Blade Runner (1982)

Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Daryl Hannah.  Cinematography by Jordon Cronenweth.  Editing by Terry Rawlings.  Produced by Michael Deeley. Written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Directed by Ridley Scott.

In the year 2019 man will have finally created an android that is nearly indistinguishable from an ordinary man. They are called replicants.  After a violent revolt on a space colony six of these replicants escape to earth, hoping to find a way to extend their short four year life span.

Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford), a specialist in locating and identifying replicants, is brought back from retirement to search out and destroy these renegade robots before they can inflict any further damage.  Deckard soon finds that hunting down the replicants is the easy part, actually retiring them is where questions being to arise.

Despite the fact that he had no particular interest or personal obligation to the science fiction genre, Ridley Scott suddenly found himself in the position of Hollywood’s A-list sci-fi filmmaker after the overwhelmingly successful release of Alien in 1979.  It was because of this unwarranted reputation that producer Dino De Laurentiis approached him with an offer to direct the film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science fiction epic Dune.  But like many filmmakers before him, Scott would not be able to bring Dune to the cinema. 

His vision of the picture proved to be too large in scale to be financially feasible and the task of production seemed too overwhelming to undertake.  So after seven months of preparation work on the picture, Scott dropped out. Dune was eventually adapted to film by David Lynch, but not without problems of his own.

Meanwhile, Scott had shifted back into his commercial production roots while he searched for his next project. The screenplay that finally caught his attention was ironically another science fiction story. The script was an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? titled Dangerous Days.  Intrigued by the story’s lessons of morality and the seemingly infinite design possibilities, Scott signed on to direct what would eventually become Blade Runner.

If Scott was looking for a production easier than what he foresaw Dune to be, Blade Runner must have been a serious disappointment. To begin with there were unforeseen conflicts between his hands-on, European style of filmmaking and the rigid rules of the American film unions.  These disagreements quickly disrupted the shooting schedule and by the third day of principle photography he was already three weeks behind.  In breach of his completion bond, the control of production was taken over by Tandem Productions who had an entirely different idea of where the picture should be headed. 

On top of all that, Scott had Dick publicly criticizing the screenplays he had read (Dick would die before he could see the finished adaptation of his book).  And to add injury to insult, when the film was finally released to the public it was a box office flop.  Only years later, through the magic of home video and cable television, has Blade Runner finally earned the respect that it demands.

Unfortunately, the troubles that plagued Scott for his first picture of the 1980’s would follow him throughout the balance of the decade.

Budget: $28,000,000

Total US Gross: $34,968,423

Genre: Science Fiction

Runtime: 117 Minutes

US Release Date: 6/25/82

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Awards:

Academy Awards: 
Nominated for best art direction/set decoration and best visual effects.

Golden Globes: 
Nominated for best original score.

American Film Institute’s Top 100 Lists: 
100 Years… 100 Thrills (#74).

Tagline: Man Has Made His Match...  Now It’s His Problem.

Quote: “Replicants are like any other machine; they're either a benefit or a hazard.  If they're a benefit, it's not my problem.”