#238: GWC's 4th Birthday, Blade Runner

Podcasts Galactic Watercooler
#21

Had a blast on Sunday’s skypefest! Thanks for letting me hang. And a belated happy birthday, GWC!

I don’t remember how I found the GWC podcast but I started watching BSG after Season 2 finished airing, and caught up before season 3 started - so it was definitely around that time when I found it (presumably from googling some odd question about Baltar or something). What I do remember was listening through some of the older podcasts during that time, and there was this one podcast when Audra sings “Here in CIC”, and after that, I was hooked and started subscribing on itunes. So…not only do kickass graphics attract, but awesome music does too.

A little into the podcast…have to wait til I get home to listen to the rest.
Chinese: I guess it depends on how strict your definition of “Chinese” is, but they do not constitute half the world’s population. More like 20%. Which is still very many (and still the largest ethnic group in the world…until India passes it, at least). But China’s population is about 1.3 billion, add about several hundred million overseas Chinese (which is quite generous), maybe minus say 40 million off for the hundreds of ethnic minorities that aren’t strictly “Han Chinese” in China and you get about 1.4 billion, about 20% of about 7 billion people. Unless you meant Asians as a whole, which would include India (another biggie for populations) plus a whole bunch of smaller but well populated countries, then maybe even more than half the world’s population.

#22

HAPPY BDAY GWC.
Thank you for binging the awe into awesome.

Juan once again proved why there can be only JUAN!!! Awesome, I wish I could skype more with the community these days. After a first year with all of you, the GWC family, I cannot remember how I got by my day to day before meeting THE friendliest people in Sci-fi ( or the world for that matter).

Only one minus after listening to this particular cast : Officially in meet-up withdrawal again :frowning:

Thank you Award Winning GWC crew and friends !!! :slight_smile:

#23

Congratulations on your fourth birthday. I am not entirely sure I found GWC, but I am glad I did. It is the ONLY Podcast I regularly listen to!

Loved the Bladerunner segment on this week’s podcast. Bladerunner is one of my favourite movies of all time, even if I did find the Philip K. Dick book to be not as good. It was a few years later that I discovered that the cityscape of Los Angeles 2019 was not a model FX shot, but a view over ICI Wilton Chemical Works in North East England, ten miles from where I grew up. I wondered why that scene looked so familiar to (and yes, they did have jets of flame venting waste gases too!)

#24

Blade Runner is part, actually the progenitor, of what is called today neo-noir, however it is not the first scfi film that is shot as a film noir. That honor goes to 1965’s Alphaville shot by Jean Luc Goddard and is also one of the seminal films of the French New Wave of the 60’s.

Also Syd Mead referenced a lot of things in the design of the city (The documentary Dangerous Days about the creation of this film goes in depth on the design aspects) referencing everything from Cecil B Demille’s Cleopatra (the Tyrell Building interiors) to Metropolis (the LAPD Building). Also in reference to Metropolis is the difference in Lifestyle of say Tyrell and the common people. BTW for a real trip, Syd Meade also designed the environment of Disney’s TRON.

Finally as a side note, there is a spiritual sequel to Blade Runner, 1998 Soldier starring Kurt Russel and written by Blade Runner coscribe David Peoples.

#25

Dangerous Days, the documentary that came with The Final Cut of Blade Runner is really good, and well worth checking out if you can get a hold of it.

#26

I think you were misinformed. It was indeed a model shot, although it was based on San Pedro chemical plants, which probably look a lot like English ones.

See Doug Trumbull’s video on the model on his site (you want the “Blade Runner: Hades Landscape” one.)

#27

Dangerous Days is 3 1/2 hours long, too.

Also, Ridley Scott does a great commentary for the movie in the Final Cut DVD set as well.

~Shooter Out

#28

Wow. He even had a possible solution for the Gulf spill too.

