Retronauts - 561: Blade Runner

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

Ridley Scott's 1982 cyberpunk classic came into being as a total flop, yet managed to claw its way into our collective psyches as the definitive portrayal of a dark future that would shape all sci-fi (and reality) to follow. Over the past 40 years and multiple revisions, this former cult favorite has become a respected part of the canon, but does it truly deserve its lofty status? On this episode, join Bob Mackey, Stuart Gipp, Kevin Bunch, and Henry Gilbert as the crew dons their snazzy raincoats to explore the very wet and very influential world of Blade Runner. Turtles will be flipped! Retronauts is a completely fan-funded operation. To support the show, and get two full-length exclusive episodes every month, as well as access to 50+ previous bonus episodes, please visit the official Retronauts Patreon at patreon.com/retronauts.

This week on Retronauts, we don't know Dick. Holographic Anna-Darmos wives are still 26 years away, but we're all hanging in there. And this time, we're going to be talking about Blade Runner, the 1982 movie that's all about turtle flipping, and it went on to shape the world and sci-fi forever. And of course, I am your host for this one, Bob Skin Job Mackey. And before I go any further, who is here with me today? Let's go in alphabetic order around the virtual room here. So I'll let you folks figure that out.

It's 9 a.m. right now for me, so I don't really know the alphabet very well. Hey, you think I'd be here if I could afford a real snake? It's Henry Gilbert. Kevin Bunch, noted Andy. Hi, I'm Stuart Jip, and I was looking forward to making the first dick joke, but boom, there we go, right in the intro. I got nothing, folks. That's all I had. It hit me the second I started doing these notes, so I apologize. We're off to a great start here. But yes, we today are going to be talking about the first Blade Runner movie. I'm sure we'll be touching upon the second one because I just watched that last night for the first time.

and maybe very briefly touching upon some of the games but honestly the world of Blade Runner games is not super interesting because we have one game technically based on the soundtrack because they couldn't get the rights to the movie very funny

we have the Westwood Point of Click Adventure game which honestly could be an episode and I still really want to play that game and then the third game is a somewhat recent game but it's for a discontinued Google VR platform that I think can no longer be access so the world of Blade Runner games

is not that deep but hey the movie itself uh in what it touched is a very much could be an entire podcast series but we're going to limit it to one podcast here before i go any further let's talk about our experience with uh blade runner let's start with steward steward what is your experience with running blades oh god i think that the listeners are going to want to punch me fill in the face after this but uh i only watched it for the first time yesterday i think it's important to have that perspective. Obviously, I know everything about the movie by cultural osmosis because it's one of those movies, you know.

If you've seen basically any anime, you've seen pretty much seen Blade Runner, I think. That's right. If you've seen K.O., and you've seen it, but no. I mean, I don't want to get off on this sour note, but you know, it's an incredible looking film.

Obviously, incredibly influential. It's beautifully shot. It's just so many sequences that just look absolutely marvelous. It's really well-acted and I just kind of was sitting there like this is this this is bollocks this makes no sense but I'm having a good time watching it

but then I was informed that there's a version of the movie that explains all the stuff that makes no sense in voiceover and I was like hey that sounds pretty good and they were like no it's bad it's bad when you know what's happening I was like okay okay I believe you but I do wonder if it's a sort of Donny Darko situation where they

really do ruin the movie by explaining everything I don't know but I enjoyed watching it and I would consider it incredibly impressive for the time when it came out, you know, it doesn't... Having said that, I did watch the final cut, so maybe they've massively changed it up from how it originally looked. I don't know, maybe it made it all teal and orange or whatever. They probably have actually done that because it did look pretty teal and orange. Yeah, I think it's a movie that deserves sort of the acclaim that it's got.

I wouldn't call it the most narratively coherent movie, regardless of how it's spun or edited or saying this is the right version this is the wrong version i don't know i thought it was pretty enjoyable overall um and i can see why it had such a cultural like i understand it wasn't an immediate cultural um sort of awakening but it did eventually come to influence so many pent hundreds of thousands of things i can see why okay let's move on to kevin how about you kevin what is your blade runner experience uh so the first time i saw it was way back when I was an undergrad in college. I was in a film studies class.

They had a whole list of movies you could choose from to watch a couple of them. I picked Blade Runner because I heard it was pretty good. I was not impressed. I didn't really think it was all that. It was the theatrical cut. That was the version that I was able to find. So I've always been kind of like down on it. I read the book that it was based on a few years later.

and really enjoyed that. And having gone back and rewatched Blade Runner, the final cut was what I was able to find at the local library. You know, it's better than I remember it being. I don't know that I'm a huge fan of it, but I can certainly see why it was as influential as it was. And Henry, how about you? Boy, I guess I didn't think I was the biggest Blade Runner likeer on this one,

but I think I am. No, I really enjoy Blade Runner. Bob questioned before off mic my five star for it on Letterbox. I have, I have adjusted it before. I've adjusted it to four. It had been a while since I rewatched the whole thing of Final Cup. Oh, we don't understand this movie this here, Blade Runner, is worth five stars, Mr. Gilbert. Wait a minute.

You had it at five and you adjusted it to four under duress. You should go back and change it back to a five, Henry. No, no, because no. Well, so here was my test last night of watching it, watching Final Cut Again for the first time in a while was I was struggling to keep my eyes open at about the 20 minute point. And I was like, I shouldn't be working this hard to stay awake for a five-star movie. But then by the end of it, I was like, no, I was ready to redo it as a three. But then by the end, it was like, okay, I remember what I loved about this. This ending leaves me on a good feeling.

But my personal history with Blade Runner was I was, I was. was a Star Wars nerd growing up, who then everybody, you'd hear the older boys at school say, like, well, you know, there's this other film of stars Harrison Ford that's way cooler and more mature than Star Wars, but also you'll never get to see the real version of it. There's only the crappy version that has a bad ending. They changed the ending, and they added a bunch of voiceover to it,

and it's way worse. You'll never see the good one. And so then much of the 90s, if you're a nerd, you're waiting for the release of the director's cut. Like it was one of the most marketed director's cut there was. So you kept hearing like, oh, this is the greatest, this is the greatest. And then for the 25th anniversary in 2007, that's when the final cut came out. And I saw that in theaters.

And perhaps I was still on the high of just having moved to a new town and seeing, wow, I'm going to see Blade Runner in the theaters. I could never see that in my suburban Florida town. And that's why I was like, yeah, five stars. But as far, I do give the vibes of it five stars. I think it is a five star vibes movie that told everybody how to make cool shit in the steampunk future. Every, or cyberpunk future. It's early for me too.

But, but yeah, there's lots of steam in this movie. It is a steamy movie. It's a very steamy movie. But yeah, I'm not just talking about the dancers. Hey, no. I'll say. I am positive on Blade Runner, though. I actually like all of the things that Blade Runner influenced more than Blade Runner itself.

Though I would, if I were to say watch Blade Runner or watch Blade Runner 2049 right now, I would pick watching Blade Runner over 2049, though I really liked Blade Runner 2049. Hmm. Okay. Yeah, as for me, I'm going to betray my nerd status as well. I only saw Blade Runner for the first time in July of this year. And I watched it again last night for the show. but I think my stance on it was well I've seen all the influences how could this possibly hold up but I also in the back of my mind felt like

oh this is probably a very good movie and I've heard some people say oh it's actually overrated but I bet they're not used to slower more cerebral movies they're not smart like me and then I watched it and I found that yes the production design is amazing it's like you cannot even say how much

it's just in everything that followed from from that point on That takes place in the future. Like everything you see in the future has some ties to Blade Runner and Sid Mead's designs. It's inescapable. But I was also surprised by how straightforward the movie was, how there was no real subtext to the movie. It was just a very surface level. And I was expecting like, oh, these deep heavy conversations about what is it mean to be a human and, you know, explorations of that.

But it really wasn't that. And we can talk more about my issues with the movie later But I watched 2049 last night And I felt like, oh, this is the version of this world I wanted to see This shows like how people live in it It shows more of the perspectives of the replicants And there's actually, imagine this folks Imagine if you're watching a film noir

And there's a mystery to solve It's not just your boss saying There's two androids in that building Go over there and he's like, okay sir That's essentially I mean We'll get to it but Harrison Ford has a great quote about Blade Runner. And he goes back and forth about Blade Runner so much. He's hard to nail down on this movie. But he said his biggest issue with the movie is that it's about

a detective who does no detecting. And that's my biggest issue. This is not fun to follow at all from his perspective. I love being with Roy Badi and Pris and all the other replicants. And they have a much more interesting struggle with stakes. But him, he's Mr. Boring Pants. And it's the most easy to follow mystery in the world. In fact, there's no mystery. And yeah, 2049 love it blade runner original i i respect it but i feel like it has a lot of story problems and harrison fort is really bad at it but hey he's really good in the sequel that's you know in 2049 it was it just felt even slower pace to me that's why i was like not just because i can see the minute count of how long it is but it's like way longer right it's like another hour longer

but it felt it it's much slower it is a better mystery and i I think Ryan Gosling is really good in it, too. Like, he's really good. And, yeah, and also, I couldn't, after seeing Harrison Ford be contractually obligated to be in Star Wars movies and not care, then he is trying way harder in Blade Runner 2049 than he was in the Force Awakens, which was cool to see. Yeah, I mean, this is not the 2049 discussion, but it's a lot longer. It's about an hour longer, but there is an actual mystery. the only mystery in Blade Runner is when Harrison Ford looks at a snake

scale for about eight minutes Hold on a sec, he does use that technology to look around the corner of photograph or something which is like insane but you know it's the future Yes, somehow that technology exists in 2049 but it's not as tedious

as hearing Harrison Ford go okay now go three things to the left okay now zoom okay now go up no stop that's about five minutes of Blade Runner one I was so grateful that they showed that whole thing on just unbroken. I was just sitting there like there's only two hours of this movie and this is how we're spending

six of these minutes. That's brilliant. That's actually, if you're in the movie theater, sorry Kevin. If you're seeing this in the movie theater, and by the way, that's the way I saw Blade Runner. That's the best way to see it because when I was watching it at home yesterday, I was getting a little like list list. But in the theater when you're trapped in a dark room with all the visuals, it really

helps you forget about the story issues. But I will say if you want to use the bathroom and you're seeing this in the theater when Harrison Ford starts using Photoshop, go to the concession stand. Sorry, Kevin. No, I was just going to say that your description of this as a film noir without any mystery is very, it's very much how I was feeling about this movie, because it does take a lot away from those mid-century noir aesthetics and just sort of marrying them to the kind of weird dystopian future vibes of, you know, movies from the 70s like Soylent Green. but it doesn't really do a great job of bringing with it

the mysterious aspects of you know a mystery novel and you kind of see that in the original book too which I think I'm the only one here who got a chance to read through it movies are better than books I don't have to read books that's very gracious of you to say you had a chance as if it's like not my choice that I didn't mean

oh I just don't have time because I was too busy doing fucking nothing thank you I actually plan to read it But then time made full of me. And then, but I will say on my goodreads goal for the year, I have read 30 of 50 books. So there you have it, folks. I'm a smart boy. Would you like a medal, Bob?

