Customer Reviews

Future Noir: The Making Of Blade Runner

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a fantastic book and reference tool, and a must-have for any hard-core Blade Runner (BR) fanatic. It's packed with names, places, dates, fascinating factoids throughout, a trivia cornucopia. But, you've gotta be a serious BR fan to stick with author Paul Sammon all the way through this densely detailed, thorough, and clearly personally meaningful work. The book does have one major flaw: Sammon's failure to prove his subtitle promise that Blade Runner is the most influential sci-fi film of all time.

The book reads easily and well, Sammon's style informal. He writes as one BR fan to another, a great approach. The production details are thorough, insightful, and wonderful to read, 441 pages in 18 chapters, with nine appendices containing interviews, production details, the cast list, etc. Sammon is a total BR devotee, I compliment and commend him on his achievement and the recognition of those who worked so hard to make BR.

There is vast information throughout from all members of the cast and crew, all of them supportive of Sammon's effort to tell their story. There is surprisingly liberal information from the movie's principals, Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Michael Deeley, Syd Mead, Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. One disappointment is the absence of direct input and comment from the soundtrack maestro, Vangelis. Sammon nevertheless gives him thorough justice.

Wonderful esoteric tidbits abound through the book, such as the revelation that the original lead was not Harrison Ford, but Dustin Hoffman. Edward James Olmos provides great background on his preparation for his role as Gaff and his detailed construction of his Cityspeak dialog (most of it sadly unused). We learn of fantastic special effects scenes never realized, and that in the background in one of the aerial city shots is a painted Millennium Falcon model. We learn that the process of creating this movie was a years-long, highly personal effort, first by Hampton Fancher to secure rights and create a screenplay, then later by Ridley Scott and other members of the team who continued to craft the film even after they were fired by the production company. It is a story of dedication to craft and art from a group of artists looking to raise diverse artistic, social, moral, and ethical issues with this genre-transcending film. I often was reminded of the documentary Hearts of Darkness, the story of Francis Ford Coppola's unending dedication to and struggles with the making of Apocalypse Now.

Highlighted superbly in the book is the true key to BR's success, Ridley Scott's intense attention to detail, his relentless questioning of the larger context and physical placement of the story. For example, Scott insisted on instructions painted on the futuristic parking meters in the street scenes. Absolutely illegible in the finished film, this sort of detail nonetheless set a compelling, even subconscious tone for the set and those who worked within it.

Particularly entertaining is Chapter 8, the scene by scene account of the shoot, with comment from the actors, producers, specialists, crew, and Scott. Also very useful for the true BR fanatic are the appendices listing all of the various BR versions, their formats, availability, and catalog information. Sammon does the same for the various soundtracks and musical compositions heard throughout the film, even the music and lyrics from the advertisements sported on the ad-blimps. Especially enjoyable is Appendix C's detailed list of "blunders," a compendium of the film's both obvious and subtle continuity errors, dubbing flaws, and inserted footage.

There are dozens of illustrations throughout the book, and Sammon gives due credit to BR's still photographer for the hundreds of stills that BR fans know and collect. The main problem is that the ONLY color photos in the entire book are on the front and back covers. The B/W photos in the book are small, grainy, poorly reproduced, and do not reflect Sammon's praise. These sorry photos do not allow the reader, who hasn't seen many of these never-before-published stills and production drawings, to revel in the details.

Sammon is overly obsessed with cataloging ALL of the different versions of the film, and detailing the most minute differences. We have chapter after repetitive chapter discussing the differences between the Workprint, the pre-release revisions, the theatrical release, the various video, broadcast, and satellite releases, as well as the competing director's cuts. The fascinating core tale of the political, economic, and artistic fights over all of these versions of the film is lost as Sammon loses track and focuses too closely on the details of the different versions, obsessing to the point of irrelevance on miniscule details. For the BR fanatic this is invaluable, but for most readers this makes the narrative tedious and repetitive, given this technical information is available also in Appendix B.

