The first novel I chose to write was something that was heavily inspired by the ideas presented by this movie and the world of Alien, the works of H.P Lovecraft. Cyberpunk was introduced to me at a very, very young age, the earliest memory I have have seeing Bladerunner was my uncle showing me the Theatrical, and a vhs that I would come to realize as an adult was a copy of the Workprint cut that was on the blu-ray that I have. Obviously not in the same quality as that insanely amazing blu-ray, actually Alien, Aliens, Bladerunner with all the stuff from that 5 disc set is incredible, mine is the re-release that is like a book with some art from the film.
Cyberpunk was forever evocative to me as a 90s kid when I first saw them so young I never had any concept of time, everything was new to me, the context of the movie was timeless for me.
I lived in South LA too, so it was surreal seeing a movie depicting a future that I thought wow that could be real. it was scary, it scared me like Alien did, but in a more existential way, Alien had that effect on me too because to my young mind my only association with aliens was ET, when I was around five or so my uncle exposed me to Lovecraft and Poe, Machen, a lot of others. Alien and The Thing always came to me as a very real, lovecraftian kind of thing of what could be out there, Bladerunner was the other side of the coin of that represents the human experience of discovery and death, the nature of consciousness, life in the universe, creating synthetic life, and what does it really mean to be human?
I think Alien and The Thing present space is a very hostile place, much like Earth. I think Alien's subtle corporate subplot is amazing, shaping up these big mega evil corporations. This was something I loved about Verhoeven's Robocop too, it presented this evil extreme logical end of a lot of attitudes we see today.
Phillip K. Dick's original story isn't to the same psychological depth as say, Ubik or any of his later works, honestly, I feel like he didn't try to try a lot of philosophical, or psychological depth to his work till later in his career, his skill, which was immense developed into something remarkable creating science fiction greats that will stand the test of time and scrutiny much like Lovecraft's best, racism free works. The notion that Bladerunner doesn't ask these questions via either visual storytelling or subtle dialogue, is frankly ludicrous. Bladerunner mirrors the story of the book fairly well thematically, irregardless of the stupid shit Ridley says, the film has always been one that was more fun with interpretations, I think the different cuts highlight and change the opinion of a lot of people. I personally love the Final Cut quite a lot, the fact that the soundtrack is more minimalist, you hear more of the world and its propaganda, its people, you can see some of the inspiration for some of the air advertising vehicles in Watchmen(the comic book).
It gives a stronger sense of place, The Workprint cut only enhances this, I also laugh at people who say there are minimal differences, the movie changes pretty crazily depending on which cut you see. Sure, the overall journey is similar but different camera angles, dialogue choices, soundtrack choices, entire scenes that were either different or cut, no narration, some narration, full narration.
Like, the movie is insane in the way it tries to show the natural outcome of what people at the time felt like the future was going to be. In a lot of ways the film isn't wrong, in a lot of other ways the film is like any other creative thing, sure it will have inaccuracies, but the way Bladerunner rings so true, is the same way that the Nostromo felt like a real ship. A lot of it had to do with the production of the film, it was expensive, and if I remember came after Legend which bombed.
Workprint is probably my favorite, when I finally saw it I had put it off for so long I thought it interesting that stuff I remembered didn't show up in the other cuts I saw, my uncle must have had the only vhs copy of the workprint somehow. So, I think I will probably rewatch this soon.
