Re: Why the Blade Runner Voice Over Sucks

> I disagree.  I can follow the film now that I know everything, but when my
> daughter and I watched it without the voiceover (her first time) she
> admitted to not totally following what was going on.

While I agree with your (unquoted) point that a more subtle voiceover
may have been a good compromise, it always gives me pause when people
say the film is difficult to follow without it.

The flick is *extremely* straightforward. There are no plot "twists,"
no unexplained or extraneous characters, no backstory, no complex
mythology to decipher. Deckard's journey is completely linear, simply
following one clue to the next, with very little "detecting" involved.
Heck, unless I'm forgetting something, there are only five locations
in the entire flick (Deckard's apartment, Tyrell's headquarters, the
police station, the strip club, and Sebastian's apartment building).
Two of those locations (the strip club and the police station) barely
even qualify. So what is it, do you think, that makes the film hard to
follow for some people?

I have a theory, which incriminates neither the viewers nor the flick
itself. People appreciate films in different ways. Some of us are
content to be hypnotized by the aesthetic and thematic beauty of a
story. Others are more character-focused. Still others are
plot-focused. I can't believe anyone would find Blade Runner's A-B-C
plot hard to follow -- but the film is very, very *slow,* which I
think causes some people's minds to wander. The flick doesn't jump out
and grab you by the lapels, it unspools quietly, and mesmerizes the
viewer with its surreal visuals, dreamy score, and sparse dialogue. I
think that makes it hard for plot-oriented people to maintain focus.

The voice-over works for this type of viewer, not because it explains
the goings-on, but because it's like someone gently shaking their
shoulder every ten minutes and saying, "Hey, remember the snake scale?
We're going to find out where it came from."

-- 
-pcg
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