Massacre of the Moths

I hope so, anyway. Cut for the usual reason, though not quite as gross and horrifying as my last two posts on the subject. And to think that before, if I heard the word "moth," I pictured something pretty and appealing, like a Luna moth.

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Blade Runner: Ultimate! New! Improved! Director's Cut

This is one of my favorite movies. I think I've seen it six or seven times, maybe more. Even so, I'm not entirely sure how this director's cut differs from the earlier one; both remove the clunky narration, cut the (not very) happy ending, and add in the unicorn dream. The score is notably clean, but I'm not sure exactly what was added. I don't remember the snatches of a kabuki chant that play when people enter JF Sebastian's apartment, but that may just be that this time around was the first time I knew what they were.

For those of you who haven't seen it, Harrison Ford is a "blade runner": a licensed assassin who kills runaway replicants, who are androids who are human in almost every respect, but stronger, faster, tougher... and with a four-year lifespan. He's sent to track down four replicants, led by Rutger Hauer in an unforgettable role and performance. It's sf noir, set in a future Los Angeles. Like most sf about androids or robots, it's about what it means to be human.

Actually, I suspect that many of you who haven't seen it already wouldn't like it; there's Asian characters talking in broken English, and the whole landscape is so dystopian that its Asian influence can be read as part of its wrongness, though I think it was intended as extrapolation. Also, the central romance works much better if you take it as a fucked-up relationship between two profoundly damaged people which begins with a rape and culminates in Stockholm Syndrome, than as the passionate affair it was probably intended to be. (I mean Deckard and Rachael. Roy Batty and Pris may be profoundly damaged, but their relationship doesn't seem notably unhealthy.)

That being said, it is still one of my very favorite movies, for Roy Batty and Pris and JF Sebastian, and the terrible and beautiful confrontations toward the end. And C-beams glittering off Tannhauser, and tears in rain.

Though some of the worldbuilding isn't quite consistent (Earth seems both under and over populated, for instance; the reason for the replicants' limited lifespans is given as insurance against rebellion, and as an unavoidable byproduct of their existence) it feels like an utterly convincing other world, full of the odd and unexplained details that make it seem real, yet bound together by tightly knit themes that make it seem a unified whole:

Cut for spoilers.
( Read more... )

Blade Runner: Ultimate! New! Improved! Director's Cut

This is one of my favorite movies. I think I've seen it six or seven times, maybe more. Even so, I'm not entirely sure how this director's cut differs from the earlier one; both remove the clunky narration, cut the (not very) happy ending, and add in the unicorn dream. The score is notably clean, but I'm not sure exactly what was added. I don't remember the snatches of a kabuki chant that play when people enter JF Sebastian's apartment, but that may just be that this time around was the first time I knew what they were.

For those of you who haven't seen it, Harrison Ford is a "blade runner": a licensed assassin who kills runaway replicants, who are androids who are human in almost every respect, but stronger, faster, tougher... and with a four-year lifespan. He's sent to track down four replicants, led by Rutger Hauer in an unforgettable role and performance. It's sf noir, set in a future Los Angeles. Like most sf about androids or robots, it's about what it means to be human.

Actually, I suspect that many of you who haven't seen it already wouldn't like it; there's Asian characters talking in broken English, and the whole landscape is so dystopian that its Asian influence can be read as part of its wrongness, though I think it was intended as extrapolation. Also, the central romance works much better if you take it as a fucked-up relationship between two profoundly damaged people which begins with a rape and culminates in Stockholm Syndrome, than as the passionate affair it was probably intended to be. (I mean Deckard and Rachael. Roy Batty and Pris may be profoundly damaged, but their relationship doesn't seem notably unhealthy.)

That being said, it is still one of my very favorite movies, for Roy Batty and Pris and JF Sebastian, and the terrible and beautiful confrontations toward the end. And C-beams glittering off Tannhauser, and tears in rain.

Though some of the worldbuilding isn't quite consistent (Earth seems both under and over populated, for instance; the reason for the replicants' limited lifespans is given as insurance against rebellion, and as an unavoidable byproduct of their existence) it feels like an utterly convincing other world, full of the odd and unexplained details that make it seem real, yet bound together by tightly knit themes that make it seem a unified whole:

Cut for spoilers.
( Read more... )