Ginrai

I'm pretty sure it's only the first episode, just like the extra in the Robotech Legacy DVDs. The VHS has three episodes.

Does anyone know if there's any color variations in the Robotech Invid Shock Trooper toy? I mean, I know that the Exo-Squad/Robotech version is a slightly different color than the Matchbox/HG one, but is that it?

Uh, Asimov didn't write 2001. Arthur C. Clarke did.

Another thing that may be going on here is I've also read the book, so that may be coloring my perceptions, too. But I did see it with narration first, and I've always pictured Deckard as kind of a jerk. I really don't know how else to take him, especially in the scenes with Rachael.

You know, I was watching it again last night, and I do have to agree that it totally fails to get the ironic smirk that noir voice-over usually has. But the reason I think it works is because it makes Deckard look more like a depressed prick, which is pretty much how I picture him. It's definitely not clever wordplay. I DO think Ridley Scott's right and it is kind of talking down to the audience. But I like that, because I think that fits in with what a loser Deckard is. He's the same way with regular spoken dialogue. He goes to great lengths to prove that Rachael is a replicant and then when she starts crying says (totally insincerely), "Okay, I was just kidding, you're not a replicant." Ass. And that's how the narration works too. It's not that Deckard doesn't understand Gaff's cityspeak, it's that he's an ass and pretends he doesn't so he can make Gaff's life slightly more difficult. I like that. However, it does make an unlikable character even MORE unlikable, which probably contributes to negative reactions to the film. But I still like it.

Okay, voice over narration. Got my BR book out, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, called by most fans the Blade Runner bible, written by a journalist who was on the set a lot, talked with everyone involved, did a ton of articles over the years, et cetera. Page 292. "Which explodes myth number two: that Ridley Scott never wanted a voice-over. Because it was Scott who pressed for the narration in Blade Runner in the first place. Says Hampton Fancher, 'Ridley was the one who initially pushed the voice-over idea. That's why it's on so many of the drafts. Scott was after the feel of a forties' detective thriller, so he liked the idea of using this film noir device.'" It goes on like this for quite a bit, finishing with, "Obviously, then, the desire to initiate the stylistic device of narration had been a very early decision of the BR team, one with the full participation of Ridley Scott." Later on, the Appendix A (page 388), there's an interview with Scott which continues it. Author, "...But I understand you were never really comfortable with Deckard's voice-over." Scott, "No. Nor was Harrison. ... The bottom line of Deckard's narration was that we just couldn't get it. We wrestled with it and wrestled with it. ... Blade Runner's voice-over was overexplanation and ... the narration, although admittedly influenced by Raymond Chandler, wasn't Chandlaresque enough." Et cetera. Basically, it was supposed to be there, but Ridley Scott thought they botched it and just couldn't get it right, which is why he wanted it taken out. Later he says they took it out for the previews, but put it back in for explanation. "... we ended up struggling to put the voice-over onto Blade Runner not for street poetry, which was our original intention, but to clarify things. Which I think became ridiculous. So did Harrison." So there you go. It was supposed to be there originally and all throughout production of the movie. In post, Ridley and Harrison felt they just could NOT get it right, so they took it out, and then put it back in when audiences were all confused. I was kinda right and kinda wrong, and so you were you, Sundown. Heh.

Haha, I posted a link to something off that earlier in arguing my point.

Oo, found something else good about narration. On why Ford hates Blade Runner, "Additionally, he hated the way the voiceover was written, he disliked working with Sean Young, and Harrison must have been disappointed by the way audiences initially shunned Blade Runner. After all, that turning away meant, to a certain extent, that they were shunning him. I'm sure there were other things Ford couldn't stomach about BR either." So maybe it was Ford's urging that got the narration killed?

