Whether you loved it or hated it, there is no denying the fact that Ridley Scott's Blade Runner had a lasting impact on the world of science fiction. The book it was based upon, Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is a respected novel which many say was superior to the film. What is it that people love and hate about the film though?

It's a dystopian future, everything is dark and bleak. There is a grit to the place that emanates from it's core. There are no animals, as we have long since driven them to extinction and have polluted our planet until it is a sick shell of it's former self. The characters feel human and believable, but they're not all human - some are replicants, and they are the ones Deckard (Harrison Ford) is sent to hunt down and "retire". There is no happy ending.

The general outline of the story is that a retired Blade Runner, a bounty hunter whom hunts down and "retires" replicants, is brought back after a fellow blade runner is shot whilst testing a suspected replicant. The reason behind this is that replicants were once created to look like their makers and were used on off-world menial tasks that were deemed too dangerous for humans. The replicants revolted though and their presence on Earth became illegal - any who were reported were hunted down and retired in fear of what they might do. His investigations eventually lead him to where the replicants are hiding out, and he learns that their 4 year life span is coming to and end, and had been looking for a way to extend this time.

This film features one of my favourite movie quotes and is acted out by Rutger Hauer on a rooftop at the end of the film after he saves the life of Deckard and realises his own simulated life is about to come to an end due to the short life span of the Nexus 6 androids.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die

It seems a silly thing to say, yet also seems incredibly deep and meaningful at the same time. It shows some humanity even from an android who had previously been homicidal in his attempts to find a way to extend his own life (which is something we've seen humans do in movies to) as he becomes introspective and reflects back on his own life, and how it is now coming to an end as if it was all for nothing. It seems deep down he's trying to validate his life, and find meaning to it's end after he's failed to find someone to prolong it. After all the wrong he did during this film it seems like he is almost feeling remorse for what he's done.

It was long speculated whether or not Deckard was in fact a replicant - there were signs laid out for the audience to see, though they were ambiguous and could have had different meanings. The most obvious of these signs was when he dreams about a unicorn, something which was supposed to be imprinted into the minds of replicants.

The original release of this movie was quite different to what the director originally intended and featured a voice over from Harrison Ford which gave the film a similar vibe to that of 1920's detective stories. The most recent release of this movie in 2007 celebrated it's 25th anniversary with a new special Director's Cut which was available in several different options. In the UK the best option you could go for was the one in the steel tin that included each version of the film, an original slide and a rare art folio. The versions included are:

1. The Final Cut (2007)
2. US Theatrical Cut (1982)
3. International Theatrical Cut (1982)
4. Director's Cut (1992)
5. Workprint

There are also 2 DVD's worth of special features including various documentaries and deleted scenes. In the US there was also a special edition that came in a briefcase that included a miniature origami unicorn, a miniature replica spinner car and some photographs. As soon as the UK version was released I got rid of my existing Director's cut and went for the new edition to see what Ridley Scott had done to the film for the Final Cut. If you get the chance I highly recommend watching one of the earlier releases and then directly follow it with the Final Cut and you'll notice that for once, a film has actually been improved by meddling with it (Mr. Lucas should take note of that).

At the same time as this new release they also brought out a special 3 disc edition of the soundtrack by Vangelis. This new version was a 3 disc version which includes the original 1994 release of the soundtrack album, previously unreleased pieces of music, and a brand new album by Vangelis of Blade Runner inspired music. Personally I think the best of the CDs is actually the original 1994 release as tracks such as "Rachel's Song", "Love Theme", "Blade Runner Blues" and "Memories of Green" are absolutely brilliant.

If you enjoy this film I would recommend also trying the original "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" which it was based upon as you're likely to enjoy it also. If you're not one to read many novels then you can also get this book as a graphic novel by Boom Studios now.

Every time I watch this film I can help but be taken in by the amazing visuals of the cityscape and how different the world envisioned in it looks to our world, and how different it is to other movies of it's time. A truly classic science fiction movie.

em costa seguir-la!

mmm... eres un replicante??

wowzas! i didn't know other people thought this movie was magic!

hate it

I cant remember if I've seen this one or not....?

Atmospheric, savage, witty and unsettling. A truly great movie.

It requires some intelligence to watch, however, which probably accounts for its lack of popularity with the short attention span crowd.

this movie made me want to shoot myself it was that bad!

Harrison Ford is a great actor

it's been so long since I've seen this one, don't really remember it and if I've only seen it once then that usually means I wasn't too impressed with it

A true sci-fi classic.  Rutger Hauer, the replicant who shows more humanity than any human in the film, is truly memorable.  It is a genuinely great scene between him and Ford near the end.  In case there is someone reading this who has not seen the movie, I will refrain from describing why it's great.  Go see it!

One of the best ever. Suspense, gorgeous visuals, perfect cast, top notch writing, movie made for grown-ups. Saw this in a theater when it was first released and was blown away by it. Unfortunately movies like this just aren't turned out by the Hollywood "video-game" machine nowadays. Too bad.