Would you like a medal? I know, I want free pizza. This is how it works in America. Oh, shit. I'm in Canada now. Oh, no. You don't get any pizza hut little buttons. Your book in the right.

Yeah. Sorry, Kevin. I think you had more to say. Yes. I was just going to say that the book kind of has a similar. thing going on like it is also pulling from a lot of noir mystery novels and there's like a little bit of a mystery but they get resolved really quickly because it's not really about the mystery it's definitely more interested in the you know sort of discussion of empathy and what does it

mean to be human and or alive and does that really mean anything etc could i interject and just say I know everyone knows this, but just for the sheer sake of information, you are talking about do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep, is that right? Yes. Okay, sorry, I don't think we've actually named it, so I thought I'd just get that out. Well, you know, half the printings of it nowadays, just say Blade Run around them. Oh, really? Okay. And all the listeners are now just like, oh, that's what book came out.

Because nobody obviously knew that. Yep. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about the movie. We're going to talk about the making of the movie very soon here, but I can see people saying that, oh, it's actually subverting the tropes of Detective stories but I really don't think so Ridley Scott it was his idea like let's turn this into a detective story he was not trying

to subvert anything he wanted to filter the story through the lens of a classic noir detective but in a different setting so but let's move on to the actual origins of this movie in the book so of course we talked about it just now but it's based on a book from

Philip K. Dick the 1968 book with a very Philip K. Dick title Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep? It's very fun to just look at a list of Philip K. Dick book titles. I picked one up recently based on the description, but the name of the book is Cry My Tears, the policeman said.

So that's really the style of book and short story title that was in fashion at the time. And of course, extremely prolific, thanks to our little friend called Speed, Philip K. Dick, wrote 44 novels and 121 short stories. This is before we could just all

get Adderall in our system. This is what he had to do. He died in his early 50s for the sake of just cranking out all of these words. And apparently that he was not really made aware of the fact that this was being turned into a movie until they actually started production. But he was really won over when they showed him footage of it before he died. He didn't make it in time for the premiere of this movie, but he saw about 20 minutes. And he told Ridley Scott like, oh, you captured what is inside of my head and you put it on the screen. so they should have told him up front

but after the fact he was like hey cool I like where this is going and then he passed away before the movie could come out I mean there's been like 80 movies based on Philip K. Dick since this one came out like he is and they're all mostly just taken from a short story and they may lead to like

just a jumping off point for sometimes just a boring action film like say John Wu's paycheck perhaps the worst John Wu movie that you know I really fall behind on my John Woo movies. I can't say that. It was the worst one up to that point when I saw

it though. But I think, I mean, it is such a foundational work for cyberpunk as well. And I mean the genre, not the video game series that, or the recent video game that was made out of the tabletop RPG. Yes, I play the tabletop RPG.

I know it was that first guys. I know. But yeah, I didn't. Yeah, I would have to say that of all of Philip K. Dick's stories that were turned into movies. This is definitely in the upper echelon. It's a very low bar. A lot of them

are not very good, but it's like this and what minority report are pretty good. It's kind of darkly one of his. Total recall is my favorite of the Philip K. Dick adaptation. It's just so fun to watch. Not as heady as this. It's a lot trashier,

but I kind of enjoy that. And I like Scanner Darkly all right. It's, I mean, look, it's not. It's not special. It's just guys talking with cartoons drawn over him. Yes, it was one of the many Mario Paint movies he made. Waking Life, Scanner Darkly, we get it. You use the filter. Well, it wasn't a filter.

I know it was a lot of work, but it seems like a lot of work for not a lot of payoff. So let's talk about how it got made into a movie. So there was interest in making an adaptation of this book right around the time it was published, but no one could actually put together a screenplay worth optioning until a little guy named Hampton Fancher came along. What a great name. They don't name them like that anymore, folks. He's got a very long career in TV and movies dating back to the late 50s. though this is one of two notable things he actually wrote

and he was briefly married to the actress who played Lolita in the Kubrick version of Lolita that's one fun fact about Hampton Fancher so there you have it and yes how does really Scott get involved this is the project he goes to after trying to get Dune off the ground the production of Dune is very complicated and we can that's another podcast

there should be a Dune podcast maybe I will host it because later I'll be Dune it Very very soon Later At late in life I'm becoming a real Dune head And I did not expect that

But yes he is making Dune It's not working He needs something to work on Because I believe his older brother Passes away He needs something to Get his mind off of what's happening In his life

And basically This is when he steps into the project And they need a better title They're not going to release a movie With the name to Android's Dream of Electric Sheep in theaters. It would be an even bigger failure than Blade Runner was. So there was a screenplay of the Alan E. Norse novel called The Blade Runner.

So there was an existing book called The Blade Runner. And it was the screenplay was written by William S. Burroughs. And Hampton Fancher, one of the writers of the movie Blade Runner, had a copy of his own. And he's like, oh, this would be a great title for our movie. Because they couldn't really figure out a title for the movie Blade Runner. had things like Android, Mechanismo, and Dangerous Days. And Dangerous Days would later be the very long

Blade Runner documentary, but it's such a convoluted thing in that there is a book, there's a sci-fi book called Blade Runner. Someone wrote a screenplay to turn that into a movie. That was never produced, but the name Blade Runner was purchased to use on the movie version of do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep.

So you can go out and buy the book of the Blade Runner and you're not going to hear about Deckard or Android. or anything like that. It's going to be a book about a far-off future in which only a select few can afford medical treatment. It's weird.

I don't buy it at all. Ridiculous. That's interesting because when I watched the movie and then it was just like I'm a blade runner or you're a blade runner. I was like, oh, that's interesting. I'm sure that will make sense at some point. And then he never runs any blades

or does anything remotely like could justify that name. I guess it's meant to be like living on the edge kind of thing. Yeah, it's symbolic. Yeah. I mean, I think in the move in the book, the blade run. It should be called Robot Chaser.

Yeah, exactly. In the book, The Blade Runner, from what I understand, I haven't read it, but apparently it's about, like, smuggling medical supplies, so you are a blade runner, you're, like, smuggling supplies to treat people who don't qualify for treatment in this far-off sci-fi world. Again, I don't believe it at all. But, hey, it's a book. The cops in the future are very into symbolism and, you know, wording, like, oh, he's running on the edge of the blade like he's you know

he's doing the most dangerous thing but they're just a lot smarter than the cops now who just are like Delta Force 1 or like the pound squad or whatever like the punishes symbol have fun with it have fun with your naming scheme they should be more literate is what I'm saying the police that is so of everything they should all have to take an intro to lit course

at the police academy especially that guy who makes sound effects he needs to learn how to read I was going to say, you know, with all of this talk about how the naming came about, suddenly the 80s computer game based on the soundtrack makes a lot more sense. It's pretty much in line with that scheme. Yes. Now, you hear about all of these different versions of movies that could have been. And, you know, I often want to jump into the timeline visiting machine and visit the other timeline, just briefly, to see.

see. This is a version I want to see. The one that they were working on before Scott got involved, it was going to be directed by Robert Mulligan, who was the director of To Kill a Mockingbird. And Deckard was going to be played by Robert Mitchum. A guy even grumpier than Harrison Ford, but I think he would have done a better job.

I would have liked the age he would have brought to that, for sure. Like, he's, you know, he would have been, what, in his mid-50s in the, in 82 or so, but he drank so much that he'd have seemed like in his 70s. Yeah. He would feel like current

day Harrison Ford now. Definitely. Less plane crashes, though. Those will shave the years off, those plane crashes. Well, he didn't have the money for planes. He was just drunk driving everywhere. That's the way we used to do it. No high flying. Just drunk driving.

So the production continues from here. They have a script. They have a title. Ridley Scott hires a guy named David Peoples to rewrite Hampton, Fancher's script. Fancher was put off by this at first. I don't think the two ever met during production, but Fancher eventually liked people's rewrite, and Fancher would come back to do a bit of rewriting on the script himself. And I read some interviews, like I said earlier, it was Scott's idea to turn this into a detective story, and Fancher hated this, but eventually it grew on him

over time, and it sounds like Fancher's idea was much smaller and not about the world surrounding Dekard. It was more about a love story between a human and an android. He said it was a very small scale in which it could have been performed as a play almost. So he didn't really have the epic sci-fi scale in mind for the movie Scott wanted to make. But he did like the changes that were made to his script. And of course, Hampton Fancher is one of the two screenwriters on 2049, many, many years later, 35 years later. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, again, I think that writer, the second writer made people, he made the right choice like the world. the world building is the best stuff in this movie. Just living in that world and I kept reminding myself watching the movie. I was like, put yourself into the brain of the year of somebody in 1982 who's seeing this. And like they've never seen this kind of sci-fi world. Like they've read it in books. They maybe seen like comics or art on it to an actual like living version of this world.