Hah, okay, three things from an interview with the guy who wrote Future Noir, the book on Blade Runner I have. He was on the set all the time. A) "Well, at the time, Ridley was known for constantly changing his mind." Fits right in with the issue about whether or not it was supposed to have narration. B) There was all kinds of friction between the writer Hampton Fancher and Scott. "Well, the most intimate moments between Hampton and Ridley took place when they were alone together, spitballing ideas for the rewrites. I wasn't there for that. No one was. I did have the opportunity of seeing them interact a few times during prep, however. And the differences between their personalities was the most immediate observation one came away with." C) I was totally wrong, as "Hampton FancherHampton, for instance, was the more emotional of the two", so hah, no one's very reliable who actually worked on the project. You agree that there are lots of shots that have all kinds of room for narration and that Scott was really difficult, and it says here that he was always changing his mind. You're right, I can't say if it was ego or another reason, but based on what I just read, it seems like the narration on, narration off thing comes from Scott changing his mind constantly and being anal. Source: http://www.brmovie.com/Articles/Sammon_Interview_09.htm Dunno about the veracity of the sneak preview thing... could be apocryphal. Will try to find out.

Okay, just found an interview where Ridley Scott contradicts your argument, Sundown. This is an interview about the special edition DVD of BR that never came out, I believe. "Are you making any big changes?" "Well, the voiceover's off, so I may condense some sections that were sustained for the voiceover. There's a scene where Deckard (Harrison Ford)'s reading a newspaper looking up at the blimp and there's a lot of voiceover. So he'll just look like he's staring at the blimp and people will wonder why. So I'll condense that." That right there shows they were shooting for the narration. Here's the source: http://www.brmovie.com/Articles/Empire_RS_2002_Feb.htm Again, I believe that Ridley Scott is unreliable (especially since he decided to say Deckard was uneqvuivocally a replicant), but you do have to admit, that shot sucks in the "director's cut" and you wonder why it goes on so long. The narration. He probably just hated how it came out and wanted it gone. The interview also talks about how Scott and Ford "clashed" on the set...

I'll have to go compare what's in the scripts to the actual movie, but I remember it being very close the narration in the movie, so I suspect this is misinformation, too, but I will check it out, for sure. This is less about my personal theories and more about my respect for the writers, who totally get short shrift from everyone. Well, yes, Ford agrees with him on one aspect and disagrees on an another, so I suppose I can't rightly say Ford is the more reliable source. I think it's more like, "There is no reliable source." The fact the actual production of the movie was so fraught with emotion and so difficult and overbudget (and a lot of this misery was apparently Scott's fault) suggests to me that it's REALLY hard for anyone involved in the production to give a straight account. However, the screenwriters were working PRE-production, so I think they would be much more reliable sources, since they weren't dragged through the mud like everyone else was. Same is probably true for the producers, as producers aren't usually on the set every day in the muck and mire, unless they're REALLY hands on or David O. Selznick style tyrants. I'd be really interested in what they had to say about the narration. I'm not sure how you direct a movie in such a way that it serves narration badly unless you make it so talky there's no room for the narration. Blade Runner, on the other hand, has a ton of room for narration. There's a lot of empty spots where the camera is just panning around looking at things in the "director's cut", which is probably a big part of why the movie has a reputation for having cool visuals but being boring. That's the PERFECT place for narration. As for the narration, Ford said he had to do the narration over and over again (like five times) because Scott was never happy with it. I think it's pretty likely the reason he was never happy with it was that he was anal retentive as hell and never happy with anything, which is fine, but makes people hate you. If they brought in another writer to rewrite the narration at the end, it was probably because, again, Scott was anal as hell and never happy with anything. That doesn't mean the movie wasn't supposed to have it, just that Scott couldn't find anything he liked. Maybe it's an ego thing and because he was never happy with how it came out, he claims it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place, thus removing his responsibility for "artless" narration. I'll have to check the screenplays against the actual narration when I get a minute, and also poke through my Blade Runner book to see if it says anything about it. Regardless, I still think the film works much better with the narration, as it helps the pacing immensely, adds the noir feel, and helps paint Deckard as an unhappy schmuck, instead of just this inscrutible guy you don't like. And if that's basically who he's supposed to be. You lose a lot of important things, like the fact that Deckard has an ex-wife without it.

