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This is part of a series of bloody matches to the death. Show support for your favorite game so it will do better in the fight. You can support it by writing why you think its the better game and more importantly by betting (i.e. voting for) it. Please make it clear for when I check the bets later. You have until Friday when I tally the bets and declare the winner. I will reserve my bet for any tie-breakers.
Although you should be familiar with both games, there is no rule that says you have to have played both of them. The only rule in Trashdome is this;
Two games enter! One game leaves!
CinemaDome: Blade Runner vs The Terminator
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- Black Barney
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As incredible as Blade Runner is, it's also incredibly boring. Vangelis knocks me right out and the bleakness of Corusant makes me want to push my thumbs into my eyes. Yes, it is ground breaking but not nearly as much as...
Terminator. I absolutely hate that this is probably a better film than Aliens, on paper. Terminator completely changed everything. It is exciting, it is terrifying. Sarah Connor is another timely strong female protagonist too.
It has to be Terminator. It's Arnold's signature role too. Plus we get to see early Hicks and Bishop before they get their feet wet.
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The Terminator: Great action movie with some science-fiction in the mix. Funny at times, and has some all-time great quotes. Relentless pace aside from a few nice, quiet moments. Good special effects. Inspired (too) many sequels. Huge, huge cultural impact. As recently as 2004, I wore a Terminator costume for Halloween, and everybody still loves the Terminator, even though he was the bad guy in the first movie.
Vote: The Terminator
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RobertB wrote: I vote The Terminator. I also think that stealing the idea from last week would have been a good thing, and Blade Runner should have been paired up against Moon or Ex Machina.
we're gonna get to those!
There's so many ways these things could be paired up. Blade Runner v Alien or Blade Runner v Ex Machina. Terminator v Predator or Terminator V Conan.
I think we're going to let CinemaDome's run for about two and a half days. I think a week is maybe too long. I'll tally up the votes on this Wed midday and launch the next one. At two a week, there'll probably be a theme across the 7 days.
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- Colorcrayons
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Polar opposites.
That said, I'll vote Brade Runnuh.
I'll take thinky over the type of film which strains credibility and the suspension of disbelief. Terminator is fun though.
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Vote: Terminator
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- ChristopherMD
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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.
Vote: Blade Runner
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Blade Runner, to me, is the culmination of all the great, cerebral, '70s sci-fi films (yes, I know it came out in '82). They mashed the slowness and philosophy of something like Soylent Green (better than you probably think it is) with the modern amazing special effects. BR is speculative; it is about ideas. The SFX and action are just window dressing.
Terminator is kind of the opposite. It takes a mind-bendy sci-fi premise and turns it into an action/horror film. It's like a sci-fi version of Halloween. It set the standard for a lot of action movies, and (along with Star Wars) helped push the sci-fi genre away from think-pieces and more towards cheers and action. I'm a huuuge Schwarzenegger fan, so of course I'm in debt to this film for making him a star.
There are a lot of movies that came out in the early '80s that show this shift: The Thing, Wrath of Khan, E.T., and Tron all came out the same year as Blade Runner. Sci-fi was no longer just a genre, but a money-maker. I think that's why a lot of people (I almost said younger people, but that's not totally true) don't like BR. It's not flashy enough. It's boring. It's bleak (especially the ending of the director's cut). We've only recently returned to that style of sci-fi in the last couple of years, and I'm excited about it.
As great and influential as The Terminator is, it can't hold a candle next to Blade Runner. I will always adore that movie.
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I do think the capstone of sci-fi as cerebral vs the beginning of sci-fi as blockbuster is a good way to put it.
This is proving to be a closer race than the last one...
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- hotseatgames
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- Michael Barnes
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Terminator is great too, but it looks and feels like A low budget 1984 film. There's nothing magical or mystical about it.
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- Jackwraith
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However, the director's cut of Blade Runner (no voiceover, ends in the elevator) is the finest science fiction movie ever made and one of the best films ever made, regardless of genre. It went back to a Dashiell Hammett-model of noir and used a plot of unusual thematic complexity, not only for SF of the time, but for Hollywood in general. It also, as originally cut, spent a lot of time allowing the audience to simply absorb the visuals presented to them. As film is a visual medium, one would think this would be natural, but it's rarely the case in major cinema that what is presented on screen can go unaccompanied by someone yakking about this or that element of the plot and/or the characters' reactions to what is happening right in front of them. Have an exciting car chase? Don't forget to interrupt it every 15 seconds to show the hero yelling "Oh my God!" when something else blows up. There was none of that here. We're shown vistas of Los Angeles, the towers of the elite, and the alleyways of the downtrodden, including where those who form the foundation of the elite's wealth also live. Statements are made about the future and about now, only by what appears on the screen (along with, of course, Vangelis' brilliant score.)
Just that final moment in the elevator, with Deckard remembering Gaff shouting: "It's too bad she won't live! But, then again, who does?!" summarizes the essential questions that the story had been asking about creation, life, humanity (More human than human?), and perspective and, perhaps most importantly, leaves them unanswered. That's the goal that so many stories should be striving for but which gets cut off by Hollywood's burning desire for a pat ending (incidentally, The Terminator also leaves key questions open at the conclusion.) Some questions aren't meant to be answered and certainly not in the "straight line between two points" manner that much of modern entertainment tends to be.
Thankfully for Ridley Scott, the actors played right into the thoughtful nature of his storytelling. There's a great moment, often overlooked, when Deckard first tells Rachael that her existence is a lie. ("Those aren't your memories. They're somebody else's. They're Tyrell's niece's.") You can see the transformation come over each of their faces: Hers from earnest anticipation and pensive nervousness to her world crumbling inside and him from exasperation at having to explain something to this... object and suddenly realizing that she's a person, with feelings that he's just shattered. There are no dramatic pauses. The camera doesn't cut to a close up. It just lets you watch as this massive realization about the nature of humanity occurs to both of them in a completely different fashion. This was Ridley Scott at the peak of his directorial powers doing what every director should be trying to do, irrespective of money: tell a story and leave your audience thinking about it.
Blade Runner, without question.
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Vote: Blade Runner
I do like the pairing, why not have Moon up against Ex Machina soon?
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