A Geek History of Time - Episode 189 - Blade Runner Part II

Episode Date: December 17, 2022

So first and foremost, I think being the addition of pant leggings is really when you start to see your heroes get watered down. The ability to go straight man, that one. Which is a good argument for absolute girls. Everybody is going to get behind me though, and the support number is going to go through. When you hang out with the hero, it doesn't go well for you. Grandfather took the cop and just slid right through the bar. Oh god, I'm sorry. Okay.

And that became the dominant way our family did it. Okay. And so, both of my marriages, they were treated to that. Okay, wait, hold on. Yeah, rage and high coup. How do you imagine the puppet shaking? My grandmother actually vacuumed in her furl. Oh my god, you know what I'm saying?

We had the sexual revolution. It might have just been a Canadian standoff. We're gonna go back to 9-11. Oh, I'm gonna get over it. And I don't understand the book, it's just a point of the book. Agra has no business being that thick. With the cultists, what in the world? This is a geek history of time.

Where we connect Nurgere to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history of time. Where we connect NERDERY to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And earlier this evening, I wound up going out to dinner with my wife and son. For the first time, it's the first time we've been out to a restaurant in a while. And it's first time we've been to the particular restaurant we went to since actually it's been literally years. I think the last time we went was right before she and I got married.

So it's been a while. And it was a lot of fun. We had a read our son had a great time, great time. And what kept being driven home to me while we were there from the fact that we wound up waiting over an hour to get seated when we showed up at like 430 in the afternoon, through just, you know, stuff that happened with our meal and our drinks and everything else, is this is the first time I have actually been out and about and seen how terribly short staffed restaurants have been since the height of the pandemic. I don't want to say since the pandemic,

because as we repeatedly mention here on the show, the pandemic isn't actually over yet, but it is definitely the first time since the height of the pandemic, since the worst of the worst, that I've actually been out and about and noticed just how very stressed out all of the staff were. The service was still fine. Nobody was snappish or less than wonderful. Like everybody we dealt with was was great, but it was also really clear that they were busting their asses. And things were still running slow because everybody was just overworked. So that was a sobering kind of this is what the world is now kind of moment, you know.

So yeah, it's just a thought, just something that I noticed being out and about for the first time in a long time. We are, however much a lot of people don't want to accept it, we are living in a world that has a new normal. And I think that's what Cutt driven home for me. So that's me. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a US history teacher and a Latin teacher here in Northern California. And yeah, I it feels like we as a society have outkicked our coverage. Yeah, like as long as it's a good. Yeah, it's really good. Like as long as as long as everybody hustled at a perpetually increasing rate, it all seemed to hum along. But now that people didn't because it ceased to be worth it,

the ripple effect is that everyone else is still wanting everyone else that people didn't because it ceased to be worth it. The ripple effect is that everyone else is still wanting everyone else to hustle, but, and I'm not saying you guys did, but there's like this expectation that everyone that is pictured as a fixture of a place is still supposed to hustle and we're not. And I'm seeing that, you know, from from from our perspective as as teachers as well, as far as what's going to be you beat me to pointing that out,

as I was going to say, yeah, as teachers, we're we're on one end of that. Yeah, absolutely. But as far as what's going on over here my daughter just got her by valent booster so yay We are as vast as it gets right now very cool. Yeah, yeah, so I'm pretty happy about that That's one less thing to worry about as much. This is said It is getting colder the flu season in Australia is worse than it's been in years Luckily the flu shot includes that strain. So please go get that flu shot. I certainly plan to and the flu is hitting us sooner

than it normally does too. In addition, there are several versions of COVID coming over from Germany and they've already made their way to the East Coast. And there's a few of them coming up here. So yay. Yeah, and and our our drop off has never gotten below previous levels. It's just it's the same pattern. It's almost like sign wave. Yeah, it's almost like we're hearing the same melody at a higher octave. like we're hearing the same melody at a higher octave. And unfortunately, the higher octave means, you know, or in a people-a-day dying.

Means bad shit. Yeah. Yeah. So it's all bad. None of it's good. The one that's coming over from Germany is escaping immunity anyway. And we as a country have stopped tracking it almost entirely we as a country have stopped tracking it almost entirely, unless there's clusters of three or more in certain places, even in here in California. So there's that and there's no mask mandate anywhere at all, even though a mask would actually help prevent a thing that is working its way around around all vaccinations. Yeah. So yeah. Cool. On a on a side note, all all three members of my family got our vaccinations earlier today. Wonderful. Our son is not ready for. Yeah. Our son is not ready for his last installment of COVID yet. He still has another couple of weeks but he got his flu shot and the wife and I

got double shots Cool one in each arm. Mm-hmm. So tomorrow we're we're not gonna be able to get anything done. Yes, but we're all doggin' and hurt like fuck. Yeah A lot of friends got the combo that is. Oh, yeah. Yeah, a lot of friends have gotten the combo this weekend. So I'm very happy to happy for everyone. Yeah. So, but yeah, it's worth the sore arm to be able to go to work with, you know, a little bit lower level of anxiety about that. Yeah. Yeah.. Cool. All right. So speaking of gloom and doom. Yes. When we left off last episode, I had given a fairly brief summary, I guess, of the global

catastrophe situation. Right. In 1982, when Blade Runner had had had had come out. And I believe I had gone over, I know I'd mentioned that the title Blade Runner was taken from a completely different property. Yes, I recall. One called Blade runner. Yeah. Whereas this was the plot for this was do Android's dream of electric sheep. Yes. Yeah. And so kind of a dick move. Nice. Thank you. Thank you. Actually a Norse. Got the guy's name. Move. Actually a Norse guy's name move. Alan Norse was the was the writer of the actual Blade Runner. Gotcha. Yeah, I do. Um, so, but in in the film Blade Runner, Harrison Ford winds up playing Deckard and there

are some significant differences between the Deckard, if the book and the Deckard. And there are some significant differences between the Deckard, if the book and the Deckard, if the movie, and I'll kind of get to the comparison later on. But what's very notable is that Deckard in Blade Runner is a very dramatic shift from the other parts that Harrison Ford was playing at the time. Of course, he had catapulted to fame as the talk-sure Han Solo, Smuggler and Lawbreaker and all around the town of Rogue. Yeah. And he, I think, around the same time, I'm trying to remember exactly when I didn't look it up

and I should have, but Raiders of the Lost Ark has him. Yeah. So Raiders of the Lost Ark has him as Indiana Jones, right. Old hero archaeologist, Nazi puncher, and all around tough guy. You know, I was curious about that too. I was wondering and you may well get to this it feels like stunt casting and at the same time He is now playing three different types of character all from the same era He's playing a sci-fi Flash Rogers flash Johnson flash flash Gordon Gordon Jesus Christ. You Christ thinking of flash Gordon. Yes, I am

But a flash Gordon type character. So you've got your spaceman spiff of the 30s. Yes, um, he's also playing a pulp hero And then he's in this noir which film noir is also kind of you know very well. Yeah, it's very much 30s 20s 20s and 30s when it was biggest and then yeah, so yeah, and actually it's it's a creation of the talkies. Yeah, so he's playing three different 1930s type characters. You know, that is not in my notes, but it is interesting. It is it is an interesting thing to note that yeah, the archetypes that he's getting pulled into for these films are all taken from that same kind of era. Do you think it's because of his smirk? The thing is in Blade Runner, he doesn't smirk. That's true.

Well, interesting. For the 15 minutes I saw it. Yeah. Before you fell asleep, because dark and low volume and rainy. Yeah. Well, the rainy, here's the thing. The rainy is incidentally new, but it also has a reason. There's a reason in the plot and in the meaning of the film, because that's the environmental devastation happening.

But anyway, we're gonna get to that. We'll get there, yeah. So, but Deckard is methodical melancholy and decidedly not cocky. When he winds up in situations of peril, like all of the times in Blade Runner in which he winds up in Fear for his life, it's at the hand of the replicants that he's hunting down. Okay.

