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greygirlbeastYesterday, I did a very respectable 1,522 words on "The Crimson Alphabet," managing to get from F to H (futanari, gallery, hive, and inhuman). F was the best of the four. Today, I'll do J through M and finish the first half for Sirenia Digest #25.
Afterwards, Spooky made spaghetti for dinner, and then we went out into the cold and the dark to see Blade Runner: The Final Cut at the Plaza on Ponce. Thing is, I'm probably one of the biggest damn Blade Runner geeks on the planet. I've long since lost count of how many times I've seen previous incarnations of the film, but would not be surprised if it were close to two hundred. It's one of those films I love so much I can recite it in my sleep. I was there on opening night on June 25th 1982. I was 18 years old; that particular theatre (Eastwood Twin at Eastwood Mall) was long ago torn down. I was there in 1994 when the "director's cut" was released (this time I saw it in a theatre in Athens, GA), and I thought, Yes, finally, they've put it back together (though, in truth, it was a rush job that Scott wasn't happy with). I've gone through a VHS of the film and two DVDs. All of this is just to say that I was very excited about seeing the "final cut" last night, more than twenty-five years after its initial release. And I was not disappointed. More than anything, this is a cleaner, tidier cut, not so much narratively different film from the 1994 release as cinematographically different. Some really annoying shots have been fixed. The best example, offhand, is when Roy Batty releases the white dove, and we get the shot of it flying away. Before, it was always this ugly, muddy blue shot that never made much sense, like we were seeing a shot that didn't really belong in the film. Now, we see the dove rising up towards the lights of the city skyline. The only thing I found jarring was one of Batty's lines during his confrontation with Tyrrell. In the previous two cuts I've seen, he says "I want more life, fucker." It sounds like he's about to say father, but changes his mind. In the "final cut," he says "father," instead. It's a somewhat inexplicable change and absolutely the only one I disagreed with. Overall, it's a gorgeous cut, and the sound (even at the Plaza, which does not have the best sound system in town) is crisp and possessed of more depth than I ever before noticed. It was just about the best way I could have imagined spending dratted Xmas Eve (short of getting that modest harem of nubile young Asian cyborgs with tentacle implants in just the right places that I mentioned a several days ago). I even took a few photos to mark the day:
Waiting for the curtain to rise.
But that's about it for yesterday. The next four letters of the alphabet await, as does coffee.
Afterwards, Spooky made spaghetti for dinner, and then we went out into the cold and the dark to see Blade Runner: The Final Cut at the Plaza on Ponce. Thing is, I'm probably one of the biggest damn Blade Runner geeks on the planet. I've long since lost count of how many times I've seen previous incarnations of the film, but would not be surprised if it were close to two hundred. It's one of those films I love so much I can recite it in my sleep. I was there on opening night on June 25th 1982. I was 18 years old; that particular theatre (Eastwood Twin at Eastwood Mall) was long ago torn down. I was there in 1994 when the "director's cut" was released (this time I saw it in a theatre in Athens, GA), and I thought, Yes, finally, they've put it back together (though, in truth, it was a rush job that Scott wasn't happy with). I've gone through a VHS of the film and two DVDs. All of this is just to say that I was very excited about seeing the "final cut" last night, more than twenty-five years after its initial release. And I was not disappointed. More than anything, this is a cleaner, tidier cut, not so much narratively different film from the 1994 release as cinematographically different. Some really annoying shots have been fixed. The best example, offhand, is when Roy Batty releases the white dove, and we get the shot of it flying away. Before, it was always this ugly, muddy blue shot that never made much sense, like we were seeing a shot that didn't really belong in the film. Now, we see the dove rising up towards the lights of the city skyline. The only thing I found jarring was one of Batty's lines during his confrontation with Tyrrell. In the previous two cuts I've seen, he says "I want more life, fucker." It sounds like he's about to say father, but changes his mind. In the "final cut," he says "father," instead. It's a somewhat inexplicable change and absolutely the only one I disagreed with. Overall, it's a gorgeous cut, and the sound (even at the Plaza, which does not have the best sound system in town) is crisp and possessed of more depth than I ever before noticed. It was just about the best way I could have imagined spending dratted Xmas Eve (short of getting that modest harem of nubile young Asian cyborgs with tentacle implants in just the right places that I mentioned a several days ago). I even took a few photos to mark the day:
Waiting for the curtain to rise.
But that's about it for yesterday. The next four letters of the alphabet await, as does coffee.
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Date: 2007-12-25 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-25 11:47 pm (UTC)Also, wanted to add my vote to "Deckard is human." To me, the story works much better if Deckard is a human -- especially the pathos of the ending. In my mind, the horror of living for years, possibly decades, after he watches the woman he's come to love (as much as he loves anyway -- another irony, that these machines love and feel more deeply than Deckard allows himself to) die in a few short years is more in keeping with the film's themes about just what defines humanity.
I think, in part, this "argument" (which is really pretty silly, I think), comes down to a disagreement over what different people think the film ought to be about. Myself, I see a film about slavery and bigotry and an inability to trust memory and identity. Dekard is, in that film, the ultimate tool (machine) of the corporate establishment: a more or less compliant replicant with mnemonic implants doing the work of his creators.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-26 12:07 am (UTC)That ambiguity is, I think, why the film stays with you after you see it, why it matters in the language and issues of science fiction (which, to me, has never been about laser guns and spaceships, but casting the questions we already face in new light); whether one interprets it to mean Deckard is a replicant or that he's a human, he's still fundamentally a creature of pathos, and still facing the same questions about identity, purpose, and humanity. Just what those questions mean for him, personally, depends greatly on what he really is, and while I'm personally of the opinion that he is a human, that's probably influenced strongly by having read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? first, in which Deckard is almost certainly human.