) The crowning jewel in the Ridley Scott pantheon is a triumph by the name of Blade Runner, one of the greatest films ever made. If you haven’t seen it yet, here are two reasons you should view it on Netflix tonight.


1. Even Though It’s Almost 30 Years Old, the Special Effects Still Look Great
If I were telling you to fire up some old sci-fi abomination like the 1950s version of The Fly, you could understandably tell me to piss off. I mean, this is what special effects were back then:



You get a man with a pincer hand who’s standing behind another man (while apparently sodomizing him) so the props guy didn’t have to build a chest piece for the costume. Blade Runner was released in 1982, meaning, by default, its special effects weren’t nearly as primitive…but the majority of 80s special effects still blew. You had to endure crap like cartoon lightning bolts drawn in by hand and stop-motion clay figures that were as lousy as the original King Kong.


While I have no idea how, Blade Runner still looks goddamn gorgeous. Every inch of its world looks dark and seedy and covered in advertisements, making it the most believable vision of the future I’ve ever seen. There are no goofy looking aliens. No one is wearing helmets that look like something a terminal cancer patient would be shitting into while lying in a hospice bed. Meaning that you don’t have to be horribly ashamed of yourself if you fire up Blade Runner with your girlfriend. Unless she’s unattractive.

2. It Makes You Ponder the Meaning of Life (In a Non-Pretentious Way)
There are times where your mind races with thoughts of “What am I doing?” or “What does it all mean?” I usually undergo these moments of existential crisis right before the results of an STD test are read to me or when I’m so badly hungover that I can’t stop vomiting, but the ending of Blade Runner tends to induce them as well.


Without giving away too much of the movie, it depicts Rutger Hauer (the thinking man’s Dolph Lundgren) as a replicant, a bioengineered being virtually identical to an adult human except for one difference – a four year lifespan. Hauer spends the film searching for his creator in an effort to obtain more time while questions about the soul, the afterlife and what it means to be human are seamlessly interwoven with kick-ass action sequences. It’s like Ingmar Bergman fucked John Wu, which is a mental image I heartily apologize for giving you, but it makes for a great film.


So watch Blade Runner. It’s a cultural touchstone that’s been referenced thousands of times by other media, much like The Godfather or Air Bud. Plus, it was announced earlier today that a remake is in the works. Have some good memories of the movie before all you can think of is Zac Efron in the Harrison Ford role and Marlon Wayans as Rutger Hauer.

Tagged as: Blade Runner.