Like now we, you can see the seams in it or you see like, oh, I've seen it. done better since then, but like the world is just amazing. And when the mystery is so thin, let's luxuriate in the world. Let's eat a bunch of noodles at all the stands. Let's get in the car.

Now, we'll talk about this more when we talk about the movie. I think the look of the world is amazing, but it really indicates nothing about the status of the world and how people live in it, other than the fact that they have that one Gisha commercial they have to see over and over again. 2049, I will say,

it does a much better job of showing you how people exist in the world and what you have to do to live in this place. Decker's apartment is like the apartment I just got out of. I think his kitchen is bigger than mine or was bigger than mine. You never had space for a piano in your place. Oh, that's true. That fat cat. No, well, hey, though, in 2019, weren't we all seeing the same ad served to us over and over again, auto playing on things?

Yeah, I guess it was flow from progressive and not a geisha Coke lady. that's the Reagan era for you that's the Reagan guarantee xenophobia you do see the signs that say live off world and people say things like oh if I could afford that I wouldn't be here like we're in the crappy part of the world where the rest of people have to live and the rich people get to leave the planet

and where they're replicant slaves are doing everything for them but yeah I mean yeah I will agree 2049 digs more into that world for sure Definitely. Actually, I feel like Back to the Future 2 is a much better exploration of a future society than Blade Runner because you have Doc Brown explaining like here is all the things people do now. Here is how they eat. Here is how they watch TV? I wish Blade Runner got into all of that because Decker just seems to have a crappy apartment and that's basically it. There's real no indication. It's like, how is this different in 2019 compared to 1982 except for you see Asian characters outside? By that I mean writing, not people. I mean, I don't want to, you know, maybe we don't want to get into this. If we were to cut me off. But, I mean, it's, it's kind of racist, right? That kind of trope of just being like, God, imagine if you had to be in this place, you know, where everyone's, when no one's even speaking English, it's crazy.

Yeah, it's a pretty simple. It's a kind of, kind of bald city sort of thing, right? I mean, you see it come up kind of a lot. And I had some problems with this movie in terms of this kind of content other than just. that but it seems it seems to me like it's just what became or already was a reasonably standard slightly xenophobic kind of a trope it doesn't ruin the movie obviously it's an old it's you know I was about say it's an old movie I don't know where the cutoff is for that anymore 40 years old is a pretty old movie it's it's a little bit kind of like okay all right

it's like it's like wouldn't it be awful if you know this was what life was like if it was like living in like some kind of place where the Asians are I don't know I don't have to it without myself sounding racist. I mean, it is, it is, very good at this. This is an old movie. I mean, Citizen Kane was 40 years old when Blade Runner was new. And now Blade Runner is 40 years old. And, I mean, I don't think, like, Ridley Scott is not an American. And I think an American making this movie would be more of the, you know,

Japanese are going to eat us alive kind of school of thought. Here, it's just like generic Asians are dominating us. And I think it's really just because Ridley Scott had filmed a lot of commercials in Hong Kong. And he walked away from that saying, like this is hell on earth like Hong Kong is the worst place to be I am a pub crawling guy from the UK this is the most alien stuff I've ever seen he didn't take a minute to like analyze those thoughts he's just like awful terrible you don't want to be there so British people are famously welcoming to immigrants aren't they just like Americans we're not founded on colonialism and xenophobia

at all no no there's no we're talking about how just put yourself in the 1982 mindset you know when you're sitting down for this. Now, I made this joke on another the podcast, but when you watch this movie, it starts off, Harrison Ford is eating noodles, like at a Chinese noodle place, or I think the owner's Japanese. Again, the movie's really confused about who's scary,

you know, which Asian people are scary. But in 2020, you're like, okay, yeah, I would go out for noodles. Those look yummy. But in 1982, you'd be clutching your pearls and saying, what has happened to America? Yeah, I mean, this was the era where, you know, the U.S. was very terrified.

I guess, on the business level of the Japanese coming to eat their lunch. And, you know, China was starting to pump out more exports for the U.S. markets. So we were getting a lot of those. And, yeah, if you go through, like, old industry magazines, people are freaking out about this. And, like, it really comes through here as well, because, you know, that trickles down into the, you know, the general zeitgeist. I know there were a lot of people freaking out in Michigan even until like when I left in the 2010s, you know, driving around a foreign car, I'm going to key it up or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I mean, in the late 80s, I experienced some of that where it was a scandal of someone bought a Toyota or whatever.

So even up until my late teens, I thought like, oh my gosh, you're just going to drive that around? What do people vandalize it? And one family was basically like, we're not getting Nintendo. That's from Japan. We're going to buy Sega. And I don't think I knew then either, but I thought, like, well, Nintendo's more fun. What's your problem? But, and then in the end, the joke was on them.

You know, I do think about, yeah, I think back then part, the opening of the movie is supposed to be part of like the culture shock of, wow, look at this. You saw a thing that said it's Los Angeles, but everybody's Asian and even like the most white man you could think of. Harrison Ford is having to pick up chopsticks and eat noodles with. those and he's like rubs them together even in a way to be like that's right these are chopsticks people but yeah it's now because i think it's supposed to be just seen as a culture shock but you never have dekard say like man i hate speaking and why won't people like he is not like actively these grumpiness could be him being like why would these people speak english but he

never says it so now when you watch it it sometimes it can't come off as like yeah this is how It is in a major city. Like literally, I was a month ago in Los Angeles on a rainy day. And we went to this really cool open food market that had tons of different stations at it. And there was the Japanese station. There was a Korean food station, Chinese, Filipino food, Pinoy, all that. And so it just, we live in that nice future. Now I just view it as a nice future that they're showing us like, yeah, you have all these food options.

It's great. But yes, I do think the intention. was at the very least the future is many more much more diverse but i don't think they would have said that in a positive way i do think it's part of the shock i what racist is a strong word but yeah yeah i don't mean to say like they came out pointedly to go let's stick it to the agents like that's not what i think they were doing here but it is just it's a tropey thing i think in it if this is where i was born i got i just i got it i kind of got a note it but i don't think like it's a malicious thing necessarily it's it's worth stating and it's worth discussing it

And this movie does have a point of view when it comes to that. But I also feel like you could see the xenophobia in the movie, in the content of the movie, also in the casting of the movie. Because I was talking about this with my wife and I was like, if Asian people, Japanese, Chinese, I'm not sure what the movie is trying to say. If they're really in charge, why do we never meet an Asian person with lines in the movie outside of James Hong? There's no, like, the Ba, like the Tyrell Corporation Baugh should be a Japanese guy, right? Well, Kimiko Hishiroge plays Cambodian lady. Come on, Bob. Okay.

That's a major character. That's, she says, here's your noodles. Or this guy said, or the other noodle guy translates Edward James almost for him. I see. Well, yeah, I just feel like they were, they were not as committed to the bit to the point where they wanted to actually hire Asian people to communicate the fact that, oh, yeah. yeah, they're no longer the immigrant class. They are in charge now. I just feel like that's kind of,

that's a little telling to me. American hegemony is dead, but not in casting. Yeah. So I think it's also telling that you, today you pick up and play something like cyberpunk and it's pretty much the same. Like, you know,

maybe there's like a shade more nuance, a shade more diverse casting, but they're still doing it. Well, I mean, there's actual African Americans in, cyberpunk as opposed to this film. Yeah, I mean, the last thing I'll say is, yeah, we don't hear Decker upset about the state of things. He's not like, yeah, welcome to 20, what is it, 2019?

Yeah, welcome to 2019. Press 1 for English. He's never saying anything like that. But at the same time, I'd like him to have any point of view or any opinion on anything. He's just such a, he just shoved forward. Yeah, he just shoved forward by the plot. Does the theatrical cut have a voiceover where he's just kind of like, I hate it here. This place sucks.

That's not canon. I'm not judging the movie by that. I don't remember it's been so long I've rewatched some of the theatrical cut clips online just to see the comparison be reminded like I think I'm stealing something Bob said to me off mic but like it's like he's doing it under gunpoint like he's like yeah that's right

she was made special yeah he said he said he had to be like drag kicking and screaming to the recordings he didn't want to do it I have to say no we'll probably get to this actually we'll probably get to the movie so I'll save this for when we get to the movie okay yeah I do want to move on to more production stuff because the production designer behind the amazing look of this movie and then every future thing to follow is Sid Meade.

The French artist Moby has passed on this movie, something that he really regretted. But, yeah, Sid Meade defined the look of sci-fi future. He worked with James Cameron on aliens. So, like, this in aliens is the one-two punch of just the dark future. And, I mean, Sid Mead's credits are legendary and almost endless, but he also defined the look of the, I believe they're the At-Ats in Star Wars. The Walkers, George Lucas, I hope he paid the man, but he based the design of the walkers on some of Sid Mead's designs. And, yeah, like, one of the most legendary production designers, just Google image search his name.

You can just pour over so much of his amazing work. It's so influential. That's so funny, Mobius said no to this, and then after he says yes to the He-Man movie. Oh. Masters of the Universe, he did production work on that. Yeah, and it looks, if you look up his production art for it, really. great looking production art, but I don't know how much they actually use for the movie. That poor man.

