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BFI Film Classics
Blade Runner
Ridley Scott's dystopian classic Blade Runner, an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, combines noir with science fiction to create a groundbreaking cyberpunk vision of urban life in the twenty-first century. With replicants on the run, the rain-drenched Los Angeles which Blade Runner imagines is a city of oppression and enclosure, but a city in which transgression and disorder can always erupt. Graced by stunning sets, lighting, effects, costumes and photography, Blade Runner succeeds brilliantly in depicting a world at once uncannily familiar and startlingly new. In his innovative and nuanced reading, Scott Bukatman details the making of Blade Runner and its steadily improving fortunes following its release in 1982. He situates the film in terms of debates about postmodernism, which have informed much of the criticism devoted to it, but argues that its tensions derive also from the quintessentially twentieth-century, modernist experience of the city – as a space both imprisoning and liberating.
In his foreword to this special edition, published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the BFI Film Classics series, Bukatman suggests that Blade Runner 's visual complexity allows it to translate successfully to the world of high definition and on-demand home cinema. He looks back to the science fiction tradition of the early 1980s, and on to the key changes in the 'final' version of the film in 2007, which risk diminishing the sense of instability created in the original.
In his foreword to this special edition, published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the BFI Film Classics series, Bukatman suggests that Blade Runner 's visual complexity allows it to translate successfully to the world of high definition and on-demand home cinema. He looks back to the science fiction tradition of the early 1980s, and on to the key changes in the 'final' version of the film in 2007, which risk diminishing the sense of instability created in the original.
118 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 1997
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April 17, 2026
Blade Runner is one of my favourite films of all time – even though I didn’t know what to make of the original Blade Runner when I first saw it, as a 21-year-old, at a crowded little movie theatre in the Tenleytown area of Washington, D.C. While I found the film puzzling at first, it took a hold on me over time, and now Blade Runner is considered a classic. And Scott Bukatman, a cultural theorist who is also a Film and Media Studies professor at Stanford University, provides a well-crafted explanation for why that same thing seems to have happened for many people, in his 1997 book Blade Runner, an entry in the British Film Institute’s “Film Classics” series.
The back-cover blurb for the BFI’s Blade Runner informs me that Bukatman’s scholarly work “explores how movies and other popular media “mediate between new technologies and human perceptual and bodily experience” – a line of research that seems strongly compatible with the thematic ideas of Blade Runner. After all, Ridley Scott’s 1982 film – the story of a bounty hunter who tracks human-like androids through an overcrowded, rain-drenched, neon-lit Los Angeles of the future – does much to blur the lines between the human and the technological.
BFI Film Classics books typically start with a production history of the film – sensibly enough, as a film must be produced and released before it can generate a critical response. As Bukatman chronicles the making of Blade Runner, he focuses, appropriately, on the exceptionally rich production design for the film’s futuristic urban setting, and on innovative special effects created by Douglas Trumbull.
Yet another feature of Blade Runner – one that arguably did just as much as special effects or production design to give the film its unique degree of verisimilitude – had to do with the screenwriters’ coining of unique terminology that was not found in the film’s source novel, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968).
Screenwriter Hampton Fancher, “rummaging through his library, found William Burroughs’s Blade Runner: A Movie, which was a reworking of an Alan E. Nourse novel about smugglers of medical supplies”. In this connection, Bukatman helpfully points out that “ [the term] ‘blade runner’ also sounds a lot like ‘bounty hunter,’ Deckard’s profession in the novel” (p. 27).
Initially, the use of the phrase “blade runner” as a term to refer to the bounty hunters of the film was widely criticized: why are they called blade runners when they only use guns? Yet over the years, that criticism has since given way to a gradual, sometimes grudging, realization that that terminology was one of many ways in which Blade Runner was ahead of its time. After all, a society’s key terms and insider language often evolve in ways that are surprising and sometimes counterintuitive.
Consider: back in the 1990’s, we all used 3.5-inch floppy disks to store our data, and we called them “floppy disks” even though they were made of hard plastic and didn’t flop. The term, we all know, went back to the 1980’s, when 5.25-inch floppy disks were made of flexible plastic that actually flopped. Now imagine a person in 1957 being able to look ahead at life in 1994, and seeing people talking about “floppy disks,” and asking, “Why do they call them floppy disks when they don’t look like disks and they don’t actually flop?” Blade Runner captures well the way language evolves over time.
The term “replicants,” meanwhile, “was the contribution of [screenwriter David Webb] Peoples, whose microbiologist daughter suggested some variation on ‘replication’” (p. 27). Peoples’s contribution seems to have gone beyond giving this fictive world its own argot that enhanced its verisimilitude: Bukatman has stated that “Peoples has been credited with tightening the mystery aspects of the screenplay and deepening the humanity of the android adversaries”, once they were “known as replicants” (p. 27).
These changes that Peoples made from PKD’s source novel may have contributed to why “Blade Runner was seen as exemplary of postmodernism” – to wit, its “ambiguous attitude toward the replicants….Replicants melded technology and ‘us’: with their physical and mental, and perhaps emotional and erotic, superiority…the copy had superseded and even surpassed the original” (pp. 76-77). One might add that “replicants” sounds a lot like “replacements.” Recall the tagline for the original movie poster, a copy of which I had in my apartment in College Park back when I was a University of Maryland graduate student: “Man has made his match – now it’s his problem.”
Blade Runner was, famously (or notoriously), a critical and commercial failure upon initial release; only over time, with its release on cable and videocassette, did it gradually gain acceptance, popularity, and finally critical respect. Bukatman places Blade Runner in the context of the development, within science fiction, of the cyberpunk subgenre that often involved dystopian stories taking place in a nightmarish urban setting.
“Blade Runner,” Bukatman writes, “may have lacked a context when it was first released, which might explain why so few critics recognized its power, but the film’s heavy metal vision strongly influenced the emerging form of cyberpunk” (p. 57). He adds that “Blade Runner’s cyberpunk urbanism exaggerates the presence of the mass media, evoking sensations of unreality and pervasive spectacle: advertising ‘blimps’ cruise above the buildings, touting the virtues of the off-world colonies, and gigantic vid-screens dominate the landscape with images of pill-popping geishas” (pp. 58-59) Indeed, Bukatman suggests that “The aesthetic of cyberpunk was almost defined by Blade Runner” (p. 50).