Sammon's promised discussion of BR's influence on sci-fi film is absent. His subtitle, "The Fascinating Story Behind the . . . Most Influential SF Film Ever Made" promises a discussion of BR's influence on filmdom. His discussion is poorly introduced, disorganized, and sorrowfully weak on supporting facts and testimonials, leading ultimately to the conclusion that BR simply is NOT the most influential sci-fi film of all time. In fact, the paltry six-page discussion of BR's influence is one of the shallowest, most poorly researched and organized parts of the entire book. Sammon's strength and enthusiasm clearly lie in the film's production details. Nowhere in the book does he cite any filmmaker, actor, editor, producer, or special effects artist describing BR as an influence.

This book is an invaluable acquisition for any die-hard BR fan, and a great memoir for any student of filmmaking. It's not for the casual BR or film fan; it's a cult book, just as Blade Runner is a cult film. Disappointingly, Sammon fails to deliver a crucial element of his work, a thorough and convincing discussion of BR's influence on cinema and its place in greater filmdom.

The book is written by Paul M. Sammon in 1996, about 15 years since the original release and 4 years after the Director's Cut re-release. As he explains in the opening chapter of the book, Sammon worked for a science fiction magazine called Cinefantastique, and what began as a double-issue special on the making of the highly-anticipated film Blade Runner eventually evolved into what Sammon calls an "exhaustive archaeology" of information regarding the film.

The novel is simply an overwhelming wealth of information on all things Blade Runner; chapters focus on every minute detail such as the evolution of the story as it passed through the hands of Phillip K. Dick's novel, Hampton Fancher's screenplay, then into the hands of David Peoples and Ridley Scott. Chapter VIII is such a delight, as it meticulously works through each scene in the film, stopping along the way to add tidbits of info such as exclusive interviews with the actors. Sammon apparently also had the luxury of roaming the set of Blade Runner, and he reveals things such as the futuristic magazine covers he would see on the magazine racks and many other incredibly obscure decorations the design team threw in that are virtually impossible to see when you watch the film.

Like the other reviewers, I agree that Sammon is not perhaps the most skilled writer, and the prose of the book is very choppy and (especially in Chapter I) pretty corny. What troubles me most, though, is that Sammon has a particularly annoying habit of throwing out names without properly introducing them and explaining their role in the Blade Runner universe. Mercifully, there is a cast and crew listing printed as an appendix, which is a great help. This, and some of the other errors in the book seem quite obvious, and it leaves one wondering who was in charge of the editing.

Anyhow, the book allows great insight into the workings of the film, all gathered from what must be piles and piles of notes and cassette-recorded dialogue Sammon collected over the years to produce a rather well-organized book for fans of the film to read. I have seen the film countless times, and the new perspectives and ideas gained from this book keep the film fresh and wondrous as the years go by.

There can be no better introduction to Blade Runner.
There is a wealth of material here available nowhere else - from interviews with Philip K Dick to anecdotes about the shooting of the film.
My favourite chapters were the ones dealing with the writing of the screenplay; and the one dealing with the rediscovery and release of the Workprint, and the subsequent Director's Cut. You cannot find this information anywhere else.

Mr Sammon's writing is somewhat overenthusiastic, reading like a fan's website. But the sheer quanitity and interesting nasture of the material makes up for this.

A must have for Blade Runner's fans. Easy to read and enjoy.

"Future Noir" is a delightful read for a fan of the film it studies. Unfortunately, as the book often acknowledges, fans of "Blade Runner" tend to be highly intelligent, which makes it awfully difficult to slog through Paul Sammon's sophomoric writing.

There are asides to the reader, exclamation points galore, a quixotic effort to sustain a third-person narration, factual mistakes, typographical errors, and a self-defeating subjectivity.

I am grateful for "Future Noir", but it reads like the research project of an obsessed fan, and it deserves more careful editing than it received. Paul Sammon did yeoman's work by investing so much time in collecting such valuable information. Someone at Harper should have invested in an editor.

If you love the movie Blade Runner you should be reading this book. It is indispensable. The author shares many insights and personnal experiences on the set of the film as well as never-filmed story lines (some of which would have been incredible) and never before published photo stills. A thorough review of the film in ALL of it's formats and versions comes included-it's a bit dizzying. The book is packed with detail and interviews with cast and crew members. The author is a bona-fide BLADE RUNNER nut.