Because they are faster than he is, they are stronger than he is, and he nearly, more than once, twice in the film, he nearly gets beaten to death by his own targets. And I'll get to that when I summarize the plot, I'll get to. But it's a very different archetype in the sense of the character of the character of these playing. Indiana Jones is not, Indiana Jones is not Indian Jones is angry like there's there's a significant amount of righteous anger

Like he and and both he and Han Solo have in common That they're operating by the seat of their pants 99% of the time. Right. I don't know. I think of something. I came up with a plan. Right. The plan is put on a burnus and sneak inside and then fuck shit up. Like that's the plan. That's what we're going to do. Now that I think about it, though, because this movie came out in what 82 82. Okay. So we've seen Empire Strikes Back. Yes. So we've seen Empire Strikes Back. Yes. And so you've got Han Solo, who in episode five gets tortured

and is shown in a diminished capacity. This is true. Dragged in, can't hold himself up. And in Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones absolutely gets the shit kicked out of him. Oh yeah. Famous scene where she's like, well, God damn it, Indy, where does it hurt? And he points to a spot on his elbow, right? And this is after he's been dragged under a truck like, yeah, it's it was.

He took a hell of a beating and that's something that I really liked about Indy is that you saw who wounds. But he got his ass kicked by Bald Nazi guy. He got his ass kicked by by other Nazis. He got his ass kicked by other Nazis. Oh, you're thinking of the propellers. Yeah, see, here's the thing, is the son of an aviator. My father actually had to put his head between his knees

when he saw that in the theater. Because it brought up real world memories. Yeah, I'm being on a carrier deck. Sure. I'm sure that that. But anyway, but so you've got, I mean, Harrison Ford in 1982 has played three different characters. Yeah.

All three from the 30s and all three get the shit kicked out of them. Like he has a type. Yeah, this is true. He is being a little bit, you know, it's like when Dennis Leary plays an Irish cop And then he plays an Irish thief and then he plays an Irish fireman and then he plays an Irish priest You know and and you can picture all of them being cousins or possibly even brothers in the same way easily easily You know, yeah. Because they're all from Boston.

Like, there you go, it's Dennis Leary. But so it was, the thing is, the nature of the characterization and the nature of the script for Blade Runner, being as it was a based on a new wave science fiction property, right? Is much more, there is a higher level of literary the word that comes to mind is pretension, but ambition would be a better better term for it. Okay. And so Bored was really eager to do the part because he read the script and it was much more serious and it gave him more of an opportunity to do less broad performing. Because Indy and Hansel are both very broad.

Yes. Yes. We have to do some internal acting. Yes. There's a lot of internal going on. Yeah. Which he hasn't done since Apocalypse Now. Yes. Yeah. So, uh, Ford and Scott, uh, so Ridley Scott directed the film. Yeah. And, uh, during production, uh, he and, he and Ford did not get along. Did not get along. I could see why on both ends, to be honest, having listened to interviews of both men, about thoroughly unrelated things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Ford does not actually consider Blade Runner one of his better films.

Okay. Like, he's an opportunity for him. Not so much a missed opportunity, just there was so much stuff that got meddled with. Okay. And Scott had a very, very, very specific kind of vision and so Ford did not get to do a lot of his own decision making. He didn't get to make a lot of his own choices in the film.

I think that's basically what it boils down to. Interestingly, now, years later, the two of them get along fine, but they had a very contentious relationship on the set. Okay. I could see that, though, because like, yeah, there are some directors where they they basically say well I urge you to do the job do the job like I trust you. Yeah, the thing. I'll tell you I'll tell you when we need a little tweak here or there like you know speed that up by 15 seconds that kind of thing

Yeah, there's other directors who like actors Historically have claimed. Oh, I didn't act at all on that because I was literally told every step to make. Like, you know, I'm looking at you off of Hitchcock. Yeah, yeah, directors, directors who treat actors like Mary Ann's. Yeah, you know, which, ooh, like Mary Annette's, that's an interesting phrase considering

the Alfred Hitchcock TV series opens with that music, which is the dance of the Mary Annette. Yep. Okay. But anyway, yeah. So there's, I could see Ridley Scott. He controls so many aspects of so many things because he's a visionary director. I wouldn't say he's an auditor, not quite visionary director.

He will, later on in his career, he gave people the room to kind of stretch a little bit and improv a little bit. But he was still pretentious as all fun. Oh, yeah. And he actually had a real hard time. Because he came over from the UK. And this was all being produced in Hollywood. And he'd been working at studios in the UK previously.

And so there was a very different onset culture. Yeah, you're there to work. And yeah, and I don't remember exactly what the phrase was, but crew members as a group all together got t-shirts that said something like fuck governor, G-U-V apostrophe N-O-R because he complained about the director, on the boss. Right. I expect, you know, I guess there was a kind of a British class kind of thing, you know, expecting a certain level of difference in the career like you fuck you. Yeah, right. Which is weird

because they in England, they had to deal with union stuff even stronger than they have in the union. Yeah, well, it's it's it's union, there's there's the union stuff. And that wasn't that wasn't the issue wasn't like labor practices. It wasn't like, you know, you're going to you're going to keep working. I'm going to you know, work until you drop dead. It wouldn't anything like that. Okay, it wasn't like, you're gonna keep working, I'm gonna work until you drop dead. It wasn't anything like that. It was giving instructions and not having the same level

of snap to it going on and not having the level of deference to him as the guy in the big chair kind of thing. Is my understanding based on what I was able to see. But all of all of that conflict, the conflict between Scott and Ford and the conflict between Scott and the crew, that all ails in comparison to the conflict between Ford and Scott and the studio. conflict between Ford and Scott and the studio. Because the studio looked at it and they were like, there are so many things here that we need to change.

Oh wow. The audience is not going to get this and the biggest one, the biggest, biggest, biggest, most painful one for really everybody involved was the studio insisted on voiceover narration. I don't know. I don't know what version you have tried to watch and fall asleep to. I think it had about your how we're talking. Well, the voiceover was for. Yeah, it's a record. Yes, record does the voiceover. So what you were probably trying to watch was was the theatrical, Decker does the voice over. So what you were probably trying to watch was was the theatrical, the original theatrical release. No, I was watching the director's cut because I have a policy of like, I tend to watch what the director wanted to put out first

and then I'll go back and watch what all of us got to see. Yeah. Okay. So, very often it turns out that the studio was right. So in this one, well, we'll get to, we'll get to, I mean, it really depends on, because the choices that the studio made, made a different point with the movie. That's why, were you changed the message of the movie. It's, yeah. Um, so anyway, they were looking at it like this is, this is too deep, this is gonna be like crazy pants over people's heads.

Mm-hmm. Um, so we want voiceover and Ford didn't wanna do it, but he had sighted contract and he had to. And Scott didn't wanna do it, but he had sighted contract and he had to. And Scott didn't want to do it, but he didn't have creative control. And so they were forced to record voiceover bits. And yeah, so it wasn't until the directors cut came out that that that finally got eliminated. until the directors cut came out that that that finally got eliminated. But yeah, so the whole production was full of conflict, like all over the place. And so in the film, a group of highly advanced replicants have arrived on Earth from the

outer colonies. There's an interesting change here from the book in that in New Android's Dream of Electric Sheep, it's explicitly mentioned that the colonies are on Mars or on the Moon. They are here in the solar system. The subtext in the film is that they are extra solar. They are outside our solar system. Okay. But these replicants have shown up on Earth.

There are four of them instead of six. And Deckard has given the job of hunting them down and retiring them. Okay. So at the very beginning of the movie, he's out and about on the street and it's raining, sky is dark, there's neon everywhere. And he sits down at a noodle stand and Edward James Olmos in a critically, I don't want to say underappreciated, but like I feel like there should be more attention

given to almost as performance in this film. Because it plays this small part, but it's this amazing performance. Gaff, who is another Blade Runner, shows up. And in a language called city speak that almost made up for the part, basically tells forward you're being called back at a retirement. You got to come with me. Okay. And I mentioned here in my notes played with captivating weirdness by Edward James almost. And so Gaff, you know, gets him in the car and they go to the LAPD offices.

And Gaff is a, it's a small part, but he's important because there are a number of places where he drops. Cryptic little clues in the form of little origami figures. Okay. He, he, while he's talking to somebody or while he's watching what's going on between foreign somebody else He'll he'll fold a little origami figure and set it down and it's always It always has a meaning Whatever whatever it is. He's made always has a meaning so

They arrive at the LAPD offices and the police captain tells Deckard, these are Nexus 6 models. They are so advanced that we don't know if the Voight Camp empathy test is going to work on them. Oh, so they've got, they basically, they've gotten around all detection. They may have gotten around all detection. They may have gotten around all detection. We need you to go to the Tyrell Corporation who manufactures them. And we need you to test out to make sure

that the test is going to spot them. And there's a back and forth where Decker basically says, look, I retired, I don't want to do this anymore. And the captain kind of makes threats and there's references to stuff that we never figure out exactly what it is. He's threatening, but he basically makes it clear. I'm not gonna give you a choice.

