Wapsi Square Forum

See it.

It's stylised as all hell - maybe almost too clever for its own good - but i Really Liked It.

When i got home, i mentioned something that i had found amusing to Steve and Helen, and Steve came up with a perfect explanation.

I pointed out that we had two characters, both of whome had demonstrated that they were deadly with a handgun ... and then they come against each other ... and suddenly they're Storm Troopers.

Steve asked if Harrison Ford was in that scene.

I said yes.

He said "It's the Han Solo Effect."

I finally went to the theatre to see the movie.

In 1982, the movie was to me groundbreaking. Beautiful visual effects. Heck of a SciFi story. Wow.

Now, today, more visual effects- but nothing special, sort of rote for these days. The story was interstingly parallel with the original, of course with twists.

What it did for me was bring up more questions than answers. What became of Deckard and Rachael was revealed, but so much more was not.

Setup for a third movie, maybe. Leave well enough alone, that'll depend on how well the show does. Make lotsa $ and we'll see Blade Runner Revolution in a couple of years.

For a 2hr 45min movie, it didn't drag for me. But unanswered questions, I have many.

It is a pity they did not have Vangelis score the movie. Close, but no cigar for the music.

Hansontoons wrote:In 1982, the movie was to me groundbreaking. Beautiful visual effects. Heck of a SciFi story. Wow.

Now, today, more visual effects- but nothing special, sort of rote for these days. The story was interestingly parallel with the original, of course with twists.

Nothing ages faster than our expectations of the future. Whatever the special or practical effects, it has to have an attractive plot and acting.

Consider "Dark Star," an early John Carpenter film about an extremely bored space crew in the umptieth year of their tedious mission -- destroying unstable planets in various star systems. Then, one of the intelligent planet killer bombs decides it doesn't want to blow up. Or, maybe it does. It's not sure.

Cheap sets, hippy era hair, a space alien beach ball with swim fin flippers, and wonderfully clever dialog and circumstances. A guilty pleasure if ever their was one.

So even though the 1933 King Kong is full of creaky stop motion action (by today's standards), it's still a wild and wonderful ride because of the plot. It was, after all, beauty that killed the beast!

Atomic wrote:Cheap sets, hippy era hair, a space alien beach ball with swim fin flippers, and wonderfully clever dialog and circumstances. A guilty pleasure if ever their was one.

Actually the alien's feet are a pair of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" hands.

Sergeant Pinback, BTW, is played by co-writer, SFX maven and co-director Dan O'Bannon, the man responsible for Alien.

It got a thetrical re-release in the latter 70s/early 80s; in Atlanta it played at a theater in the same mall with the Great Southeast Music Hall. A friend of ours went to see it one afternoon, and realised that he was one of only four people in the theater - Joey Ramone, his girlfriend and the Ramones' manager.

{My review online here.}

{O'Bannon did some work on the original "Star Wars" - he did the graphics for R2D2's search of the Death Star's computers to find the location of the tractor beam holding the Millenium Falcon - if you were familiar with "Dark Star" that sequence looked amazingly familiar.

If you don't mind spoilers for the film if you ever see it (you can get it on Amazon from the link in my review linked above), the last fifteen or so minutes - from the scene with the dead, cryonically-preserved ship's captain whose superconducting brain still sort of functions - probably inspired by Larry Niven's story "Wait It Out, published 1971, to the end credits is here.

The theme song, "Benson Arizona" is wonderfully wacko for an SF film.

Others {including me} have written extra verses for "Benson Arizona" - the two i know (the second being mine) go:

now the seasons slip on by like seconds on this ship
so i take another pull from the flask that's at my hip
the might-have-beens and the never-weres
can drive a man insane
So i guess i'll stay out in the void, 'cos benson's not the same

{CHORUS}

when all has come full circle and time and space are one
when the youngest star has faded and all my tasks are done
then i guess i'll turn my ship about
to the planet of my birth
and you and i can begin again 'neath the cool green hills of earth

{CHORUS}

I still want them to make a movie based on the book they got the title from.

However, I don't know what they'd call it - the obviously correct title is now quite thoroughly taken.

Warrl wrote:I still want them to make a movie based on the book they got the title from.

However, I don't know what they'd call it - the obviously correct title is now quite thoroughly taken.

"The Real Blade Runner"?

I liked Blade Runner, and saw the director's cut on DVD some good while ago, and liked it, too. But most of what I remember is the tremendous ambiance and stuff like the microbranding on biotech.

Fully intended to see 2049, but then the reviews seemed to muddy the value. ("Be sure to rewatch the old versions first," and all that.) And I've been up to my ass in work and winemaking for the past month.

