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Roger Deakins to shoot Blade Runner sequel


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You know, honestly, I wonder if Deakins is right or this. I mean yes he's amazing, but I never really associated Blade Runner with his particular visual style.

Also I think it needs to be film. It would be ideal to do it on 65mm. Or, if they have to go digital, Alexa65, though in truth I very much so doubt that digital can capture the world of Blade Runner in any real way.

In truth; though, the real loss is that Doug Trumball and/or His style of FX and plate shots, won't be included. It'll just be a lot of CGI crap which'll instantly date it.

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But they're saying that Harrison Ford is appearing in this, which defeats the purpose of the questions asked in the original. That didn't happen in Godfather or Star Wars.

 

Hopefully there won't be a replicant Jar Jar Binks in this installment of "Blade Runner"...

 

But what's the question... whether Deckard is a replicant... depending the edit of the film one can get either answer being strongly suggested...

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the question is, what is it that makes us human? our memories, our thoughts, our feelings and emotions? or is it flesh and bone? the very best of SciFi asks this question and Ridley Scott's choice not to answer it was his master stroke. answering it will take away from the original's effect.being able to see it either way with Deckard being human or replicant is the beauty of a good film. its wide open to interpretation to the millions who will view it.

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the question is, what is it that makes us human? our memories, our thoughts, our feelings and emotions? or is it flesh and bone?

 

You are what you do. A man is defined by his actions, not his memory.

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The point was that we don't find out, and that ambiguity was one of the themes of the film. The sequel would pretty much ruin it.

 

We do find out.. we didnt originally because the studio,s cut out the dream sequence with the unicorn .. Scott put it back in for the director s cut .. and it all makes sense .. people have read too much into it as usual ..hanging around in coffee shops in Santa Monica .. from the director of the film..

 

Also in a interview Ridley Scott did in Wired magazine in 2007[2], he explained this matter:

Wired:
It was never on paper that Deckard is a replicant.

Scott:
It was, actually. That's the whole point of Gaff, the guy who makes origami and leaves little matchstick figures around. He doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. If you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is a Nexus 7, he probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully human. Gaff, at the very end, leaves an origami, which is a piece of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet, and it's a unicorn. Now, the unicorn in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that, it's Gaff's message to say, "I've read your file, mate." That relates to Deckard's first speech to Rachael when he says, "That's not your imagination, that's Tyrell's niece's daydream." And he describes a little spider on a bush outside the window. The spider is an implanted piece of imagination. And therefore Deckard, too, has imagination and even history implanted in his head.

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We do find out.. we didnt originally because the studio,s cut out the dream sequence with the unicorn .. Scott put it back in for the director s cut .. and it all makes sense .. people have read too much into it as usual ..hanging around in coffee shops in Santa Monica .. from the director of the film..

 

Also in a interview Ridley Scott did in Wired magazine in 2007[2], he explained this matter:

Wired: It was never on paper that Deckard is a replicant.Scott: It was, actually. That's the whole point of Gaff, the guy who makes origami and leaves little matchstick figures around. He doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. If you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is a Nexus 7, he probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully human. Gaff, at the very end, leaves an origami, which is a piece of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet, and it's a unicorn. Now, the unicorn in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that, it's Gaff's message to say, "I've read your file, mate." That relates to Deckard's first speech to Rachael when he says, "That's not your imagination, that's Tyrell's niece's daydream." And he describes a little spider on a bush outside the window. The spider is an implanted piece of imagination. And therefore Deckard, too, has imagination and even history implanted in his head.

Never thought of it that way. Thanks for enlightening me!

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Big part of Blade Runner's classic would be related to it's aesthetic, dirty Film Noir-esque impression, which has turned out to be a real passion to me (I still prefer shooting my Canon XL2 over digital glass cannon nowadays), and I am really, really scared the digital camera world, be it RED, Arri or Sony, will ruin it, along with Deakins' Wide-opened lens habit.

 

I'd love to see it shot on an Aaton Penelope, personnally.

If they are to stick to Digital, My dream is they'd use an F35 or a Panavision Genesis, but hell, it will never happen.

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It's going to look amazing if Deakins is shooting it and the production design is anywhere close to the original, that's a given.

 

And I think Deakins would naturally embrace that neon-lit urban look that Cronenweth captured, along with the moody soft but contrasty lighting.

 

But I doubt that they will embrace Scott's use of long lenses, though "Blade Runner", being studio-bound, was less telephoto-looking than some of Scott's later movies. And it probably won't be shot in anamorphic. I don't have any issues with it being shot on Alexas instead of film.

 

The other interesting thing will be to see if every set will use smoke and we'll see a lot of xenons sweeping through that smoke...