Even when I first saw Blade Runner, at that crowded little theatre in Washington, D.C., and was not at all sure how I felt about the film, that cyberpunk element of the film – especially when combined with Vangelis’ ethereal and evocative musical score – spoke to me and stayed in my mind. Bukatman puts it well: “Despite the darkness that pervades it, it is worth considering the utopian face of this city; for although this is a hell where we would never want to live, it is also, as repeat viewers of the film can attest, a hell of a nice place to visit” (p. 62).
Bukatman concludes his analysis by writing that “The ultimate relevance of Blade Runner lies in its doubled, complex understanding of what it means to be human – not only at the end of the twentieth century, but throughout it” (p. 100). I agree with Bukatman’s assessment, and indeed I would move it forward in time beyond the original 1997 publication date of Bukatman’s book.
Three decades later, we all think about how Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has changed the social, cultural, and digital landscape. Type a question into a search box (e.g., “How many science-fiction film awards did Blade Runner win?”) and I see various A.I. programs respond with “Thinking…” or “Reading sources and understanding…” before giving me their answer (13, out of 22 nominations).
Does the A.I. of today pass the Turing Test? Answers may vary. But I do find myself thinking of the moment early in Blade Runner when the film’s protagonist, once-retired blade runner Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford), is being briefed by police supervisor Bryant (played by M. Emmet Walsh) about his upcoming assignment. Bryant describes how replicants “were designed to copy human beings in every way except their emotions. But the designers reckoned that, after a few years, they might develop their own emotional responses – you know, hate, love, fear, anger, envy.”
A.I. programs tell us that they are “thinking…” or “reading sources and understanding…”, but tomorrow, will they tell us that they are “feeling”? Do androids dream of electric sheep? The fact that I find myself asking these questions speaks to the ongoing power and relevance of Blade Runner, 44 years after its original release. Blade Runner aficionados and film scholars alike should find Bukatman’s Blade Runner a helpful and informative study.
The back-cover blurb for the BFI’s Blade Runner informs me that Bukatman’s scholarly work “explores how movies and other popular media “mediate between new technologies and human perceptual and bodily experience” – a line of research that seems strongly compatible with the thematic ideas of Blade Runner. After all, Ridley Scott’s 1982 film – the story of a bounty hunter who tracks human-like androids through an overcrowded, rain-drenched, neon-lit Los Angeles of the future – does much to blur the lines between the human and the technological.
BFI Film Classics books typically start with a production history of the film – sensibly enough, as a film must be produced and released before it can generate a critical response. As Bukatman chronicles the making of Blade Runner, he focuses, appropriately, on the exceptionally rich production design for the film’s futuristic urban setting, and on innovative special effects created by Douglas Trumbull.
Yet another feature of Blade Runner – one that arguably did just as much as special effects or production design to give the film its unique degree of verisimilitude – had to do with the screenwriters’ coining of unique terminology that was not found in the film’s source novel, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968).
Screenwriter Hampton Fancher, “rummaging through his library, found William Burroughs’s Blade Runner: A Movie, which was a reworking of an Alan E. Nourse novel about smugglers of medical supplies”. In this connection, Bukatman helpfully points out that “ [the term] ‘blade runner’ also sounds a lot like ‘bounty hunter,’ Deckard’s profession in the novel” (p. 27).
Initially, the use of the phrase “blade runner” as a term to refer to the bounty hunters of the film was widely criticized: why are they called blade runners when they only use guns? Yet over the years, that criticism has since given way to a gradual, sometimes grudging, realization that that terminology was one of many ways in which Blade Runner was ahead of its time. After all, a society’s key terms and insider language often evolve in ways that are surprising and sometimes counterintuitive.
Consider: back in the 1990’s, we all used 3.5-inch floppy disks to store our data, and we called them “floppy disks” even though they were made of hard plastic and didn’t flop. The term, we all know, went back to the 1980’s, when 5.25-inch floppy disks were made of flexible plastic that actually flopped. Now imagine a person in 1957 being able to look ahead at life in 1994, and seeing people talking about “floppy disks,” and asking, “Why do they call them floppy disks when they don’t look like disks and they don’t actually flop?” Blade Runner captures well the way language evolves over time.
The term “replicants,” meanwhile, “was the contribution of [screenwriter David Webb] Peoples, whose microbiologist daughter suggested some variation on ‘replication’” (p. 27). Peoples’s contribution seems to have gone beyond giving this fictive world its own argot that enhanced its verisimilitude: Bukatman has stated that “Peoples has been credited with tightening the mystery aspects of the screenplay and deepening the humanity of the android adversaries”, once they were “known as replicants” (p. 27).
These changes that Peoples made from PKD’s source novel may have contributed to why “Blade Runner was seen as exemplary of postmodernism” – to wit, its “ambiguous attitude toward the replicants….Replicants melded technology and ‘us’: with their physical and mental, and perhaps emotional and erotic, superiority…the copy had superseded and even surpassed the original” (pp. 76-77). One might add that “replicants” sounds a lot like “replacements.” Recall the tagline for the original movie poster, a copy of which I had in my apartment in College Park back when I was a University of Maryland graduate student: “Man has made his match – now it’s his problem.”
Blade Runner was, famously (or notoriously), a critical and commercial failure upon initial release; only over time, with its release on cable and videocassette, did it gradually gain acceptance, popularity, and finally critical respect. Bukatman places Blade Runner in the context of the development, within science fiction, of the cyberpunk subgenre that often involved dystopian stories taking place in a nightmarish urban setting.
“Blade Runner,” Bukatman writes, “may have lacked a context when it was first released, which might explain why so few critics recognized its power, but the film’s heavy metal vision strongly influenced the emerging form of cyberpunk” (p. 57). He adds that “Blade Runner’s cyberpunk urbanism exaggerates the presence of the mass media, evoking sensations of unreality and pervasive spectacle: advertising ‘blimps’ cruise above the buildings, touting the virtues of the off-world colonies, and gigantic vid-screens dominate the landscape with images of pill-popping geishas” (pp. 58-59) Indeed, Bukatman suggests that “The aesthetic of cyberpunk was almost defined by Blade Runner” (p. 50).
Even when I first saw Blade Runner, at that crowded little theatre in Washington, D.C., and was not at all sure how I felt about the film, that cyberpunk element of the film – especially when combined with Vangelis’ ethereal and evocative musical score – spoke to me and stayed in my mind. Bukatman puts it well: “Despite the darkness that pervades it, it is worth considering the utopian face of this city; for although this is a hell where we would never want to live, it is also, as repeat viewers of the film can attest, a hell of a nice place to visit” (p. 62).
