The Kindred Kind: Blade Runner and Naturalization

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“Questions.”
“I don’t know answers.”

Blade Runner is one of the most important scifi films out there, along with Metropolis and Star Wars. Every filmmaker or production designer working in scifi has to reconcile Blade Runner at some point. You have these scenes where they’re just flying between buildings and 30 years later, it’s jaw-dropping. And borderline gratuitous, and that’s the thing.

It’s easy to recognize when special effects are happening, because they’re the parts of the movie that don’t look like the real world. So, it then becomes easy to say special effects were the point, because in some cases they’re designed to arrest thought by being dazzling. Not so in Blade Runner. This is the world they needed to tell this story, and they couldn’t just shoot it in Toronto.

That always bothered me. And I know now why that is. You see, Blade Runner, to me, almost more than being a movie, is a symbol for important science-fiction. But as you might recall from our Ghost in the Shell coverage, high school era Harrison Chute was not the sharpest tack, and that is when I saw Blade Runner.

Runtime: [53:52]

This episode is about:

Boredom!

Mood!

You’re gonna carry that weight.

California Christmastime

Further Reading:
“Naturalization – Document Checklist, Current Fees, Eligibility Worksheet”
“Voices: How violent are undocumented immigrants?”
“Philip K. Dick Quotes”
“‘Last Tango in Paris’ actress didn’t consent to rape scene”
“Bradbury Building in Popular Culture”
“Casey Affleck is a Sack of Shit“