NOTE: Wired Magazine recently named 'Blade Runner' the BEST science-fiction film EVER ('Star Wars' was tenth).

A must.

'Future Noir', also known affectionately as 'The Bible' among Blade Runner fans is a very thorough examination all aspects of this groundbreaking film.

Written by Paul M. Sammon, the book takes us through the making of the film, the initial screenings and subsequent release, interviews with the cast and crew, the special effects, mistakes and problems with the film, the question of "Is Deckard a replicant?" and much, much more. This book is very much a reference book so it can be read in almost any order and referred to when you have questions that need answering.

The book provides some very interesting little insights into the film. One example, revealed during an interview with M. Emmet Walsh, is that Ridley Scott said that Walsh's character, Harry Bryant, had a stomach problem. This is the reason why he pours two shots for Deckard in his office and none for himself. He likes to see other people drinking since he can not.

The book is quite long and goes into a lot of detail, particularly in the section dealing with special effects. If you're not interested in such things it can be skipped over, however I am happy that it was included. It is better to have too much information than not enough. One thing that bothers me a bit is the fact that shortly before the book was to be published the publisher cut almost 300 pages of material from the book. This left Sammon scrambling to figure out what to cut and where to put important information from those deleted chapters in the book. There is talk of republishing the book in an expanded, more heavily illustrated version in 2002, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Blade Runner's original release, but whether this will happen is not yet clear. A deleted chapter from the book about the BR crew has been made available online on the website 2019: Off World. Do a search on Yahoo! for 'Blade Runner' and you'll find it.

The book also contains appendices outlining the many versions of the film, the soundtracks and many other useful tidbits of information.

To sum up, this is a great book. It is a must for die-hard BR fans and for anyone who is interested in delving a little deeper into the mythology of Blade Runner.

I fell in love with the film some years back, and with every fresh viewing find it ever more intriguing. This book answered some of the questions I had concerning the film and Dick's book Androids, and also opened my eyes to a few little-known facts and unused ideas concerning the film. I loved the photos and sketches and easy style the book was written in. A must for any true Blade Runner or PK Dick fan.

I approached this book as someone who has always loved watching the hypnotic, gorgeous "Blade Runner," but who has never considered it a particularly good movie, and who was curious about how this undeniably influential film was made and was marred. That curiosity was more than satisfied. Sammon seems aware of every question ever asked about "BR," as he constantly and cozily calls it, and he does answer those questions--sometimes four or five times in the course of this 435-page book.

The writing is awful--coy, fawning, and inexpressive. (One minor example: Actor Rutger Hauer is described as "warm but genuine" on the occasion that the author interviews him. Does warmth imply lack of genuineness?) Sammon is also so far inside his own fandom that he is unable to deal with the film or its makers objectively. He goes so far as to say that the critics didn't like the film because it was too good for them. (His actual words: ". . .as if many of the nation's critics had somehow been personally offended by the subtlety and care that had gone into this picture.") That's the sort of thing that a teenager would say: "You don't understand me [my favorite movie] because you're just not as sensitive as I am."

This is not a critical examination of "Blade Runner" or a study of its influence on the cyberpunk genre. It is more like a straight narrative "making of" book (the sort that is usually one quarter its length), with the viewpoint that mostly everyone now agrees that it is a great film, so let's see how it got that way. With that point of view acknowledged, if the thing is to be done at all, one might as well go all the way, with all the detail that has been assembled here, and I did find a lot of it quite interesting. The organization is okay, although it could be better. The book could definitely use an index.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that it appears, from the comments gathered by Sammon, that it was as much a Rorschach test for the people who made it as it was for critics and audiences afterward: everyone has different explanations for what went into the movie and what things were meant to "mean." Some would argue this is evidence that the film lacked a coherent vision; others that a shambles (such as "Casablanca") can add up to a great movie. At any rate, Pauline Kael was right: whatever you think of "Blade Runner," it definitely has its place in movie history.

Any fan of the movie would find this detailed study fascinating. At times the detail seems to be more than you need; but in the end, this book will serve as an excellent chronicle of a difficult project which was released to lackluster business, only to acquire, over the years, the status of modern classic.