20 Things You Somehow Missed In Blade Runner
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
In November of last year we all finally entered the real-life period where Blade Runner was set. With no flying cars or murderous androids on the loose, we laughed long and hard at how wide of the mark this prediction of a dystopian hellscape had ultimately been. Fast forward about 9 months later and, well, nobody's laughing now.
Ridley Scott's visionary sci-fi masterpiece, which was initially dubbed as a bit boring by critics and bombed at the box office, now stands as one of the most influential pieces of cinema ever created. Some people will even tell you it virtually invented the entire genre of cyberpunk, and you'll not catch me arguing.
But as well as being a triumph of narrative and imagination, Scott's hallmark as a director is in something he calls "layering". That means building an on-screen world so rich in detail and character, that merely being on set is an overwhelming experience. Whether or not most of this makes it onto the screen isn't important, as this is to help bring the characters and their stories to life, but when it does there's almost an enitre other movie hidden in both the sets and the subtext.
20. The Millennium Falcon
This is definitely more of a "trust me, it's there" than a thing you might have missed but, in a perverse tribute to Harrison Ford's breakthrough role, a Millenium Falcon can be seen in the establishing shots of Blade Runner.
Not soaring through the sky of bizarrely making the Kessel run in a measure of distance instead of time, but as a converted prop for the city's skyline. As Deckard and Gaff are flying into the police headquarters, one of the buildings just off to the left hand side of the shot is an upright model of the Falcon redressed to look like a skyscraper. It's very hard to see (the extreme left edge of the above picture), but it's there.