Digging into the odd history of Blade Runner’s title (2017)

https://www.vulture.com/2017/10/why-is-blade-runner-the-title-of-blade-runner.html

by thunderbong • 3 years ago

168 39 3 years ago

neilk• 3 years ago

Surprising. I had assumed it was a random future-world term, but was also meant to evoke Deckard's dilemmas - balanced on a knife edge.

twoodfin• 3 years ago

Probably why everyone involved liked it: It's evocative across multiple interpretations.

In addition to yours, "runner" works as a kind of diminution of the job, runners being minor functionaries who shuttle back and forth at the beck of their superiors ("No choice, pal.")

That what Deckard's running is a "blade"—death—only emphasizes either his powerlessness or his victims'. He's a pageboy being made to do murder. Or a janitor cleaning up mere "hazards".

coldtea• 3 years ago

That what Deckard's running is a "blade"—death

Yeah, could be "running" as in operating ("run: be in charge of; manage") a metaphorical blade, that is cutting their life short.

r2on3nge• 3 years ago

I had similar thoughts as well only to read through and fully understand what all these meant

animatethrow• 3 years ago

The TLDR summary: "Blade Runner" comes from another SciFi dystopia:

Universal health care has been enacted, but in order to cull the herd of the weak, the “Health Control laws” — enforced by the office of a draconian “Secretary of Health Control” — dictate that anyone who wants medical care must undergo sterilization first. As a result, a system of black-market health care has emerged in which suppliers obtain medical equipment, doctors use it to illegally heal those who don’t want to be sterilized, and there are people who covertly transport the equipment to the doctors. Since that equipment often includes scalpels and other instruments of incision, the transporters are known as “bladerunners.”

linsomniac4• 3 years ago

Thank you!

netsharc• 3 years ago

I'm surprised Grandpa Simpsons stories are still a thing in "journalism"... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrQyN0owXGo

esafak• 3 years ago

Sounds like a good story but the movie (Taking Tiger Mountain) is mediocre, judging by the ratings. Fortunately there is Gattaca!

Vecr• 3 years ago

Sounds pretty realistic. The US coerced India (on the threat of not providing aid) to run major sterilization campaigns. In many cases people were sterilized without any actual consent when they came for medical treatment.

themanmaran• 3 years ago

Wild. Doc turned sci-fi author wrote a book [1]. Book re-written by someone else to be a movie [2]. Movie never published. Rights purchased and turned into a totally different movie [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bladerunner

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_(a_movie)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner

wumms• 3 years ago

Movie never published

"Blade Runner (a movie) was loosely adapted as the 1983 film Taking Tiger Mountain [0], after co-director Tom Huckabee purchased the rights to the novella from Burroughs for $100." [1]

[0] (movie is rated 4.7@imdb) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_Tiger_Mountain_(film)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_(a_movie)#Adapt...

usrusr• 3 years ago

Filmed as a movie adaption of a Camus-inspired poem in Wales, Wales as a fallback location after failing to reach Tangier. Rearranged into a loose adaption of the novel "Blade Runner (a movie)" only in post production. That's amazingly true to the convoluted nature of that story's evolution!

The articles referenced on the Wikipedia page seem to be almost deliberately nonspecific about the timing of pulling in the Burroughs material: at some point between 1979 and 1983, so it could be well before or after Ridley Scott turned those two words into a household name. Might be the best way to play the cards given, ambiguous endings run in the family.

linsomniac4• 3 years ago

A few weeks ago I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and as a long time fan of Blade Runner it provided a lot of good back story on the movie. Highly recommended.

PNewling2• 3 years ago

Definitely read as it is a classic, just prepare yourself for a lot of talking about sheep (I think it was a sheep, it's been awhile).

cvwright• 3 years ago

Sure you’re not thinking of the John Scalzi book with the similar (referential) title?

yomlica83• 3 years ago

Recently read this as well. I found the movie kind of uneven in parts but felt it was mostly a better story than the book, which I didn't expect to be the case.

