Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

I Am So Behind The Times

So, I watched Bladerunner for the first time ever on Saturday nite (took so long to post because yesterday I was too busy being surrounded by my AWESOME writers group who I am more infatuated with than a schoolgirl for the captain of the football team.). What I say next may shock you.

I was disappointed.

I’ll admit, I was expecting the movie to tackle a lot of what Philip K Dick did with the story it was based on(Do Androids dream of electric sheep). In fact I was banking on it because I am considering writing a novel (or maybe novella) with an android protagonist and I wanted to avoid any inadvertent plagiarism I might do by not reading the story and watching the movie.

The movie was just an action movie. I’m not saying it was bad, I just set myself up with all these big expectations so it fell short of my mental image.

A lot of people these days do that. They imagine this next big game in an old series (or movie) will be as stunning as they remember the original, but it often seems to fall short (Dare I mention Duke Nukem?) so it’s interesting to see a similar thing working in reverse. Of course there is always the standard ‘the movie is never as good as the book’ statement that comes out EVERY time a book is made into a movie.

And then there’s the ‘love scene’. I put that in hyphens in the most derisive way I possibly can. There was no romance there, only date rape. Go back and watch the scene if it’s been a while since you watched the movie. She doesn’t look impressed when he kisses her cheek/nibbles her ear/whatever it is he’s doing behind her lustrous eighties curls, she flinches away when he tries to kiss her on the mouth. She runs for the door and he won’t let her leave. Where is the romance? Not in this scene that’s for sure. He even tells her to tell him she wants him while he pushes her back against a wall. I was glad to see it wasn’t just me disturbed by the scene as when I complained to my husband he concurred, though he did say maybe it was an 80s thing ‘me big strong man, you confused android girl, me show you how to lurve’. Regardless, not cool.

I understand that Philip K Dick died before the movie was completed, he knew it was being made and reportedly was excited to see a scene showing off the world. I wonder what he might have thought of the movie if he had lived long enough to see it.

What was your take on the movie, am I being too harsh because of my trumped up expectations? What about the ‘love scene’, did it bother you as much as it did me?

1 Comment

  1. Kath Lockett

    Thank god!

    It’s my husband’s favourite movie and I hate hate hate hate it and have never understood the intense loyalty and devotion that the movie has inspired in so many.

    Even few years or so, he begs me to sit and watch it with him again in case it somehow finally seeps into my brain how awesome it is and I dutifully do (he gives me a neck rub when we sit together, so there’s an extra inducement) but nope, it still does nothing for me.

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