You're gonna be the one to do this. Gadget. And so Decker, chauffeur by Gaff, heads to Terrell Corporation and talks to Eldon Tyrell, the founder of the company and the inventor of replicants. And Terrell says to him, okay, I want to see the test fail first. Okay. Or, no, I'm sorry, I want to see a replicant, sorry, I said that rock.

I want to see a replicant, sorry, I said that rock. I wanna see a replicant fail. And he says, I'll have you interview my assistant, Rachel. Rachel is one of the next six replicants, so I want a new tester. And so, Deckard sits down with her and gives her the test. And after the test is over, he talks to Tarell and he says She failed

But only just barely Okay, she she very nearly passes for human Does she know She's a replicant And Tarell tells her no she doesn't know she's replicant. She has been in addition to being one of the next six models, I also had childhood memories implanted in her brain. So she believes she had a child in in her own head she had a childhood.

And that's I mean that brings in some really cool ethical questions too. Oh yeah. You know, it's you cannot tell the difference between the implanted memory and the real memory is there a difference. Yeah. And therefore even though the person is a replicant, like you saw them being decanted last year, they believe that they have lived 30 years. Yep.

So, yeah, that's, yeah, it's pretty heavy. And so, Deckard kind of absorbs that information and so bird by that thought he heads off to the last known location where one of the four replicants had been Leon. He heads Leon's hotel room and while searching the room, he finds a snake scale. And he... Not a scale for measuring the weight of snakes. No, a scale. A measuring thing made of snakes to measure the weight of things.

No. Oh, no, a scale off of the skin of a snake. They skinned a snake and turned that into a scale to weigh. Anyway, he winds up taking the evidence that he found to a vendor on the street. This all happens in subtext. This is brilliant storytelling and amazing world building. He takes this thing to this guy and what we see as the audience is, first off, constantly raining outside.

Still, sky's black rain all the time. And we see the scale on the screen of an electron microscope. And there are numbers etched into the scale, giving a serial number. And this vendor is able to tell him, okay, yeah, no, I can trace the sale of this particular snake because it's a replicant snake. It's an artificial snake. Okay, which goes back to the book that you told me about last week. Yes.

Okay. We don't see any, the only animal we see in the film belongs to one of the replicants. And it is the film version of the electric sheep that Deckard has in the book. Only it's a Python that was actually the personal pet of the actress who played the role. But all of the things that we then unconsciously realize when we see that, no, no, that was an artificial snake, almost real,

very, very expensive. If you didn't know, Android, you now know, okay, animals, you know, animals are largely artificial in the world. And that gives you the subtext of environmental devastation and everything that's going on. That's going to be hard to find, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, and prestige is very expensive. And you get all of that with just those few lines. It's a remarkable bit of world-building. It's still weird, I'm sorry, but maybe it's my mammalian bias speaking up, but like, if you're gonna get a pet at a time where the world is cold and dark and drippy

and just bad, if you're gonna get a pet, I would imagine like a chinchilla, like something really fucking cuddly. Yeah, you know, and instead they went for an animal that is self-aware, kind of like it's even, you know, it's questionable. But like a snake, like it does not show affection, it does not, you basically, like if you're snake guy, it means you're you know a psycho. Um, because you invite people over to watch it kill things like that's. So keep in mind, keep in mind, it is one of the replicants that did this. So there could be so they're just

approximating. We could we could and we could interpret that as being a subtext about text about what, what, what, Jora is her name, what she identifies with, you know, or what her, you know, um, and so, um, let's say, we then cut to Leon and Roy. Roy Batty is Rucker Hauer. Okay. And so Leon and Roy, two of the two male replicants, visited a laboratory where replicant eyes are manufactured, are produced, becanted, whatever term you want to use. And they encounter the scientist operating the lab who has played, again, there's not a clinker of a performance anywhere in this movie. James Hong plays the eye maker. And he spends the entire scene in absolute terror because he knows exactly who these two guys are. And they make it very, very clear. We want to get to Terrell. We know we're dying.

You're gonna tell us how to get there. And he winds up, he points them in the direction of J.F. Sebastian, who's a genetic designer, who's also involved in the process of making replicants, who is an intimate of Tarell's. So like James Hanks character is, you know, part of the process and he's, you know,

he met Tarell, but he and Tarell aren't buddies. JF Sebastian plays chess with Tarell on a regular basis in their, you know, tight. Okay. And so then Leon and Roy kill him. After Leon spends the entire scene as Roy is questioning the scientist, Leon is looming behind him the entire time and he's reaching into this tank and he's pulling eyes that have the beginnings of the optic nerve hanging off the back of him and he's pulling them out of the tank and putting them he does it with this combination of deep-seated rage and like he's a four-year-old who's playing with the toys.

It's, whoo, it's, yeah. Reep is all hell and I'm sure Hong didn't have to work very hard to ask. Sure. So then we flash back to Deckard. Deckard returns to his apartment and he finds Rachel there. And Rachel insists to him, no, no, no, look, I know how the test turned out, but I'm not a replicant, which is important because if she is a replicant, somebody's going to show up and, you know, blow her brains out because it's illegal for replicants

to be on earth. She says, no, no, I'm real. And she shows him a photograph of her childhood. And Dacard looks her in the eye and says that memory was stolen from Tarell's niece and implanted in your head. That's an art that's not really your memory. Yeah, and I'm getting vibes of like total recall. Yeah, I'm getting vibes of minority report. I'm getting vibes of God, even I robot. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm getting vibes of minority report. I'm getting vibes of God, even I robot. Yeah. Yeah. Interestingly, of the three you mentioned, I robot is the only

one not related to a Philip K. Dick property. Oh, really? Yeah. The other two are. Yeah, total recall is one of his and minority report is like that's taken straight out of his book. The visuals, the visuals are a bit different, but the themes and, and every, like the plot line of the story are basically straight out of the, I don't know. Okay. So he's, he is very much like it's, it's a go to for him to play with how do you know real is real? That, that epistemological type stuff that David Hume's tough. Okay. It is his jam in a huge way. Yeah. Um, so she flees in tears.

I mean, logically, how else are you going to react to finding that out? Like other other than, you know, blue screen of death and just you know staring the wall for right to turn any so we cut away again to risk one of the female of the four replicants showing up at JF Sebastian's home and manipulating her in a scene that very much reminds me of my ex-wife. Like, like rewatching this particular scene I looked at and went, there were so many red flags in that relationship. Like, I shouldn should have known but

You know in a in a very very ingratiating kind of way you know and gives him The kind of attention that it's clear. He doesn't receive very often right, you know and and He doesn't receive very often. Right. And, you know, we see her getting her hooks into him. And the whole thing has these overtones of Dread.

And he's a grown man who surrounds himself with dolls. And simultaneously he's the designer of artificial people. Yeah. So there's, you know, designer of artificial people. Yeah, that's... So there's lots of overtones and... Yeah. And so we then cut back to Deckard. Deckard finds the other female replicant named Jora, working at a strip club.

And in order to get into range to kind of take her by surprise to retire her, he approaches her after her set and says, hey, I'm from the performers union. Okay. And, you know, we've had reports, we've had complaints about the management of this establishment, are you okay with me, coming into your dressing room to check, because you know, when you start to each tellin' her about, you know, I'm lookin' for hidden cameras to see if anybody's, you know, trying to peek on you

when you think you're alone and all this. And she gets in the shower and she's talking to him from the shower and then she gets in the futuristic looking bubble hair dryer thing. She's talking to all that happens. And she sees through his r crowd, and he winds up shooting her, vice in the back. The original script, it's interesting to note, did not have him actually shooting her. She winds up running into the street, turns a corner, and gets hit by a bus. So in the in the final script, he is the one who pulls the trigger.