Bukatman concludes his analysis by writing that “The ultimate relevance of Blade Runner lies in its doubled, complex understanding of what it means to be human – not only at the end of the twentieth century, but throughout it” (p. 100). I agree with Bukatman’s assessment, and indeed I would move it forward in time beyond the original 1997 publication date of Bukatman’s book.
Three decades later, we all think about how Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has changed the social, cultural, and digital landscape. Type a question into a search box (e.g., “How many science-fiction film awards did Blade Runner win?”) and I see various A.I. programs respond with “Thinking…” or “Reading sources and understanding…” before giving me their answer (13, out of 22 nominations).
Does the A.I. of today pass the Turing Test? Answers may vary. But I do find myself thinking of the moment early in Blade Runner when the film’s protagonist, once-retired blade runner Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford), is being briefed by police supervisor Bryant (played by M. Emmet Walsh) about his upcoming assignment. Bryant describes how replicants “were designed to copy human beings in every way except their emotions. But the designers reckoned that, after a few years, they might develop their own emotional responses – you know, hate, love, fear, anger, envy.”
A.I. programs tell us that they are “thinking…” or “reading sources and understanding…”, but tomorrow, will they tell us that they are “feeling”? Do androids dream of electric sheep? The fact that I find myself asking these questions speaks to the ongoing power and relevance of Blade Runner, 44 years after its original release. Blade Runner aficionados and film scholars alike should find Bukatman’s Blade Runner a helpful and informative study.
August 6, 2025
Well Mr Bukatman, I don't how you did it. You managed to take a fantastic, visual feast of a film with expert design and cool storytelling and reduce it to a series of boring yet sesquipedalian (see we can all be smart arses!!) words!
Every other word in this book is multisyllabic and unnecessarily long. It felt like he pulled the film apart into a dictionary critique. There was nothing of note, the first section briefly touching upon Ridley Scott's direction and the heavy design element. The section on replicants was turned into a mega philosophical debate about the meanings of humanism. Then another large section on the cities of LA and New York and their multilayered natures which very loosely related to the city in the film. Blade Runner the film was lost in these discussions and I felt like I learned nothing from them. Luckily I've watched a documentary or two on the film which were more interesting.
My love for Blade Runner is not hampered whatsoever by the reading of this book. In all honesty I don't really see the point of the book at all.
1.5 disappointed stars
Every other word in this book is multisyllabic and unnecessarily long. It felt like he pulled the film apart into a dictionary critique. There was nothing of note, the first section briefly touching upon Ridley Scott's direction and the heavy design element. The section on replicants was turned into a mega philosophical debate about the meanings of humanism. Then another large section on the cities of LA and New York and their multilayered natures which very loosely related to the city in the film. Blade Runner the film was lost in these discussions and I felt like I learned nothing from them. Luckily I've watched a documentary or two on the film which were more interesting.
My love for Blade Runner is not hampered whatsoever by the reading of this book. In all honesty I don't really see the point of the book at all.
1.5 disappointed stars
February 18, 2013
As a longtime fan of Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" as well as an excited newcomer to the British Film Institute’s Modern Classics series, it saddens me to register my disappointment with Scott Bukatman's short monograph for the series about the film.
For those of you who are not familiar with it, the BFI Modern Classics series is, according to the inside cover, "a series of books devoted to individual films of recent years [wherein] [d]istinguished film critics, scholars, and novelists explore the production and reception of their chosen films in the context of an argument about the film's quality and importance."
Although Bukatman's is only the second book that I've read in the series -- the first being Joshua Clover's about "The Matrix" -- I've actually come to expect a lot from the series. Clover's, while certainly couched in a particular argument about "The Matrix," was an exceptional little book, and I still borrow from its ideas today (especially his discussion of 1999 films). After reading it, I researched the BFI's website and learned that they’ve published books on dozens of great films, including "Jaws," "Blue Velvet," and "The Thin Red Line,” among others. But a book about "Blade Runner," a film near and dear to my heart? Well, that just takes the cake.
Cut to a few weeks ago when I receive Bukatman's book in the mail, and I'm brimming with excitement. I cracked it open, and to be honest, the introduction, “On Seeing, Science Fiction and Cities,” didn't disappoint. Take, for instance, this early passage about the presence of visual imagery in the film:
"'Blade Runner' is all about vision. Vision somehow both makes and unmakes the self in the film, creating a dynamic between a centred and autonomous subjectivity (eye/I) and the self as a manufactured, commodified object (Eye Works). The city is also known through vision. Vision actively makes the metropolitan world in a sustained encounter with delirious detail, yet because 'Blade Runner' under-determines the lessons of that encounter, it effectively undermines interpretive certitudes." (7-8)
After reading this, I said to myself: Yes! Here's someone who's going to give this great film a compact, accessible, and yet still critical overview, and it's all available in this pocket-sized book! Hallelujah!
Well, this attitude didn’t last long.
For Bukatman then pulled a fast one on me as he then provided a nearly 30-page chapter re: how the film was made (i.e. the behind-the-scenes production side of things). A mostly factual account that wasn’t salvaged by its moments of analysis that were too few and far between, this section just didn't excite me in the least. For the record, it's not that there isn't good information here, because there is. Not to mention that when we're talking about a film with a history like "Blade Runner," it does need a little contextualizing (the film, as many people know, HAS BEEN through three very different cuts, and at the very least this needs to be explained). But for some reason, Bukatman just loses me in this section.
Maybe it's because the book is only about 80 pages in total, and when we account for all of the pictures and film stills -- some of which are so arbitrarily placed, it's silly -- this first chapter constitutes about half the book. Who thought this was a good idea? Can't I get all of this information on Wikipedia? (In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have.) Then again, the book was originally published in 1997, before the Internet really took off, so perhaps the author deserves some benefit of the doubt.
In other words, I’m sure that I could have dealt with this first chapter if I felt as if the whole section featured some overarching argument, but it doesn’t. There are no clear transitions or relationships between the subsections -- an annoyance that becomes more pronounced in the later, more analytical chapters. Naturally, I got a little miffed at the end of each subsection because I knew that I would have to prepare myself for an entirely new argument in the next one (and sometimes the subsections themselves didn’t feel like arguments). I imagine the feeling is not dissimilar to what it would be like if drivers had to stop their cars at each red light in order to turn off the car and restart the ignition (and it’s probably a good thing that cars aren’t made this way.) Admittedly, it may sound like I’m exaggerating a bit since each of the three chapters features a general theme that’s supposed to hold it all together -- the making of the film, the city, & replicants/mental life. However, they all manage to feel so tacked on, so unanimated and dull.
