The fact that people are still writing and talking about Blade Runner 25 years after its release is the ultimate testament to its power as a film. Ordinary People and Chariots of Fire may have won the Oscars around that time, but those films are largely forgotten now, while Blade Runner is still very much a part of the public consciousness.

Much of the criticism of Blade Runner misses the point entirely. The much-derided narration by Deckard was supposed to give it a film-noirish quality. It was intended to evoke the black-and-white detective movies in which the hard-boiled gumshoe, speaking in a laconic tone (like Deckard) offers his running commentary on the story he is relating. I thought it succeeded brilliantly. I was actually sorry that the narration was removed from the Director's Cut.

Yes, the original ending was stupid. Not because it was a "Happy Ending" but because the idea that Tyrell had created Rachael with "no expiration date" was internally inconsistent. It was contradicted earlier in the film.

But it's proposterous to think that the reaosn for the poor initial critical and popular reception was because of the lame original ending. The simply fact is that public and the critics missed the boat on this one. They were wrong. This was a much better film than it was originally given credit for. Fortunately, people started to recognize the power and beauty of the film on subsequent viewings. The "rehabilitation" of this film isn't due to any PR jobs, or subsequently released versions. As the writer of this piece points out, this is still largely the same film that was panned and dismissed 25 years ago. The only real difference is that its audience has become more sophisticated.

The writer errs, however, when he suggests that the subsequent versions of Blade Runner prove that Deckard is a replicant. It does not. It merely leaves open that possibility. The fact that Deckard has been having dreams of unicorns could be coincidental to the fact that Gaff has left an origami unicorn at his apartment, or it could be that Gaff knowns about the unicorn dreams because Deckard is a replicant. The movie leaves open either possibility because the dominant theme of the film is that as human beings, we are defined by our experiences, memories, and emotions, not by our physical makeup. Deckard may never know if he's a "human" or if he's a "replicant", but ultimately it doesn't matter. For all intents and purposes, he's human, as is Rachael.

I can't speak for Maslin, but I've been rereading Kael and I'd add that Blade Runner is exactly the sort of movie she was most likely to misjudge. Her populism ran to gangster movies and westerns, not to sci fi. And in general, her darlings were the jump cuts of Melville and the French New Wave (and later the U.S. filmmakers of the 70's). Kael didn't know what to do with slick. I think she treated Blade Runner as if it were Miami Vice: The Movie.

I find Blade Runner (the theatrical release is the only version I've ever seen) totally mesmorizing. My film aesthetic is usually closer to Kael, but I disagree with her on this one. I didn't feel that the movie was passive -- I felt that most of it was a glimpse of a possible world. It reminds me a lot of Brazil. Also, weirdly, of Being There.

Now I'm trying to think of antecedents-- films that were both slick and interesting from the fifties and sixties. I'm not a fan of 2001 (Kubrick may be another reference for Kael in terms of slickness). I don't know what to compare it to... and that makes it a great film.

At any rate -- the biggest homage to Blade Runner might be that the director who made E.T. has lately been coming out with films like Minority Report (talk about a film with plot problems). If you needed evidence that box office receipts shouldn't decide what constitutes greatness, you need look no further than Spielberg.

Amen.

Critics, and even audiences, are often wrong, dead wrong on films, then famously go back and revise their initial appraisals. From what I've heard, 'The Wizard of Oz' landed with a massive thud in theaters, only to be rehabilitated years later in much the same fashion that 'Blade Runner' has. Or so I heard repeatedly from my high school English teacher back in the day, who was using this fact to push his theory that the same thing would eventually happen with 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen' (admittedly an absurdly underrated film).....from what I've seen of the record, his take appears to have been correct.

Moreover, these are hardly the only examples. 'The Night of the Hunter' was pretty roundly bashed from what I've read; now it is widely held to be a fantastic piece of film noir. And didn't 'Psycho' initially elicit tepid reviews, only to be "reconsidered" by reviewers after audiences ended up liking it so much? 'Vertigo' likewise received wildly negative reviews. '2001' had some good reviews, and a lot of very, very bad ones.

And most of these bombed at the theaters, only to be revived later on in their life. There is nothing new going on with 'Blade Runner', just the same phenomenon at work since 'Metropolis' and 'Duck Soup'.

Here's another vote for the voice-over version, it places the movie in the mystery tradition, and if it helps the audience, so did Fred MacMurray's immortal narration in Double Indemnity. So did Martin Sheen's in Apocalypse now. We can't all be mind readers.

Until reading this essay, I never got the impression the paper unicorn was a "you're a replicant, too" message. I took it that Gat was giving Mr. Deckart, and his chick, a pass, and letting them know it via his calling card. One cop to another, as it was and always will be. Are cop ethics programmable? The ability to bend the rules without getting caught, and know how and when you must, now that's more real human, very coplike. If only Rene Descartes could see his work so movingly illustrated - they laughed at him as well, no?

I've seen a later cut of Apocalypse Now with no voice over - no bombs at the end either. When my mom and dad were courting, they had a big fight (I was told) about a movie they'd seen seperately - in the one she saw the girl got on the train and left at the end, in the one he saw she came back. My dad said they nearly broke up over it. I'm glad they didn't.

Although the movie makes drastic departures from Philip K Dick's story in many ways, the movies central theme is consistent with the story. The theme, one that Dick explored in many of his works, is the question of what makes one 'human,' and what makes ones experiences 'real.' In another short story, for example(I can't locate the title right now) Dick has an astronaut come home from space to his wife. His wife realizes it's really an alien in her husband's form very quickly, because the alien treats her well and is passionate and loving - humanely - all the things the real husband, the 'real' 'human,' never did. And she doesn't say anything, much preferring the fake alien husband to the real one.

And in the movie, we definitely are supposed to be seeing the replicants more alive than the humans. We are supposed to understand that the jobs that humans have pawned off to the replicants are ones that are full of real life and risk and excitement, all the things that make us human. We are to understand that humans are lifeless and cold. In this respect, I don't think it makes sense that Decker would be a replicant -- he never has the ferocious lust for life that Hauer's replicant has. And it can't simply be a matter of Decker not knowing he's a replicant. That wouldn't make sense. Humans are all too aware of their mortality and yet they act like Decker, not a replicant.

And I have a question -- are there really people out there that need movies like this to get them to think about the nature of their existence and the cruel irony of our existence? I am jealous of the person who can get so wrapped up in every day life that they forgot the irony and horror of our existence and our awareness of our mortality.