Finally I pissed someone off! And I was trying so hard! No, seriously, I liked it. The first episode starts with, "Previously on Clerks" and cuts to static. That's awesome. And I did love that the car transformed and the blood squirted out, but the entire "fart the episode, Korean animators took over!" sequence was awesome. I also like that the second episode was a fake recap episode like sitcoms always do, except they only had one previous episode, so they kept flashing back to the SAME SCENE. I guess I like a lot of their running gags, and how juvenile the whole show is (like an entire episode spent on this ridiculous monkey contagion which is really an elaborate plot to try to get Dante to admit to being gay). And then there was the Last Starfighter riff where Randal was really good at building pyramids in a video game, and was therefore selected to build ACTUAL pyramids, by dragging giant stone bricks around. Hah. I guess I like it for two main reasons: running gags I think are really funny, especially since they're pounded into the ground (the entire episode where insane things are happening outside the store but we never get to see them rules), and I love the way it parodies awful TV shows and movies.

Oh Kevin Smith. Like Joss Whedon, he's good at writing snappy dialogue, but has no idea how to structure a plot and his direction is fairly bland. I also agree that Dogma is his best work, especially if you're Catholic. Well, actually, I think the Clerks cartoon is the best thing related to him, but I doubt he actually wrote it.

While I agree that Roy is a great villain, I really like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Philip K. Dick in general.

That pissed me off, too. I wrote a pretty negative review of the film for a website and got a lot of hate from Frank Miller fans. Oh well. I didn't like it. I thought it was disjointed and confusing. Eh, here's my review, anyway. http://www.associatedcontent.com/content.c...nt_type_id=1933 I love the intelligent criticism if my review: " Your a fartin moron pal..." If you're going to insult someone, at least write correctly. It's YOU'RE a farting moron, pal.

You're right that there's narration in the shooting script, but Ridley Scott actually filmed it without. The producers insisted that narration be added and it was given a few rewrites by different writers. Ridley himself has said that some noir films work with narration, and some don't. Blade Runner to him was one that didn't. I have to say that despite his talent and my appreciation for his work (Alien is also amazing, for example), I think Ridley Scott is full of it. The narration is in both the original AND shooting script. Also, Ridley Scott insists Deckard is a replicant, even though the shooting script deliberately leaves it ambiguous and the original script specifically says he's human. Harrison Ford also insists that they all agreed that Deckard was NOT a replicant while they were making the film. So yeah, I have to say, I think Ridley Scott is completely full of it. Sure, they filmed it without it. Because you always film the movie without voice over, and then record the voice over in a sound booth after the fact. Maybe Scott got butthurt because the producers were telling him to finish a movie that everyone (not just Ford) was miserable making. "How dare they tell me what to do!" If the producers forced him to record the narration and add it to the movie because he didn't want to, good for them. It's in the screenplay. It was SUPPOSED to be in the movie. I think Ridley Scott was just being difficult. If you read some of the books on the making of the film, you'll quickly learn that basically everyone on the set hated Ridley Scott because he was so anal. They were all so miserable they called the film "Blood Runner", and wore shirts implying that that he was an ass. So his recent (within the last ten years) comments contradict what was said before, the director's cut isn't even HIS cut, and the voice over is in the screenplay. EVEN if the producers forced the narration on and Ridley Scott wanted to dump it for whatever reason, it's still in the screenplay, and I like it. I think it makes the movie better. It's easier to follow and flows better. I know everyone loves auteur theory thanks to damn cahier du cinema or however you spell that, but more people are involved in a film than just the director. It's a collaborative medium, and the writers are ALSO important. Ridley Scott's personal opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the rest of the people on the film. And I still think, despite the BS happy ending, the euro cut/longer home video version is a superior film to the "director's cut" (which incidently changes some of the cuts a bit and drags it on more. Eh. I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this, which is fine.

I kinda like the movie, because it's the only movie I can think of where space is as boring as space really is, but it's really damn slow. Makes Blade Runner look like it's on speed. My biggest problem is the 15 minute long spacewarp scene. COME ON. That is damn near impossible to sit through, though maybe it works better when you're on drugs, like my mom keeps insisting that scene is for. I like Kubrick a lot, but most of his movies could use some trimming by a talented editor.

