GoKawiilThis article was published last year, but due to its enduring popularity I’ve moved it to the front page for those of you who haven’t seen it yet.
Blade Runner is one of the most visually haunting and memorable movies in the history of cinema. It has inspired art, and is a work of art. It’s a movie I can’t stop watching and talking about. This article, as such, is an indulgence for those like me who can’t help but go back to this classic neo-noir again and again.
The first picture embedded in this article, below, gave me the excuse to write this. This piece of fan art, depicting one of the many iconic moments of the movie, spurred me to start looking at what else the collective consciousness of the internet had to offer on this matter. Now, I’ve seen a lot of Blade Runner art over the years, but this time when I fell down the Google rabbit-hole I found myself spiralling through pages upon pages of remarkable imagery.
I found the following at a site that has a bunch of cool homages to classic movies.
Ridley Scott said that while making Blade Runner he tried to create beauty, frame by frame, shot by shot. It’s hard to disagree. The film is stunning and retains its power to inspire 35 years later.
I continue to be struck by still shots from the movie. Nearly all are perfect in their composition, in the use of light, shadow, smoke, and sweat to create the terrible beauty of the Blade Runner universe. The use of smoke, in particular, remains true to the purest of noir sensibilities. The first picture of Rachel below is actually a painting, and you should click on the image to enlarge and have a closer look (the artist of which can be found here).
Futurist Syd Mead did much of the design work for Blade Runner. ‘Futurist’ is a pretty foolish thing to call oneself, all things considered, as predicting what the world will look like fifty years away is bloody hard. And no matter how much you do get right, you’ll always have some wit declaring “yeah – so where are my flying cars?”
Mead’s art, which you can see a selection of here, feels very retro-future these days. And some of it looks like a brain explosion, as evidenced by these motorbike turtles:
Yet, yet, yet, this is also the man responsible for the aesthetics of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Aliens, and TRON. The original Star Trek doesn’t stand the test of time, but the Tron visuals are iconic and Aliens is, well, another landmark of science fiction cinema.
For Aliens he designed the dropship and the power loader Ripley uses at the end. Of course, the recently departed H R Giger was the visionary behind the aliens themselves. Think about that for a moment: Aliens had the both the artist who imaged the aliens, plus the artist behind Blade Runner working on the same film.
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