So I want to talk about the movie. So I want to talk about the casting now. We mentioned Harrison Ford. He should be the big draw in this movie because the previous year he kicked off the Indiana Jones franchise and the next year he's going to be finishing the Star Wars trilogy. You know those three great movies. There was never any more content

to make us think about those ever again. He was going to be in return of the Jedi the next year. He's 40 in this. He's worked with all the hottest new directors even though he's got a pretty late start but he was not a happy camper on this movie in that really

comes through in his very bored performance. You can tell the directors he likes to work with because he does not play ball with people that rub him the wrong way. I feel Harrison Ford. And I normally like seeing him in movies. I mean, like

I'm not even a huge Star Wars fan, but you know, Han Solo is what I'm there for. I don't care about all the lore and the gleap glops and everything. I just want to hear him saying, this is bullshit. You know, which is why the future this is just my own extra grind

I think the newer Star Wars movies don't work because there's no guy in it saying this sucks I hate all of this and I hate all of you I'm leaving well because he has to become a believer

by the end of return of the Jedi and I mean honestly he's too he's too soft in return of the Jedi like he's literally at the teddy bear picnic going like these kids they're all right like he's no I mean

the spirit of Harrison Ford is like a stoned guy who doesn't want to work is what I feel for me he's just like yeah I mean I don't know best at playing

absolutely yeah and I'm not sure if anyone else read any production stories about Harrison Ford on this movie at a certain point he was not talking to

Ridley Scott he was not getting along with other actors on the set like Sean Young Sean Young was like very fresh to acting in general and she was being asked to play this character

with a lot more history than she had personally and apparently Harrison Ford didn't talk to her at all outside of their scenes together and I also think that like Ridley Scott kept her separate from the other actors to maintain her

you know alienated kind of status you know like slightly off where she never really had a connection with another person so she didn't have a great time on this set and what I heard from interviews reading about Harrison Ford what people are saying about him is like he is so

smart he has no patience for anyone like if you waste his time or if you're a dummy he is incredibly rude to you so I think like he felt like Ridley Scott was wasting his time, and they had a really rough time together on the set. And I think, I'm pretty sure he didn't want to do the sequel if Ridley Scott was involved. I'm pretty sure they patched things up by now.

But whenever I read a Harrison Ford interview on Blader, he goes back and forth on everything so much with this movie. Yeah, I think he has a complicated thing with it, but I do, that he came back for 2049 eventually shows. I mean, also, he seems ready to take money to do it, too. He does things for money, but I'm not, but I, I mean, I think, Hey, Calista needs to eat. Yeah, he's got to. Those planes aren't cheap. Yeah, no, he crash plays.

One else, his cheapest habit is probably just, uh, being a big stoner. But yeah, I think he's, I think he takes, you know, he does take some pride and stuff. I base this too of seeing like before the new Indiana Jones movie came out. He was doing interviews talking like he was literally in tears excited about it. Like he's like, he had D23. when they presented the first trailer he's like this is a good one this is a good one it basically his way

of saying he thought it would turn out better than Crystal Skull which personally I don't agree with I mean has he seen it it sucks I can't believe that he's such a shame for him I feel so bad for him but he got paid and that's what Harrison Ford really cares about maybe he was tearing up because yeah he was excited about that page it's like

it's that whole they drove a dumb truck full of money to my house thing you know I like I like the fact that Indiana Jones gets him teared up, but I also miss when Harrison Ford would be interviewed by website folks and they'd be like, we're right here, we're here with Harrison Ford, Han Solo himself. Now Harrison,

we've got to ask you, is he going to be wearing the same belt he was wearing in Return of the Jedi? And he would just say, I don't fucking know. Or something like that. It's just like he would just swat a nerd question right to the ground. But I think that he did with Conan recently.

Yeah. That went around. That was quite fun. But eventually, I think he knew, like, this is the bit I do. I'm like the lovable grouch, but I think he also doesn't care about the Star Wars lore or anything like that. It's just a job that keeps earning me millions of dollars. Conan can talk him into the bits. I think Mark Hamill, find a Mark Hamill anytime he's imitated him in the last, like, 30 years. Like, Mark Hamill knows Harrison Ford very well, and he loves him, but he's also just like, yeah, Mark, he's just a grumpy old man.

Mike, yeah. With the heart of gold. And I was looking at who else could have been in this movie. And apparently, Ridley Scott was courting Dustin Hoffman for this role, for Deckerd. But Dustin Hoffman wanted to change the script too much and add things about cryogenics. And he was just tired of having endless meetings with Dustin Hoffman. So he turned to Harrison Ford. I have heard Dustin Hoffman is more difficult than you would think to work with on stuff.

I'm trying to, sorry, I'm stuck on this. he wanted to just add stuff about cryogenics does he just like cryogenics that's just his shit he's just like I don't know man what about some cryogenics throw some frozen shit in here was he investing in it

yeah I think he might have just read a magazine article before a meeting and said okay this is the new angle for Blade Runner actors are weird when they have their own ideas for stuff they're like I want to make this because my idea

is this for the movie like and if you're big enough for as Dustin Hoffman you can have that kind of control And let's move on from Harrison Ford to talk about Rudger Hauer as Roy Batty, the best character in the movie. So good. You know, best performance too. Best performance.

The second you see him, I just was thinking, I want to do an edit of Blade Runner where the movie just starts with Roy Batty. And you only briefly see Harrison Ford because this is, I mean, 2049 is a much smarter movie because it gets you into the point of view of a replicant and what their life is like. and it explores that kind of how they interact with humanity and all that stuff Roy Batty's a fascinating character charismatic scary and he definitely

has very high stakes and a mission he's not just wearily going through the motions like Deckard is and yeah the tears in the rain speech it's been said before but it was completely improvised it was like written on the set by him

I don't think Ridley Scott really wanted to do it but he was talked into it And I think that is the one thing really people take away from this movie. And it wasn't even in the text. It was something he added. Like, this is what this character's point of view is. And I told my wife that when I die, I'm going to be holding Louis. I'll say something profound and then I'll let him go.

Louis's my parrot, by the way. Just let him go into the air. And because his wings are clipped, he'll just kind of flop to the ground and just walk back to his cave. Yeah, he adds, Betty is the soul of the movie. He adds so much to it to know that he, like, his whole speech at the end is, so much just Rucker Hauer improvising it like that adds the fucking point to the movie

like he is he's telling you what matters in this movie like he is okay my big brain take on the movie or one of him is that and why I like it by the end uh is that Decker sucks like he is he's a shitty cop

like all cops but he shoots people in the back he doesn't uh people just tell these guys are here go shoot him he is always above everybody else like the underdogs in the fights are the unarmed replicants against the guy with like a cannon that just fucking blasts him like he he sucks and roy betty starts the fight by saying hey this isn't very fair like you've got a gun and and he's just toying with him the whole time and then at the end meek loser ass decker about to fall and roy betty's like oh hey i'm gonna

save you you suck anyway i'm dead like he's yeah i mean that that's that's that's a character that I want to follow for the whole movie. He's a character with a philosophy with a strong moral core with a point of view.

Deckerd just is a guy they just aim him at replicancy, kills them and then it gets rewarded at the end. And these are, and they're also like

they're freed slaves. They are, or they are, you know, they're terrorists because they don't want to be slaves. They don't want to be servants. Like, and they're telling him at the,

like, again, I, uh, batty tells him, you know, hey, this is, this is the fear of being a slave.

It's reminding him, like, you're just as, you're in the same position as me and you're hunting me down, you know, like, it's, yeah, I, I prefer, this movie without him is not a good movie or it's, it's, like, 30% worse. Would it be devil's advocacy to say that, um, they, they, they have, like, superhuman strength and they killed, like, 30 people or something that, that slightly angles me in the sort of, uh, maybe, maybe everyone's horrible in this movie actually, kind of, you know, I mean, Decker pretty much forces himself on Rachel at one point. It's a really uncomfortable.

Yeah, he's a bad guy. I don't know what's going on that. He's a cop. He's a cop. But Baddy is way more interesting than him. I totally agree. He's so anime, right? Like, it's just because every anime made a Roy Batty character after this movie.

Yeah. Is there any point where he stares at his hand? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there is. Yeah. Oh, there is. Okay. Pokes the, before he pokes the thing through it.

He's like, no, no. Because I know. Kay in the sequel does do some hand-stairn, some old-fashioned anime hand-stairn. Yeah, you know, there's a lot about this movie that I feel it does the messaging and the themes of the book very sloppily. But I feel that Roy Batty,

and particularly like the last 20 minutes of the movie or 30 minutes when he's the focus is where it does the best job of carrying that forward. You know, his whole interactions with the Tyrell head of the company and like he's he's desperate

and he's not desperate for himself he's desperate well he's desperate for himself he's also desperate for like this other replicant who he cares about and like he's showing this level of emotional maturity and empathy that ostensibly replicants do not have

but you know Rector Hauer's bringing that through very effectively more effectively than anyone else in this film I think that's why I came away from the movie feeling kind of positive about it because i mean the first half i was a little bit kind of like is this jesus is this blade runner and then then it ends i think in really strong really well and it's entirely it's entirely him i mean you know thinking about it the sequence where he kills um i can't remember the character's name you know the create he's creative essentially yeah that's something

else like that's crazy to think about and uh that's an awesomely violent as well not to be that kind caveman but my god that's fierce but even just think about of him just like breaking down as he destroys his own greatest brain as really something else and then it goes off from there just completely off the rails in a great way you mentioned Stewart that everyone in this movie is kind of bad

and the replicants do kill a lot of people while escaping I think the fact that Scott doesn't show you them killing people for the most part makes the intent feels like you're supposed to sympathize with them more than Decker but that just makes you want to watch them more And in fact, they, they kill Sebastian, their real creator off screen. You just hear like, oh, he's dead. Go to his apartment and go check it out.

