Ridley Scott

It’s considered a classic and it’s got a great new sequel coming out this week. But is the original ‘Blade Runner’ overrated?

Haven’t seen the original ‘Blade Runner’? Read this before you head to the theater to watch the big sequel this weekend.

Denis Villeneuve, Ryan Gosling, and Harrison Ford managed to top one of the most beloved sci-fi films in history with one of the all-time great sequels.

The first people to see the highly anticipated sequel say it’s one of the best movies of 2017 and more than lives up to the legacy of the original.

We’re getting not one, but two new Ridley Scott films this year. The prolific director’s next film, which is slated for an awards season release in December, is a dramatic thriller based on the infamous Getty kidnapping. The first trailer for All the Money in the World has arrived, and it boasts an ensemble that includes Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, and an almost unrecognizable Kevin Spacey — giving Gary Oldman a run for his money in this year’s “actor becomes unrecognizable to play historical figure” race.

As they often do when a much-beloved film property gets revived after decades spent dormant, fans have had plenty of cause to fret while Blade Runner 2049 has neared its release. Will there be a voiceover? (No.) Will the film definitively answer the question of whether Deckard is a replicant? (Also no.) Will the soundtrack rule? (It certainly seems that way.) And yet so many questions still remain in advance of the film’s wide release. Today will resolve one big one, however, and assuage quite a few fan worries with it.

There are many things that tie the upcoming Blade Runner 2049 to Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner: Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard, the replicants, the Tyrell Corporation, and — most importantly, for those fans who are skeptical of the sequel — the original Blade Runner screenwriter Hampton Fancher, who co-wrote the script of the 1982 movie adapted from Philip K. Dick’s novel.

Ridley Scott has gotten into expansive universe mode. When he opened the doors to the possibility with 2012’s Prometheus, he immediately began to plan for more, to write a detailed pre-history of his seminal Alien which has come to us in the form of Alien: Covenant, and which, like the Universe itself, grows ever larger by the day. Now, it looks like he‘s turning his sights to his other sci-fi property, which is itself also getting a sequel this year. And Scott wants even more.

It’s been 35 years since Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner debuted and forever changed the landscape of science-fiction cinema. And 35 years later, the film is making an improbable comeback in theaters this fall in Blade Runner 2049, produced by Scott and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Harrison Ford returns to his role as Blade Runner Rick Deckard, with Ryan Gosling joining him as Officer K and Jared Leto playing himself (we think).

Someday, I hope someone makes a documentary about Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5. First the project was held up by Ridley Scott, then Blomkamp released concept art that kinda-sorta forced the studio’s hand, then Blomkamp’s Chappie bombed and 20th Century Fox started dragging its heels, and then Scott started saying that the project was never actually anything substantial to begin with. No Alien sequel, no matter how fun, could possibly match the twists and turns of Blomkamp’s real-life struggle to get the film made.