But above all else, what really irks me about Bukatman's book is his writing style. Now, before I go on a tear about something as seemingly arbitrary as an author's style of composition and how well (or not well) it sits with a reader, I would like to preface said tear by saying that someone’s writing style, while something that I often quibble with, is rarely (if ever!) something that I wholeheartedly disagree with and cannot stomach. Bukatman appears to be an exception to this rule. Another reviewer noted how Bukatman's book is like "the worst kind of film lecture, where the professor is more interested in impressing you with his massive vocabulary than anything else." I mostly agree with this assessment, except it's not the vocabulary itself that frustrates me. I mean, I'm the type of person who loves to slog his way through the densest and most obtuse kinds of writing, such as one encounters in philosophy and critical theory. Bukatman's writing attempts to mimic this, but it simply lacks musicality and cadence. Every sentence somehow sounds exactly the same.
I’m going to turn to a random page right now to offer up some evidence for what I’m saying. Okay, here’s one: “From the text of the opening crawling titles to the virtual absence of narration, to the way the story ended, significant differences existed throughout” (36). Maybe my ears are just sensitive, but for me so many problems abound in this sentence that it’s painful. When I was in college, a professor often remarked to me that good writers know how to end their sentences. I'm of the opinion that each sentence should drive into the next one, creating continuity and anticipation w/r/t what’s to follow. That being said, I’m sure you can empathize with how I felt upon (re)reading “significant differences existed throughout.” I’ll put it like this: If I were a teacher and this were one of my student’s papers, I would uncork a fresh pack of red ballpoint pens and write “YUCK!” next to these four words. I mean, is this not bush league? Also, I don’t know what that comma is doing after “narration,” and I wonder if I’m the only who registered a bit of irony when I read the word “crawling,” since it basically sums up how I felt as I (re)read this sentence.
Maybe this is a good time to lodge a final complaint: Bukatman just feels too detached from some of the things he says. While it’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t read the book, it’s as if he wanted to weave this complex tapestry of slick, artful writing about this film, and I’m on the other side of the page thinking to myself: Dude, it’s f*cking “Blade Runner”! This movie rocks my socks off! Why aren’t you excited!? Don’t you want the world to know how much you love this film?
Well, that's my review. Now it's time to contact the BFI to ask if I can write the book about "Donnie Darko."
For those of you who are not familiar with it, the BFI Modern Classics series is, according to the inside cover, "a series of books devoted to individual films of recent years [wherein] [d]istinguished film critics, scholars, and novelists explore the production and reception of their chosen films in the context of an argument about the film's quality and importance."
Although Bukatman's is only the second book that I've read in the series -- the first being Joshua Clover's about "The Matrix" -- I've actually come to expect a lot from the series. Clover's, while certainly couched in a particular argument about "The Matrix," was an exceptional little book, and I still borrow from its ideas today (especially his discussion of 1999 films). After reading it, I researched the BFI's website and learned that they’ve published books on dozens of great films, including "Jaws," "Blue Velvet," and "The Thin Red Line,” among others. But a book about "Blade Runner," a film near and dear to my heart? Well, that just takes the cake.
Cut to a few weeks ago when I receive Bukatman's book in the mail, and I'm brimming with excitement. I cracked it open, and to be honest, the introduction, “On Seeing, Science Fiction and Cities,” didn't disappoint. Take, for instance, this early passage about the presence of visual imagery in the film:
"'Blade Runner' is all about vision. Vision somehow both makes and unmakes the self in the film, creating a dynamic between a centred and autonomous subjectivity (eye/I) and the self as a manufactured, commodified object (Eye Works). The city is also known through vision. Vision actively makes the metropolitan world in a sustained encounter with delirious detail, yet because 'Blade Runner' under-determines the lessons of that encounter, it effectively undermines interpretive certitudes." (7-8)
After reading this, I said to myself: Yes! Here's someone who's going to give this great film a compact, accessible, and yet still critical overview, and it's all available in this pocket-sized book! Hallelujah!
Well, this attitude didn’t last long.
For Bukatman then pulled a fast one on me as he then provided a nearly 30-page chapter re: how the film was made (i.e. the behind-the-scenes production side of things). A mostly factual account that wasn’t salvaged by its moments of analysis that were too few and far between, this section just didn't excite me in the least. For the record, it's not that there isn't good information here, because there is. Not to mention that when we're talking about a film with a history like "Blade Runner," it does need a little contextualizing (the film, as many people know, HAS BEEN through three very different cuts, and at the very least this needs to be explained). But for some reason, Bukatman just loses me in this section.
Maybe it's because the book is only about 80 pages in total, and when we account for all of the pictures and film stills -- some of which are so arbitrarily placed, it's silly -- this first chapter constitutes about half the book. Who thought this was a good idea? Can't I get all of this information on Wikipedia? (In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have.) Then again, the book was originally published in 1997, before the Internet really took off, so perhaps the author deserves some benefit of the doubt.
In other words, I’m sure that I could have dealt with this first chapter if I felt as if the whole section featured some overarching argument, but it doesn’t. There are no clear transitions or relationships between the subsections -- an annoyance that becomes more pronounced in the later, more analytical chapters. Naturally, I got a little miffed at the end of each subsection because I knew that I would have to prepare myself for an entirely new argument in the next one (and sometimes the subsections themselves didn’t feel like arguments). I imagine the feeling is not dissimilar to what it would be like if drivers had to stop their cars at each red light in order to turn off the car and restart the ignition (and it’s probably a good thing that cars aren’t made this way.) Admittedly, it may sound like I’m exaggerating a bit since each of the three chapters features a general theme that’s supposed to hold it all together -- the making of the film, the city, & replicants/mental life. However, they all manage to feel so tacked on, so unanimated and dull.
