This post is dedicated to my father, Charles Sidney Johnson (March 7, 1936-April 28, 2025)
Okay, lemme backtrack a bit. My dad was a chemistry professor at UNC in the ‘70s. He had two kids, with the second one being particularly unbearable because he was a pop culture-addict and would die if he wasn’t taken to whatever was the big new movie was coming out on opening weekend, who would throw a fit if he wasn’t allowed to stay up to watch SNL, and who he had to fork over a considerable amount of his paycheck to buy STAR WARS toys for.
You see, my father was a lover of science fiction – real science fiction like Stanislaw Lem, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick. To him, STAR WARS was a pop bubblegum version of sci-fi so he relentlessly (and righteously) made fun of it a lot. Then, it hurt my prepubescent feelings, but now I find it hilarious. I remember when THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK came out in 1980, he said, “Oh great, they added a Muppet.” But BLADE RUNNER was different.
Ridley Scott’s 1982 adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is now considered a classic, but it took a while. When BLADE RUNNER first came out it was buried at the box office during a summer crowded by the likes of E.T., STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, THE THING, ROCKY III, and POLTERGEIST, with even f-in’ TRON making more money than it did.
At first, my parents didn’t want to take me to see BLADE RUNNER because it was R-Rated, but they relented and I went to see it with my friend Jimmy, and his parents at one of the worst theaters in history, the now long-gone Ram Triple Theatres in downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As a 12-year old, I found the film a bit draggy, and while the city imagery was cool looking there were some bad effects like wires clearly being seen in one shot with the flying cop car.
I watched it with my dad for the first time when it came on HBO in 1983, and appreciated it a little more, but my dad absolutely loved it. Over the years, the movie gained stature via runs on cable and videocassette rentals and developed quite a following, particularly in nerd-centric communities. BLADE RUNNER’s reputation intensified when the 1992 Director’s Cut, which did a number of things to clarify plot points (and they fixed that flying car shot) was released theatrically, and that’s when my dad declared the movie to be his all-time favorite film.
I remember it distinctly. It was at a dinner at my parent’s house with my mother, her mother (my grandmother, Lilian) and my then girlfriend, where, upon talking about the then recently released Director’s Cut, that my dad declared that BLADE RUNNER was in his opinion, the greatest movie ever, and then he quoted the speech that one of the film’s characters gave at the end:
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off (the) shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”
Now, I’ve never known my dad to ever quote movie dialogue – like, I don’t remember him ever saying “may the force be with you” – but his recitation of what has come to be known as the “tears in the rain” speech, I’ll never forget. And, I didn’t know this until now, the speech has its own f-in’ Wikipedia page. It’s that iconic.
In 2007, yet another version of BLADE RUNNER was released, THE FINAL CUT. I went with my father to see it at the Carolina Theatre in downtown Durham, and the experience was wonderful. It was very special for a number of reasons as the screening was of one of only four 35MM prints in an extremely limited run, it was the first time I’d seen the movie on the big screen since 1982, and, yes, mainly because I was seeing the film with my dad, who had not wavered in considering it a masterpiece.
I remember when it started, right as the vivid imagery hit the screen, he said, “wow, it’s like a time machine.”
BLADE RUNNER will always be a crucial, touchstone film for me largely because of my father. It served as the connective tissue between my STAR WARS loving kid self and the more thoughtful film lover I like to see myself as now.
My dad scoffed at the silly space fantasy of George Lucas’s creation, but I know he acknowledged that, without it, such a cerebral sci fi film as BLADE RUNNER wouldn’t have been made. I mean, it got financing from having one of the stars of STAR WARS as its lead!
As I am heavily dealing with the death of my dad, I thought I’d share on my film blog my recollections of his favorite film, which I’m about to go watch again. I’m not sure which version as there are five: the Theatrical Cut, the International Cut, the Unrated cut, the Director’s Cut, and the Final Cut. I really don’t think it matters, because as the George Harrison song goes, “any road will take you there.”
More later...