So I think if they wanted you to just say, well, I'm done with, I'm done with baddie. They would have, they would show him killing a sweet little gomer pile creator. That's true. That is a real cheap out of like, he has to be dead for plot purposes, but they won't show you it. They just do it a voiceover. It's easy to just go like, hey, whatever happened is Sebastian in this movie? it's not important I mean they do turn it around

he is so much more charismatic than Descartes and his desperation his fear and his in the end the kind of acceptance of it just kind of it really does come through it's the most effective thing in the movie and it is genuinely emotional I think

you come away from the movie having earned this emotion and it's all been done in the last like 15 minutes almost and it's all on that performance it's absolutely something else But Badi is the morally superior character Like he he fixes his hand so he can save Decker While Decker would just shot him in the face

If he still had his gun in that moment Like he, Decker wouldn't have saved Badi Badi saves Decker Yeah Oh, oh. So, move on to other actors. Of course, I mentioned Sean Young, just getting her career off

really in the early 80s. I think she was in Stripes before this. The part of Stripes that's not you know, basic training, which no one remembers, I think she's in that. I love this cast, by the way. I think it's a great cast. She's great.

I think she was just, they were just very cruel to her on the set, like especially Redley Scott. It felt like sort of like a Kubrick and Shelley Duval kind of thing where she was made to do take after take in the in the oral history i was reading um i believe the line is like when we first meet her she's like do you like our owl and uh she had to say that like 30 times

because ridley scott wanted to say owl as one syllable and just she had to get it right so i think she was just beaten into submission by doing take after take after take she was a new actor and i think that she was taken advantage of because of that on a set with a lot of veterans like Scott like Harrison Ford and so on Hollywood was rough to Sean Young in general yeah Hollywood was rough to women in general I think yeah this movie's pretty rough on women in general

I mean but I'm understanding is sorry oh sorry no I was going to say especially Sean Young because like her status in the a little bit after this movie was like oh that crazy lady yeah but she never stopped working but she had a real fall from grace and had like just this

bad perception but then you have to look at those stories of like oh this this this insane female actor so hard to work with you have to wonder like what's coloring that perspective you know she's hard to work with not Harrison Ford who won't talk to the director and won't fucking listen to anyone

he keeps getting work oh he's a man who knows what he wants yeah cool guy my understanding and this is second hand someone told me this but someone who's knowledgeable so if I'm wrong feel free to strike it from the record is that sequence where Elydeca does sort of force himself on her that was basically just like don't tell her what you're going to do just be

aggressive, just go, like, and the reaction is like, I mean, it's not really acted, you know, it's sort of kind of into a wall. It's horrible. Yeah, you're correct about that. I was, I was reading. I'm not sure if it was, uh, if Sean Young was giving the quote or whatever, or maybe somebody on the set or that, or like, uh, the writer, but they were saying, yeah, that was not scripted. And it did, she was a little hurt by it physically. And she did like, actually cry because of her pain and her shock at what Harrison Ford was doing to her in that scene. There are so many stories out of Hollywood

that are like that, that are just like, oh, we couldn't get the thing we want, so we just did it for real, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, you know, funny joke, like the Texas Chancel massacre, we couldn't get her to do it once, so I just literally cut her with this razor, ha, ha, ha, ha. And then years later, when everyone gets over themselves, they're just like, wait a minute, what?

That's insane. What are you talking about? That's not funny. That's not like a bit. That's abuse. Well, there was. I'm sorry, I'm getting on those. There was this, there was this old feeling in movie making, and this was wrong, but that, like, it came from Alfred Hitchcock before that, too, of just, like, the director's job is to get the arts made.

And by, you know, if you got to, like, slap a, if you have to slap an actor to be ready for the scene, or if you have to, like, risk the lives of the guy holding the camera, even, like, if you got to do all those things, it's worth it. for the pure art of cinema like that was how it was presented and yeah it's it's that is wrong but that's why everybody talked about it back then and it was it was condoned on sets because they're like well yeah we're all agreeing this is how you make good movies it's the same with video games where they say well there has to be crunch i've never made a good game without crunch it's just how it is yeah it was sadly common uh and uh yeah she's she's i think she's doing okay now but uh she had a rough time in hollywood after this uh we can move on Just to name a few other actors

This is actually a fairly small cast in this movie So Darrell Hannah as Pris She is basically the Harley Quinn to Roy Batty's Joker Yeah, I'm glad you said that Because that was the first vibe I got, holy shit it's Harley Quinn Yeah William Sanderson as J.F Sebastian I love him

They'll use him later on Batman the animated series As the scientist who makes Hard Act But I love his, I just luck mac and robots They're so much fun I like his very sense It's a voice you don't expect to hear in the future I don't know why. I'm not saying Southerners are extinct in the future.

It kind of made me think it's like on this goes to like 29, 19, 11th. It's like super. William Sanderson is one of the greatest character actors of his generation who doesn't get enough. I love him so much. He at the time or right after this, he was cast on many seasons of the Bob Newhart Show. No, sorry, Newhart, Newhart. And he was great as the man with his Daryl and his other brother, Daryl. But if you really want to appreciate his acting ability, watch every episode of Deadwood because his character in Deadwood has to basically give Shakespearean level like monologues in it with that same accent.

And he's such like a cowardly little backstabber in it. And he's so, ah, man, he is so damn good in Deadwood. But because he's a little guy with a southern accent, you know, everybody underestimates his acting. ability but he's he's deadwood gave him the greatest platform of his acting yeah oh i was going to say we covered uh the episode his silicon soul on our batman the animated series uh podcast henry on the talking simpson's patreon and he he recently passed away and that's why i learned a lot about him he's he's great he was great yeah and then also m m at walsh is another my favorite like guys you see and everything i was gonna say it's kind of shocking to see him because uh m m at walsh is the

last guy. I expect to see you in a cyberpunk future. The last guy to survive that long. But hey, the actual M.M. at Walsh lived beyond 2019. So he could have made it to the actual Blade Runner Times if things shook out that way for our reality. And speaking to guys who, like,

at least he lived long enough to get his flower. And he's still alive. James Hong, like he, you know, thanks to him being and everything everywhere all at once, that was getting him a lot of like Oscar buzz and award buzz and people were fine like, hey, this guy is awesome isn't he like let's give him the hollywood star of the walk of fame he was he knew

the kind of role he was expected to play and he did a really good job in fact uh he plays like a kind of a kooky doctor in blade runner that's what i'll call the role like a kooky eccentric doctor right yeah and then i just saw uh i saw a theatrical screening of tank girl the other day and he is the exact same role he gives the villain like a cybernetic arm but it's the exact same character basically like he just be the kooky scientist uh we want you to be james hong well if you are in this movie this could be your job for the rest of your life of being cast of like by people who loved blade runner like could you sort of do that thing in my movie and do the more blade runner stuff in my movie so uh we're done with talking about actors uh of course

the score is supoib it's done by a vangelis which i thought was the name of a group but actually just some greek guy with a name that's uh not as marketable as Vangelis. He lost away last year this year, I think. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Tremendous composer. He did Characets of Fire.

He did Conquest of Paradise, but this was the best thing he ever did, I think. Yeah, he just came off of winning the Oscar for Chariots of Fire doing the soundtrack of that. And the weirdest thing is, the most tragic thing is, this movie did not get an official soundtrack until the director's cut came out in 1992. There were, like, little places you could find. the, some of the music, like there was an orchestral

performance of some Blade Runner songs on another CD, but not until the director's cut came out in 92, would you actually get the full soundtrack? If you had the terrible game based on the soundtrack, you could hear two minutes

of absolute dog shit sequencing that sounded nothing like at the beginning that was unskippable. You don't like Zetex Spectrum renditions of really cool, like As the biggest set-ex Spectrum fan on Retronauts and possibly the world, no, it's horrible. Even the C-64 one isn't good, and that's usually pretty all right.

Well, you know, the problem with the C-64 version is that it just keeps playing over and over through the entire game, and it doesn't play the whole song, it just keeps resetting every time you change the screen, and so you get really used to that first 30 seconds, and then it just keeps happening. I keep cracking up at just the idea of just the audacity of just like, yeah, it's based on the score, mate. It's not based on the game at all. Wink, wink, wink. Yeah, my notes, I just wrote in The music rules, though,

because, you know, the music, it's not, so the visual design, I think you can point to a million things and say, okay, yes, this was pulled directly from Blade Runner. People really love this. You don't get that quite as much with the music,

but I feel like anything that has to do with a cyberpunk setting is just looking straight at what Evangelist did with this soundtrack. It's really good and it's really iconic. Yeah, and they do a pretty good job of aping, Vangelis in 2049 with Hans Zimmer and his associates. They do a pretty

good job. But, I mean, it all starts here with this iconic soundtrack. But let's talk about the failure of the movie. So, made for $30 million, this movie pulled in $42 million, so they technically didn't lose money, but I have to assume if they made any profit,

it was very tidy because the additional $12 million profit, a lot of it went to promotions. This is not what you would expect for what they were assuming would be the next Star Wars, the next big Harrison Ford vehicle. But here's the real problem. The movie released on June 25, 1982, just two weeks after a little guy named E.T. strolled his way into theaters and won our hearts. So that would go on to become at the time the highest grossing movie of all time. And nothing in its path was safe. E.T. destroyed all it touched. And Blade Runner was one of the unfortunate victims.

I think the thing, John Carpenter's The Thing, was another movie that suffered because of E.T., another great 82 movie. E.T. was not being good in 82. How do you shit? E.T. soaked up all the impressions. Like, yeah, poor Harrison Ford stabbed in the back by his, Indie and Jones's father, Stephen Spielberg. Like, Spielberg giveth and taketh away in Harrison Ford's life. Yeah, filmgoers were like, I don't want to see the dark future.

I want to see the small, wet alien who eats candy. And, you know, worms my heart. But, yeah, I mean, go back to our E.T. episode. It's easy to forget just how big E.T. was. Again, it was a certain point in time, the highest-grossing movie of all time. And it held that record, I think, for at least nine or ten years before. It might have been Jurassic Park. It might have been the Lion King.