But above all else, what really irks me about Bukatman's book is his writing style. Now, before I go on a tear about something as seemingly arbitrary as an author's style of composition and how well (or not well) it sits with a reader, I would like to preface said tear by saying that someone’s writing style, while something that I often quibble with, is rarely (if ever!) something that I wholeheartedly disagree with and cannot stomach. Bukatman appears to be an exception to this rule. Another reviewer noted how Bukatman's book is like "the worst kind of film lecture, where the professor is more interested in impressing you with his massive vocabulary than anything else." I mostly agree with this assessment, except it's not the vocabulary itself that frustrates me. I mean, I'm the type of person who loves to slog his way through the densest and most obtuse kinds of writing, such as one encounters in philosophy and critical theory. Bukatman's writing attempts to mimic this, but it simply lacks musicality and cadence. Every sentence somehow sounds exactly the same.
I’m going to turn to a random page right now to offer up some evidence for what I’m saying. Okay, here’s one: “From the text of the opening crawling titles to the virtual absence of narration, to the way the story ended, significant differences existed throughout” (36). Maybe my ears are just sensitive, but for me so many problems abound in this sentence that it’s painful. When I was in college, a professor often remarked to me that good writers know how to end their sentences. I'm of the opinion that each sentence should drive into the next one, creating continuity and anticipation w/r/t what’s to follow. That being said, I’m sure you can empathize with how I felt upon (re)reading “significant differences existed throughout.” I’ll put it like this: If I were a teacher and this were one of my student’s papers, I would uncork a fresh pack of red ballpoint pens and write “YUCK!” next to these four words. I mean, is this not bush league? Also, I don’t know what that comma is doing after “narration,” and I wonder if I’m the only who registered a bit of irony when I read the word “crawling,” since it basically sums up how I felt as I (re)read this sentence.
Maybe this is a good time to lodge a final complaint: Bukatman just feels too detached from some of the things he says. While it’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t read the book, it’s as if he wanted to weave this complex tapestry of slick, artful writing about this film, and I’m on the other side of the page thinking to myself: Dude, it’s f*cking “Blade Runner”! This movie rocks my socks off! Why aren’t you excited!? Don’t you want the world to know how much you love this film?
Well, that's my review. Now it's time to contact the BFI to ask if I can write the book about "Donnie Darko."
February 16, 2008
Surprisingly uninvolving and hard to read, like the worst kind of film lecture, where the professor is more interested in impressing you with his massive vocabulary than anything else. I appreciate the deconstruction of the visual elements of the film, as well as the brief comparison of the themes of the film and the novel it's based on, but really, such a slight book would've been a lot more fun if it had just been written in plainer language.
October 23, 2020
Gušt od knjige, a uopće vam ne treba neki uzak ili specijaliziran teorijski aparat da bi razumjeli o čemu Bukatman priča. Nije na odmet ako poznajete malo teorije žanra i filma te njegovu definiciju terminalnog identiteta, ali nimalo ne smeta ak nemate pojima. Jedino bi bilo dobro d ste barem jednom pogledali film :). Bukatman piše fino i jednostavno tako da već taj površinski sloj teksta izaziva ushićenje.
July 28, 2017
As a veteran film critic who has written extensively on science fiction films I anticipated this to be an engaging discussion on one of the most important and influential SF movies ever made. What I got was an interminable slog through academic criticism, filled with jargon and references to other academics. Having taught college film classes for 25 years I was familiar with such texts, and did my best to spare my students the burden of dealing with them. The occasional nugget of information or insight has to be dug out from paragraph after paragraph of sentences like this one: "Its instability induces the epistemological and ontological uncertainties -- the crises of knowing and being -- that it narrates and theorises." (Yes, as a BFI publication it also utilizes -- pardon, utilises -- British spelling. If that was the only issue it wouldn't be a problem.)
The author is noted as Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Stanford University and the author of "Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject of Postmodern Science Fiction." I can only hope his "Blade Runner" book got him tenure, because otherwise it has no reason to exist.
The author is noted as Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Stanford University and the author of "Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject of Postmodern Science Fiction." I can only hope his "Blade Runner" book got him tenure, because otherwise it has no reason to exist.
June 5, 2013
Interesting, but very, very intellectual. Only read it if you're a cultural or film studies student, or really into Blade Runner.
August 18, 2020
Some keen insights but ultimately it bogged down in academic language. Let’s do it one more time with feeling!
January 21, 2022
با هیجان این خوانش فیلم رو جلو میبردم نا به ونجلیز برسم
که
بدبختانه نامی ازش نبود
که
بدبختانه نامی ازش نبود
August 7, 2024
There are some advertisements in the BFI's Sight and Sound magazine for their series of short books on various modern films. As an experiment, I searched for second hand copies and found this book on eBay. It starts off with some words about what science fiction is all about. When I read some of the early sentences, I began to realise what the writing was going to be like: "inexhaustible complexity", "demands inferential activity" and "complex visual negotiation of urban space". And yes, it does go on just like that. "Like the best science fiction stories and city films, Blade Runner incorporates at once the magisterial gaze of of the panorama, the sublime obscurity of the phantasmagoria, and the shifting fields of the kaleidoscope".
1 FILMING BLADE RUNNER
Pre-Production
I found this the most interesting part of the book. It told us how the adaptation of Philip Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? came about. Hampton Fancher (an actor and independent film maker) was interested in a film adaptation of the novel and the found interest from the actor Brian Kelly. It was he who bought the rights to the book and approached producer Michael Deeley who suggested that Fancher write a screenplay.
In 1974 Deeley showed it to Ridley Scott who eventually came on board. He looked at draft after draft from Fancher because he wanted a far simpler story than that in the book. This led to another writer, David Peoples doing a re-write and then a final script from Fancher. Scott wanted a new name for the title. Fancher it was who found a book called "Blade Runner: A Movie" by William Burroughs, a working of a novel by Alan E. Norse about smugglers of medical supplies. Scott liked the title and so the rights to the book were purchased. JUST FOR THE TITLE.
The production company had been Filmways but they withdrew. So new finance was raised through three separate organisations. One got American distribution rights, another foreign rights and the third for tv and video. This is all fascinating stuff.
The Look of the Future
Ridley Scott wanted it to be "a film set 40 years hence, made in the style of 40 years ago". We hear about Syd Mead who had an amazing background in design. He was originally brought on board to design the vehicles but eventually took over the street scenes and interiors. (London Critics Circle Award for Special Effects 1983). This became the whole look of the film.
Special Effects
Lots of technical stuff and something about Douglas Trumbull and his background in special effects for films such as 2001, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Silent Running and Brainstorm.
Cinematography
Jordan Cronenweth was in charge of lighting and the hand held cameras.