I was deeply impressed by this film. Somewhere in the future, mankind manages to create androids so perfect that it is impossible to differentiate them from born human beings. As a fail safe measure to prevent their reproduction and expansion, they are genetically manipulated to only have a life span of 4 years. The "creator" made a mistake, however, by giving them survival instinct. And now, they are a menace. A new breed of interstellar cops is formed and Ford is one of them. Directed by Douglas Trumbull, creator of the special effects for Close Encounters of The Third Kind, is an epic movie and definitely a classic. Can't take Rutger Hauer's word out of my mind: "time... to die".

Pretty good for the genre...

Closer to 4 1/2 stars, Raymond Chandler film noir sci-fi.

Ray's death scene is a work of art

This is a first rate dystopian sci fi flick about a potential future in the Brave New World.

Visionary and influential beyond its impact at the box office, the original film that brought Film Noir edge to futurism. The film both complements and stands apart from Phillip K. Dick's brilliant novel.

What a movie. Blade Runner is a dark and brooding masterpiece in which the rain never stops, and the good guys and bad guys don't stay true to their stereotypes.

The story is great, the cinematography is stunning, and the acting is superb - especially Rutger Hauer as the menacing lead replicant.

This is one of the best scifi movies that I've seen.

I would have to say that the visuals in this movie are what hooked me at first. I think that Ridley Scott is a genius just for this movie. 

I was frustrated for so long at not being able to get the original soundtrack for so long. That orchestra version that they first put out, was so lame.

This movie is dark and confusing it really does not make a lot of sense and in the end you feel like you were cheated because it does not come together. Some what disappointing.

Not a lot of sci-fi films can be considered philosophical pieces, but Blade Runner certainly falls into this category. Having read the book on which the film is based, I had a much better appreciation for the film and the ability of the Ridley Scott to capture the nuances and humanity of the book. An impressive work on all levels.

Imaginative and realistic, although sometimes slow. Hands down the greatest sci-fi movie ever made.

One of the all-time underrated films virtually ignored when it was released in the early 80's - it was just too dark and deep for movie audiences at the time. Luckily, it has earned fame in VHS and DVD rentals. Ridley Scott's best work since Alien.

Isn't Blade Runner the most voted movie in this rating?? I have mercy of you, American guys. The most perfect movie of the history of cinema, with most perfect soundtrack, the most perfect performances, the most perfect setting, the most perfect screenplay, the most perfect scenery and I could go on.... The definite movie.

One of the best of all time

An absolute masterpiece. In my opinion, the finest movie ever made. Some have complained that it is slow, but with the jaw dropping visuals, I strongly disagree. The scene where Rachel is being quizzed by Deckart has got to be one of the most sensitively filmed scenes in the history of cinema. Incidentally, when this movie came out in the early 1980's, it absolutely bombed. I think this is a testament, perhaps, on how far we have come as a society of movie lovers. The movie takes a pretty high level of concentration and I feel it was way too subtle for the audiences of the 80's generation. It has since experienced phenomenal rental revenue. The DVD is available now as well. Enjoy...

In my opinion, perhaps the best movie of all time, not just in the sci-fi genre. It is everything the art of cinema should be all about - compelling story, characters with depth and most importantly the kind of visuals that only cinema can provide. Ridley Scott, for all of his fame, is still underrated. Also, two things about that movie that give it more of a story. The first is that I think the original cut of the movie with Harrison Ford's narration is equally as compelling as the director's cut. It was, in part, a detective movie and the narration is a classic element of that. The second is that I had bumbled around for many years trying to find that haunting soundtrack by Vangelis. Apparently, it wasn't until 1994 that some contractual dispute was settled and it was finaly released. What movie of this ones calibre would allow that to happen in this day and age.

One of the most dark and gritty movies of the sci-fi genre, Blade Runner never ceases to impress. Ridley Scott's meticulous attention to detail makes for great cinema. The cinematography is something to behold. Besides that it has a great script to back it up. Rutger Hauer is positively wicked as the villian Roy Batty. He has one of the best lines in movie history at the edn of the film. All my memories, lost like teardrops in the rain, time to die. Harrison Ford plays a good foil to Hauer's insane villain. He's great as the seasoned pro Deckart who has doubt about what he has to do to the replicants.

Hollywood Sci-Fi is usually spaceships, laser guns a hero, a love interest and some kind of chase scene or two. Blade Runner is sci-fi in its truest form and that is down to a few factors, firstly it was adapted from a book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K Dick, a man who knew nothing other than his paranoid vision of the future and regardless of his troubled personal life, he wrote great sci-fi. Secondly Ridley Scott, a genius, a man who can not only see in his mind how a scene will work but a man who has proved that his visual skills are what it takes to make a great movie time and time again (Gladiator, Alien, Thelma & Louise) - then there are other people like Hampton Fancher, Syd Mead, Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young etc. etc. add to that lot a hauntingly beautiful musical score by Vangelis and you've got the basis for a great movie. Then on top of this you have carefully selected elements like props, lighting, photography, violence, romance, vehicles, silence and noise that forms the interactive ambience that very few films can boast. I have lost count of how many times I have seen this film and everytime it drags me in, fixates me with its morals, questioning humanity and general insecurity which perhaps is its winning ingredient, deep down we all ask ourselves "What is real?"

