My favorite sci-fi films of all time - A list starting with "Blade Runner"

Who doesn't have a list?

Well, without much ado, here is mine, along with brief comments of why I like them.

I have attempted to rank them according to my personal preference. I know everyone will have a different choice, but I will attempt to share my reasons for each selection in this list.
There may be movies which are missing from this list and if any are omitted, it is not by design and I would defer to any readers of this blog to enlighten me.

Please feel free to comment, all comments are welcome. However, would request you to elaborate your reasons as well, so that I may understand and appreciate your views as well.

1. Blade Runner (In subsequent posts, I will continue this list, revealing my choices / reasons)

There are several versions of Blade Runner - the theatrical version (with the voice-over), an international version (with the voice-over), released by Criterion on laserdisc, the Director's Cut and the Final Cut. There is also a workprint version.

My personal preference is the Director's Cut, which I own on laserdisc and have watched a number of times. I know there are a lot of people who believe the film is over-rated and who possibly dislike it for a variety of reasons - for its slowness, murky quality of the images (smoky atmosphere, dim lighting etc.) and other reasons as well. To all those people, I would recommend that they read up a bit about the movie and give it a second chance, as your appreciation of the greatness of this film begins to sink in only after the third or fourth viewing.

One reason often cited by film goers is that the pacing of the movie is very slow and that they found the movie incomprehensible. Well, to this I would respond that this is a very complex film, with many layers of meaning and explores not only a basic story - one about a killer 'retiring' non humans (androids or replicants) but also has philosophical, environmental and global themes. In short, this movie is an exploration of the mind and the senses as it invents a reality that everyone can identify with, maybe even anticipate, if things continue the way are at present. The mind-boggling thing about this movie is that this vision was conceived by Ridley Scott in the '80s and far from being dated, this movie was far ahead of its time.

Deckard, the "blade runner" of this seminal movie, is charged with a simple task. Find four "replicants", who are androids created by a global corporation (Tyrell) and kill them. The euphemism used for 'killing' is retirement, possibly to avoid any legal issues. However, the task is anything but simple as the replicants are indistinguishable from humans and some, like Roy Baty, the charismatic leader played brilliantly by Rutger Hauer, represent perfection to a degree impossible for most humans - physically as well as mentally.

There is, however, one damning limitation to being a replicant - it is their extraordinarily short life span - a fail safe method to limit their capacity to cause untold harm to "humans". While emotions have not been programmed into replicants, they do, in fact, begin to develop human emotions, creating a perfect conundrum and posing the quintessential question - what does it really mean to be human? How can you justify killing something which posseses humanity? It talks, it walks, it sees and it feels. Deckard, played by a brooding Harrison Ford, in one of his best performances on film, faces the same dilemma, especially when confronted with the fifth replicant, Rachel, who works at the Tyrell corporation.

Rachel, played by Sean Young in a nervous fashion but eminently suited for the role, as conceived by Ridley Scott, does not know that she is a replicant. This sentiment is echoed by Rick Deckard to Tyrell, the creator of these replicants (who himself may be one, that is never explained) when he asks him pointedly - "How can she not know?"

The answer may be simplistic to some - implanting memories of childhood at the time of creation of these replicants, but as Ridley explores this even further, it is in fact, a complex question. There is also the question of whether Rick Deckard himself is a replicant - there is a famous scene showing a Unicorn running in the wild forest in the Director's cut but this scene is omitted in the international version and the theatrical version, both of which were cut differently to accomodate the producers, who didn't understand the movie themselves and possibly hated Ridley's guts as well with the cost over-runs and other creative touches.

All of these questions are left for the audience to ponder and there have been endless debates as to whether Deckard himself was a replicant or not. To me, however, the question is no doubt valid, but either way, the answer is not relevant to what unfolds on screen, as the story is revealed through the sheer brilliance of its complex imagery, from the shadowy lighting, to the smoke and rain of a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles of the future.

Humans have destroyed the environment and the rich have literally fled the planet, to the comfort and luxury of 'off world' colonies, leaving only the destitute behind - a vast conglomeration of people from all races and cultures, melding together in a kaleidoscope of human forms, speaking in a cacophony of languages that seem vaguely familiar - a mixture of Chinese, Spanish, French and other languages - 'city speak' in short. The world of Blade Runner is chaotic at first glance, but all too human at the same time and very understandable. The cops run the show on Earth - everyone else is 'little people', according to the jingoistic police captain Bryant (as Deckard explains in a voice-over, in another era, he would be the one using the n-word or other racial epithet, a stereotype of the future).

Ridley Scott's vision here, based loosely on Phillip K. Dick's novel, is nothing short of a masterpiece, in my opinion - a chef d'oeuvre, to use a French expression.

There are a number of memorable lines in the movie but none more memorable than the dying verses of poetry, improvised by Rutger Hauer, who plays an implacable killer confronted by the inevitable fate of his own mortality and becoming truly human at the very instant he loses his grip on "life" - the yearning, the sadness and the deep poetry of those last lines are washed away, like "tears in rain".

If there is one science fiction film that is a must own or must buy for any sci-fi fan, then this is it.  What else can I say ? If you haven't seen it yet, then, all I can say is that you are really missing out on something. This is a movie that makes you think and ponder and allows your imagination to flow. What more could you ask from any film? In my opinion, this is the greatest science fiction movie of all time. Well, enough said.