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I think my issues with a 'Blade Runner' sequel are entirely script and director-based. The general quality level of cinematography is high right now so I don't think there's anyone getting regular calls to shoot studio franchise films who wouldn't do a great job, regardless of format. Roger Deakins will obviously do a wonderful job, as always. The real question is, will the script and directorial vision be up to par?

 

The original 'Blade Runner' was really a slow burning mood-based tone poem hidden inside a big budget studio genre picture. It only worked because the creatives and talent involved were inspired and allowed to contribute with huge leaps of imagination, and the producers and executives allowed it to happen. The new 'Mad Max' and Christopher Nolan films aside, I don't see much evidence that studios are allowing that kind of creative indulgence on their tentpole properties (which 'Blade Runner 2' surely is expected to be) these days.

 

I feel like there is a lot of fear (understandably) based around making a profit on these behemoth productions, and that creativity and originality are low on the priority list. You'd really need a team of ambitious mavericks ready to commit career suicide to take on a project like this and make it anywhere close to the original. And then, it might not even be good - you might end up with something like 'In Time' rather than 'Ex Machina.' It's almost an impossible task.

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In terms of a "Blade Runner" sequel, there is material that was in the original book, and there have been a couple of follow on books by other writers, which could be used for a 'sequel'. Since the script hasn't been published, one will not know how much, if any, of this additional material will be used, or if it will be a completely out of new cloth story, with a few hooks to the original film.

 

I'm not worried... in either area... digital is fine with me, and story will most likely be sufficiently interesting... I even like "Prometheus"(2012)... and not only because it was the first and only time I've been with in 20 feet of Riddley Scott at a preview of the first trailer...

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Very nervous about this. BLADE RUNNER is unbelievably beautiful and it's look in completely 80s, uncorrected fluorescents, neon, natural randomly occurring anamorphic flares, the lack of exposure latitude in 100asa stock. As someone born the year before BLADE RUNNER was made I see it as a time capsule of ideas, thoughts and looks of that era and not as a futuristic sci-fi film. It can't possible look "the same" and maybe it shouldn't be trying to but in that case maybe it just shouldn't be, after all it's not many years until 2019 and that world of the original film certainly hasn't happened. Maybe it would be more interesting to have an original film imagining the future from the perspective of 2015 - just a thought.

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Very nervous about this. BLADE RUNNER is unbelievably beautiful and it's look in completely 80s, uncorrected fluorescents, neon, natural randomly occurring anamorphic flares, the lack of exposure latitude in 100asa stock. As someone born the year before BLADE RUNNER was made I see it as a time capsule of ideas, thoughts and looks of that era and not as a futuristic sci-fi film.

 

Totally agree, Alex.

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I ALso would prefer f35 if it had to be digital but I really don't want to see a digital version of blade runner. It's a bit too much like those Disney sequels where they cheap out on a direct to DVD follow up.

 

I really don't want to see the world of blade runner in those overused Alexa colours and while some may say it just needs a great story, for myself I feel the cinematography is very important and is something I care about. David seems to really care a lot about the cinematography while not caring if it is film or digital. I find that view both fascinating and impossible to understand. There is a word for that feeling but I can't remember what it is right now! For myself the camera format is an important part of the cinematography.

 

As an aside, does anyone know exactly what anamorphics were used? I'm assuming early panavision series lenses?

 

Freya

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Roger Deakins is (obviously) an excellent choice. But I was kind of hoping Jeff Cronenweth would do it. Let him do an homage to his father.

Jeff Cronenwith is also (obviously) qualified, and is at home doing the kind of dark imagery I always associate with Blade Runner (example: Fight Club).

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Very nervous about this. BLADE RUNNER is unbelievably beautiful and it's look in completely 80s, uncorrected fluorescents, neon, natural randomly occurring anamorphic flares, the lack of exposure latitude in 100asa stock. As someone born the year before BLADE RUNNER was made I see it as a time capsule of ideas, thoughts and looks of that era and not as a futuristic sci-fi film. It can't possible look "the same" and maybe it shouldn't be trying to but in that case maybe it just shouldn't be, after all it's not many years until 2019 and that world of the original film certainly hasn't happened. Maybe it would be more interesting to have an original film imagining the future from the perspective of 2015 - just a thought.

With a lot of classic Science Fiction written decades ago, the ONLY convincing way it can be turned into a movie today is pretend you are making the movie at the time the story was written but using modern equipment of course. That was one of truly great things about John Carter (of Mars). The Martian aircraft looked like a logical development of the sort of aircraft actually in existence when the original book was written. If I remember correctly (I'd have to watch it again) I think they explained Mars's habitability by suggesting that Carter traveled in time as well as space, back to when Mars had a more Earth like climate .