And when he does it, the violence of it is not softened. We see her getting hit. We hear the sound of her being struck twice. We hear to kind of drive home the visceral awfulness of it, I think, was the reason for that choice being made. And after he does that, and when he lets his higher ups know that he's he's retired one of the four. He receives orders to retire Rachel as well because she has fled Tarell's Control she's she's no longer she's no longer there at Tarell Court. All right, so I'm seeing that Again, he plays three different archetypes

through the 1930s, all of whom shoot first. On solo shot first. Yeah, you know, Ronda. Andy hits the sword guy first. Yeah. And now he shoots her in the back. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. So Leon in the street, Leon shows up at this point and sees him retire. You said Leon in the street like the Darmak and July part of my brain just kicked in the real life name of Leon in the pay on the pavement of the the professional wrestler Big Van Vader who feel free to look him up if you if you get a chance he's like 450 pounds he's called the Rocky Mountain massed the Don like Vader just look up Vader yeah WWE right okay his real name is Leon White and so you say Leon in this you know Leon in the street

I'm like Vader in the sheet and once you see a picture of him and then you picture him in the sheets You're just like oh, oh no Like yeah, so I And the thing is yeah, so he was he did moons, by the way, he would like do backflips on to people on to the back. Yeah, that was his thing at 450 pounds. Yep. Yeah, spangly murder gymnastics.

Yeah, yeah, like holy crap. In his instance, sweaty murder gymnastics. Yeah. But yeah, true. So Leon Kowalski is the full name of the Replicant in question. And he's played by the actor Brian James, BRI, O N James. I'm confusing him with a different Brian James, aren't I? I don't know. Um, we know him also from Silverado. Had a role in the fifth element, his, his, his heavy.

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All dudes like the bad guy in Cobra, wasn't he? I could be right. Yeah, I might have been. It's a great list. It's listed here as a high limit.

But Jamie, Jamie gets that online thugs is normal. Yeah. These are for the episodes that are divisible by eight. But yeah, this is true. So anyway, but anyway, he's this huge imposing dude. Yeah, he's a big dude. And so anyway, he sees Deckard shoot Jora and kind of melts back into the crowd for a moment. And then when Deckard kind of moves out of the main part of the street,

he ambushes him. Okay. And he's one of the ones that Dan near kills Decker. Yes. And he beats the brakes off of him. He is, he is about to beat him to death, knocks the gun out of his hand, and is just about to crush his skull until Rachel appears, picks up Deckard's gun and shoots Leon with it. Does Leon then start flopping? A little bit, not as much as Yura. So it's heavily implied that he is also a replicant. Oh yeah. Yeah. Which means they hang out in proximity to each other. Yes, they are the four of them came to Earth together and they are a team.

Okay. We've seen them largely separately, but it's implied throughout that they're together. Okay. So, Decker takes Rachel back to his apartment. Prom promises her that he's not going to hunt her down He's he's not going to be the one to retire her. Okay. As she turns to leave He grabs her arm and forcefully kisses her

After a moment of resistance she relents now. It's noir. It's noir. It's 80s neo noir and science fiction. Right. And so as a as a moment in that film in that time, we're supposed we're expected to see this as a romantic subplot. Right. Watching it post me to it's really jarring. I know. It is not cool. Like there's so many layers. I know it feels like cool.

Like there's so many layers of this feeling so lazy. Yeah. When the romantic subplot is jumped off by a sudden surprise kiss, like you could have filmed absolutely no sexual tension whatsoever. And then he does that and then you're like, Oh, okay, now we have a subplot. And it's like, yeah, okay, now we have a subplot. And it's like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, it was an accepted trope of the time. Right, you know, nowadays it doesn't fly in 81, 82,

you know, and before. So Roy, so now we cut away from that Roy, so now we cut away from that to Roy showing up at Sebastian's apartment. Roy intimidates Sebastian into getting him access to Tarell. Okay. So there's this moment in an elevator at Torelcore where Sebastian, sorry, Torel hits the call button and asks Sebastian a chess question, like, you know, what's your move? Oh, yeah. I saw this in Star Trek. Yeah. And batty gives Sebastian a response. And batty gives that response.

And Starell let's get up with I'm forgetting who batty is. Batty Roy batty. Okay, okay. Who wrote your. Cut your power right right right very very blonde Yeah, yeah, okay, he gives a response and gets that up. Yeah, and they and they come up and Roy Basically tells Terrell I'm I'm at the end of my life cycle my My friends and I are about to die. You programed

us to die. Now, I haven't mentioned this here. I don't remember whether I mentioned it in our prior episode. One of the plot points in the film that didn't appear in the book is that replicants because they are built to survive in environment's humans have a hard time with because they are designed to be stronger, faster, and tougher than humans. They are built in with a four-year lifespan, a pill switch. At the end of four years, everything starts breaking down. And Badi tells tells Terrell, I want you to fix that. That you need to unfuck that like right now. Sure, sure. I need that to fix.

And Terrell tells him that's not possible, that's not doable. And they get into this conversation that is this, this, very emotional, like parent child mode kind of conversation. And Torella is very much in the parent mode and Roy is very much in the child mode, but how much of Roy's child mode is genuine and how much of it is him acting. Right. We can't be sure, but Tarell is very clearly eating it up. can't be sure, but Tarell is very clearly eating it up. Right.

And Tarell tells him and Roy admits, I've done things. I've done questionable things. And Tarell brushes all that aside. Just like, no, I understand, you've killed people. We made you to be a soldier, whatever, that's fine. But look at what you've accomplished, look how advanced you are. The holiday, when you go.

Look at everything you've done in the short time that you've had. And so he's praising him and dehumanizing him in the exact same breath. Yeah. And we've been studying the 1800s in my US history class. You can only imagine what praising, dehumanizing exists at the same breath. I'm sure. Yeah.

And so at the end of it, Roy says to him, I want more life, fucker. And Kills Terrell by gouging his eyes out with his thumbs. Okay. In a film that has repeated moments of shocking violence. And this is twice that we've talked about eyes being kind of the graphic thing. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to get to that and talk about themes. But like this, this is one of the most viscerally shock inducing moments of

violence in the movie. And so, Kills Terrell, and then we find out that Sebastian is dead later. We don't, we don't see Sebastian get killed on screen. We see him scream and run away as Roy is killing Terrell. The assumption is that Roy finishes him off. Okay. So, kind of while that's going on, Deckerd shows up at Sebastian's home and counters Pris. And they have a fight scene and Deckard retires her, kills Pris. Okay, so we're, we've got three down now. Three down, Roy,

Roy is the last one. Roy shows up. Wait, I thought what's her face who's oh, because she was the secretary. She wasn't actually part of the four. Yeah, she wasn't part of the four. She's Sean Young, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. In one of those moments where young me had a very hard time remembering that, you know, crazy is to be avoided. Anyway, sorry. So Roy shows up and he in Decord fight and even as his body is shutting down, we see multiple moments where, you know, Roy has trouble getting up. And like he is very clearly in the deterioration

of his body has begot and it's very clear. And like he is very clearly in the deterioration of his body has begot and it's very clear. But even with that going on, he has Decker massively outclassed to the point where Decker is running away from him across rooftops and jumps, misses the jump. Does not make the jump. Deckard misses the jump and winds up hanging by his fingertips from the edge of a roof of a building. Baddie leaps after him.

And he has a dove in one hand. And I don't remember where he picked the dove up. I meant to rewatch, especially this sequence. But I don't remember exactly how he got it. But he's holding a bird in one hand, literally. And he turns around, looks down at Deckard. He leaps across, turns around, looks down at Deckard, and it first lectures him.

He says, that's what it's like to live in fear. That's the life of a slave. And Deckard loses his grip. Baddie catches him with the free hand that isn't holding a dove. By the way, that free hand earlier in the fight, his freehand had been stabbed and hearsed. So he grabs Decker with a hand that has a hole in it. Picks him up. Well, it's a hand hole. Makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Picks him up, sets him on the roof with his whole hand. With his whole hand. Before crouching and delivering, one of the greatest Saliliquais in film history. Yeah, I remember, I have seen clips of that. Yeah.

