#97 Blade Runner (1982)

Plot Summary (with spoilers): Title cards tell us it's the future.  November 2019, Los Angeles.  We learn that in this dystopian future, an evil company called the Tyrell Corporation has invented robots who look like humans to work as our slaves.  They're called replicants.  And eventually the replicants evolved.  And rebelled.  And they have a plan.  The replicants start killing people and are deemed too dangerous to live on earth, so they are banished to the outer third world planets, where they can pick up litter and make our lead-based toys.  But occasionally replicants come back to earth to wreak havoc, and a special human police force called Blade Runners must track them down and kill them before they kill any humans.
On the plus side, flying cars!  Woot!
In the opening scene, a Blade Runner is conducting an interview on a suspected replicant.  The questions he asks are designed to illicit an emotional response from the subject.  An incorrect or insufficient emotional response is considered a dead giveaway that the subject is a replicant.  The dude answering the questions is named Leon, and he's super shifty and cagey right off.  The test is not going well.  The Blade Runner asks him to say any positive things he can think of about his mother and Leon says, "I'll tell you about my mother!" and jumps up and shoots the Blade Runner dead, then flees. The test wasn't finished, but I think he's probably a replicant.
Wandering through the city is our hero, Rick Deckard, a retired Blade Runner.  He makes his way through the smoky streets and the teeming masses to a little outdoor food stand, where a Japanese man serves him the exotic futuristic food known as sushi.  He is interrupted by a creepy looking dude named Gaff, who speaks to him in an indecipherable language that we're told is a mixture of Spanish, German, and Japanese.  Gaff tells Deckard he's under arrest, and someone named Bryant wishes to see him.
We arrive at police Captain Bryant's office, (M Emmet Walsh!  Awesome!) and he tells Deckard the previous Blade Runner has been killed and they need him to come out of retirement and stop the four "skin jobs" who have apparently just arrived on earth.  Okay, Edward James Olmos is in the room and someone just said "skin jobs".  My little nerdy heart just grew three sizes. Intelligence suggests that the skin jobs (squee!) are here on earth to kidnap Eldon Tyrell, owner of Tyrell Corporation and the robot's inventor, and learn from him how to expand their lifespans.  Bryant explains that currently, replicants only live four years before dying of natural causes.  This was put into their genetic code in order to keep them from becoming fully human, and developing complex emotions.
Deckard visits Tyrell and his assistant/girlfriend/concubine Rachel at the office.  Deckard explains the complicated test we saw in the beginning, and how it is a full-proof way to catch replicants.  He assures Tyrell of his safety. Tyrell asks Deckard to show him how the test works and volunteers Rachel to take it.  Deckard agrees, and asks Rachel all the standard questions.  We fade out and come back in after some time has passed.  "Well, how'd I do?" Rachel asks.  Deckard has a shitty poker face and looks uncomfortable and says nothing.  Uh-oh.  Tryell asks Rachel to leave them alone for a minute.  She does. Tyrell says, "you know?"  Deckard confirms that the test accurately pegged Rachel as a replicant, even though it took over a hundred questions and usually it takes over 40 or so.  Damn, Leon blew it in like, two questions.  Tyrell says she is a newer and more advanced model.  She possibly won't even die in four years.  Although Sean Young's career will.  (ZING!)
(I'm not sure why Rachel is allowed to live on earth, or why Tyrell would keep inventing more replicants when they are now considered illegal.  But I guess this is supposed to be a secret.  But why did Tyrell allow her to take the test?)
So anyway, Deckard and Gaff search Leon's now abandoned apartment, and discover a weird scale in the bathtub, possibly belonging to a fish.  They also find some family photos.  Deckard is shocked that a replicant has photos.  I'm shocked that the polaroid is still around in 2019.
Cut to Leon meeting up with another replicant named Roy Batty, played by super creepy Rutger Hauer. Leon bemoans to Roy that he lost all his family photos. They decide to put their plan in action to confront Tyrell and force him extend their lifespans.
Meanwhile, we still have some characters to meet.  Daryl Hannah shows up, walking around in a skin-tight black outfit and glam eye-makeup and straight-ironed hair.  She lays down in the garbage outside someone's apartment.  Sometime later, a man walks up to the apartment, and sees her, she screams and jumps and starts to run away.  He calls out to her, and she sheepishly walks back over.  The man introduces himself as Sebastian.  She says her name is Pris, and she's hungry.  He invites her into his home.  Sebastian says he is an employee of Tyrell Corporation (hmm...) and he's an inventor.  Inside his home are some truly creepy fucking dolls/robots who are all white and black and move about like those animatronic people at Disneyland. I'd really like to know how Sebastian sleeps with those things milling about the apartment.