 

It's incredible that by using a bit of imagination and rear projection, the were able to produce very convincing-looking iPad-like devices in 2001: A Space Odyssey, 40 years before anything like that actually existed. And yet, so many later productions of scenes supposedly set centuries in the future feature clunky-looking CRT monitors.

 

The biggest problem with most Science Fiction is that it fails miserably in predicting the way Human technologies actually went.

Until the1980s about the nearest thing to a cellphone anybody ever came up with was Dick Tracy's 2-way wrist radio, and only HE and his colleagues actually had those. The idea that primary school kids would be carrying their own personal all-in-one phone, camera, FM radio, solid-state music player, and whatever else they stick in there these days to convince you you need a new one :rolleyes: was never even thought of.

 

One of my favorite examples of that was an old Issac Asimov short story written in the 50s but set centuries in the future, where a kid was complaining that he had to go to school to use a "real" computer with a keyboard, because with the one his cheapskate parents had at home, he had to enter data on punched cards! :D

 

Disclaimer: No I'm not THAT old; but I know what punched cards are and how they were used!

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One of my favorite examples of that was an old Issac Asimov short story written in the 50s but set centuries in the future, where a kid was complaining that he had to go to school to use a "real" computer with a keyboard, because with the one his cheapskate parents had at home, he had to enter data on punched cards! :D

 

Disclaimer: No I'm not THAT old; but I know what punched cards are and how they were used!

 

Punch or Hollerith cards were still commonly in use in the mid 80's. Open reel magnetic tape was still a common temporary and backup storage media in the 90's.

 

Much as I dislike using Wikipedia links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card

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Regarding this whole film vs. digital debate: I doubt John Cronenweth would have been thinking so much about the "grain structure" of his film stock in 1981/82, probably more about how to expose on 100 ASA stock with C-series anamorphics (IMDb says he used C-series), and he would have likely wanted the cleanest and least grainy image possible. Jump forward 30 years, and now everyone suddenly wants more grain.

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Regarding this whole film vs. digital debate: I doubt John Cronenweth would have been thinking so much about the "grain structure" of his film stock in 1981/82, probably more about how to expose on 100 ASA stock with C-series anamorphics (IMDb says he used C-series), and he would have likely wanted the cleanest and least grainy image possible. Jump forward 30 years, and now everyone suddenly wants more grain.

You didn't quote anyone and I've been unable to find any mention of "grain structure" in the thread and definitely no-one said they wanted more grain. In fact you can even like the grain structure in a film without the film being grainy.

 

I think it's often a stereotype that people who have a love for film must be all about the grain. I do like some grain but that isn't the quality that I most miss when something is shot digitally. It's more the colours and the smoothness of the images etc. Digital just isn't that close to the quality of film and we presently seem to be struggling to go forward with better quality images from digital cameras. In some respects we seem to be going backwards in fact.

 

Freya

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Digital just isn't that close to the quality of film and we presently seem to be struggling to go forward with better quality images from digital cameras. In some respects we seem to be going backwards in fact.

 

Yup!

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Attempt to billhook more money out of ancient, respected property? Gah.

 

Blade Runner sequel, in any sense? Urngh.

 

Five writing credits? Ghhh.

 

Star rammed in against all plot cohesion? Blgh.

 

Overall, Gahurnghhhblgh, and I haven't even started thinking about what it looks like yet.

 

P

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Attempt to billhook more money out of ancient, respected property? Gah.

 

Blade Runner sequel, in any sense? Urngh.

 

Five writing credits? Ghhh.

 

Star rammed in against all plot cohesion? Blgh.

 

Overall, Gahurnghhhblgh, and I haven't even started thinking about what it looks like yet.

 

P

 

I don't feel qualified to comment, but I agree with you. Why do we need this?

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I think it's often a stereotype that people who have a love for film must be all about the grain. I do like some grain but that isn't the quality that I most miss when something is shot digitally. It's more the colours and the smoothness of the images etc. Digital just isn't that close to the quality of film and we presently seem to be struggling to go forward with better quality images from digital cameras. In some respects we seem to be going backwards in fact.

 

Freya

I guess I'm only talking about grain because it's the reason why Janusz Kaminski likes film but also why Roger Deakins has begun to use digital (that's what he said on his forum, anyway); and I haven't really been able to find any real reason in this thread about why film is superior for 'Blade Runner'

But I see what you mean by smoothness of the images shot on film. Regarding colour, would the colour quality really matter that much in a film like 'Blade Runner' where all the colours will be manipulated by the lighting?

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