And I remember people talking about it in the history of the film. I have seen things. New people wouldn't leave. Attacks lips on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched Steve Eaves glitter in the dark near the tan house again. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Yeah, it's supposed to. Time to die. The camera follows as the dove escapes his grip as he expires and flies off into the ash and pouring sky. That monologue in the original script that monologue was notably longer. Right. Hower himself, but a whole lot of it out, because he said it was tech language and, and it was all like way too operatic. Okay. And so in his own words, he took a knife to it the night before filming. I love that Ridley Scott thinks something's too operatic. Yeah. Well, no, how are, oh, okay. No, no, no, how are you looking at the script? It was like, I can't that's too much. Yeah. It's, it's, it's no, Howard. Oh, oh, okay. No, no, no, Howard. Howard looked at the script and was like,

I can't. That's too much. Yeah. It's it's a Render Howard's version of Harrison Ford saying to George Lucas, you can write this shit, but you can't say it. Right. You know, but Howard showed the script to two Scott

before filming and Scott signed off on it. And that's the version that they did. Okay. Apparently the group, when they, when they called cut the crew applauded, and a number of crew members had been moved to tears by it. It genuinely is, it's, in my opinion, it's probably the crowning moment of Rutger Hauer's career

as and after. It's, there are so many layers that he manages to put into. You can see so many emotions passing over his face as he's doing it. It's incredible. So, Deckard's reaction to this is a blend of bafflement and loss. He is still kind of getting over. He didn't kill me. It just let me fall. And like holy shit, I'm still alive. Combined with, and this is Harrison Ford doing some really good internal work, you can also see as he exhales, part of it is the sigh of loss of seeing, witnessing a person's death. This isn't just a biological robot.

There is an emotional connection there. Yeah. And so shortly, moments after thataff shows up on scene. You know, praises, uh, record for, you know, having completed the contract. And then says, it's too bad she won't live. But then who does? Gaff turns around and leaves. Deckard has to get back to his apartment on foot.

When he arrives, he finds Rachel there, grabs her and they flee. They go out on the lamp. And now here's where we need to talk about the multitude of versions of this movie that got made. Right. Because while authorial intent means basically fuck all. Studio meddling means something entirely different.

Yeah, yeah. So in the theatrical version of the film, Decker grabs Rachel, they flee Alpador, and Warner Brothers insisted against forehand Scott both. Owling in indignation that they needed to show Decker and Rachel driving away. The ending of the theatrical release is them flying in the flying car of the film, flying away into a stunning forested landscape. Huffy white clouds, blue skies, bright sunlight, and Deckard's voiceover,

which again, or in Scott, had both like screamed about, but they had to do, Deckard's voiceover ends with, I didn't know how much time we had, but who does? Okay. Which completely changes the whole point of the fucking moving, right? Because then you see the director's cut in which there is no happy flying off into the wilderness. And as Deckard and Rachel are fleeing the apartment, there is a tiny origami figure on the floor. So Gaff has been there and left. Right.

Now it's also really important to note the origami figure that he leaves behind is a unicorn and anybody who's looked up blade runner online anywhere has heard about the unicorn as being this thing. In the director's cut, there's also a dream sequence. A record falls asleep and there's a dream sequence in which he sees a unicorn. And the implication of the unicorn figure is that the dream was an implant. Is Deckard himself a replicant? Right.

And then that leads to all kinds of epileptic trees, you know, fan conspiracy theories about, wait a minute, okay, so wait, is Gaff actually like the only human? And like, like, records memories are all gaffs, our own memories. Sure. You know, like, there's all this stuff going on. And so Warner Brothers didn't like that ambiguity. They, they looked at that and were like, no, we don't, this is, no, that's a drag. We don't want people leaving the theater thinking about that.

He's, he's, he's human. He's the detective. He got the name. Like, let's just, you know, right. Never mind. It's a New War of Film often does the noro film have a happy ending? Well, it's the 80s Reagan time noro film Yes, yeah, so the directors cut got released in 92 With the unicorn sequence returned and the voice over happy ending removed with the unicorn sequence returned and the voiceover happy ending removed. And then in 2007, the final cut was released theatrically and on home media.

And that is the only version of the film that Scott had total artistic control over. They said, all right, fine, take all the material, do whatever you want to with it. And there are, you know, a couple of changes, you know, some shots were included, but, you know, but as far as the meaning of the film, there are two very dramatic interpretations of what the idea behind the movie is. And if you're talking about that debate, that's basically the theatrical cut and the director's cut are the two. Okay. That are important for that. The final cut is like, no, this is really Scott's, you know, fewer revision.

That's great, but we can figure out kind of what he was trying to say with the 92 directors cut. So now we can get into talking about themes involved in a film. So like, you know, before we do that, anything like this, this isn't our end of end of episode, you know, what do you take away, but like before we get into, yeah, yeah, mid analysis. What do you think? Well, um, I go back and forth when it comes to different cuts. Like I said, I tend to watch the director's cut first and then the theatrical cut. And this is because directors very often will cry foul. And as I have seen, studios are kind of important on raining a movie in and making it make sense.

To the vulgar masses like George Lucas clearly needed that for episode four, you know, as evidence by episodes one, two and three. Yeah. So and I'm thinking of, you know, the other one that that's so painfully obvious is John Millius' cut of Conan the Barbarian has. And he even shows you, he's like, here's what I cut out. And I was like, yeah, good, good. Why didn't you cut this other part out? Because the theatrical cut was way better. Yeah. You know, and it's almost like, I think directors, I don't, I don't want to generalize actually, but it seemed like John Millius at least, um, how to put wanted good scenes in there that,

that were his darlings and he didn't want to kill his darlings. And the studio was like, cut for time and the result was he had to kill his darlings and thank goodness he did because his darlings were shit. I think about Ridley Scott with gladiator because that's most of my experience with Ridley Scott as gladiator. Okay. And he just pompous ass. Oh my god.

Now, grant you it is Roman history. Yeah. So I'm going to take exception with him saying, well, we're you there. It's like fuck you. But as a film goes, because somebody took issue with the idea of them lighting their arrows on fire that you would have this like, oh, oh, I didn't take issue with them lighting the arrows on fire. Yeah. No, no, no, no, I took issue with the fact that they used fucking bows in the opening in the first place. They had archers. They had auxiliaries who were archers. And by the time we're talking about with Marcus Aurelius, they absolutely had co-opted plenty of archers from the east. Yeah, but six foot long, you long bows? Yeah, no, no. Yeah.

But, and so when people took issue with with you know, and what he did was clever I mean, yeah, cool if you're making fantasy shit. This is very clever. Yeah, you have that that Ditch of pitch, right? Yeah, you dig your bows into it and then you know light each other's fires Very clever, but somebody pointed that out to him. He's like, well, were you there? How do you know they didn't it's like oh? So that notwith standing. Yeah, he cut some scenes out that were for time and were for tone. Like he'd already proven how Kuku Komodus was going. And so you didn't need the scene where he stands in front of the longbowman about to execute someone. Okay. That scene got cut.

Yeah. And they left out, you know, and they took out the scene where he goes downstairs and he hacks to pieces the bust of his father. And then the next scene, he says, I'm vexed, I'm very vexed. And it just, it didn't quite work. And I think he did a good job of cutting that. Yeah.

But yeah, I'm still just kind of thinking in terms of, you know, Ridley Scott, I don't know that I want him having full artistic control of a movie. So, you know, the studio may have been wrong in its meddling, but I don't think the studio was wrong to meddle. So I can see that. Yeah, the distinction between had it coming and deserved it. Yeah, or they, they were entitled to do it. They did a bad job. I think it's more that. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. The job they did was shit. The fact that they should have done that job is perfectly acceptable. Yeah. So, yeah.

Anyway, that's, I guess, where I'm at as part of that goes. And of course, noting the patterns that Harrison Ford continues to shoot first, continues to get beat up and everything and continues to play 1930s icons. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm going to bounce around in my notes here, but in terms of themes. And I'm going to start with environmental degradation. Okay.

Anytime you're outside in this film with the exception of the happy ending sequence, or anytime you're looking out a window. Crazy. Yeah, okay. It's always raining and not a little bit. It's not drizzling. It is pouring down rain. There are a couple of references

to the collapse of the environment on Earth. It's not aerobly overt, but like the whole thing with the snake is a huge deal in getting ahead of cross, which is taken from the novel, but there's no mention in the movie of any nuclear exchange. There is no mention of World War Terminus. So in this version of the future, there's no evidence that that happened. It's just we have destroyed the planet. We have destroyed the environment.

Sure. Yeah. It's the Chessons. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So the ending that Warner Brothers tacked on to the end gives us this idea that, well, you know, outside the cities, there are still forests and clear skies, and that completely changes, initially in my notes, said undercuts, but I don't think it necessarily undercuts. I think it changes the moral of that to a message about urban overcrowding. Okay. Urban pollution, like turns it turns it into a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, and stewardship of the whole planet, it's now symbolic for the corruption of the cities or corporate greed or something. And implies that there is an escape possible on earth.

