BLADE RUNNER and Me
June 25, 2022.
Forty Years.
Today marks 40 years ago when my life changed for better or worse. Today marks 40 years since a ten-year-old kid walked out of a movie theater and knew precisely what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. That day I decided I wanted to work telling stories and working in the film business. Today is the 40th Anniversary of Blade Runner.
Forty years later, I can still feel the same chill going down my spine when the credits finished and we left the theater for the car to go home. Blade Runner was rated R, and I could only see it because my sister, Jill, acted as my “parent or adult guardian.”
Only with books had I ever had an experience like the 117 minutes I spent watching Blade Runner. Having an out-of-body experience and going somewhere without leaving a seat was never that powerful, not even with Star Wars.
Everything happening on the screen with Blade Runner was real to me. I was in Los Angeles in 2019 in Orlando, Florida 1982. The smells, the rain, the suspense, and the lighting were as real as the theater I was sitting in.
As a kid, and because of our financial situation as a family, we couldn’t go on extended vacations or places outside of Orlando. Books had always provided that gateway to other places and new people. It was just because of my love for the macabre and strange that I was enthralled by the dark dystopian city in which Blade Runner took place. I never wanted to visit a place over the rainbow or planets like Tatooine. I had never traveled by celluloid to another place and time.
You probably have your own moments that you can recall that are so pivotal they change your life. Seeing Blade Runner on its opening day, that 117 minutes did just that. I don’t know if that’s normal for a 10-year-old kid to carry that through their lives. But that was me.
From that point on, movies and movie-making became my entire life, and I can still say that today. The passion of wanting that transport into a different world was lit that day. It’s a feeling I strive for in all that I write and the videos I am sometimes privileged to allow make.
A box office bomb when released, Blade Runner’s influence and power have had the last laugh. There’s no way such a force in film can be ignored, and continued discussion, sequels, and the respect Blade Runner is shown today prove there was something more there than just a futuristic detective story.
If you’re reading this, you need no recap of Blade Runner. It affected you. It had to. We’re still talking about it and celebrating after 40 years. So what was it with Blade Runner for you?
I can’t let this day go by without writing about this movie on this special day. I want to thank Ridley Scott and ALL of the crew that made Blade Runner possible. You did more than just make a movie. You inspired a life. I love this movie on levels I have never felt for a film, except for George Miller’s Mad Max series.
Blade Runner changed my life.
All I can say is Thank you.