Tensions and Post Production
Those three new producers were not happy with what they were seeing. The director and crew were not getting on, nor were Harrison Ford and Sean Young. Maybe the result of that awkward tension works so well in retrospect. Filming does run over budget and all sorts of people become involved with the final version. "Morose and narratively muddled" was one view.
Responding to the Replicants
The early reviews were very mixed. Nobody was that enthusiastic. It's first release only garnered half it's cost. But then the audience began to grow especially with home and recording releases that gained multiple viewings.
Blade Runner - Revised and Revisited - The Director's Cut
The 1992 version is known as The Director's Cut (a huge hit) and it's gestation is described as a compromise between Scott and the original release. (not to be confused with The Final Cut over which Scott had complete control).
The Blade Runner Effect
One effect was the resurgence of the work of Philip K Dick. "The film continues to exist beyond itself ....." ??
2 THE METROPOLIS
Science Fiction in the City
Just some background about urbanisation.
The Dark City
"The high tech urban settings were congested and confusing, yet exhilarating". But I'm not attempting to describe the author's vast explanation about "cyber punk".
The Bright City
Reflections of New York.
Panoramic Perception, Fractal Geographies
Even the titles are becoming bemusing. But the writer does hit upon that extraordinary sequence early on as Deckard flies the police spinner. The complex combination of 35 separate elements for the scenes of the city glimpsed through the windscreen are well explained as they combine with the views of the screens in the cockpit. The "explanation of urban existence" is a hugely important part of the film outside of the main story.
The Return of the Modernist City
"Another more deeply historicised restatement of fundamental modernist ideas of the city".
Gotham City
Comparing the metropolis: "horizontal LA has vanished into vertical New York".
3 REPLICANTS AND MENTAL LIFE
Cinema and Synthetic Life
Something I did not understand, just awful.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
About the Philip K Dick book, the inspiration for Blade Runner. "The nature of the non human". I don't think I will read it. And how Ridley Scott's replicants are so different to those in the book.
New Bodies for New Worlds
The background to "robots, androids, replicants and cyborgs".
New Selves
Something about racial politics. The original release included the word "nigger". A piece about gender issues reminds us that all three major female characters are replicants and two are shot in the back. Why are we told that "replicants are more human than human".
Making History
"History is devalued as a guarantor of truth, stability and unified meaning". I have no idea what that is all about. And when replicants are programmed with memories ..... "as synthetic humans, replicants inherently challenge essentialist notions of identity". What??? And more: "confront our own constructedness, and by confronting ourselves, to make them ....."
Is Deckard a Replicant?
"The question is more important than determining the answer" ??? Did the director leave it to the viewer to decide. There has been far too much discussion about the subject. "No wonder audiences were baffled".
Masquerading in the City
"The city is a site for masquerade, a metamorphic zone, a place to disappear and re-appear". If only I knew what he meant half the time.
4 CONCLUSION
"What it means to be human". The writer keeps on quoting Slavoj Zizek. I wonder why. But the remainder of this final part is unintelligible. Or is it me?
Time to sum up. There is a lot that is interesting but there is also a lot that seems to me to be pretentious rubbish. While someone referred to "his innovative and nuanced reading" another criticised his "extensive intellectual sidetracks". I have to say it has not encouraged me to buy any other books in the BFI series. I will save any other comments until I have seen The Final Cut.
1 FILMING BLADE RUNNER
Pre-Production
I found this the most interesting part of the book. It told us how the adaptation of Philip Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? came about. Hampton Fancher (an actor and independent film maker) was interested in a film adaptation of the novel and the found interest from the actor Brian Kelly. It was he who bought the rights to the book and approached producer Michael Deeley who suggested that Fancher write a screenplay.
In 1974 Deeley showed it to Ridley Scott who eventually came on board. He looked at draft after draft from Fancher because he wanted a far simpler story than that in the book. This led to another writer, David Peoples doing a re-write and then a final script from Fancher. Scott wanted a new name for the title. Fancher it was who found a book called "Blade Runner: A Movie" by William Burroughs, a working of a novel by Alan E. Norse about smugglers of medical supplies. Scott liked the title and so the rights to the book were purchased. JUST FOR THE TITLE.
The production company had been Filmways but they withdrew. So new finance was raised through three separate organisations. One got American distribution rights, another foreign rights and the third for tv and video. This is all fascinating stuff.
The Look of the Future
Ridley Scott wanted it to be "a film set 40 years hence, made in the style of 40 years ago". We hear about Syd Mead who had an amazing background in design. He was originally brought on board to design the vehicles but eventually took over the street scenes and interiors. (London Critics Circle Award for Special Effects 1983). This became the whole look of the film.
Special Effects
Lots of technical stuff and something about Douglas Trumbull and his background in special effects for films such as 2001, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Silent Running and Brainstorm.
Cinematography
Jordan Cronenweth was in charge of lighting and the hand held cameras.
Tensions and Post Production
Those three new producers were not happy with what they were seeing. The director and crew were not getting on, nor were Harrison Ford and Sean Young. Maybe the result of that awkward tension works so well in retrospect. Filming does run over budget and all sorts of people become involved with the final version. "Morose and narratively muddled" was one view.
Responding to the Replicants
The early reviews were very mixed. Nobody was that enthusiastic. It's first release only garnered half it's cost. But then the audience began to grow especially with home and recording releases that gained multiple viewings.
Blade Runner - Revised and Revisited - The Director's Cut
The 1992 version is known as The Director's Cut (a huge hit) and it's gestation is described as a compromise between Scott and the original release. (not to be confused with The Final Cut over which Scott had complete control).
The Blade Runner Effect
One effect was the resurgence of the work of Philip K Dick. "The film continues to exist beyond itself ....." ??
2 THE METROPOLIS
Science Fiction in the City
Just some background about urbanisation.
The Dark City
"The high tech urban settings were congested and confusing, yet exhilarating". But I'm not attempting to describe the author's vast explanation about "cyber punk".
The Bright City
Reflections of New York.
Panoramic Perception, Fractal Geographies
Even the titles are becoming bemusing. But the writer does hit upon that extraordinary sequence early on as Deckard flies the police spinner. The complex combination of 35 separate elements for the scenes of the city glimpsed through the windscreen are well explained as they combine with the views of the screens in the cockpit. The "explanation of urban existence" is a hugely important part of the film outside of the main story.
The Return of the Modernist City
"Another more deeply historicised restatement of fundamental modernist ideas of the city".