It was something around that era. I believe it was Jurassic Park. If I'm basing this entirely on as a Star Wars nerd, the tit-for-tat of Lucas and Spielberg, both commissioning congratulatory artwork of like R2D2 high-fiving E.T to say like, well, you surpassed us. And then it started when Jaws got beat by Star Wars. And it was like Jaws and Steven Spielberg congratulate Star Wars on being number one. Then E.T passed them. And R2D2 is like, congratulations, E.T. you beat us.

Then it was Jurassic Park. And then special edition surpassed that. And then Titanic. James Cameron comes along with just let screw you. I don't know if that tradition still has, I don't know if that tradition is still stayed alive with Avatar 3, which I think is. Yeah, there has been the whole kind of congratulations Avengers Endgame, you know, being the highest grossing of all time. And then, yeah, that has still been happening, I think. God knows why they bother.

No commissioned art for Howard the Duck surpassing anything. No, in fact, it's still losing money somehow. Nobody can figure it out. Thank you very Very beautiful Agin'an mineral Shedever Leonardo da Vinci Pryanne

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Samp Neobetam a long strata A very Strat So I do want to go over the various failure that really appealed to nerds like us

Blade Runner became a cult film It was constantly on a renovation to the point where there's a just a distinct Wikipedia article About the many many different versions of the film But thankfully Ridley Scott put his finishing touches on the movie for the 25th anniversary in 2007, which is the easiest version to watch now. If you pull it up on Amazon, you're going to get the final cut. I don't know what other marketplaces offer anything else. But I want to go over the various editions, at least the ones with significant differences.

So there is, number one, the work prints, which normally isn't counted. Work prints normally aren't counted as a version of a movie. But this was later made available to the public in a five-disc ultimate edition in 2007. So audience reaction to this is what caused the changes for the theatrical version, but then later audience reactions to this is what caused the director's cut in 1992 to happen. So we'll get to it, but this work print was later screened outside of the test market context, and people loved it. And this is what inspired Ridley Scott and Warner Brothers to make a better version of Blade Runner for release.

So there's the workprint. And now we have the theatrical version, which is now actually pretty hard. hard to find. I'm sure you can easily they made a zillion of these DVDs back in the day. It'd be easy to pick one up at a used DVD store or whatever but this includes the added voiceover which we mentioned before

and a happy ending where Decker and Rachel ride off into the sunset and despite how laughable the narration sounds Ford has said in recent interviews I was actually trying. They were giving me no direction. I was trying as hard as I could and here's the thing that surprised

me. The original version of the movie that they intended to shoot had narration, but Scott decided to take it out. So the narration you hear in the theatrical version is narration created after the fact trying to summon the same energy as the original narration

that was cut out in the first place. So it's very convoluted but you can pull these clips up on YouTube. They don't offer you any information you actually need and it just sounds like Harrison Ford is basically it's crusty in the booth doing the lines for the talking crusty

doll. I mean, the narration is... Learn from professional kid. The narration isn't good, but I mean, yeah, I'm not that fits that they at one point did want narration and it wasn't just the studio saying it because if you're going to

try to ape, you know, Maltese Falcon or whatever, you need, you do need narration from your hard-boiled detective. Like it makes, it makes a certain sense, even though it doesn't work entirely in the version we saw. I I went after, because I watched the final cut and I went back and looked at the

happy ending. I was like, what on earth could it possibly be? Because the ending of the final cut doesn't seem that unambiguous. It doesn't seem that unhappy. It's him choosing freedom, you know. But then I went and watched it. It's just like, oh, they're just, they've just gone to, they've just gone on holiday. Yeah, yeah.

What the fuck am I looking at? Like a car commercial. How did they get there? What's going on? This is absurd. It actually reminds me a bit of. the movie Brazil made around the same time about a similar dark future it's actually a movie

I'd much rather watch than Blade Runner I'm sorry folks not as influential but I think much better but it was as mangled by the studio and given a really bad ending and then later made available with the ending the director intended well yeah you know with Brazil that was I think perhaps Gilliam

learned also a famously very nice director to his actor is a great guy but Brazil is a brilliant film and I think he learned from from stuff like Blade Runner happening a couple of years beforehand that he got out in the press for it. Like he fought to keep it the same. He took the workprint from the distributors. Like he, you know, at the time Robert De Niro had some mystery to him and wasn't just sad old man that we see now.

But he never did interviews. He's like, oh, I'll do an interview. And then he just sat still while Terry Gilliam talked on the news about like, they're trying to steal my movie for me. like he went to the press to fight it and was able to keep the love conquers all ending that's on the criterion is almost like a joke that they included it's so bad it's so sarcastic because they clearly are making under duress so oh go ahead to it i think it's the perfect comparison because that's how i felt watching the air quotes happy ending for blade runner it's bollocks like what it doesn't it has no basis it comes from nowhere and has no meaning and it's completely just drivel. I'm angry about it. It's just there. Yeah, the ambiguous ending is better, and then 2049 is basically answering the question, what happened next? Kevin. Yeah, I was going to say, it's funny to hear that this originally had voiceover that they took out and then slapped new voiceover back in, because I feel like

there's a lot of things about this world and setting that could have used a voiceover to explain, like you mentioned earlier, how people live in this world. Everyone talks about how rare animals are and all this stuff, but there's no real explanation for, like, the eco side and environmental damage that's going on. You're totally right. You're totally right, Kevin. We hear a few world-building details about, you know, how, when they're asking Rachel, when the void comp test is happening, like, someone buys you a calf skin wallet, what do you do? And she's like, I report them to the authorities. So we learn that animals are very rare, if leather is illegal.

But I'll go back to my previous comparison Because I think it's a good one Back to the Future 2 again Explains more about the world We learn more about how these flying cars Work and interact with the world And the issues involved with them Here it's just like yeah flying cars

Big Whop They're gonna land, they're gonna fly You get it Yeah in the book Like they pull those responses And questions from the Voicomf test Like directly from the book But in the book you have the context

Because they just tell you straight up oh, there's been an environmental disaster. Most things have died. Most people have left the planet. The people who are left are kind of depressed and trying to find a meeting where they can and there's a whole new religion around it. And animals are extremely rare.

And anyone who, like, torments or kills an animal, that's like a class one felony. Maybe there's a happy medium. You know, I'm probably not a popular opinion, but maybe there is a happy medium. Maybe there's one more cut to be done. Yeah. The final final cut.

The explanatory cut. Yeah. Going back to that thing we're talking about, Kevin, about the animals, it's funny because there's that fact from the, from the book that's kind of echoed in some dialogue. But then because Ridley Scott wants to portray like the scary Asian wet market, there's just live animals all over the place on the streets, right? Like chickens and like bison or whatever. I forget.

Ostriches. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. I forgot. There's tons of, well, perhaps those are the synthetic animals like the fake snake that Zora. with perhaps could be so uh we're going to move on to the next version we're i think we're on number three now so we have the 1992 directors cut uh the story behind that i'm just going to give it very

broad strokes here uh somebody found a 70 millimeter work prints for blade runner they they screened it once uh with permission of warner brothers it was a huge hit they started screening it in different cities scott found out and was like well this version is uh rough and unfinished uh let me step in and do a director's cut by myself and then this will be fine to release. Unfortunately, he's too busy with Thelma and Louise, another really good movie, better than Blade Runner, I dare say,

to actually have full control over the director's cut. That will come much later, but this he is overseeing, and this is what's changed about Blade Runner. So he removed the voiceovers, and he inserts a dream sequence in the film, which is basically footage taken from his movie legend. So, this first, oh, go ahead, Stuart, sorry.

I'm sorry, because I feel like I'm butting in, not really knowing, but I read that they actually did shoot that for Blade Runner. It's not from Legend. For some reason, that's been spread around, but it was shot for Blade Runner. Not that it actually matters. I don't know why I felt the need to come in on that one. I know Legend came after.

I don't know if they shot the footage knowing he would later use it for Blade Runner, but I think Legend is 85 and this is 82. Yeah, so the Dream Sequences is inserted. It will be expanded in a later version. but then we have the happy ending. And then we have Scott adding something that I don't like, and I think the sequel disagrees with entirely, and I think the screenwriters are on board with disagreeing with this.

He adds a giant clue at the end that highly suggests that Deckerd himself could be a replicant. And I feel like the text of the film supports this in no way. The screenwriters really build in no details to support this thesis or suggest this for the character of Dechard. It's hotly debated. But then in a much recent interview, a very recent interview, Ridley Scott said, oh, yeah, that was just something I put in as a sequel hook. So I don't think he was thinking about it too much either, but I don't like this. I really don't like this choice.

And again, it was made with, I mean, Ridley Scott, this is his vision. This is, Blade Runner is his movie, but the screenwriters did not sign off on this, this change to the film. Well, so that implication is that because he has the vision of the unicorn and, And they already talk about how Rachel is such an advanced machine that she has implanted memories to make her think that she is not a replicant. That implies that there could be others like that. If Deckerd was that, then his dream of a unicorn would be an implanted memory. And Gaff, Edward James Almost's character, who seems to know everything, him presenting him

with a leaving behind an origami unicorn, means he knows Decker has the visions, just as Decker explains the Rachel's visions like, oh, you have these memories. I know all your memories because I know it was implanted. Then Gaff must know that the unicorn memories are implanted into Deckard, and that's why he leaves behind the origami to say, I know you're a replicant because I know your dreams. See, that's interesting, I don't remember, because by the end of it, I thought it was honestly not really that ambiguous that he was.

Like, he realizes it and he fucks off. Like, that seemed to be the ending of the movie to me. There's so much that hints on it. Like, you know, when Rachel says to him, did you ever take that test yourself? And he just completely, like, doesn't respond and goes and has a little breakdown in his stupid apartment. To me, by the end, the decision of him going like,

okay, yeah, I'm out of here. Fuck this. That felt so much to me, like, just, yeah, he's realized that he's only got so much time he's going to spend it with this person, you know. But then again, maybe whatever, I don't know. It's not completely unambiguous, I suppose, but that's what it read to me as a first-time viewer. Yeah, I think the screenwriters wanted to leave it like slightly ambiguous, like very slightly ambiguous because in their script they have Rachel asking Decker, did you overtake the test, you know.