One of the Best!!!

One of the all time greats!

you need to watch the directors cut to understand this brilliant film.the dream scene with the unicorn is so important,and the "i,ve seen things you people wouldn,t believe"speach so beautiful.a truly wonderful film brilliantly directed.

This film is absolutely amazing and for me it is far superior than the book it originated from (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip Dick) I grew up watching this film and I expect my kids will grow up watching classics such as this and Star Wars too if I have my way. It has an absolutly fantastic cast, Hsrrison Ford, Sean Young, Reutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah and many others. Its an extremely dark film, not only with the plot, but with the sets as well. I'm not going to rehash the plot of the film as you can find out from other comments that have been made. The photography is amazing, the actors are extremely convincing and I think that this film helped make some of them in the film industry and Vangelis' music is absolutely gorgeous and brings a great ambience to the film. This film is still one of the best, there was love with making this film and its far, far better than the majority of movies that were made today - after all, most of the films released now are just thinking about how much money they can make at the box office.

This movie is more than a little strange, but worth seeing. I'm a big Harrison Ford fan because of Star Wars, so I watched this one and I kinda got into it, but it's just a little confusing. It's not a movie that I have had a big interest in watching again, however.

One of the absolute best movies of all. Great visuals, great thought-provoking storyline; great score. Good acting and eminently quotable. Great bit about replicants and existentialism. Bring on the special-edition DVD please!

The director's cut has the better end. Every movie featuring the cars hovering at verying levels robbed this one. The turmoil Ford's character is dealing with internaly is as interesting as the physical fights. It's style and vision have been more influential on subsequent films than any of the Star Wars serials.

A stylish visual treat from start to finish. Ridley Scotts furtile imagination and creative mind allowed to run free alongside his special effects team. Harrison Ford is cool, Rutger Hauer shines as Roy Batty.

Excellent storyline and visuals ahead of it's time. Harrison Ford as the main character was great. The pressures and obstacles of the detective were clearly shown throughout the movie.

What's human and what's not? A dark cyberpunk movie about a future where the thin line between man and machine gets blurred. A fair of amount of action with some thought involved.

one of the best.

It's a little outdated. The story line is very cool. I liked all the special effects and the happy ending.

Blade Runner is an awe inspiring post-modern materpiece. It creates a bleak future composed of the bureaucratic elite and the middled sleazy subterranean underworld (that looks a lot like Hong Kong) where a detective is assigned on search and destroy missions to eliminate replicas, or artificial humans disiguised for slave labor. The punch that Blade Runner packs is on account of its sensitivity to real concerns in contemporary society, and modern thought. After a while the detective (played by Harrison Ford) has touble discriminating between the replicas and the real people, dilema that seems far too real in a time when great thinkers are proposing that it will only be a matter of time before machines have consciousness.

I saw this movie recently and felt it should be a lost memory in the career of Harrison Ford. His character was a clone detector/investigator/mercenary who's searching for a specific android played by Rutger Hauer. The film was anti-climactic and I felt the hero didn't really prevail. However, Hauer and Ford did have some good dynamics between them and the battle scene in the old lab at the end of the film was fun, yet it left an unfinished bit about it in the end. Uncomparable to Ford's Indiana Jones series, and even his mild character of Han Solo in Star Wars.

this is a bad a*s movie!

A classic sci-fi movie, required watching for anyone who wants to be considered a 'buff'. Classical overtones (Bible, Frankenstien, etc.) overlaying a good plotline and skilled acting. I personally don't like the directors cut as much.

Blade Runner is SciFi at it's greatest. This film is dark from the theme to the sets. Incredible, subtle acting on the parts of Harrison Ford, Daryl Hannah, Rutger Hauer and more. This film raises the question, "What does it mean to be human?" The imagery is beautiful and loaded with symbolism. Despite it's dark tone, it is also touching. Rutger Hauer's last scene in this film is one of the most beautiful, life affriming scenes I've ever seen.

This movie is an integral whole and one of the three movies one could call 'good'. Cinematography does more than just compliment, it creates. The story line is brilliant.

I recently watched this film on the Sci-Fi channel; it had been a few years since I last watched it. One can determine how good a movie is by how well it ages. This movie ages extremely well, in the same class as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Forbidden Planet. Its special effects and premise are still believable. This movie is definitely a sci-fi classic.

excellent! original! fascinating! HARRISON FORD IS GREAT (as usual)

I'm definitely a sci-fi fan. Think Blade Runner paved the way for a new frontier in special effects.