"Back in August, we reported the surprising news that director Ridley Scott would be returning to the world of his 1982 film Blade Runner although we didn't know if the new movie would be a sequel, prequel, or a spin-off."
As far as I know, there are three Blade Runner books, I read the first by Phillip K. Dick, titled "Do androids dream of electric sheep?". It is not the movie. And the second by K.W. Jeter called, "Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human" (1995). Now this was based on the movie and yet, it does't faithfully follow the storyline. But then even in Ridley's Director's cut, he had cut the sixth replicant being mentioned.
I see on Wikipedia that there are actually now four novels. BR three is also by Jeter and titled, "Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night (1996); and BR four also by him is "Blade Runner 4: Eye and Telon" (2000),
What Ridley and Syd Mead did with Dick's book was miraculous. This is one of my favorite movies of all time. I've heard few people complain that the book was better. Unlike a similar situation with "The Shining" between it's author Stephen King and the Auteur Director, the late Stanley Kubrick. I find that book "The Shining" a good read but I find the film "The Shining" a work of art. King has said that he felt their main differences were that the book was hot and the film was cold. In the book, the Outlook Hotel was burned to the ground in the end, but in the film it was frozen and continued on.
I once drew up a sequel to Blade Runner back in 1991 that had the Gaff character coming after Deckard, finding them in the woods up north living in a cabin, leading him to return to the city. The idea of the woods came from the end footage that Ridley used from the left over footage of Stanley Kubrick's, "The Shining".
I still have the audio tape of my working it out with my wife at the time, my son's mother. It was hard for me to even talk about it, so we had some drinks and started talking, brainstorming. We ended up having a pretty good time and realizing that indeed, a sequel could be made.
I posted that I was working on a BR sequel to a writer's news forum (before the web and all) that I was known on and I received three death threats about it and one offer to help me write it. When I got the first death threat, I blew it off, the second, was getting weird and the third (three different people) was just bizarre. I finally posted saying I had gotten three death threats over my considering writing a sequel to Blade Runner and that if anyone wanted to talk to me about it in person, here I am. Bring it on.
I got mostly support from people on the news group when they heard I was being threatnened, but also, people kind of backed away from the subject after that and I just let it go and didn't mention it online anymore. It does give you an idea of how passionate people are about the film. I have to wonder if Jeter ever got death threats for writing the sequels, but then, they weren't movies.
From the Amazon page for the fourth novel comes a posting that I think explains much about Jeter, more than I knew about him anyway:
"This is K.W. Jeter's third sequel to Blade Runner, and I suspect it will be the last. It has never been published in the USA and is only available via pricey imported copies. I was lucky enough to stumble across a relatively inexpensive copy from an Amazon Marketplace dealer; if I had paid what other copies are selling for, I'd feel much more disappointed than I already am.
"I should add that I'm a Jeter fan; I've read all of his novels and I think he's a tremendously talented writer. I consider him the most accomplished writer to emerge from Dick's circle of friends. Unfortunately, Jeter's output is very uneven and his pacing is often maddeningly ponderous. This could have been a far better novel if Jeter had allowed information to emerge from the narrative, rather than having a character spend 50 pages explaining everything. Maybe the author was facing a deadline and just needed to get it done in a hurry." - Steve
Back to the movie... Harrison Ford will forever be Deckard for me. So I don't know who they could possibly get to play his role. I wish I could find some more info, photos, or whatever on the new project, but perhaps it's just too soon.
On a side note:
"Scott, 74 years old, recently finished shooting the sci-fi movie “Prometheus". With production on the Alien quasi-prequel Prometheus recently wrapped, Scott said he is in the process of lining up writers for the new Runner film. “I think I’m close to finding a writer that might be able to help me deliver…we’re quite a long way in, actually.” Marc (IMDB)
Also, I do hope they make a place for Ford should he not be playing the part of Deckard in the sequel. The idea of a sequel for an iconic film such as this is definitely hard to consider and anyone attempting to do so, is brave indeed. I certainly look forward to watching it when it comes out, with great anticipation, fear and trepidation.
I do hope Ridley doesn't get any death threats, though.
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