But to me, it doesn't work. And then in the sequel doesn't bear that out at all. He's clearly, I mean, unless. Yeah, and the fact is still there is a pretty big, like, yeah. And he looks like a 74-year-old Harrison, Ford. He's not like pristine. I need to rewatch that sequel. But at the start, doesn't Batista say the wrestler and actor? No, no, no. It's Drex. It's Drex. But he's great in the movie, by the way.

But he says, like, oh yeah, Decker and Rachel, like they're famous to replicants because they were special ones who actually get to live longer. I thought, but again, I haven't seen the movie since it was in theater, so I could be misremembering. Yeah. I mean, I know Rachel's one that can live longer, which is why

when we hear Gaff's dialogue over the end shot, it doesn't make any sense. I think they forgot that, oh, yeah, because it's like, enjoy your time left, however long that will be, or whatever. It's like, oh, no, Rachel is one of the long-living androids. But, yeah, to me, like, the movie, I don't want to give way too much about the movie,

but to me, he seemed human. Again, this is, like, hotly debated. There's no, I think there's no definitive answer on either side, and people feel very strongly about it, which is interesting, because to me, it just was, like, matter of fact, like, no, human. he was like I killed four replicants I can have sex with one of them

I'm leaving with her goodbye No I I've always I gotta say I'm on the other side of that I didn't I think he is a replicant I think I think Betty's speech at the end of him He's like now you feel the fear of a slave Like that's him saying like you You are like me do you not get this

You're killing you're killing yourself here You're killing us down it makes it makes maybe I'm making the leaps to make it a better movie but it makes Decker's struggle much more interesting is if he's a replicant who thinks he is a human who's killing other replicants and keeping them in their place like that makes him a more tragic figure to me it was much more matter of fact

which is what I feel like the whole movie is very matter of fact and I mean again this isn't something that has not been decided it's up to interpretation but I feel like when baddie saves him it's like you have finally feel know what it feels like to be hunted you're now on the other side to me it was that simple it's like i put you in my shoes and and you finally understand what it's like to essentially be like a slave hunter and and after that that's when he has the change of heart like i can't do this anymore i finally i finally saw i finally have empathy now because i was put in the other person's perspective it was that straightforward to me anyways watching the movie i'm with bob on this one uh i agree that i don't think the movie bears out very well that you know, Deckard's a replicant. And it's funny because they do briefly, there's like

a two chapter sequence in the book where it's like, a replicant's like, you're one of us. You're also an Andy, an android. And Deckard's like, oh, no, really. I've got implanted memories and everything. And then like he learns, oh, this is just a trick. They're just trying to mess with me. No, I'm fine.

I'm going to pass the test real quick. And then we're going to have another, like, Just quick fight camp and just get back to work Let's just go bash that out But ultimately But ultimately like

It's not It doesn't really matter That much one way or the other In either format of the story Because like It's it's about like Okay

Are you able to empathize with these With these androids And their struggle Great Super How do you how do you deal with that In the movie He fucks off on a holiday

Yeah you go fucks off on holiday yeah the mystery and the ambiguity is part of why though the the popularity has sustained for so long i do you think that that that question is why people because and then every new release of it was will they add a thing that confirms my vision of what i think decard is in the movie it's i mean that's how you get your movie that's how you make a cold classic you don't explain adequately information in the movie. That's how you sell new DVDs. Like Donnie Darko.

You need the Donnie Darko strategy guide to figure out what Donnie Darko's about. And then you see the director's cut where they explain everything and like, oh, it was bullshit. It's just complete drivel. It's astonishing how bad that is if we ever do with Donnie Darker episode. My God. And then, so we have one final version. This is it for Blade Runner, the one you'll see on Amazon Prime or wherever you buy this

are rented. It's the final cut 2007. Ridley Scott oversaw the entire process. This version incorporates a lot of changes from different versions like international versions. It retains all of the violence that he wanted originally. The unicorn dream sequence has expanded, but I think ultimately it's like 42 seconds or something like that.

And yeah, that is basically his vision finally came true, I guess, 25 years after the original movie. And yeah, that was in theaters apparently. Henry, you did see it in Berkeley when you first moved there. It had a limited release, yeah. It had a limited release. I saw it in theaters because it felt so. special. Now, it does,

they do make special edition style changes of like, you know, how, oh, this should have had like 10x wings instead of 4x wings in the trench, like that kind of thing. Like, for example, in the famous dove releasing scene, that they completely change the exterior

of the building it flies by. The coloring is completely different. Like, and I, I watched a couple side by side comparison videos, just to be reminding you of that. And I think if you're you know, if you're a purist, you're like, no, it should look like

1982 special effects. You shouldn't have 2007 era special effects in digital replacement. I think it's subtle enough that you don't, it doesn't feel like you're looking at a CGI Java the hut walking around. It's not, it's not insulting, but it's not pure.

I would say director's cut is closer to pure than the final cut is. Now, I want to mention special effects because we talked about Sid Mead, and I feel like we are just, everything is a special effect now, and we are just kind of just so immersed in them, nothing really stands out because when you would get to a special effect scene in a movie like this you're like that's a special effect I'm looking at one and it's interesting to see I mean this gorgeous movie great motion control camera work miniature work map paintings all the great stuff you would see in movies before everything was CGI yes I'm an old man but I did notice when I watched 2049 is like in the year 2017 this perspective is you've seen it all we don't need to show you Vistas or or cityscapes that often. You are so spoiled, this will have no effect on you. So they really don't.

They're really not luxuriating in that, like, Blade Runner, not 82 was, where it's like, look at what we built. You've never seen this before. You've never seen this kind of special effect. This kind of optical effect. I feel like you can definitely see the two time periods in which these films were made

and how just, I guess, inured to special effects that we are today. Well, what 2049 instead dives into more is like, we can do lighting. is so, like, look at the lighting on everything is a color. Everyone is a streamer in that movie. Yes.

Here's Jared Leto. Hey, he's great. If I'm casting a slimy guy to own a company, like, you know, you could do worse than Jared Leto. I wouldn't cast him in things, obviously, but if you're going to cast somebody to be a slimy, rich guy.

You know, if he's got to be typecast for something, let it be something that he actually is. Yeah, I just assume that they just turn the cameras on in his home. And he's like, oh, we're making. a movie? This is about how I'm a great guy? Yeah, okay, yeah. Just say the stuff you would normally say,

yeah. If we want to talk about special effects, I mean, it's because I was born in 1982. I just love seeing the craft of these. And obviously, a lot of work goes into CGI effects. People are, like, less respected now, and, you know,

their jobs are less steady now than they were back then. But I do appreciate the craft that does not simply exist today. Like, seeing the paintings, all of that stuff. It's hard to talk about it because it's all very visual, but it is just a treat because there is an expiration date on when movies stop looking like this. Yeah, that would be, I'm going to say 2004.

I'm going to a hard limit there. Right in listeners. I think after Jurassic Park Lost World, that's when people are like, okay, you can just replace, digitally replace a million things. But, well, also I think we need to adapt. into having fluorescent lights attached to umbrellas. That's what we should be doing in the current day. You can go out in the rain and then go back into the rave.

Yes, yeah. No, and I do want to say it's funny that how I think the director's cut of this is the first example of it. H-bomber guy, the YouTuber, has a really good video on the history of director's cuts and how they're presented and marketed. But Warner Brothers in particular, they, profit more than anybody off of their fuck-ups, like, because they get all of this press of like,

oh, you'll never see the Richard Donner version of Superman, too. You'll never see the director's cut of blade runner. You'll never see all these different versions of movies, and then they're like, well, we'll sell it to you. We'll sell it again. They just did it very profitably for the Snyder cut, and

I'm sure they're going to do it with many more films. There's going to be one for the suicide, sorry, suicide squad. The Suicide Squad is, of course, suicide squad. too. Well, whatever movies, they're not dumping the negatives in acid, they will resell to you. Why are they making director's cuts to all these shitty movies?

Because fucking people buy them, man. I don't get it. The hogs like the slop. I watched the Snyder cut. And yeah, okay, the Snyder cut was better than the Joss Whedon, but we're talking like two stars to one star. You know? I don't want to watch more of suicide squad. Fucking hell. Zach Snyder fans got deep pockets.

Yeah, I suppose. Yeah. They really do. They really do. Now, we're running out of time really shortly. here. But I do want to, so we talked so much about the movie. So again, my issue with the film is that I love detective stories. I love mystery stories. There's no real mystery. And the one main bit of investigation that Decker does is to kill a character that's not really well defined. It's the dancer. And I think the one scene that Scott should have cut out is when Decker goes what I call undercover gay and sneaks into the dressing room like, oh, sweetie, I have got to see your dressing room. It is, it is a choice he's making. And I think someone should have talked. to him on the set that day, but it is embarrassing. I had fun watching it. It's not good. No, it's bad, him going undercover like that. Also, it's like, he's undercover. He doesn't even, like, wear a different

hat. He's just like, I got a newspaper. He's a shitty detective. He's just like, yes, because I change my voice. I'm suddenly a different person. And, yeah, I mean, like, again, the issue I have is, like, that's part of the investigation he does. That's, like, the fun stuff I like to see, but it's so straightforward. And then after he kills that character, he runs into the other replicant in the street that character is then dead and then his boss is like go to that building in the movie it's almost over and then the movie's over he doesn't even kill that guy somebody

has to kill him oh yeah yeah yes uh rachel kills him yeah so i mean that's just my my main issue with the movie story wise and uh i mean i i think i ford said something else besides the detecting thing i think he's like oh it's all it's all design it's all artifice and none of it is like substance and i do feel that way about this movie and uh again not to repeat myself too much, but I feel like 2049, it has so much respect for the movie. I'm sure everyone who made it loves the original movie, but it's saying something. There's a point of view. It's not just the production design. And it's the point of view that I wanted this movie to have. I look, I'm on the other side of this. I think it's, uh, I'm pulling it. The author is dead in my case,