#29

I incorrectly recalled Scott’s quote, the idea was based on his your in South-Shields, as Ridley Scott explained:
There’s a walk from Redcar into Hartlepool … I’d cross a bridge at night, and walk above the steel works. So that’s probably where the opening of Blade Runner comes from. It always seemed to be rather gloomy and raining, and I’d just think “God, this is beautiful.” You can find beauty in everything, and so I think I found the beauty in that darkness.

#30

Yeah, northern New Jersey is like that. The glow of the collecting ponds is beautiful.

#31

The traditional gift for a fourth anniversary is fruit or flowers…

http://www.findgift.com/Anniversary-Table/

#32

Happy Fourth Anniversary GWC! I haven’t even been listening for four months yet, but I love it. This is by far my favorite podcast. This cast was excellent, as always.

When Sean mentioned EXO-Squad I yelled “AWESOME” while sitting in traffic. I love that show and wish it hadn’t been cancelled without wrapping up the story. The toys were pretty neat too, but one thing that I thought was strange was that they eventually released repainted Robotech figures as part of EXO-Squad. IIRC, they called them out as Robotech but I never understand why this was done and what the connection is between the two shows.

EDIT: After a quick trip over to Wikipedia, it appears that there was talk of a Robotech/EXO-Sqaud crossover at one point but it never went anywhere.

#33

Happy 4th GWC!

#34

Happy (belated) 4th birthday, GWC! It’s been fun listening, and it’s been even more fun coming to the forums and geeking out.

Also I should have made this comment during or immediately after listening this week, because I was going to add something or other and it’s completely out of my head now after a tough work week.

THANKS FOR GETTING ME THROUGH TOUGH WORK WEEK GUYS.

#35

little late but happy 4th GWC you have given me countless hours of enjoyment. :smiley:

#36

What can I say. GWC is the best.

Every week I look forward to the new podcast. And in my book, the longer the better. I think I started listening at podcast #8 -have loved it all.

Congrats and here’s hoping for many more years.

Thank you Chuck, Sean and Audra !!

#37

listened to this one and about half the following one on my 3 1/4 hour drive to Dublin yesterday.
Blade runner: none of ye seemed to mention the theory that Dekkard was also a replicant, also, how can you watch it without the commentary, I mean you guys were complaining about inception being confusing, blade runner is a lot more understandable with harrison ford’s voiceover.
only an hour and 3/4? c’mon people, you’re making even shorter podcasts, we wants more gwc goodness.

SEan: duno how I miossed it so far but with your full name I’m guyessing there’s more than a little Irish in you?
Phaze
on the “I sdhould porbably get up now, shower shave and eat a faintly healthy breakfas - or rather brunch, it is almost noon…t” ID

#38

I’m astonished, no mention of Deckard being a replicant!? That’s a huge part of the story! The origami at the end, for instance, is not just ‘I was here’ from Gantt, it was an origami unicorn. Remember Deckard’s unicorn dream? Now recall Deckard describing the spider memory to Rachel. She hadn’t told anyone about it, it was a planted memory. Deckard tells nobody about the unicorn dream, because it’s an implanted memory. Also, the replicants have hex light reflections in their eyes, as does Deckard. Finally Gantt saying “You’ve done a mans job”…

Yeargh! This is worthy of revisit.

#39

As MC Frontalot said, “Deckard is a replicant (probably.)”

Scott and Ford had very different interpretations of this. Ford played him as human, and the original (voice over) cut did not include the unicorn dream. The origami unicorn was understood by most to mean that Gaff had been there, but he was letting them go.

Subsequent edits by Scott have increasingly played up the “Deckard as replicant” angle.

WikiP has a page that extensively lists the differences b/t the various versions.

#40

Seeing the movie the first time prolly helps to have Ford’s voice over. After that, I think most can make due without. Unless you were talking about the auudio commentary.

I pointed that out back in the 5th post. But to be fair, I do not recall whether the version the crew watched had the unicorn dream. Without it, he’s supposedly not a replicant.