Gotham City
Comparing the metropolis: "horizontal LA has vanished into vertical New York".
3 REPLICANTS AND MENTAL LIFE
Cinema and Synthetic Life
Something I did not understand, just awful.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
About the Philip K Dick book, the inspiration for Blade Runner. "The nature of the non human". I don't think I will read it. And how Ridley Scott's replicants are so different to those in the book.
New Bodies for New Worlds
The background to "robots, androids, replicants and cyborgs".
New Selves
Something about racial politics. The original release included the word "nigger". A piece about gender issues reminds us that all three major female characters are replicants and two are shot in the back. Why are we told that "replicants are more human than human".
Making History
"History is devalued as a guarantor of truth, stability and unified meaning". I have no idea what that is all about. And when replicants are programmed with memories ..... "as synthetic humans, replicants inherently challenge essentialist notions of identity". What??? And more: "confront our own constructedness, and by confronting ourselves, to make them ....."
Is Deckard a Replicant?
"The question is more important than determining the answer" ??? Did the director leave it to the viewer to decide. There has been far too much discussion about the subject. "No wonder audiences were baffled".
Masquerading in the City
"The city is a site for masquerade, a metamorphic zone, a place to disappear and re-appear". If only I knew what he meant half the time.
4 CONCLUSION
"What it means to be human". The writer keeps on quoting Slavoj Zizek. I wonder why. But the remainder of this final part is unintelligible. Or is it me?
Time to sum up. There is a lot that is interesting but there is also a lot that seems to me to be pretentious rubbish. While someone referred to "his innovative and nuanced reading" another criticised his "extensive intellectual sidetracks". I have to say it has not encouraged me to buy any other books in the BFI series. I will save any other comments until I have seen The Final Cut.
October 17, 2017
The second edition of Scott Bakutman's take on Blade Runner is the first of the British Film Institute's Film Classics series which I've read, albeit I have several others on my shelves. One always hopes to gain deeper appreciation of media worthy of the study.
Even so, narrow aspects of a film often come about through simple pragmatism, expedience and/or intuition. There's a risk of over-intellectualising by inferring and dissecting meaning that isn't truly there. I feel Bakutman treads close to this line for most of the book.
Nevertheless he provides food for thought, devoting much of what is functionally an essay to placing the film within context, be it before, after or contemporaneous. Placing it in relation to its source novel is obvious, yet has complex nuances.
Considering its role in the development of cyberpunk leads to comparisons with Tron and Videdrome (both also from 1982), and of course Neuromancer and Bruce Sterling. Further, he discusses the links between post-modernism and cyberpunk, the latter being arguably a post-modern subgenre of science fiction. Hence Ballard rates a mention, though one might equally name Pynchon.
Much thought is devoted to the nature of architecture and spaces. Metropolis comes up several times, and with good reason. Plenty of attention is also given to the concept of 'self' as explored in the film, which is always a potentially brain-melting philosophical subject when one becomes enmeshed in the nitty-gritty of high concepts and narrow definitions.
Even the more straightforward discussions of the history of the film's financing, scripting, visual influences and set design are fascinating in their own way. I expect however that these are covered in greater depth in the 'Future Noir' book on the subject.
All in all, a worthwhile read for hardcore science fiction film nerds.
Even so, narrow aspects of a film often come about through simple pragmatism, expedience and/or intuition. There's a risk of over-intellectualising by inferring and dissecting meaning that isn't truly there. I feel Bakutman treads close to this line for most of the book.
Nevertheless he provides food for thought, devoting much of what is functionally an essay to placing the film within context, be it before, after or contemporaneous. Placing it in relation to its source novel is obvious, yet has complex nuances.
Considering its role in the development of cyberpunk leads to comparisons with Tron and Videdrome (both also from 1982), and of course Neuromancer and Bruce Sterling. Further, he discusses the links between post-modernism and cyberpunk, the latter being arguably a post-modern subgenre of science fiction. Hence Ballard rates a mention, though one might equally name Pynchon.
Much thought is devoted to the nature of architecture and spaces. Metropolis comes up several times, and with good reason. Plenty of attention is also given to the concept of 'self' as explored in the film, which is always a potentially brain-melting philosophical subject when one becomes enmeshed in the nitty-gritty of high concepts and narrow definitions.
Even the more straightforward discussions of the history of the film's financing, scripting, visual influences and set design are fascinating in their own way. I expect however that these are covered in greater depth in the 'Future Noir' book on the subject.
All in all, a worthwhile read for hardcore science fiction film nerds.
January 16, 2021
This addition to the BFI Modern Classics series seems to be quite divisive, if the reviews here are to be taken as a representation of opinion...
For me, this is a great addition to the series, but probably the most academic, which could be the reason for the above. Bukatman does not hold back on his research and referencing, especially when looking at the philosophical aspect of the film / original book.
"Androids emphasise the definition of the human by displacing mere biology as the sole, sufficient, condition. The underlying issue is not whether we can give a machine the qualities of the human, but whether the human has lost its humanity; whether it has become, in fact, a machine."
If that's not for you, then neither is this book...if it is, delve in...
For me, this is a great addition to the series, but probably the most academic, which could be the reason for the above. Bukatman does not hold back on his research and referencing, especially when looking at the philosophical aspect of the film / original book.
"Androids emphasise the definition of the human by displacing mere biology as the sole, sufficient, condition. The underlying issue is not whether we can give a machine the qualities of the human, but whether the human has lost its humanity; whether it has become, in fact, a machine."
If that's not for you, then neither is this book...if it is, delve in...
October 29, 2024
An acute synopsis of various theories and arguments about Blade Runner. Bukatman is fairly descriptive as he discussed the film itself, and draws on many sources. I was generally unimpressed with the placement and choice of images, which often felt sporadic and unrelated to the text nearby.
August 30, 2016
I've read a couple of other BFI series books, and enjoyed them. The difference between them and this one is they actually discuss the movie - in depth. Bukatman takes a fairly academic approach to his contribution to the series, and after a chapter on how the movie got made and then gradually discovered by audiences, he goes into a great long discussion of cities, especially as seen in sci-fi books and movies. This is interesting in its own way, but Blade Runner only gets mentioned when it seems that Bukatman thinks he should refer back to it. The same applies to the long chapter on replicants. Yes, Blade Runner is all about what it is to be human, but does this academic discussion really help us enjoy the film?
