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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2164 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 14, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'm a big fan of Blade Runner (1982). I don't want to bother listing all its positives, but one of the things I like about it is, as far as I understand it, the movie ends ambiguously. Is Deckard a replicant or not? I was pissed when Blade Runner 2049 came out and removed all doubt: turns out he's a guy after all. Still a good movie though.

This ambiguity at the end was also something I liked about John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). I have a family member who works in Hollywood and somehow we got onto the subject of The Thing. She said she didn't like it because of the same ambiguity, but then as a matter of course in doing her job she got to spend time with John Carpenter and asked him to clarify the ending. Apparently he gets this question a lot.

Turns out he has no idea what the confusion is about. The last frame of The Thing is Kurt Russel and Keith David staring each other down, harshly backlit, and it's completely, glaringly obvious that Kurt Russel is breathing and Keith David is not.

I said it seemed to be a bit too subtle for a movie where a head grows spider legs and scuttles away. She said no, it's why Carpenter is a genius.

The mere suggestion that Deckard is a replicant pisses me off honestly because it reeks of "midwit twist" and directly plays against the very theme of the movie and of the book it's based on. The point is Deckard is an asshole. He's a shitty person, and the replicants show more genuine emotion, more humanity than Deckard does. The whole keeping animals thing, the Voigt-Kampf test, it's performative, it's technical, it's irrelevant. Which is a great point, a poignant message, and is completely fucking ruined if Deckard is a replicant himself. Ridley Scott is an infuriating director to enjoy the works of. He seems to be an accidental genius, but as soon as he's self aware of having made something significant, he just fucks with it until it's ruined. Remember Prometheus?

Carpenter deserves respect, here's a director who's smart enough to resist the lure of fucking with something good. No matter how much midwits (and dumbers) cared about "but wha happen to Michael?" at the end of Halloween, Carpenter was smart enough to know that it's not important and if you really need to know then another director can make that stupid schlock for you.

I think Scott's reputation as one of the all-time greats is almost wholly unearned. Alien is a masterpiece and Blade Runner is brilliant, but aside from those two, can you name a third film he directed which rises above the level of "pretty good"?

Black Rain? It was okay. Gladiator? Haven't seen it in full since I was a child, remember thinking it was pretty good. Ditto Black Hawk Down. Matchstick Men was elevated by a predictably great Nicolas Cage performance, but was ultimately a pretty shallow and predictable conman movie. The Martian was a lot funnier than I expected it to be, but I watched it for a second time a few months ago and found that I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the first.

Obviously there are stacks of other films in his filmography I haven't seen, but of those I have, none are even approaching the standard set by Alien.

Kingdom of Heaven is excellent.

One of my favorite non-horror movies, probably in my top 5.

Assuming we're talking about the extended editiion that came out on DVD, i agree. Maybe not in my top 5 but easily competing for a spot in my top 10 alongside Alien, Gladiator, and Blade Runner.

Alien probably makes my top 5, and I would argue that when one director has 4 movies in the running for your top 10 favorite movies its disingenuous to claim that he doesn't know what he's doing even if you think that Napoleon and Promethius were both bad movies and that everyone involved in thier production should feel bad.

Yes, I was thinking about the extended version too. The movie itself is pretty ahistorical if you’re read up on the history around that time period. The first time I watched it it took a little adjusting to suspend my disbelief for the sake of enjoyment, but eventually I overcame it.

At the expense of getting lynched by most people on TM I must confess I’ve never watched Blade Runner. Not even a YouTube clip of it, :(. I’m a geek myself who’s skipped out on his religious duties and I do intend on watching it at some point. Alien is one of those movies I love but it’s a cinematic hill I will die on and insist that it’s properly thought of as a science fiction movie and not a horror film (which is what it really is). Event Horizon is a proper horror firm set in a sci-fi context.

Blade Runner is worth watching if only because of what a long shadow it casts on the science fiction genre. The sequel is also excellent, and for my money better than either of the Dunes Villeneuve later helmed.

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