Blade Runner :: Harrison Ford :: Star Wars

From one sci-fi classic to another, by way of Harrison Ford. I go from watching Blade Runner to watching Star Wars.

That's STAR WARS. Not "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope". Not the re-issue with Jabba the Hutt walking around and Greedo shooting first. It's Star Wars. Period. Fuck George Lucas, his crappy prequels, and his incessant need to "fix" things he did before.

Lucas created an amazing vision with Star Wars. People loved it. I loved it. I understand the desire to make the prequels. They weren't very good. I've mostly gotten over that.

But it's the re-issues I have the most problems with when it comes to the Star Wars franchise. It was (and still is) a beloved product. I never once heard a fan complain about the number of people, buildings, and creatures roaming around the Mos Eisley space port. But Lucas had always felt it should be busier, so he added more computer generated crap 20 years later.

I never heard anyone complain about the fact that Han Solo shot Greedo. Han was a scoundrel, a space pirate. The notion that he was a bad mofo, willing to shoot and even kill to get out of a tight situation is fine. In fact, it makes his eventual decision to join the Rebel Alliance and become a decent human being that much more significant. But no, Lucas felt that a "good guy" shouldn't fire without being fired upon, so he CGI'ed an extra laser blast.

I never heard anyone complain about Jabba the Hutt not being in the first movie. But of course Lucas had some cutting-room footage of a scene between Han Solo and a Jabba that he just had to use. So we suddenly get a Jabba that's too small, too agile, too computer-generated, and too pointless.

With the original releases, we didn't see Jabba until the third movie, by which point he's become this mythic, shadowy, gangster that we can only imagine... and when we finally do meet him, he's the complete embodiment of greed, sloth, lust, and gluttony. He doesn't move. He doesn't need to. He's like Paulie in Goodfellas: "Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn't have to move for anybody."

But if you watch the re-issues, now you've already seen Jabba, and he suddenly looks, acts, and moves differently - because now he's a huge puppet instead of a bunch of pixels. And now I'm disappointed.

I'm wandering way too far into the Dork Forest. So I'll just leave with this... Watch the original 1977 version of Star Wars. It was the Citizen Kane of sci-fi for 20 years, and that's good enough for me.

Unless you want to add some CGI sleds to Orson Welles' classic.

Airplane! :: James Hong :: Blade Runner

James Hong also gets me from Airplane! to my next movie, Blade Runner.

Blade Runner is great science fiction. Dystopian future. Androids. Action. Philosophical introspection on what truly makes us human. What was really interesting for me is that I literally watched Blade Runner and the series finale of Battlestar Galactica in the same weekend - both shows dealing with many of the same issues... and both starring Edward J. Olmos.

I'm not going to get into the debate over whether Harrison Ford's character Deckard is a replicant or not. I personally think he's human. But I can see both sides, especially depending on which version of the film you watch. The original U.S. theatrical release makes it fairly clear that he's human. The 1990's "Director's Cut" and the more recent "Final Cut" make it more ambiguous. Buy the 4-disc Collector's Edition and you can watch four different versions of the film and decide for yourself.

The other thing to really pay attention to with Blade Runner is the effects. Today, we see massive futuristic cities on the screen, and it's all done with computers (see the Star Wars prequels). But Blade Runner was made in 1982 with real models, sets, matte paintings, and all the other conventional tricks... and it still stands up really well against modern CGI effects. Ridley Scott really knew his shit back in the day (couple Blade Runner with the film he released three years earlier, Alien, and you've got a sci-fi one-two punch that may be unrivaled). But I still can't forgive him for crap like Gladiator and Hannibal.