Flick Nation Presents … a selection of curated classic movie trailers.
And when we say “classic,” that doesn’t mean the movie was necessarily good, but has endured the test of time. Sure, maybe it’s one of the greatest flicks ever … or maybe it’s a movie that’s so awesome that it should have endured. Either way, consider the next two minutes of your life as homework for your streaming queue.
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is such a classic at this point that it’s really weird to discover that the movie never lit the box office on fire. While E.T., Rocky III, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Poltergeist made all the money, Blade Runner dropped out of the Top 10 after three weeks and was considered a failure. It took until 1992 and the first of six (!!!) different recuts for the legend to stick. And now we have Blade Runner II in development. May it not be retires so quickly.
30-YEAR SPOILER: Yeah, Decker’s totally a replicant!
The official line: Blade Runner is a 1982 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is a modified film adaptation of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Blade Runner initially polarized critics: some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. Hailed for its production design, depicting a “retrofitted” future, it remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre. It brought the work of Philip K. Dick to the attention of Hollywood and several later films were based on his work. Ridley Scott regards Blade Runner as “probably” his most complete and personal film.
In 1993, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Blade Runner is now regarded by many critics as one of the best science fiction films ever made. Seven versions of the film have been shown for various markets as a result of controversial changes made by film executives. A Director’s Cut was released in 1992 after a strong response to workprint screenings. This, in conjunction with its popularity as a video rental, made it one of the first films released on DVD, resulting in a basic disc with mediocre video and audio quality. In 2007, Warner Bros. released The Final Cut, a 25th anniversary digitally remastered version which is the only one on which Scott had complete artistic freedom and was shown in selected theaters and subsequently released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray.