Rachel goes to Deckard's home with some family photos.  She confronts him, knowing that he thinks she's a replicant, and shows him photos of her as a child.  Deckard doesn't even look at them.  He laconically rattles off some childhood memories of hers, things that she never told anyone.  He says that Tyrell told him he implanted those memories in her and that they really belong to Tyrell's niece.  Rachel is devastated.  She begins to cry, and Deckard's still being a dick to her.  Finally, it dawns on him that robots are people too, and that her whole world has been rocked to its core.  He offers her a drink, and when he goes to get it, she bolts out the door.
The next day, he goes to a computer expert and has the scale analysed.  It belongs to an artificial snake.  He is directed to an artificial snake vendor, who says he sold a fake snake just recently to a stripper.  This part is like a Zelda video game where each townsperson tells you a key bit of info to get you to the next part of the game. Anyway, at the strip club, he sees a woman painted gold doing a dance with a snake.  After the show, he meets her outside her dressing room.  He says he works for the club and wants to inspect her dressing room for holes.  Holes?  Yes, because unscrupulous men drill holes in ladies' dressing rooms to get a peek.  Harrison Ford is speaking in a high voice in this part, which makes no sense at all because it's not like the snake lady knows who he is or would recognize his voice.  Also, his cover story is fucking stupid.  She lets him in anyway, and then takes a shower while he waits outside.  Boobies.
He makes small talk about her artificial snake and then she comes out of the shower topless, and asks him to help her put on a leather bra/harness thingey. He starts to, and then she elbows him violently in the gut, and starts choking him  Apparently the high voice and the "dressing room holes" cover story didn't fool her.  Good on you, replicant lady!  She runs outside, having the passed the opportunity to kill him right then and there, and Deckard gives chase through the city.  An exciting action scene!  Deckard works his way through the throngs of people, jumps on a trolley at one point, all the while brandishing his gun, which no one reacts to.   He finally sees the snake lady in the distance and shoots her in the back, three times.  She crashes through a large window and into a department store in slow motion, while mournful and totally awesome sax music plays on the soundtrack.  Her death is bloody and grizzly and immediate.
The people around Deckard barely react, calmly going about their evening.  Deckard stands over the body.  The police show up, and Decker explains he is a Blade Runner and she was a replicant who has been eliminated.  While the police to their thing, Bryant and Gaff show up.  They tell him one down, four to go.  "Don't you mean three?"  No, turns out there's another replicant.  Tryell's assistant Rachel has disappeared and Tyrell confessed that she was also a replicant.  Deckard doesn't take that too well, but says nothing.   Murdering a fake snake stripper lady is one thing, but Rachel's classy!
Gaff and Bryant take off, and Deckard sees Rachel off in the distance.  He runs to her, but is intercepted by Leon.  Leon proceeds to beat the shit out of Deckard and is just about to kill him when a gunshot rings out and his face explodes.  It's Rachel.  She killed Leon to save him.  Deckard is overwhelmed and grateful.  They go back to his apartment for some sexy time.
But first, more talking.  Rachel, it seems, still needs to unpack this whole, "I'm a robot" thing.  She pointedly asks Deckard if he's ever taken the replicant test, but Deckard, exhausted from his evening of murdering strippers, has passed out asleep.  She wakes him.  They share a tender look and kiss.  Suddenly, Rachel goes to leave, but Deckard follows her to the door and stops her.  He's putting off a weirdly aggressive and rapey vibe all of a sudden, and the soulful sax music gets intense.  He kisses her more forcefully and she finally reluctantly reciprocates.  Then they commence with the sexing, I assume.
Back to the other movie with Darryl Hannah and Sebastian.  Roy shows up, turns out he's in cahoots with Pris (Darryl Hannah).  He explains to her that they're the only two replicants left.  They tell Sebastian that they want to try to live longer, and ask him to take them to Tyrell.  He agrees.
They break into the office late at night, after confirming Tyrell is there.  Tyrell isn't that surprised to see them.  Roy starts in with some techno-babble about how they can modify the genetic whozits in order to let them live longer and Tyrell counters with superior babble with how the whozits can't be modified because of the whatzis and on and on until Roy is convinced that Tyrell can't help him and he will soon be dead.  Tyrell apologizes and says "you're a light that has burned twice as bright, so you can only live half as long".  Rather than tell Tyrell that 4 years is somewhat less than half of an average lifespan, he gently grabs Tryell's face, kisses him, and then proceeds to smash it.  His face. Like, he caved his fucking skull in with his bare hands.  Oh, and there's this robot owl that Tryell has for a pet, who's watching this all go down and not reacting at all.  The owl part was the creepiest.  Should this blog entry have a drinking game where people take a shot every time I say "creepy"?  Maybe just mentally add "creepy" to every sentence.
Sebastian watches all this go down and quickly makes like a tree and leaves.