You had talked about, was it in this series of episodes or was it in a different one? Ronald Reagan noticing acid rain? Yeah, it was. It was last episode. Okay, that's what I thought. So, you know, clearly environmentalism is in there, but I do like that you're pointing out that there's there's still a way out. It's almost as though the Reaganism has infected the message. though the Reaganism has infected the message. Very much. Yeah. Yeah. We can't leave everybody with this vision of a planet that we've actually destroyed

because that's too much of a drag. We can still fix things and it's not really that bad. Like, this is roughly the same time period where we started learning about the damage that we were doing to the ozone layer with chloro-flora carbons. Right. And it took massive legislative efforts to fix that problem. That now looking back on everything, the banning of CFCs is one of the few happy we have where like, no, we succeeded and like things got better. You know, whereas looking back on this movie now, I'm kinda like, wow, this was awfully prophetic

for a movie made in 1982. Yeah. So, you know, you know what I mean? The shit was happening. Yeah. And so yeah, there are two very different messages about it, depending on which version of the film you see. And at the same time,

and this isn't ever over, but looking at it now with a 2020s lens where we are looking at colonialism and imperialism. Yeah. We literally are bombarded during film with advertisements for people to go to the outer colonies. Sure. You know, which makes it interesting that at the end of the theatrical movie, now you can

escape all of this awesomeness here on Earth, whereas in Dix' novel and in the director's cut of the film, the only way to escape all of it is to go to the outer colonies, to colonize these other planets. And Roy references the light from a tan from the tanhouser gate, which sounds like some kind of interstellar gateway. And the replicants are described as having been designed to work in harsh environments. Right. Roy and Leon, if you watch closely, there are moments on the screen where their background

and essentially their specifications are included. Roy and Leon were both soldiers. Leon, as I remember, was designed to be a loader on a tank, which explains why he's, you know, six, six, and weighs 300. And Jora was designed to be an assassination model. Okay. And Chris is the only one who's not a soldier by design. She's a comfort model, pleasure model. Sure, sure. And they have been deliberately created to be an underclass in the colonization of other planets. Okay. And they are dehumanized throughout the movie by the system and even by our protagonists. They are consistently dehumanized.

And the movie begs the question, can we know whether we are human or one of them? Until our death. Until, but yeah. Which you have to remove their humanity to find out if they had humanity. Yeah. So, you know, interesting. That kind of resonates in the same way that Firefly did too, because isn't there like a high degree of Sino-Synophilia? Um, and it's like, I mean, in Firefly. Yeah, Firefly.

There is, yeah, Sino-Filia for sure. And this one, there seems to be a high degree of niponophilia Like isn't there well, okay, so now I'm gonna now I'm gonna shift over Okay, very First thing I noted as a theme which is the heavy and I mean heavy Jeopardy-sation of the background in cultural elements. So he sits down at a soba noodle stand Mm-hmm or a at a soba noodle stand or a soba ramen. Anyway noodle stand out of the street. One of the most iconic images from the film is a multi-story tall hologram billboard sized hologram with the face of a gaysha in full costume and makeup.

There are Japanese characters in the neon all around him. And graph, of course, from pulsively folds origami figures. Right. So there is this intense Japanization. And you've got this, you've got in Assassin, you've got a pleasure bot. I mean, you're pulling on certain themes of American understanding of Japanese culture, the Gashide, the dragon lady idea.

So, okay. Yeah. And now, of course, this is pretty, pretty simple to point out is this is 1982. Sure. You're of, you as it is it's 80 87, 888, 89 when like the Americans are just like sounding every goddamn alarm they can. But we are seeing Toyota cars really making their way over to show up. And the looming success of Japan's rebuilding after World War II is starting to be something that's getting noticed. It's not 100% in the mainstream yet. I'm trying to remember when, you know, the first of the, you know, American Ninja movies got made.

But it's the same decade. Yeah, it's the same decade. Yeah, it's the same decade. It's within a few years of this. Yeah. I think American Ninja 3 is like 85. But yeah, you start to see a lot of, yeah. Like I said, an eponophile type type. Yeah, actually the very first one is 85.

American Ninja is a 1985 American seller. It's action film. So we're three years out from that. So, you know, it's... That's the one with Michael Dutacov. They're all with Michael Dutacov. I thought, oh, I'm thinking of the movie Ninja. Which is different than American Ninja. Yeah, yeah.

Because that's how many goddamn Ninja... Ninja, it's got made, yeah. Okay. Which would be a couple of episodes all on top of that. because that's how many goddamned Ninja Moth. It's got made, yeah. Okay. Which would be a couple of episodes all on its own. Right. So, okay, but anyway, yeah.

Yeah. So, corporate hour and hubris. So. It's really starting to pick up. Yeah. Like you see that separation between the lowest and the highest paid in a corporation is no longer, you know, like low double digits. Well, it's the it's all of the tax structure and economic policies of the Reagan administration that get off that off. Yeah. Dropped it down to 37%, I think by the time this movie came out.

Yeah. So the trip to Tyrell Tower at the beginning of the film is a visually amazing scene. and the spinner, the flying car that they approach in, approaches this titanic cigarette. cigarette, cigarette, I don't know what you're talking about. cigarette. It's the terrible tower is this isn't a tower. It is an immense step pyramid kind of structure that takes up a city unto itself. Sure. It's reminiscent of an archeology. If you're familiar with that, put that concept out of science fiction or futurism.

And what I say futurism, I mean like not the philosophy. But anyway, right, right. You don't mean people that went on that killed during World War One. Yeah, no, no, talking, right. You don't be able to, when are we going to be outcaled during World War One? Yeah, no, no, talking about that. But the concept of an archaeology, an archaeology is a self-contained city. It is, it is a city that is one large multi-story multi-acre structure, where everything is a designed thing. All of the, all of the living spaces are in a particular place and there are recreational areas and there are marketplaces and industrial stuff is done down on the bottom floors. And it is this concept of a microcosm community. Like it's been, it's the idea of an archeology

is something that people have looked at when they've thought about colonizing Mars. And so, Torell Tower is this city unto itself. It is titanic in scale. And it takes at least a minute and a half, maybe two minutes of movie time just for them to to approach the structure and get to where they need to be. To meet Tarell. It is this dominant, huge thing. And then they meet Tarell himself and he is a lowkey mad scientist. So we meet this guy. He has a genetically engineered owl as his pet. Okay. And there's, and there's

a moment when they, when, when they're in his apartment right before, they're going to interview Rachel, right before Decker's going to interview Rachel right before Decker's gonna interview Rachel. There's this shot that is clearly deliberate on on Scott's part. This was not just like, oh, hey, look how that happened. Like right. The owl turns its head and we have this close up of the light shining at an angle into the owl's eyes and then gleaming out. Nate. Okay. And this in this clearly there's there's a symbol here.

Mm-hmm. Like, you don't do anything. Scott does not do anything by accident. This is clearly there's something going on. And Tyrell himself, also the logo of Tyrell corp involves the top portion of an owl's head from basically the bottom of the eyes up with the horn feathers and the big eyes. So this is again another level of this is a very clearly an important symbol.

So this is this again another level of this is very clearly an important symbol. And then we see Tyrell and he's wearing these enormous glasses that distort his own eyes in a couple in a couple of shots. Sure. You know, the the angle is such that his eyes look enormous and then he looks directly at us and they look close to normal again. But there's this very, conscious kind of focus on his eyes. And he has created Rachel as his secretary and assistant. He has created her to not understand her own nature. He has used her as an experiment to see how close he can get to making a replicant that thinks it's a human Okay And then when Roy shows up I already talked about this

Roy Is very close to anybody who is not love fuck crazy. Roy exudes menace. I mean, it's rut her hour playing this uber Aryan looking guy with murder on his mind. And and Terrell, at no point does Terrell feel threatened. He has this idea of himself as the creator. And he's too busy admiring his own genius to realize how much peril he's in. And again, as you noted, Maddie kills him by gouging out his eyes. So huge eyes. There's the scene with HONG, with the scientist that HONG plays, where eyes are a motif, the owl being the symbol of Tarell Corporation.