for my view of this perhaps. But I think the movie's about how Decker is a shitty cop, that he just shoots people in the back, that he's bad at a detective work, that some but he tells him they're guilty and he goes there to execute them he doesn't he's not interested in the law he again i agree yeah i agree he's a shitty cop but he's also a boring cop yeah yeah yeah well but he was like uh it was like uh that that that that shield guy mr shield himself yeah if he was like that he'd be fun to watch but he's like a boring bad cop but yeah i think like what he does to zora you're supposed to like zora or at least think she's like oh this is a pretty woman who's on she's trying to get away from all this and

now she's on the run from him he's not saving she's not like threatening to kill somebody and then he has a dirty hairy moment of like i got to save this kid and shoot her like no he she is about to get away he is shooting into open crowds of people he could hit a civilian very easily and again this is what cops fucking do like and he shoots her in the back multiple times until he's definitely sure she's dead so and then when he has to have a fair fight against somebody he sucks now yes the they are much stronger Superman. So sure, fine. They do say that the, that Leon can lift 400-pound things. So he is very strong. He could have just ripped off Decker's arm. Fine. I mean, for me, like, I know this is, I keep quoting Homer Simpson, but like, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't have much narrative tissue beyond just like, wouldn't it be cool if this happened. Hey, here's some boobies. Oh, now he's looking at a photograph, but he's looking around the corner in a photograph.

Huh? What? I guess the, uh, it's cool. But it's dumb. I guess the moral is the squeaky android gets the grease. That's like, what if went up in a big elevator? That would be cool. Look, here's a big elevator we built.

I don't know. It's a, I really like it, but it really is just a bunch of stuff. Mm-hmm. The description at the top of the show of this movie having five stars and vibes. is very accurate because, like, yeah, it's visually appealing. I understand why so many things pulled from it. The music's great. The casting is great. The story is just like, here's an excuse to show you

all of this lavish stuff that we put together for, you know, two hours. I'm cool with that, you know? It's a visual medium. I'm cool with that. If this movie played in theaters again near me, I would probably go and see it just for the spectacle, you know? It's cool. I just feel like,

there's more interesting stuff you could have done with the story, and I haven't seen the sequel, so I, it sounds like they did do some of the more interesting stuff in it, but, you know. Well, are we going to talk about 1998's Soldier, which is technically tied to Blade Runner? Paul W.S. Anderson's Soldier, we're going to address that for two hours? Oh, Stewart, in 30 seconds, Soldier, what's going on? I don't know. I haven't watched it. It's a Paul W.S. Anderson movie. You're kidding me. It was his follow-up to Mortal Kombat. He did that instead of Mortal Kombat. annihilation. You're right. I mean, it could be worse. I guess it could have to be Mortal Kombat annihilation.

I mean, we do have to wrap up in a minute here. We could do an entire podcast series about what Blade Runner influenced because it's just endless, endless, endless, endless. But I will say, it's a video game podcast about old games. There's been, frankly, too many re-releases of Blade Runner. I'm done. That's it. We need at least one re-release of Snatcher. It is the video game that asks, what if Blade Runner was also Terminator? and I like that much more than Blade Runner

because it actually so like I love Blade Runner is fun to watch it's fine it's kind of middling for me 2049 much better Snatcher is a much better exploration of that kind of a world and that's all Kojima likes he doesn't even like gameplay he's like

let me tell you how cigarettes work let me tell you how ramen works it's all world building and it's so fun and yes please pirate it you'll never see it again I'm sure it's too close to Blade Runner to actually see release I think they're watching things like that now sorry Stuart I mean I'm gonna say just because you're just snatcher

what a tease it was when they put out the turbographic's mini and it had fucking Snatcher on it and everyone's like, oh my God, oh my God, snatch it. And it's like, it's the Japanese version. There's no way to play it in English because it was never released in English on the PC engine. And you're like, are you kidding me?

Seriously, please go out and pirate it. Don't even delete it after 24 hours. It doesn't matter. Just can't play the goddamn game. If they won't sell you it, then what are you supposed to do? The last time anyone made money off a Snatcher was 1994 in America so I can't help you there. PayPal

like ask at Kojeman, ask what his Venmo is. Drop him like three bucks. Yes, send him the money. It's a great game. Please play it. I do love the impact of Blade Runner more than like, you know, Cowboy Bebop, there is no Cowboy

Bebop without Blade Runner, and it's better than Blade Runner in every way. And Shinichro Latsnabe loves it and made a Blade Runner anime even, like he, a short film, tied into 2049, which is also really good. But yeah, it's definitely the Kojima generation of Otaku,

who are now like reaching 60, like these mostly guys. But men and women, they saw these, they saw Blade Runner and other movies too and just were like, I want to make something as cool as this. Or even cooler, it's all my own story. It's all my own bubblegum crisis style story. and then we see the anime of stuff like that or ghost in the shell and then that gets put into every Western video game and so it mirrors reflecting on itself of the long tail of Blade Runner

to the point now where if you were to make if somebody licensed Blade Runner the video game it would just be reviewed as what a rip off of cyberpunk and it's not half as good as Cyberpunk you know they wouldn't put the money into it yeah the ultimate Blade Runner a bit like the similar video game would be future cop LAPD, which is really Blade Runner vibes, and it's a great game, so

you know, play that. Also, oh, yeah, and I mean, a better cyberpunk film as well from, you know, six years later is Robocop. Robocop is a perfect movie. Hell yeah. Yeah. And hey, also, just watch Total Recall. It's fun. That's Kevin. Any final words? No, I was just going to say, like,

it's fascinating, just the weird stuff you see that pulls from Blade Runner, like something like Perfect Darks, kind of on the nose, perfect darks, just 100% taking that Blade Runner world, but then you get into weird stuff like Super Mario Brothers, the 93 live action movie. Oh my God. The King, like the King Cooper City. It just is pure Blade Runner in its visual design. It doesn't really like we use some, that's some production stuff from well, right? I'm sure I wrote that somewhere. Yeah, and like, uh, heck, uh, I've realized it last night

and watching it, uh, the King of Fighters games, uh, from like 99 to like 2001 or so. They have, They introduce a lot of weird cyberpunk stuff that is super, like, Blade Runner-esque in terms of, you know, these characters and their backstories and everything. The entire Mega Man's X series as well, I guess. Oh, yeah, it's just, I feel like. And that one leveling, Geckst keep got a gecko. Blade Runner, the movie is now in the shadow of basically Blade Runner the art style, where just like, my game is Blade Runner. And then it's just like, I guess there was a movie once called Blade Runner, but hey, look at my new game or my new movie or my new comic or whatever. but thanks for joining us folks

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Let's go around the virtual room here and we can talk about where we can find you folks online and what you're working on currently. Kevin, where can we find you? So I am on a blue sky and currently still Twitter under Ubersaurus. I have a YouTube channel called Atari Archive where I am going through the Atari VCS-2600 library

game by game and delving into the history and context of each release. I just released a book a few months ago on the same topic through limited run games, so check that out. And I'm supported on that through a Patreon. Patreon.com slash Atari Archive. And Stuart, how about you? Hi there, yes. I'm also on Twitter and Blue Sky,

Twitter at Stupacabra, Blue Sky, Stuart,jip, dot, bluesky, dot whatever that crap you have to write. I don't even know. It's all just ruins on Twitter, but I don't really post on Blue Sky, so whatever. I just got a book out as well called All Games Are Good, and it came out through limited run games.

It's almost as if there's some sort of collusion going on here. But what it's about is it's about, it's a collection of writing by me, about all of the stupid bullshit crap license games that I love to death, all the stuff for Tiny Tunes games, you're weird, gex games, all that stuff, the stuff that really doesn't mean a lot to me,

sort of coming from a lifetime playing all the wrong games at all the wrong times, because you didn't have the consoles necessary to be up to date. It's lots and lots of fun, and yeah, you can get it through limited run games. And you can also hear me on Retronauts, and I also have Patreon, it's patreon.com, for it slash stewardship,

and that's mostly for my comic, which I won't talk about. And Henry, how about you? You can follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. I'm on Instagram and blue sky as well, And, you know, I'm sure Elon Musk likes to think he's a Tyrell type guy, but I hope that he's like that fictional character in just one specific way that happens in the movie. Oh, wait, cool glasses, cool glasses, right? Yeah, you should have just as cool glasses, yeah. Okay, I thought so.

But, yes, of course, if you like hearing me and Bob talk about movies or other media, you should definitely be a listener to the Talking Simpsons Network of Podcasts. We go through every episode of The Simpsons in Chronological Order, where in season 14, 4 right now bouncing between the two and we do the what a cartoon podcast where we talk about an animated series each week a brand new one with a super deep history like this podcast did for blade runner you can find those all where you find free podcasts and we are supported by patreon dot com slash talking simpsons where we have a ton of exclusives of us covering king of the hill and futurama once every month and a what a cartoon movie of us going super deep into films including say six and a half hours on who framed Roger Rabbit or say if you like our little cyberpunk talk here check out our ones on Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop the movie that's all at patreon.com

slash talking simpsons and as for me I've been your host for this one Bob Mackey you can find me on Twitter and Blue Sky as Bob Servo and I also have a book if you're not tired of buying books by this point in the plugs you can check out my book. It's the Boss Fight Books volume on Day of the

Tenticle, the classic LucasArts Point and Click Adventure game. They released my full oral history on the making of the game just in time for the 30th anniversary of Day of the Tenticle. You can find that at the Boss Flight Books website, or wherever you find, find books around you. But that's been it for this Retronauts. We'll see you again

next time, everybody. Take care. We're going to be able to be able to be. Yeah. Thank you.