Sitting in his car, Deckard hears on the police radio that Tryell has been killed and Sebastian was seen running out of the building.  He calls Sebastian's home phone.  Pris answers.  Phones have video monitors in 2019, although they're not portable or mobile, so at least in this world there are still plenty of bees.  Deckard sees Pris on the monitor (why did she answer the phone?) and says, "who's this?"  Pris hangs up.  Deckard makes tracks to Sebastian's apartment.  He breaks in, and starts searching the rooms.  He comes across a room with a bunch of unmoving but realistically human-looking robot dolls. Pris is there too. Sitting, unmoving.  Deckard walks over to her, uncertain.  He bends down to look her in the eye.
Karate Chop!  Pris lays the smack down on Deckard, beating him to a pulp.  Everyone beats up Deckard in this thing. She chokes him out, but he breaks away.  She runs away from him, in order to get a running start to enable her acrobatic flipping attack mode and as she flips towards him, he pulls out his gun and fires.  She screams as a hole is ripped into her chest.  He fires again.  Very dark and thick blood runs out of her in rivers.  She screams in agony.  Who's the hero in this story again?
Deckard hears Roy call out to Pris.  He runs around the corner, gun out.  Roy stalks around the apartment, discover's Pris' body, and lies on top of her and kisses her.  Roy likes kissing. Meanwhile, Deckard his moving down the hallway, trying to find Roy. Suddenly, Roy punches a hole through the wall in the hallway, grabs Deckards arm, and yanks it back through.  Deckard braces himself against wall, terrified.  Roy pries the gun out of Deckard's hands, and breaks two of his fingers.  One for Pris and one for snake stripper.  He then gives Deckard back his gun (?!) and says "give it your best shot".  Deckard fires through the wall, but misses. He's then out of bullets.  He retreats.  Roy wanders aimlessly throughout the apartment, not terribly concerned with Deckard's actions or whereabouts, and occasionally says something taunting.  At one point, he seems to feel intense pain in his hand, and to quell it, he jams a screw through his palm. Not sure what that's about, but I'm thinking it has something to do with the fact that his four years are almost up. He finally confronts Deckard again, having cornered him in a room with no exit. Deckard grabs a pipe and hits Roy several times, to little effect.  He climbs out a window in the pouring rain and slowly up the side of the building onto the roof.  Roy asks "where are you going?" all amused, like Pepe Le Pew chasing the cat.  Roy disappears back into the apartment, and is there on the roof before Deckard can even climb all the way on it.  Deckard tries to run away, and leaps to the roof of another building (people do this in movies all the time like it's nothing. I would totally die if I had to do this) but doesn't quite make it and slips off, grabbing a scaffolding just in time.  Roy jumps over easily.  He stands over Deckard and says "now you know what it's like to live in fear".  Deckard's hands start to slip.  He loses his grip entirely and...Roy grabs him, just in time, and lifts him easily with one arm back onto the roof.  He deposits Deckard on the ground at his feet and says, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain".   He then dies.  Deckard looks on, horrified and ashamed.
Suddenly, Gaff is there.  (Uh...how long has Gaff been there?)  He tells Deckard that his mission is complete and adds, "it's too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?" Deckard goes back to his apartment and finds Rachel asleep.  He realizes Gaff isn't going to kill her. He knows Gaff has taken pity on her because he believes she'll only live four years anyway, but Deckard remembers that Tyrell said she'll live longer than that. How much longer?  Who knows?  But they'll be together until then, anyway.
They ride off together, leaving the dark and dying city and into the sunlight.
Fin.

Review: Everything in this world is so beautifully realized, so complete.  It was made in 1982, so some of their ideas about the future were a little wonky, but they stuck to a theme and went with it.  The people in this city are jaded and angry, and wear dark clothes and makeup.  There's apparently no interior lighting at all.  Every building has huge open windows that let the light in from passing flying cars and flying billboards.  Spotlights swoop all over the screen and all times, and it's always night.
There's no way to watch this movie without totally getting sucked into this world.  It's an incredibly bleak tale, where our "hero" is practically a predator, picking off people who have committed no real crime other than existing, and who wind up saving him in the end, Rachel metaphorically and Roy physically.  I know there are apparently multiple versions out there, including a director's cut which drops the annoying voice over narration (good) but also reveals that Deckard is a replicant himself (bad).  If Roy spares Deckard's life in the end, simply because they're the same "kind", then it takes away from the gesture, in my opinion.  I also don't, as a rule, like multiple endings in movies (unless the movie is called Clue) because it's kind of a fourth-wall breaker. Don't like that ending?  Well how about this one?   Okay sure, but now I can't avoid knowing this is all bullshit, when before I could pretend I didn't know.
There are a few plot holes, and some things you shouldn't look at too closely, but the themes are powerful.  Plus, it's totally the inspiration for Battlestar Galatica, one of my favorite TV shows, and I'm fairly certain the casting of Edward James Olmos in it was deliberate.  I'm just glad they didn't make Sean Young into Number Six.  So far, my favorite AFI movie, and one that will stick with me for awhile.

Stars: Four out of five.

Does it deserve "Best 100" Status: Yes, on its audacity and creativity alone.