Like I said in another post, I don't believe that, seeing as it's in the screenplay. Well, that definitely does not fit my recollection, but I will try to find time tonight to rewatch it and reevaluate my take on the narration. Heh, well, maybe we just want different things out of movies. I hated Sin City. I thought it really wished it was film noir buit completely failed at what film noir is. You can tell it's not going to pull film noir off in the first minutes. Come on, HE kills HER? The femme fatale is pretty damn important to what film noir is! Film noir was never about being action movies and none of them move that quickly (well, exception for some modern neo-noir... I mean actual film noir in the 40's and 50's).

Eh, I didn't leave out Nosferatu, I just don't like it as much as Fritz Lang's movies and Caligari is much more out there than Nosferatu or M or Metropolis or anything. It was just a couple of examples, not every German Expressionist film ever. I could talk about Paul Leini's Waxworks, too; I wrote a paper on why Nosferatu was a better movie than Browning's Dracula starring Bela Logusi, anyway. Well, I still think his unhappy, lethagic delivery fits perfectly with the character. He's a loser and not excited about anything. That sort of world-weary, eh, feel I thought was spot on. I still think the pacing is hurt badly by the lack of the voice over. Try watching the VHS release if you can find it. Well, be careful, there's also the shorter American theatrical release on VHS, but the longer one that is like the Euro cut is the best, IMO. Voice over, it's longer, more blood and swearing, no unicorn dream, and the only real problem is the ending. I suppose you can just hit mute when that part comes on or fast forward. Also, I think the score contributes to the feeling that it's slow moving. Granted, I don't think it could ever be a fast move (not without radical re-editing), but I don't think it was supposed to be, but I think the voice over really gives moves it along, and the film needs that. Well, like I said, I think the happy ending is crap, but the Director's Cut ending isn't an ending, it just seems like it's missing a scene. I don't mind ambiguous endings. In the director's cut it just looks like Gaff lets them leave, which makes no sense, and isn't really that ambiguous. I still like the shooting script's ending with them driving away and Gaff chasing. Then again, I like Deckard shooting Rachael even better, though it's damn harsh and also not ambiguous. You could use the footage for the happy ending for THAT ending, too. Just need a gunshot sound effect. It's perfect. Oh, BTW, if anyone believes that crap about the studio forcing the movie to have voice over narration tacked on later, it's in the screenplay, so that's obviously wrong.

Oh, and I don't really like It's A Wonderful Life either, but I think Vertigo is absolutely brilliant. I also agree that the Matrix is not a very good movie, and the entire time I was watching it in the theatre my friend and I kept pointing out things like, "Oh! This is stolen from Neuromancer!" "Hey look, this one is from a Philip K. Dick story!" Eck. And since I'm blabbing so much in this thread anyway, I think Star Wars is overrated as hell. Lucas ripped off a Kurosawa film, set it in outer space, it has hammy acting, really bad dialogue, and extremely bad hair.

Couple of other things: Citizen Kane, I feel you on that one. I had to sit through that like four times in film school. Yeck. The deep focus technique that everyone talks about really was revolutionary. However, that innovation belongs to the cinematographer Gregg Toland who was already an established cinematographer while Orson Welles was still pretty much a newbie at directing. It kind of sucks that Welles gets all the credit when it was really Toland that made it an important film. Still, important does not equal GOOD. In fact, critics hated Citizen Kane when it came out. It wasn't until years later when other critics (notably the same group of French film scholars who coined the term film noir and went on to inspire or create the French new wave films) decided it was important. It's still overlong and kind of dull and has a script that's just a thinly veiled kind of one-sided biography of William Randolph Hearst. And I don't think the acting is that great either. But Jesus, don't tell my (former) professors that!

