Cheap Retrofitting Blade Runner : Issues in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Book) (Judith B. Kerman) Price

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Customer Reviews of Retrofitting Blade Runner : Issues in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Essays that , like, prove it's amazing and stuff
For the ignorant fools who didn't know what they were watching the first 168 times around, this book has essays with subtexts and subconcious imagary that will blow your mind. <
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>A box office failure shined to gold by looking-back critics and an army of fans, Blade Runner is now the requisite sci-fi inspiration film. It's still a stylish but bleak, cold film and has rightfully earned its supercult status. A lot of people responded to it in their own way. <
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>The book has plenty of food for thought, but it gets to be much after a while. Authors compare the various themes in Blade Runner and use this as a springboard for ruminations on Frankenstein, feminism, film noir, you name it, Blade Runner has it. Slave narrative, horror film, it's in there. And there's room for an updated version as plenty of published material has appeared since this book did in the early 90s. Recommended for the obsessed Blade Runner fan--and there is no other kind.

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Another edition warranted
The single most valuable piece in this volume is the shot by shot analysis from a laser disc version of the film. This study is worth the price of the book. Kerman has done a fine job of coordinating her contributors in order to prevent repetition, nevertheless, the separate writers unavoidably discuss certain key moments with negligible differences in their opinions. In addition to bordering on monotony, such repetition becomes frustrating in a couple of instances where each author has settled on a misinterpretation of the film. For instance, these writers accept that Rachel's memories are Tyrell's niece's. Quite clearly, Harrison Ford's delivery of the words, "Tyrell's niece's" suggests that he is speculating or offering an absurd example for an absurd reality. Certainly one is hard-pressed to imagine some woman allowing her uncle to use her awkward sexual experiences as an operating platform in the latest model of his vastly successful androids. On other issues, the commentators diverge, as when the superimposed eye from the opening is attributed to various characters. Such differences of opinion are rare, but they add a considerable spark to the collection when they do occur.
The volume could use another edition which adds more discussion of the director's cut. The current volume only fits in a few short pieces at the very end, whereas most of the book is devoted to the original version. For serious enthusiasts of this film, there is a great joy in these pages to read the thoughts of other people who've thought about "Blade Runner" as much as you have. Like the film itself, though, the perfect version of this book probably has yet to emerge.

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Fascinating and Exhaustive
I thought my 10 year career as Blade Runner appreciator would have overturned all the 'stones' of interest - and yet this book yields countless articles many of which containing subtleties and revelations totally new to me. Of course, if you're not a major blade runner fan you'll want to become one first.