Revisiting Blade Runner

Throughout my life, I've ran across three movies that I just could not understand the appeal of:

1. The Big Lebowski
2. The Lord of the Rings Franchise
3. Blade Runner

Now, normally it wouldn't be a big deal if I didn't like a movie, but all three of these films seemed like something I should like. I always felt like I was just missing something. So, over the past few decades, I've revisited these films over and over again... waiting for something to click.

The Big Lebowski clicked first. It took three watches, but after the third watch, the humor and depth landed and I fell in love with the character and the film. Now, I consider it one of my favorite movies, so that in itself has led me to want to revisit Blade Runner and LOTR.

Sadly, I've yet to make it all the way through all three LOTR films, but I've watched Blade Runner six times. I've watched different cuts, and even watched the sequel, and despite the atmosphere, the story just did not connect with me. It was frustrating, because I am a fan of the cyberpunk aesthetics.

A few weeks ago, I felt the urge to explore the writings of Phillip K. Dick. As a high schooler, I discovered that many of my favorite films were based on his stories, so I went out and purchased a few books. At the time, I didn't appreciate his writing, so I was curious to see what I thought twenty years later. I decided to start with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the basis for Blade Runner. It took just three chapters for me to really fall into the story and fall in love with the world. Unlike the film, the novella spends time exploring what makes us human by focusing on empathy, where as the film seems to obsess over the detail of death being part of the human experience.

Needless to say, I really enjoyed the book. It was riveting at times and hard to read in one moment, and it really made me think. I found myself debating the idea of whether empathy really makes a person, and would I prefer a world full of androids who have programmed empathy over our current world that seems to be severely lacking empathy. I posed this question to my wife, and I even went as far as to have some serious conversations with Sesame AI over it. It gave me something to fixate on for a few days, and of course once the book was finished, I just had to compare it to the movie.

So, for what felt like the hundredth time ever, I turned on my digital copy of Blade Runner: The Final Cut. A film I really felt like was a complete waste of my time. Heck, I found a micro review I wrote last year on Letterbox:

Since I posted that in January 2025, I watched Blade Runner once more and then last week, I watched it for the sixth time. This time, I loved it.

I believe the book gave me the framework my brain needed for the movie. It padded the plot in some ways, despite the movie pretty much abandoning the book within the first ten minutes. Still, that basis suddenly brought the world of Blade Runner to life for me, and I sat there in awe. Fuck, it was a long road to get there, but I'd finally done it and Blade Runner instantly moved up my list of favorite movies.

Once I finished the film, I immediately turned on Blade Runner 2049, and I fell in love. Heck, I liked it better than Blade Runner in a lot of ways (it's a gorgeous movie) and I felt like a whole new world was open to me. Suddenly, androids were interesting. I've always hated movies about androids (I'm looking at your Prometheus, Alien Covenant) but for the first time in my life, I wanted to bask in the ethical and philosophical questions of what is life and what defines us as a humans.

I found myself sitting and listening to various Blade Runner ambience videos (something I admittedly had done even before exploring this world) and just soaking up the vibes of this world that strangely feels too real. Almost prophetic of what you might expect our future to be.

I found myself clamoring for more, so I read a bit more PKD and watched a few episodes of Electric Dreams, but it didn't quite scratch the itch. What I did find was the Blade Runner video game for sale on Xbox, and Total Recall 2070, the Showtime show that despite its name, has very little to do with Total Recall (or We Can Remember It For You for Wholesale the story Total Recall is based on) but more or less is a Blade Runner inspired show. Its obviously not the quality of the movies, but its close enough it keeps me interested in this strange futuristic noir world.

So, yea, right now I'm all about Blade Runner. I'm about to pull the trigger on this comic book collection on Humble Bundle and I'm just having a lot of fun exploring this franchise and its adjacent properties. I think the first time I watched Blade Runner was around 1993, so took me a little over thirty years to appreciate it. Now, maybe I should read the Lord of the Rings books, and then try watching the movies, and maybe I can finally get excited about about that franchise.