This is probably just going to get me hate, but what the hell. Have you guys ever actually watched film noir or German Expressionist films? Blade Runner was supposed to be a callback to that. That is what the narration is about. That is why it's so dark. You can complain that Harrison Ford is mediocre, but the whole point is that his character is a loser. His LIFE is mediocre. The world's poo, and so is he. If you read interviews with Ford about the movie he had a miserable time, partly because he hated Sean Young (who played Rachael) and largely because he was "a detective who didn't detect anything", and you know, a loser. Ford's good roles are always where he gets to have fun and be a bigger than life guy who rules and everyone loves him. No wonder he was miserable. His character was. Anyway, I don't think he botched the narration on purpose (also apocryphal), I think he was just miserable, and he SOUNDS miserable in the narration, which is exactly what he's supposed to be. Noir and German Expressionist film can be hard to watch for a lot of people, because it's no fun. The world blows, your main characters gets poo on, and nothing is solved in the end, or everyone's dead, or the main character is ruined, et cetera. It's intentionally bleak and miserable, and Blade Runner was just echoing that. A big point of those old films was the art direction. A central point of Expressionist art in general is that the external world reflects the internal world. Good examples: In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with its borderline insane characters, the world is twisted and bizarre. In M, a serial killer is murdering (and possibly raping) children and the police is too incompetent to catch him, so they just hassle the "respectable" criminals (gangsters and prostitutes, etc.). The criminals catch the murderer. The world is a horrible place, and the art direction reflects this. Everything is dirty and broken down, dark and shadowy. That's what Expressionist/noir film is like. I think you guys don't like Blade Runner because you want a sci-fi action adventure like The Matrix or something. Blade Runner has zero interest in being that kind of film. As for the Director's Cut, bleh. I've read the original screenplay and the final shooting screenplay. Ridley Scott's unicorn scene is not in it. It sucks, too, because it removes the intentional ambiguity in the film. It's supposed to be that you're not sure if Deckard is a replicant or not. He's a loser and he's kind of inhuman. A big point of the movie is that the replicants are -still people-. Look at how tortured Roy is by his own mortality. He's a bad guy, sure, but he's still relatable. Our HERO is the empty one. More human than human, remember? Anyway, another problem is that again, Blade Runner was supposed to be noir, and a hallmark of noir is voice over narration. The movie is really slow and kind of vauge without it. Seriously, there are scenes that make no damn sense without the narration. I mean, yes, noir typically has a measured pace, but yeah, voice over narration makes it go by faster. Without it, Blade Runner is just plodding. And while I think the "happy" ending sucks, the non-ending of the Director's Cut sucks worse. What, the film just STOPS? Lame. In the screenplay isn't not like that. The original ending has Deckard and Rachael escaping together, and then he kills her so that Gaff can't do it. The final shooting screenplay isn't as bleak: it ends with Deckard and Rachael trying to escape and Gaff chasing them. That closure is nice because you know that Gaff is just playing with them, giving them time to escape to make the chase more fun. In the Director's Cut you're like, "What, Gaff just let them go? This is bullshit." Anyway, as someone has already said, the Director's Cut isn't even really a director's cut. Some studio douchebags rushed it out the door with vauge input from Scott. Rumor has it a new DVD set of BR will come out with the vaporware actual director's cut, original theatrical cut, and the longer original home video cut (which is like the euro cut, in that in contains more violence and swearing than either the theatrical cut or the Director's Cut we have now), but we'll see if that ever actually happens.

Well, it's a bootleg. It's an unwritten law of bootleg toys that if the color its molded in isn't hideous to begin with, the stickers or paint has to be blinding. Actually, it's pretty amazing they bothered to paint it, considering the legitimate Valkyries pre-Bandai reissue were all stickers anyway. I was thinking maybe I could get a regular visor sticker from someone and stick that on, but green might look bad on a bright red head.

Well, I mean, it was something back in the days when Takatokus, Matsushiros, and Bandais were incredibly expensive or nearly impossible to get, but the quality just does not stand up. The original body to that red Valkyrie is not a Valkyrie at all, it's a bootleg of the Transformers Constructicon Devastator combiner. You can see a picture of it if you just follow the link to Toyarchive off of my page. I personally have no interest in getting one of those. I just wanted the Valkyrie head, not the bootleg Devastator.

At least the Joon's seem to be losing some of their value. I've seen Joon's Miria's on eBay for a lot less than $200 lately. If I was gonna buy another Miria (I have a beat up Takatoku one like I said), I'd buy a Bandai reissue for sure. I used to have a Joon's and they're just not that good.