Then again, Harrison Ford was the guy who made the world safe for proper hats back in my youth. And he came to my town and punched out the guy in the Buck Tractor Pull shirt in Witness. So I'm kindly inclined toward his work.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:then i guess i'll turn my ship about
to the planet of my birth
and you and i can begin again 'neath the cool green hills of earth

{CHORUS}

Dave raises a cool glass of Riesling in salute to the reference.

Dave wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:then i guess i'll turn my ship about
to the planet of my birth
and you and i can begin again 'neath the cool green hills of earth

{CHORUS}

Dave raises a cool glass of Riesling in salute to the reference.

Kipling, too.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Kipling, too.

I'll take your word for it. I can't recall that I've ever kipled.

Dave wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Kipling, too.

I'll take your word for it. I can't recall that I've ever kipled.

when earth's last picture is painted
and the tubes are twisted and dried
when the oldest colors have faded
and the youngest critic has died
we shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
lie down for an aeon or two
'till the master of all good workmen
shall put us to work anew

and those that were good shall be happy
they'll sit in a golden chair
they'll splash at a ten league canvas
with brushes of comet's hair
they'll find real saints to draw from
magdalene, peter, and paul
they'll work for an age at a sitting
and never be tired at all.

and only the master shall praise us.
and only the master shall blame.
and no one will work for the money.
no one will work for the fame.
but each for the joy of the working,
and each, in his separate star,
will draw the thing as he sees it.
for the god of things as they are!

Well, sort of. I remembered it a bit wrongly.

Do you mean you've never read Kipling ... or were you just being Dave?

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Do you mean you've never read Kipling ... or were you just being Dave?

Mostly the latter. I've read Kipling, but never in the original Klingon.

Dave wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:then i guess i'll turn my ship about
to the planet of my birth
and you and i can begin again 'neath the cool green hills of earth

{CHORUS}

Dave raises a cool glass of Riesling in salute to the reference.

Wouldn't that be Rhysling? (sp)

Just Old Al wrote:

Dave wrote:Dave raises a cool glass of Riesling in salute to the reference.

Wouldn't that be Rhysling? (sp)

No. I'm a punster, not a vampire.

Dave wrote:

Just Old Al wrote:

Dave wrote:Dave raises a cool glass of Riesling in salute to the reference.

Wouldn't that be Rhysling? (sp)

No. I'm a punster, not a vampire.

Stakes work equally well on both...

GlytchMeister wrote:

Dave wrote:No. I'm a punster, not a vampire.

Stakes work equally well on both...

As far as lethality goes, sure.

However, vampires just turn to dust and blow away when you stake 'em.

Punsters are all carriers of a particularly contagious paranomasia virus (Peabodivirus scotti) and if you're careless in your staking, you could easily contaminate yourself. 'Tis as bad as a werewolf bite in many respects, and there's no cure. Always remember to wear a hazmat suit when staking a punster, and incinerate the remains afterwards.

Dave wrote:

GlytchMeister wrote:

Dave wrote:No. I'm a punster, not a vampire.

Stakes work equally well on both...

As far as lethality goes, sure.

However, vampires just turn to dust and blow away when you stake 'em.

Punsters are all carriers of a particularly contagious paranomasia virus (Peabodivirus scotti) and if you're careless in your staking, you could easily contaminate yourself. 'Tis as bad as a werewolf bite in many respects, and there's no cure. Always remember to wear a hazmat suit when staking a punster, and incinerate the remains afterwards.

I'd stake a steak dinner on the bet that it would take more than a stake to fracture the tale of his fairly contagious J. Warditus. It'd be good enough, might be even fatal, snidely doing right in the face of a soppy tale, but a hazardous rocky road that would require a Crusader rabbit-punching or Sherman tank to bull through a jungle of winkles, by George.

GlytchMeister wrote:Stakes work equally well on both...

Just don't miss.

I'd stake a steak that a missed stake would be a mistake.

ShneekeyTheLost wrote:

GlytchMeister wrote:Stakes work equally well on both...

Just don't miss.

I'd stake a steak that a missed stake would be a mistake.

A stake would hardly be effective on a punster - we wear the armor of our own convictions. Now a Silver Bullet might drive us away - I abhorred Coors products even when I drank.

Wow... such a-beer-ent language!

Hansontoons wrote:I'd stake a steak dinner on the bet that it would take more than a stake to fracture the tale of his fairly contagious J. Warditus. It'd be good enough, might be even fatal, snidely doing right in the face of a soppy tale, but a hazardous rocky road that would require a Crusader rabbit-punching or Sherman tank to bull through a jungle of winkles, by George.

And that, my friends, is probably the best set of referential allusions I've read this year. I count a dozen and may have missed some. Bravo!

(And, of course, kids these days won't have any idea what you're talking about. So it has been since our ancestors first chased the dinosaurs out of the caves and into extinction.)