I guess I didn't totally get the Mercerism and animal angle, it seemed to exist mostly to highlight a difference in empathy between characters. I think the film is better without it.

The android test Mexican standoff was amusing though.

Finnucane2• 3 years ago

The differences in empathy was kinda the whole point of the book. Which is to say, the androids didn't have any. In the context of the story, they could act and look like humans, but were essentially psychopathic killing machines. PKD felt that being fully human required empathy.

nidnogg• 3 years ago

I had a similar impression. For me those two hit the hardest and I think it can drag a bit in those moments. I expected a more in depth view as is often the case with source material, not an entirely different societal mindset from most characters. It's as if they forked out a huge part of the story for the movies and honestly I'm glad they did so.

I was a bit skeptic of Philip K Dick once I finished it but I'm glad I took up Ubik a couple of years after - it turned out to be one of my favorite reads.

linsomniac4• 3 years ago

I agree that the movie is kind of uneven but over all a better telling of the story. But there are parts of the movie that I'm like "what's going on here" that the story clears up.

I don't think these are spoilers, but stop reading if you are sensitive: Ones that stuck out for me were "why is this weird guy living in a building that is falling apart?" The story reveals that Earth is basically poisoned and that everyone who can leave has left, and the people staying behind are suffering serious cognitive decline due to it.

nntwozz• 3 years ago

Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner is a great documentary, really recommended.

It was to be called Dangerous Days in Fancher's last draft before eventually taking the name Blade Runner.

johnvaluk• 3 years ago

Great novel. It's a shame the author never gave it a title. /s

swayvil• 3 years ago

Alan E. Nourse. Silverberg says he's a good sci fi writer. Hmm.

Here's one of his short story collections

http://library.lol/fiction/5318504BEFA6ADEBC97C8EF417F51104

MrVandemar• 3 years ago

One of my all time favourite short sci-fi stories is "The Coffin Cure":

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24276/24276-h/24276-h.htm

It's about a guy who cures the common-cold ... and the consequences. Always had a soft spot for it.

karaterobot• 3 years ago

Alan E. Nourse wrote a short story called "Tiger by the Tail" that was collected in one of those Asimov or Martin Greenberg (or both) edited anthologies. For some reason the story really affected me, and I tracked it down after thirty years or so of half remembering it. I was surprised to learn about the Blade Runner connection from the Wikipedia article about him.

azakai• 3 years ago

This makes me suspect there is even more to this (amazing!) story:

Their saga is somewhat incomprehensible, not least because it’s eventually conveyed in two separate movies, intended to be screened either by alternating scenes from one of the film with scenes from the other, or by projecting them on two screens simultaneously. It concludes with Billy realizing he’s not living in 2014, as he once thought, but is actually somehow in 1914.

That's from Burroughs's work, which was based off of Nourse's. But that idea of two parallel times - of someone living in more than one time - is such a hallmark of Philip K. Dick's later work that I can't help but wonder if Borroughs was inspired by PKD. The timeline fits: Borroughs wrote this in the late 70's, and PKD's experience that led to his obsession with parallel times was in 1974 [1], and his first published work inspired by it was that same year.

If Borroughs was inspired by PKD, that's another weird coincidence in this chain of events. If he wasn't that's maybe even more of a coincidence actually.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#Paranormal_expe...

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK• 3 years ago

Executive summary: in an earlier dystopian novel by Alan E. Nourse, people are required to be sterilized as a condition to receive Universal Health Care. Underground clinics flourish, and people smuggling scalpels for those clinics are called blade runners.

empiricus• 3 years ago

lol. I always thought it is some well known english metaphor that everyone knows, and the only interpretation I had was "blade runner" means running (no time to think) on a blade (very thin margin of error) and any misstep will be a catastrophe.

Krzyckumw• 3 years ago

The title "Blade Runner" was unintentionally borrowed from a 1974 novel by Alan E. Nourse, and it has no direct connection to the plot or themes of the 1982 film directed by Ridley Scott, which is based on Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The adoption of the title has contributed to the film's enigmatic history and enduring cultural significance.

Digging into the odd history of Blade Runner’s title (2017)

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