When fantasies come true

Heaven and angels forfend I should dare to be less than horrified and offended that Ridley Scott is going to direct a new Blade Runner-related film. It can ONLY suck monkey balls, right? It can ONLY be terrible, awful, horrendous, an affront to the original film (heh. Which original film would that be? As Princess Slayer pointed out, there have been no less than seven cuts of Blade Runner).

And yet it seems that I am one of the very, very, very few people in the free world who didn't greet this news with dismay. Well, that's fine. It's to be expected, really, since geeks are notorious both for being contrarian and for arguing as much as possible over minutiae. Cthulhu knows if you get me started on the topic of Anne Hathaway and Catwoman I will probably offend your ears or intelligence a minute or so in.

But really...come on. Ridley Scott is at least to be trusted with what appears to be his favorite creation, the film he was most invested in and most affected by, right? No one has any idea of what this new film will be yet. I highly doubt it will be a remake of the first film. Why is everyone so appalled at the idea of a tangentially related story, a continuation of the first story, or a completely new story in the same universe? I'm pretty sure Soldier sucked because a) Kurt Russell and b) Scott was not involved. Is Blade Runner really that sacrosanct? As an admittedly-snotty aside, most of the people who seem really put off by this news are people who also happen to be fans of Aliens. Speaking of that other famous Scott franchise, it didn't occur to me until now but are the haters also hating on Prometheus? 'Cause THAT just seems nigh-unfathomable.

Maybe it's my general love for Scott movies (he made three of my favorites: Alien, Blade Runner, and Thelma and Louise). Maybe it's the fact that I've been waiting for a long time for someone to make a movie about cyborgs that actually incorporates cyborg theory (I stupidly thought the fourth Terminator would do it. Man, was I wrong), and I think Scott might be up for the task. I mean, it's already sort of there in Blade Runner, and how cool would it be for another film by the man with the vision to develop and expound upon that ambiguity? The whole fucking POINT of the film is an examination of what "humanity" means. There's no WAY that story is finished being told.

And you know what else? I fucking love the Underworld franchise, and yes, I will be seeing the fourth movie in theatre.