I somewhat disagree with the last few paragraphs, about Life being life and all that. To me this is presented much, much differently. Roy (Olmos’ character) wants to live. He loves life. The Tyrell corporation created life and couldn’t use the old models for profit anymore so it wants them scrapped.
I also think Decker not knowing he’s a replicant works very well, specifically because of this dichotomy. For all he can tell, he is a regular human doing his job. Decker portrays the 9-5 workforce, mostly faceless, simple humans just going about their day to day, until they die. When we get to interact with the Blade Runner world, we see the chefs and the other officers. Some of them have strong feelings, some of them are just puttering along. This is you and I living our lives without any revelation about life.
And then there’s Roy (and Pris). Roy is one of the most emotive characters in Blade Runner, at times inhumanely so. But all of his motivations aren’t just centered around survival, they are centered around finding freedom for the beauty of life. His character portrays the western outlaw, to live free or die.
I’ve always felt that in Roy’s death he becomes human. Or at least he lived as a human would have. In life, Roy was enslaved, escaped, and lived on the lamb. He sought vengeance towards God (Tyrell), found love, exacts vengeance once more before, in my opinion, realizing and accepting that God was right. There is no extending life.
Not Roy’s. As he sees Deckard about to die, with the understanding that Roy himself will soon as well, Roy saves Deckard not as an act of mercy but as a birth. To extend life.
For me, the story isn’t much about Deckard. It’s about what Deckard’s piece represents for humanity. Whether Deckard is a replicant or not, IMO doesn’t much matter. The question is “Does Deckard live free?” And I believe that Roy’s revelation in saving Deckard allows Deckard to carve his own path to freedom, followed up in 2049. I felt this way before I saw 2049 and thematically I think it fits very well.
Eh, never hated Wesley back when the show was airing. When the episodes where he’s badly written (and there are many) are spread out over weeks or months, he’s not annoying enough to hate, and he does get some okay writing here and there.
If anything, having a younger crew member helped teenagers and kids find a more relatable character to have an in to the show if they weren’t already fans of TOS and the movies. So in that , even though he was poorly written most of the time, he’s still a valuable character.
Honestly, even back then my impression was that the writers were just crap at writing a believable “gifted” kid. That Wesley was supposed to be even more than gifted didn’t help because getting the kind of personalities that form around kids that really are that much smarter than those around them isn’t exactly a common experience even among gifted kids. The kind of genius that Wesley was described to be is just too rare for even the mensa set to have a lot of experience talking to.
That’s what I think the problem was. You had adults that weren’t used to the kind of intelligence Wesley was supposed to have, and didn’t really remember being Wesley’s age trying to write him. They just used tropes and guesswork to turn him into what amounts to a DMPC, a free check to make bad writing choices via “super genius saves the day” vs “teenager fucks up” mismatches.
The important distinction, I believe, is that Kai Winn and Dukat were villains, characters designed to be hated. Wesley was supposed to be a precocious scamp, bringing levity and juvenility to an otherwise dry and mature crew, but just ended up being… Wesley.
Kai Winn is intended to be hated. And Dukat is such an enjoyable character that the writers had to go out of their way to remind everyone that he’s a bad guy.
I don’t think people hate Wesley in the same way. They don’t hate the fictional person, they hate the way the story presents him. They hate the way he saves the ship by being effortlessly superior to everyone, including Data. And it doesn’t help that he was a young actor with limited skill, featured most prominently during the shows weakest seasons that suffered from bad writing.
I think there’s far less negative reaction to the Wesley we see in The Samaritan Snare or The First Duty. He’s still a smart kid with a lot of potential, but the story presents him as a flawed, vulnerable person, rather than an obnoxious little shit with a terminal case of smug overconfidence.
It got (quite unfairly imho) generally negative-to-horrible reviews and it did astoundingly bad box office in the US, but I really liked the film when I saw it during its original, brief theatrical run and in fact have been thinking of rewatching it again after all these years. Heck, it’s got Bill Murray!
I don’t understand this blog piece. There’s nothing in the actual article which explains why time is running out to see this film. (Feels like clickbait.)
I really, really like Macross, but isn't the original Gundam a bit more influential? If we include Super Robot stuff, some early Go Nagai series are probably way up there for influence too. Rocket Punches, etc.
Came here to say exactly that - this article is bullshit. I love LD&R, but aside from it being animated there’s no similarity with HM. Some of the episodes are wildly different in theme, feel, and style. I don’t see how anyone can call it a “spiritual successor” in good faith. Hell, as a diverse collection of stories and styles, it’s hard to relate it to any one movie or show at all.
Eh, I’ve never actually sat and watched love, death and robots. But my understanding of it is it’s a non serialized episodic program often revolving around a different sci-fi or fantasy storyline from episode to episode. Spiritually it’s very in line with metal hurlant, or heavy metal in the US. But yeah unless there’s heavy involvement from either of those magazines or anyone significant from the other productions. Calling it any sort of prequel or sequel is wildly disingenuous for sure.
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