Juggernaut

Over the years, I have become a bit of a sci-fi junkie. Well, not really a junkie…a connoisseur, if you will. I don’t care for ALL sci-fi, just the good stuff.

And, of the “good stuff”, there is one that has stood out since the day I saw it in the theaters in 1982. I was 16 years old and it was the beginning of the end. The sci-fi movie that turned me on to sci-fi.

Bladerunner.

On December 18, 2007, Ridley Scott is releasing his Definitive Cut of the film: the way he wanted it from the start.

Well, hot damn!

When I first watched the film, I sat in that darkened theater and I was transported to a world that could be. I saw a mix of high technology with a mélange of lowest common denominator people. I saw the deconstruction of language and the reconstruction of what humanity might be. And what it most definitely was not. Sane.

It is arguable that humanity–yes, we humans–are inherently insane. Crazy fuckers who live our lives either other people’s rules or by the very skin of our teeth. I guess that few live their lives in that happy medium which could possibly be deemed sane.

Hell, we kill each other for the most ridiculous things: money, religion, race, love. Love. Seriously. I could go on, but I’m sure you understand my point. As a whole, we ARE insane.

Bladerunner, on the surface, was a pretty straightforward sci-fi flick about an ex-cop bounty-hunter type guy going after what was deemed as criminals: replicants. Robots gone on the lam. Robots made so very like we humans that it is nearly impossible to tell them from humans. Implanted memories and all. Hell, they, themselves might not even know they are replicants…sometimes.

And, they, of course have a mission: meet their maker and find out why they were created. Why do they have to die? What is it all for?

Don’t we all ask those very questions, ourselves, almost every day?

Deckard, played by Harrison Ford (in, arguably, his finest role — OMG, don’t all the SW geeks come after me now!), is the guy with the long, hard history with the cops who is brought in to hunt down and shut down the run-amok replicants. He is more of a robot himself these days, with most of his emotions shut down out of nothing less than self-preservation. That little personal nuance serves him well for most of the task at hand.

Then he meets Rachael, and there is required a little perspective change.

In addition to the psychological and emotional turmoil that Rachael throws his way, Deckard also has to deal with the leader of the replicants, Roy Batty, played by the wonderfully terrifying Rutger Hauer. (Poor Rutger. His roles have never since been on par with Roy.)

So many questions, so many unanswered.

Such a stunning film from start to finish.

This one should be in the books as one of the granddaddies of science fiction film work.

So says I.