So I realised recently that I'm seriously lacking in sci-fi nerd cred because I've never seen Blade Runner. I know, I know. You can put the pitchforks down though because I have remedies that this very evening.
It was good! I can see why it's considered a classic though I wouldn't necessarily put it as the greatest sci-fi movie ever. I did enjoy it and I'm glad I've watched it.
You need to watch BLADE RUNNER 2049 now. An arguably perfect sequel that takes strands of the plot from the first film and pulls them out without taking away any of the first films story. Just a wonderful movie.
and prepare for BLADE RUNNER 2099 on Amazon (starring Michelle Yeoh and the always lovely Hunter Schaffer).
amphibian, on 23 July 2026 - 11:54 PM, said:
To me, the Tears in Rain speech makes the movie significantly better than the book because it's so much pain and passion exploding onto the screen during what is sometimes a kinda dry and confusing bumble through the story.
100% agreed.
my love for Blade Runner runs deep and long, but i admit to having fallen asleep twice during 2049 and DNF'd. I should try again w 2099 in the near future.
You should. It builds and mirrors the original and the ending is one of the best denouement realizations I've ever come across in a movie. It's slower in parts but that's deliberate.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon
So I realised recently that I'm seriously lacking in sci-fi nerd cred because I've never seen Blade Runner. I know, I know. You can put the pitchforks down though because I have remedies that this very evening.
It was good! I can see why it's considered a classic though I wouldn't necessarily put it as the greatest sci-fi movie ever. I did enjoy it and I'm glad I've watched it.
original or Director's Cut?
Umm it's whichever one is free on Prime video right now which I'm assuming is not the directors cut.
A Haunting Poem
I Scream
You Scream
We all Scream
For I Scream.
So I realised recently that I'm seriously lacking in sci-fi nerd cred because I've never seen Blade Runner. I know, I know. You can put the pitchforks down though because I have remedies that this very evening.
It was good! I can see why it's considered a classic though I wouldn't necessarily put it as the greatest sci-fi movie ever. I did enjoy it and I'm glad I've watched it.
original or Director's Cut?
Umm it's whichever one is free on Prime video right now which I'm assuming is not the directors cut.
The Directors Cut has no narration by Deckard and instead of a drive into the country at the end, it cuts to black instead, and the DC also makes the case that Deckard might be a replicant whereas the theatrical cut never suggests that.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon
Ah in that case I had he theatrical cut though there is one line where Rachael says to Deckard "Have you done the test on yourself" or something and he kind of ignores her which I guess was a very slight hint towards the suggestion that he's a replicant.
A Haunting Poem
I Scream
You Scream
We all Scream
For I Scream.
Ah in that case I had he theatrical cut though there is one line where Rachael says to Deckard "Have you done the test on yourself" or something and he kind of ignores her which I guess was a very slight hint towards the suggestion that he's a replicant.
In the directors cut it's a bit more blatant, Deckard has a short dream about a unicorn running though a forest...and at the end of the movie Edward James Olmos leaves him a tin foil unicorn, suggesting that he knows Deckard's dreams and thus his memories/dreams have been implanted.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon
Also speaking of ATLA, this new movie looks incredible!
NOTE: This come out tomorrow on Paramount+ (sigh, I know....annoying streamer).
I would love to see it in one of the theatre screenings but there aren't any in Canada sadly. The question is do I hold off on watching it till my trip for the long plane ride or just watch it right away?! Ahhhhh...we are eating so good with new Avatar material!
I get tropey vibes of "lonely person finds the last of his people and tries to become friends with them, but it turns out that they are actually evil and lonely person has to fight them".
To me, the Tears in Rain speech makes the movie significantly better than the book because it's so much pain and passion exploding onto the screen during what is sometimes a kinda dry and confusing bumble through the story.
Rutger Hauer nails that. Especially considering he changes the damn speech himself from the original script.
I've always been crazy but its kept me from going insane.
I'm planning on doing a double feature day on Sunday where I see the Odyssey and Hadestown. Rather excited.
Edit: this was suggested to me by my partner because she knows how much I've been putting in to support her, our families/friends, and at work. It's rather nice and I've not done something like this in 25 years probably.
This post has been edited by amphibian: 25 July 2026 - 12:58 PM
I survived the Permian and all I got was this t-shirt.
I finished the first half of my movie double header. I don't love Nolan's version of the Odyssey.
My view is that with a 3500 year old epic that features a rendition of a rendition of a rendition (and probably more) of a clash of long dead cultures, it's pretty hard to translate the core of what the epic actually says - so one has to decide what your version of it is going to be and go for it with full aplomb.
The Halmi version made it a grand adventure in which we were rooting for Odysseus the whole time and the cultural parts were sorta muted. It really worked and a ton of people saw it.
I think a bunch of people are seeing this and that's probably more a measure of the marketing than the movie itself to me. This version spends a truckload of time with Odysseus, who kinda just stumbles around in a haze of PTSD, random violence, a mishmash of stories that have been borrowed from it and borrowed stories it has pulled from elsewhere, and figuring out what obligations involve.
My view of Odysseus in this movie isn't one of a genius, someone with a ton of charisma, or a brilliant leader. He mostly keeps getting away with things by being observant, lucky, and stubborn enough to keep going. He does dumb things all the time (taking the scenic route, arrow after everyone left leaves the cave, randomly tricking his men, listening to the Sirens because he can, trusting his son based on 5 seconds of interaction to set up the end sequence, the whole end sequence). There's not really any long term planning on display in the entire movie besides his big concern with the destruction of his civilization due to broken customs of hospitality and reverence for the gods - which he inconsistently engages with and even skips out on real consequences for.