Unless you knew a good deal about the movie already (I've seen it a couple of times, but over a gap of many years) you're not likely to understand much about it from this book. And the photos are very random, seldom connecting to anything on the page, and in some cases not even connecting to the film, as far as I could tell!
Unless you knew a good deal about the movie already (I've seen it a couple of times, but over a gap of many years) you're not likely to understand much about it from this book. And the photos are very random, seldom connecting to anything on the page, and in some cases not even connecting to the film, as far as I could tell!
August 12, 2020
The first twenty pages of the book are a brief (albeit well executed) retelling of Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. The last twenty pages are devoted to somewhat confused description of books and films that either influenced or were influenced by Blade Runner. Author really (and almost comically) tries to sound academic. If you are absolutely new to Ridley Scott's film, read only the first half and skip the second. And by all means do not buy this book. Borrow it from the library.
PS Still, because of Scott Bukatman I have found a nice negative review of Blade Runner published in The New Yorker back in 1982. It perfectly expresses my thoughts about the film's plot. Yet I still like (love, adore) its atmosphere.
PS Still, because of Scott Bukatman I have found a nice negative review of Blade Runner published in The New Yorker back in 1982. It perfectly expresses my thoughts about the film's plot. Yet I still like (love, adore) its atmosphere.
April 25, 2018
Film studies professor Scott Bukatman does a great job with this BFI Modern Classics volume about Blade Runner. The first third of the book covers the journalistic ground of how the film was made and places it both formally and narratively in the science fiction and film noir genres. The rest of the book is an unusual and readable analysis of what the movie has to say about how cities are organized and how people live in them and the aesthetics of urban space, the relationship between humanity and artificial intelligence and how the rapid pace of technological development brings us closer to being machines and machines closer to being human, and the relationship of memory to storytelling. Bukatman is skilled at sharing these sharp ideas without being too dryly academic.
November 30, 2017
los libros del british film institute son una auténtica clase magistral acerca de cómo hacer crítica cinematográfica. en este caso el autor parte del gusto personal --cosa que celebro-- que, sin embargo, rápidamente despacha para ponerse a hablar de lo que le interesa: la ciudad y los espacios en blade runner, una película que naturalmente da para un par de tesis de maestría al respecto. aunque de pronto se preocupa más por los "temas" que por la forma en sí --hay muy poco respecto a shots, por ejemplo, algo que me decepciona poquito--, lo cierto es que, desde su enfoque, este es un ensayo filoso, bien documentado, capaz de tender puentes acaso inesperados. brillante.
January 23, 2018
While the first half is an account of the film's production, the second half is an examination of the film's postmodern themes and framework. Probably one of the best treatments of narrative and theme in film that I've read let alone for one so wedded to science fiction spectacle that those concerns aren't immediately apparent. Roger Luckhurst's Alien is also a great unpacking of another Ridley Scott classic which complements Bukatman's book very well.
August 20, 2018
A classic. After the reading, lots of question about the technology and the AI.
March 11, 2020
This is WIDELY relevant rn surprised it hasn't re-emerged like Orwell
November 7, 2022
obsessed with any and all academic material on cyberpunk
September 25, 2011
I have been enjoying the BFI Modern Classic series-it is very similar to the Continuum series of short book length essays on seminal films instead of albums. The latest edition was on Ridley Scott's Blade Runner by Scott Bukatman, which I think is one of my favorite films. I am drawn to the film by the visual world you escape to when watching the film. It also appeals to my appreciations for gumshoe detective stories and film noir. In fact a lot of the book discusses the look and atmosphere of the film and it's effect rather than the nuts and bolts of the making of the film, although there is some about that as well. But I think the underlying story of the film success it's cult following-once the Director's Cut was released it became a hit. I remember seeing it in 1990 while at college and reading all the press that suggested it was the superior version sans the heavy handed narration and I agree that the ambient noise adds to the overall atmospheree of the city at night. There are discussion as Phillip K. DIck's influence and cyberpunk and perhaps a little too much academic posturing with mentions of people like Barthes, Foucalt, and Zizek. However, overall I think it is a good discussion of the merits and influence of one of the 80s finest films.
November 15, 2014
I do enjoy the BFI books. This one I originally bought and read for a class called Writing About Film. One of the films we studied in-depth was Blade Runner because it has been so widely written about. Since I just made my way through the 2007 Collector's Edition DVD release, I thought it was time to give this one another read.
Bukatman is very detailed in his research and analysis of Blade Runner, but he tends to meander on occasion. He goes off on tangents regarding all of science fiction and compares Blade Runner to other works such as Things To Come and Metropolis. While there is good reason for these comparisons, it feels like he relies a bit too much on these other films at points.
Still, a decent piece of scholarly writing on a great film, worth reading if you like in-depth critical analysis of films.
Bukatman is very detailed in his research and analysis of Blade Runner, but he tends to meander on occasion. He goes off on tangents regarding all of science fiction and compares Blade Runner to other works such as Things To Come and Metropolis. While there is good reason for these comparisons, it feels like he relies a bit too much on these other films at points.
Still, a decent piece of scholarly writing on a great film, worth reading if you like in-depth critical analysis of films.
Read
November 16, 2010Inutile dire che il destino di questo libro è legato alla fortuna del film (tant'è che il secondo ha spodestato l'originale titolo anche dalla copertina del volume). Così anche per me: vidi il film, comprai il libro. Cercai nel libro il film, ed il libro mi sputò addosso molto altro. Capii in futuro, con Ubik, con i Simulacri, capii che quello era puro Dick, il suo mondo immaginario.
December 11, 2015
I think this was a good book but, it could have been better. I watched the movie and loved it. I read the book and I was a little bit disappointed but, I still liked it.I liked the setting and the struggle that the main character was going through. I thought the book got a little dull in the middle. If the middle had more action in it, The Blade Runner would get 5 stars from me.
June 15, 2010
if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
??? 2000s?: c-beams glitter in the dark by tannhauser gate…
??? 2000s?: c-beams glitter in the dark by tannhauser gate…
June 23, 2012
An interesting criticism of Ridley Scott's science fiction masterpiece. Definitely worth looking into for an exploration of its themes.
November 16, 2015
If you are a hardcore Blade Runner fan, you need to read this to get the indepth analysis.
March 19, 2016
Excellent slim volume that still manages to analyse the fascination with, making of and context of the film within cinema and science fiction.
July 8, 2013
Another decent BFI classic that marries the film fan with the film student
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