There's clearly symbolism going on here. And as I said, Ridley Scott does not do anything by accident. And all of these were very conscious choices. Sure. And I think my own take on it is he's looking at he's trying to make a point about trying to look too far or trying to see more than we can handle. See, because when I'm getting, you get all the owl stuff, right? And then you've got the gouging out and stuff like that. And guy who hasn't seen the movie says, what I'm seeing is very much the Minerva Iraqi story. Like, okay, remind me Minerva Iraqi.

Iraq, Iraqi is the best weaver of all time, etc. Or she's a Lidian and everybody's like, wow, everybody in Lidia thinks she's fantastic. Yeah. And she's like, yeah, shit. And if if the gods themselves came down, I'd beat their ass at this. I'm the best. So you got the hubris. And so the Minerva shows up as an old woman, as an old throne.

And she's like, so you think you're the best. And she says, oh yeah, if Minerva herself, she's like, you know, I wouldn't get too cocky there. And she's like, no, I'd whip Minerva's ass. So then of course, the old woman is Minerva. She un-old woman. She turns into Minerva. She un-old woman. She turns into Minerva. She says, I challenge you to a contest then. And Arachnese like, fuck and bring it. So

they set up looms next to each other. And they go at it. And Minerva does this beautiful tapestry of all the greatnesses of the gods. And Arachnese does this beautiful tapestry of all the shittinesses of the gods. And Minerva is like, you know, and everybody is like, it is hard to tell the difference in skill here. It really is. And Minerva is like, you don't get to diss us like that. Fuck you. And so she turns, she, she, she rebukes her. And Arachni runs off and goes to hang herself Minerva shows up and turns her into a spider That's why spiders we webs because yeah, yeah, so and the whole thing is get off that easy. Yeah, you don't get off that easy And also Don't don't challenge the gods, you know, so it feels it's kind of got that vibe of you know, you are trying to do to

Your challenging God you're trying to create the perfect being Yeah, and the owl is very much a Minerva and simple. That's true. So I I forgot that Minerva was a thing as Roman name Oh shit. I'm sorry. So I remembered no, it's fine I've just you said Iraqi and Minerva and was like, well, I know the story of Iraq need much deal with the Minerva right and then he starts out in the story and I'm like, all right, Minerva, Roman, forget it. Okay. Sorry. All right. No worries. It's, you know, yeah. Uh, yeah, I think I think that's that's a good, that's a good interpretation. He might have been pulling from it on some levels You know, there's I think I think he's borrowing from the toolbox of symbols that dates back to that era I think and I think I think a message really big in the early 1980s

Yeah, true We haven't done one on Flash of the Titan. We know it. We might we might have to that might need to be a joint venture. I don't know Ray Harryhausen holy cow. Yeah. But yeah, no, you're right. There are a couple of major films there with artificial houses, the thematic element. Yeah. So yeah, there is there is the hubris there of personally of Tarell. And then there is the power of the Tarell corporation. Sure.

Like, it is pretty clear that the only reason Decker gets orders to hunt down Rachel is because she has fled from Tarell. And so as long as she was under Tarell Corp's control, they're locating this really important critical law that we literally enforce with a juryless death penalty, but it's Tarell Corp. So what are you going to do? Right, right. And that it's China town. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So that's one that's very noir and number two, that's really, really, really, really cyberpunk.

really cyberpunk. That is so intensely cyberpunk in a huge big way. And that's possibly for that's an angle to get into in a later episode for analysis of that. But that is that is one of the one of the themes that we see coming. I would say out of this film, I'm not even going to say out of the genre, I'm going to say out of this film, the visual representation of that corporate power and that corporate hubris is you can draw a straight line from Torell Corp in this film to Ginnam Corp in Bollodom Crisis, which is a very important anime interpretation of Cyberpunk stuff that also involves androids artificial humans. And yeah, it's like Cyberpunk Superhero noir,

like there's so many different threads to it. It's kind of boners and love it. I love it dearly, but it's better saved for another rep. Other episodes. But this is a moment where you can see a whole lot of writers and game designers and other filmmakers at an aha moment watching this film and then went on and took that idea. Yeah, it seems the genesis of a lot of things. Oh, yeah. The

proto version. Yeah. So now humanity and empathy, the audience, are left to consider the ethics of records work. Without Decker, it's ever really looking like he worried about it very much. And now part of that's an artifact of it being an 80s film and the way the way violence happened in 80s films was coded very differently. And, you know, every one of the Nexus 6 replicants puts up a fight that in some way shows they are in fact superhuman. Yeah. And in every instance, we get a palpable sense

of danger from that. Leon and Roy obviously nearly killed Becker like outright. Right. But, uh, RIS manages to get some really good hits in and it's very clear how inhumanly fast she is in that, in that encounter. And, and the way that one is done, um, she has created a situation where he goes in after her and she winds up ambushing him because symbolically she hides amongst a bunch of Sebastian's dolls. Right. Right. You know, and it's repusal hell. I mean, it's, yeah, this is just an amazing

goddamn movie. So like every time I talk about how great a scene is, I know it's getting repetitive, but like, no, seriously, it's amazing. And so we consistently get this palpable sense of danger from them, even the ones who aren't soldiers. You know, Zora doesn't like, if you look really closely, you can see a line of text indicating she's an assassin model. Right. But the context in which we see her is she's an exotic dancer with a pet snake. But even though that's the context in which we see her, she's still stronger than a normal human leaps farther than a normal human can run, you know, like she is clearly superhuman. So there's this, this interesting Frankenstein's monster aspect to them that somewhat mitigates the novel's questions

about who's more human. Because in the novel, we don't see them being stronger than humans, we don't see them being faster. They don't present the same kind of physical threat. Right. So there was this decision made like maybe it's for tension, maybe it's for like thriller purposes. To make us, you know, get more invested in the danger that record is facing doing this job for whatever reason though, it's still in the moment of retirement to use the euphemism out of the film. Seeing them having been so scary a second before makes it easier for us

us to watch them getting killed without having the same kind of qualms that you have reading the book. Yeah. I could see that because like we're setting it up where okay, they live in a world where they're also capable of this violence. Therefore killing them is not just an innocent being destroyed. Yeah, it makes it more morally neutral. So now in the director's cut and the final cut, the question remains at the end of the film, whether record himself might be a replicate. And now that parallels a moment in the novel, we're

record and another bounty hunter are forced to administer the empathy test to themselves, like they give the test to each other. Because in the novel, there's this moment where record goes into a police station, it gets it gets lured into a police station. With this other bounty hunter, only to find out that the whole station, the whole police station is full of androids who have created it as a ruse and a trap to catch bounty hunters and they, they have to bust their way out and then they're both paranoid. And so they administer the test

to each other. Okay. And in the book, it is explicitly stated that no, no, Decker is a human who has developed a heightened level of empathy toward Android. Because in the book, he's starting to question the morality of his job. So the blurred lines around the concept of humanity remain. Sure. But the movie isn't asking the same moral question that the book did. Empathy is a key part of the Voic Camp test in the film. They sit down and anybody who's ever looked up Blade Runner online has probably seen at least part of this clip where we see Leon taking the test at the very beginning

of the movie. And this other Blade Runner is asking him these questions and we're watching Leon's heart rate, we're watching the dilation of his pupils and all these biometrics as the blade runner tells him, you know, you're walking in the desert, you encounter a tortoise, and you kick the tortoise over. And you watch it laying there in the boiling heat, and's flailing, it's linsid. And it's this scenario that's designed to stress you out. If you have a sense of empathy that like, why would I do this? This sucks. Why are you describing this horrible suffering of this creature? And in the film Leon snaps and flips the table and kills the first blade runner, who's been sent after,

which is the reason that they've hired Deckard because you were the best at Center, et cetera. So, empathy is a key part of the White Camp test, but at the very end of the film, Roy, who should fail the test, and who is a murderer, we have seen him kill people, right? Shows empathy for Decker in literally the final moments of his life. Yeah.

And in the theatrical release, there's a there's a voiceover that I actually think isn't so bad where we get a little bit inside Deckards head where he says in that moment, maybe he just didn't want to see anything die unnecessarily, or words of that effect. Right. And it's like, well, okay, if that's not empathy, I don't know what is. But that is a generalized empathy though., not specific to that person empathy.

You know, it's, it's, I don't like bullies versus I don't like you. It's, you know, I, it's, it's all lives matter. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I mean mean it's still something it's still there. Yeah, but yeah so You know, we we have we have these questions and the the book is The book leaves you a lot more ambiguous about Is this ethical is this is this right was this moral who who is really more human right the movie kind of leaves you with a question of okay, how do we define human? You know, I mean yeah, what what is it is yeah, it is it is

broadening the focus broadening the focus significantly. And yeah, it's interesting how the questions shift between the two. And so then final theme I want to talk about is mortality and fear of death. Okay. Beckerd spends the entire film, crying to hunt down for artificial people. And in the process, he is consistently putting himself into situations where his life is in danger. Uh-huh.

Baddie Roy, Leon, Jorah, and Chris, have all come to Earth specifically to try to find a cure for their shortened and life spans. Right. And so we have Decker who is chasing after his own death in order to deliver death. And we have the replicants who are our billing people repeatedly on a quest to extend their own lives and escape death. It's almost vampiric. Kind of. Yeah.

The earth itself is dead. Right. And humanity is dying. So you're killing a dying breed. Yeah. On a dying planet. Or on a dying breed. Yeah. On a dying planet or on a dying planet. Yeah. And in the in the midst of all that is this one moment of very clear Christ imagery. And is it redemption for the Android? Like does does do replicants have a soul can they go to heaven?

Because this one is clearly acting as a Christ figure for us. Right. With a pierced hand and a dove, like, I'm sorry. Can we find a way to put some barbed wire around his scalp to make it more obvious? Like what do we need to do? And, I mean, I'm talking about how a huge animal

is being dropped there, but it's also an incredibly powerful moment of filmmaking. Yeah, yeah. You don't always have to be subtle for it to work. Right. You know, and so there's this, and of course the tears in rain monologue is this amazing or remarkably short reflection on the ephemeral nature of experience and

consciousness in the face of mortality. I mean it ends with time to die. Right. Famously also, Roy Bat if the beginning of the fight sequence. Roy baddy says wake up. Time to die. And so that fight sequence is bookended by that phrase. There's also an aspect of mortality that it creates a life worth living because it gives you urgency. Like, what's the point? This is, you know, the thing I always complain about most vampire movies, the mis-the-point of it, is what's the point of getting up in the morning if you're never going to die? Where's the urgency? And so when you've got these

replicants that live for only four years, yeah, that is a very heightened thing. And when they're not accepting of their reality or they're unaware of their reality, that is a very heightened thing now. And so his whole time to die thing, I mean, it could very much be like, I'm going to squeeze all the juice out of this pickle that I can. Yeah. And I certainly want more of it. So how do we get there? But I do think it's interesting that you have these superhuman creatures that are very hard to kill. Well, I don't know if they are though, because you just shoot them and they die. But you've got to hit them. Right.

Short of murder. Yeah. It's hard for them to die, except that they're going to time out in four years. So they, you know, you said, you know, they're almost more than human. Yeah, they're squeezing an entire lifetime into four years. Every moment is far more precious to them. Yeah. So the candle that burns bread is burnt surest.

Yeah. Yeah. And I want to, before somebody comes at us, comes at me on Twitter because somebody will, the first time we hear Time to Die is not Roy. It's Leon who picks a record up off the street and says to him, wake up Time to Die before nearly beating him to death, before Rachel shoots him. So, but for Deckard that phrase is still a bookend. I was kind of

right about that. It's interesting. I misplaced it in the timeline of the film. Gotcha. So wanted it, because I know, I know somebody would be like, Oh, no, right, because I was wrong. Like legitimately, I screwed that up. So anyway, I because I was wrong. Like legitimately I screwed that up. So anyway, I had wanted to sit down and rewatch the film for recording. And unfortunately, I was misled about

where I could try to stream it. And then once I did figure out where I could stream it, parenting and such. Got in the way of me being able to find the two hours to sit down and watch it. So anyway, um, so that is, that is what I have about Blade Runner. I think it would be best because there's, there's a whole lot more to say, but what I have to say from here has less to do with Blade Runner itself and has a lot more to do with Cyberpunk as a genre. Okay.

And a little bit about Blade Runner 2049, the 2017 2015 sequel, which is also an amazing film. And in many ways is more like the novel, even though it's a sequel to this movie. Okay. So I think this is a good place for this conversation to stop in a separate conversation about 2049 and cyberpunk as a subgenre I think is where we would go from here. Okay, cool. So what do you take away? Um, I think So what do you take away? I think my limitations as both a reader and a watcher will still keep me from this. I think it would be a better book for me to read than a movie to watch because the genre

of it being noir still is a huge block. And at the same time because it's not a Star Wars book, I don't know how into it. I can get it. It's done a Star Wars book or a or a history book scholarly yeah or popular. You're okay with popular histories too, but yeah, I'm not I'm not in large. I prefer a good, good monograph. But yeah, it's it's not those two things. And so I am a sorcerer. I am not a wizard. You know, so yeah, okay, fair enough. Alright, alright. Alright. So yeah, it sounds like the philosophical shit that it brings up is really interesting to me. If there were, if there were essays written about it, I would probably summer child. How have I got news for you? Oh, Google like, Oh, there has been so much spilled. Okay.

About this movie. Oh my God. Yeah, the thing is it was not a huge success, theatrically, but it was seminal important within the genre, like it sparked the imaginations of a whole lot of people who came after. And the philosophy and the symbolism and there are so many rabbit holes, so many people have not just fallen down, but have enthusiastically dug and deep deep into the bowels of the earth. Okay. About this movie. So yeah, if you look around, you'll be able to find them. Yeah. Yeah. And I would urge you to like sitting down and sitting through the whole film.

It's 117 minutes. It's not short. I mean, it's not like Magnum Opus length, but it's fairly long movie. And it's dark and it's like physically actually dark to look at. So like yeah, it can be hard to sit through visually if you're turned off by noir. Sure. And what I would urge you to do though, is there are sequences out of this film

that are really, really, really important within science fiction. Like Roy Batty's monologue is the most obvious one. Like the visuals, the visuals of Los Angeles in this movie's 2019 are really important to understanding a whole host of subgenres and in imaginings that came after this. So yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, what's your reading? Right now, what am I reading? I am still,

when I have moments to be able to sit down and read an actual book, I am working my way through to gun witch, which using that verbiage is a disservice to the book, but I am reading to gun witch. The length of time is taking me to get through it, has a lot less to say about the book than it does about the amount of free time I have available. Sure. Again, by the friend of the show, Bishop O'Connor, an amazing work. Highly, highly recommended. Please go pick it up.

And how about you? What are you recommending right now? I'm going to recommend James Stevenson's The Worst Person in the World. I recently just rediscovered this book. It's one that I had forgotten the title of. I had forgotten the author's name. It took me getting on to a special group on Instagram to find said title and book. And then I went and ordered it for myself because I missed this book quite a bit. It is a children's book. And it's just it's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. So go check it out of the library because

they are a few and far between defined and it's not worth 50 bucks to go and find it. So go find it in a library. But that's what I'm going to recommend this week. Okay. Maybe perk up the noir. But yeah, that's it. Where can people find you on social medias? I can be found on social media at EH Blalock on Twitter. And I can be found at Mr. Under Square Blalock on TikTok. Although of late I'm mostly lurking on TikTok, not generating a lot. So, found is kind of a... Yeah, found.

But yeah. Stumbled upon. Stumbled upon. Yeah. Tripped over. Perhaps, or, you know, pulled kicking, screaming out of obscurity. And let's see. So that's where I can be found.

We, of course, collectively can be found at Geek History Time on Twitter and at www.Geek History Time.com on the internet directly. And, of course, if you're listening to us, you have found us either on our website or on the Apple podcast app or on Stitcher. Wherever it is that you have found us, please subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know we deserve. And how about you? Where can you be found, sir? Oh, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram. Uh, at, uh, Harmony, you can also find me. Let's see. This will come out.

You might be able to get in to see the, the, the November 4th show, but I'm pretty sure you're going to, by the time this releases, you'll be going to the December 2nd show at Luna's for capital punishment, bring proof of Vax, bring $10. I strongly recommend wearing a mask because there's a whole bunch of variants out there that are getting around everything else, so they won't get around the mask as well as everything else. But December 2nd at Luna's 8 p.m. in Sacramento and also January 6th, same place, same time,

same conditions. So that's where you can find me. So very cool. Or Geek History of Time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.