I don't know if that bumbling portrait matters because it's self serious enough and beautifully presented enough that I think it'll be like Fight Club - co-opted by those it criticizes because they see the cool and aren't bright enough to think deeper on it.
I disagree mightily with what QuickTidal wrote below because ultimately, I don't think Nolan committed hard enough to the costs of betrayal of hospitality or to showing how the civilization they live in was rotting already. The buildings of back then were brightly decorated, not tan rubble heaps.
I think the movie attempts to use the dog reunion, the servants reunion, and an Equalizer style serial killer scene to evoke big feelings when the rest of the movie didn't really earn those.
QuickTidal, on 20 July 2026 - 04:57 PM, said:
Cause, on 20 July 2026 - 04:29 PM, said:
The message at the films end is interesting but only because I cant tell what Nolan is trying to say (yes, art and the beholder and all that).
Spoiler
I think it's two-fold.
Odysseus is deep in PTSD and coming home was simply not something he could bring himself to do as the inhumanity he watched on display not just in Troy but ahead of Troy in the horse (that was HIS idea) wore him raw...coupled with guilt for leaving his wife and child...he has closed himself off to the notion of going home and his subconscious basically walled him off into making choices that landed him in trouble after trouble (whether the intent was to die or not is up for discussion). This part was obvious, it's a movie about guilt first and foremost. A film about "what have I done?".
It then compounds this notion by suggesting that the rumour of the "people from the sea" said to being about the end of that age...who were marauding around the Mediterranean...were them. It's not until Odysseus accepts that in the moment that Athena disappears. The age he was born into and became a supposed "hero" of...has rotted away and he's a big part of why that has occurred.
It's not a mistake in costuming that Agamemnon is attired like Greek Darth Vader...and is this "presence" more than anything else...he's the bad guy. Odysseus sees him as this...but then you see him without his armour and he's smaller, and damaged, and in Hades when he speaks he's shown for the false thing he was.
So take that and combine it with the key message in the Odyssey as a poem, that of Zeus's Law and the film is about the realization of inhumanity and how left to their own devices Circe was right, Men will do and be terrible things and forget Zeus's Law when it's convenient for them. Which is a message that resonates today with what's happening in the USA...humanity is being left behind to focus on wants and desires and not life.
Odysseus KNOWS his son will be a better man and ruler than him, because Telemachus was not raised by him but instead by his clever and stalwart mother Penelope who held off a kingdom of men for a decade...he knows this and chooses exile and making his amends in the west for his transgressions.
It actually works VERY well on the back of Oppenheimer (a narrative prologue to this) Oppenheimer is a man realizing that what he wrought made the world worse off in every way, something he could not see when he was in the throws of making it happen driven by his own science...Then the Odyssey is the post-realization atonement for that, a man who step by step realizes his error and sets about correcting it to the level he is able, and HOPING the cycle does not repeat. Hell he knows this early in the ten year trip home, but every time he tries to "save" his men, he makes things worse. And by the time he's making better decisions his men have begun making bad ones in his place.
That's my take on the ending anyways. And it IS his Magnum Opus.
I survived the Permian and all I got was this t-shirt.
Last thought on the Odyssey for now: I was very interested in how Helen, Clytemnestra, and Penelope were key figures in this movie. I think it was a very good approach to have Penelope tell her thoughts to Telemachus, who honestly was a sweet, ineffective dweeb the entire time, for Helen to try affecting events right in Menelaus's face, and for Clytemnestra's revenge to be shown.
Athena was an interesting between thing for me in that I was more interested prior to the temple girl part. Calypso was mostly a plot device to get Odysseus to the next scene. Circe was fascinating, yet I wonder if her view of how all visitors are evil is basically a flattening of what she was about or what Madeline Miller's version was about (the armor of crews of yore is there, but there's not a reason given for the treatment by Circe like there is in the book). That part didn't quite land for me.
Finished the second half of the Greek double feature with Hadestown.
Absolutely stellar adaptation of both the stage play and the myth. The performances are glorious and Eva Noblezada in particular is amazing.
The decision to make this totally over into American style songs, keep a strong narrator character, the role of Hades as a gangster/boss who can be moved to offer a hard way out, the installation of many recursive loops etc are all great decisions.
I still don't love When The Chips Are Down because the Fates were never that individually selfish in my most loved stories. But people love that song fit the song nature of it.
This post has been edited by amphibian: 26 July 2026 - 09:32 PM
I survived the Permian and all I got was this t-shirt.
The Odyssey was a fun summer action movie that had pretensions of being deep and philosophical, but was not. Worth a watch if it's easy. I don't see myself ever re-watching it.
This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 27 July 2026 - 12:32 AM
Also speaking of ATLA, this new movie looks incredible!
NOTE: This come out tomorrow on Paramount+ (sigh, I know....annoying streamer).
I would love to see it in one of the theatre screenings but there aren't any in Canada sadly. The question is do I hold off on watching it till my trip for the long plane ride or just watch it right away?! Ahhhhh...we are eating so good with new Avatar material!
I get tropey vibes of "lonely person finds the last of his people and tries to become friends with them, but it turns out that they are actually evil and lonely person has to fight them".
Oh, and I called this one on the nose. I did enjoy this movie (though there were a few weird/extra-cringe moments throughout).
I always found Odysseus to be a crafty fool. His hubris/ego/curiosity outweighed is genius and caused most of his grief.
Now its been a looonng time since Ive ready the Odyssey, and reading other takes on the illiad and odyssey since have definitely muddled in my head how it all went, but didnt he mock the cyclops as they left? Take your win and shut your mouth my man, the sirens is the height of stupidity.
Help
Abyss, on 24 July 2026 - 01:36 PM, said:
