Blade Runner - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Blade Runner or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Blade Runner

[carl]

The dialogue from the opening scene between Holden and Leon is repeated on two other occasions in the movie: when Bryant is briefing Deckard on the replicants he must track down and when Deckard is driving through a tunnel. On both subsequent plays, the pauses and deliveries of the dialogue are slightly different suggesting this is audio from a least two different takes of that opening scene. For example, in the original scene, Holden interrupts Leon before he can complete his sentence, "I don't think I've ever taken one of these..." but in Bryant's office, Leon is allowed to finish the sentence before Holden says, "Now reaction time is a factor..." Deliveries of dialogue regarding Leon's address at the hotel are slightly different as well.

[caroline]

"I found as I was evolving on this that actually this story was pretty purple, and was not exactly a Dracula movie, but it was as purple as a Dracula movie." Ridley Scott's stated, his way of saying the movie is theatrical without being campy. Pretty sure that's what he means anyway.

[victoria]

(at around 13 mins) When Gaff brings Deckard to Blade Runner HQ before Bryant, Gaff is seen making a little origami figure of a chicken. The chicken origami suggests that Gaff is calling Deckard a coward because of his refusal to come out of retirement and hunt down Roy Batty and the other Replicants.

[sylvia]

Conflicts on set arose almost immediately upon commencement of filming. The first scenes to be shot where those which take place in Eldon Tyrell's (Joe Turkel) office. Despite careful pre-production, director Ridley Scott was very dismayed to find that the columns of the office had been built upside down; rearranging them took several hours. After two weeks of shooting, he decided he didn't like the lighting for the scenes, and ordered everything to be reshot from scratch. This not only put the film two weeks behind schedule only two weeks into the shoot, but also created a major conflict between Scott and the camera crew, headed by director of photography Jordan Cronenweth. Scott's perfectionism throughout production would often cause considerable delays when he decided to change lighting and sets on the spot. He also had many unused takes printed at considerable costs, causing the budget to inflate rather quickly. This also put a strain on his relation with the film's producers, but Scott stood his ground, and maintained that his background in commercials and keen eye for detail were exactly the reasons they had hired them.

[edgar]

On the September 26, 2019 episode of the podcast "Harmontown," Edward Neumeier recounted the story of how he was starting out as a proofreader in Hollywood when a huge film was shooting nearby. According to Neumeier, the set was so large and the crew so populated that crew members didn't know who else on set was a crew member and who was a sightseer. Neumeier eventually started unofficially working in the art department where he asked what the movie was actually about. Someone told him the film, which would eventually be called Blade Runner (1982), was about "a robot in a tutu." This gave Neumeier the inspiration to write RoboCop (1987).

[christina]

Grace Jones was considered to play Rachael.

[chad]

(at around 1h 24 mins) As Batty and Tyrell talk about how to prolong replicant lifespans, Batty suggests a process involving "EMS". Tyrell responds by saying that "Ethyl methanesulfonate" was tried unsuccessfully. Ethyl methanesulfonate is an actual organic compound with mutagenic and teratogenic qualities, used in genetics.

[leo]

In Philip K. Dick's original novel, animals were virtually extinct, something that the film only addresses in very subtle ways. The most obvious reference to this animal extinction is when Deckard asks Zhora if her snake is real, and she replies, "Do you think I'd be working in a place like this if I could afford one?" Another reference occurs in the scene where Deckard first visits Tyrell, and he asks Rachael if their owl is replicated; she responds with "Of course it is". In Dick's novel, the owls were the first creatures to die out.

[jesus]

"Anyone saying that I was forced to do voice-over [in the theatrical cut], that's rubbish, I wasn't," Ridley Scott stated, before pointing out that the inclusion of Deckard's (Harrison Ford) voice-over was something he initiated in order to clear up any confusion for viewers. Apparently Ford was equally unhappy with the voice-over, and Scott thinks it's clear in his line delivery. He's obviously pleased that it's been removed from this cut.

[veronica]

(at around 15 mins) The incept (birth) date of Pris (Daryl Hannah), a "basic pleasure model," is Valentine's Day, 14 February 2016.

[melinda]

A poster of the film can seen in Superman III (1983) in the scene which Evil Superman fights Clark Kent in the junkyard.

[jamie]

Ridley Scott wanted horizontal lights shining in through the windows during the scene where J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson) and Pris (Daryl Hannah) head up to his apartment, and when asked why he gave the following response. "Do you want me to be logical about it? Because we have air traffic in the city and because we have tall buildings, very tall buildings, and there's some kind of governor governing systems that, let's say, don't allow a car to crash. All the buildings have beacons on them, and they spin onto the building opposite." He says it's annoying having to describe and justify things when he knows "on film it's going to be beautiful, and I'm going to put a sound on it. A sound for light. They say 'a sound for light?' and I say yes, I want a sound for light."

[sandra]

According to Paul Sammon, who toured the set in 1981, the level of detail on everything (what Ridley Scott refers to as 'layering') was amazing, even though much of it would never be seen on screen. For example, written on the door of a bus was "Driver is Armed; Carries No Cash", whilst written in tiny print on the parking meters was "WARNING - DANGER! You Can Be Killed By Internal Electrical System If This Meter Is Tampered With". Also written on the parking meters was the rate - 1 minute parking cost $3. On a magazine rack were to be found magazines with mocked up twentieth-first covers; these magazines included Krotch, Zord, Bash, Creative Emotion and Droid. A skin magazine called Horn had headlines reading "The Cosmic Orgasm", "Hot Lust in Space", "Tit Job Review", "Scratch and Sniff Centrespread." Crime magazine Kill had covers reading "Multiple Murders - Readers' Own Photos", "98 Dead in Spinner Dive", "Death Penalty Snuffs 12 Jurors in Freak Accident." Another magazine, Moni, had headlines "Earthlings: Pay Big $ to See Future" by M. Deeley, "Higher Tech" by L.G. Paull and "Illegal Aliens" by R. Scott.

[aaron]

It was Ridley Scott's choice to have the opening credits be simply text against a black screen. "I knew my opening shot would be so spectacular," he says, "that I didn't want the titles to upstage them in any form."

[caroline]

(at around 1h 35 mins) At the end of the movie Roy Batty is making wolf howls when he chases Deckard at Bradbury's Building. Three years later Rutger Hauer starred in Ladyhawke (1985) as Navarre, a man who becomes a wolf.

[toni]

Dustin Hoffman was the original choice to play Deckard, although he wondered why he was asked to play a "macho character". According to Ridley Scott, Hoffman was interested, but wanted to make it a whole different kind of character. According to Paul Sammon, apart from Hoffman, other actors considered for the role included Tommy Lee Jones, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, William Devane, Raul Julia, Scott Glenn, Frederic Forrest, Robert Duvall, Judd Hirsch, Cliff Gorman, Peter Falk, Nick Nolte and Christopher Walken. Martin Sheen was offered the role, but he turned it down, as he was exhausted, having come off Apocalypse Now (1979).

[kenzi]

(at around 27 mins) On the right side of the door to the eye specialist is the sign, "l a Eyeworks" which is a reference to a trendy eyeglass store in LA. The type-style is the same as the store.

[fred]

Cityspeak was Edward James Olmos's idea. He has since been amazed at how prescient it was vis-a-vis the increasing multicultural influence Los Angeles has experienced in the intervening years.

[albert]

There were much more ideas for the depiction of future Los Angeles. Concept art by Syd Mead also included enormous freeways and more monumental buildings. However, budgetary constraints prevented these from being realized. Instead, existing buildings on the studio's backlot were modified to give them a bleak futuristic appearance. Since much of the enhancements were made from cheap materials that could be easily discerned on camera, director Ridley Scott employed copious use of darkness, rain and smoke to successfully sell the illusion.