Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov

I’ve consistently said, ever since I first read most of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, Robot and Empire novels some twenty-odd years ago, that Asimov is a writer of two halves. The Asimov of the ‘40s and ‘50s is a powerhouse of brilliant ideas, while the older Asimov of the ‘80s writes Asimov fan fiction full of continuity. High quality fan fiction, for sure- fan fiction is often superb and should not be disparaged- but more focused on continuity than in the big ideas of Asimov’s youth.

Having just reached the ‘80s with this rereading in the shape of this novel, however… I don’t get that impression at all. Oh, there’s continuity, all right. The Foundation universe is linked to the Robot universe for the first time. But… the book positively fizzes with ideas. The plot is a devilishly clever game of ten dimensional diplomatic chess, and for Asimov, it’s not really about characters: plot is all. Getting to see the political skulduggery of not only Terminus but the Second Foundation is a real joy.

Then there’s the ending. Yes, obviously the Gaia stuff owes a lot to James Lovelock, obviously. But the context is ingenious. The Gaia hypothesis as political ideology… is there a very, very left-wing subtext here, anti-individualism? It’s unclear. I don’t necessarily approve but, if said subtext is there, it’s nicely done.

The ending is devilishly clever: I particularly love the studies ambiguity as to whether or not Bliss is a robot.

The Thing (1982)

 "I'm trying to get some sleep. I was shot today."

Yes, it's absurd that I'm seeing The Thing for the first time in 2022. I suppose I have half an excuse that I saw thiis asa kind of remake of The Thing from Another World, and had to see that first, but even so.

This film is superb, basically. Not because it reinvents the wheel; it doesn't. It's a very straightforward base under siege story, where the entire cast spends the film paranoid, ascanyone could be the unnamed alien creature. The creature looks amazing; Alien has had a definite influence. There's a character called Fuchs. Titter.

But, essentially, this film is as good as it is pretty much entirely because of John Carpenter's first class direction. That's pretty much it. The way he shoots the snow; the way he shoots the shadows. The sheer bloody tension that anybody could be this shape-shifting alien. This gloriously slimy, '80s alien aesthetic that never stops being awesome, and is splendidly pre-CGI.

The film is entirely set, barring a brief expedition to some dead Norwegians and a millennia-old flying saucer, in and around one compound in Antarctica, full of central heating, booze, weed and a computer version of chess that I swear I once played on the Acorn Electron. The ensemble cast makes the film almost as much as the direction, but obviously Kurt Russel deserves special praise. Yes, it's a sausage fest, with no oestrogen to be seen and the Bechdel Test failed spectacularly.

This film doesn't do anything radical. It just does jump scare sci-fi horror really, really, really well.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

 "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"

This is a very unusual curiosity. For one thing, it's the only film in the Halloween franchise not to star Michael Myers- very much part of John Carpenter's original conception; he wanted each film to be an original story- and that this is a Hollywood film written by Nigel Kneale.

Naturally, Kneale took his name off the script. It was butchered by committee, as is the Hollywood way. And yet- minus the creepy crawlies, bizarre besuited robots and the drill up Teddy's ear (uurgh!), this is basically his story, only with the dialogue altered to be more rubbish. Oddly enough, cdespite its profoundly Irish California-ness, it's utterly Kneale.

We have the dark view of human nature, not only in the concept but the fact the hero is a drunked divorced father whois constantly, and not always reasonably, finding reasons not to see his kids. We also have the hero being a stentorian man of science- in this case a medical doctor. And again we have acient evil in the form of the murky pagan origins of Halloween.

I rather enjoyed this. It's flawed, but ultimately rather engaging. Even the bits Kneale didn't envisage- the spiders and snakes, the bizarre besuited robots, the motel setting- work, and add to the atmosphere. Even the gore is more subtle and off-screen- mostly- than its reputation.

And Dan O'Herlihy, '80s Hollywood baddie per excellence, puts in a careeer best, scenery-chewing in the best possible eway, performance.

Forget Michael Myers. Just enjoy this film for what it is. It's flawed, but Kneale's ideas still define it.

The Cure- Pornography (1982)

This is an early Cure album, from the days when their sound was more of a general soundscape per album than would later be the case. This is, perhaps, not as good as some earlier albums in that there are fewer stand-out tracks; nor does it reach for the fresh new types of sound the band would go on to create straight afterwards. Yet this album is curiously a bit of a grower to the point where, although I wouldn't describe it as a particular favourite, I tend to listen to it quite often. Sometimes you can have a compelling soundscape without particularly stand-out songs, but this is a strangely anonymous Cure album.

And yet the reality behind this album is arguably somewhat more dramatic than any of their other work.

This album is probably the end of an era, the last hurrah of this sort of sound. It's also an aural record of a particular low point, where Robert Smith himself was deeply depressed and the band as a whole were both struggling to stay together and taking lots of drugs. It's an odd listen for me, born in 1977 and therefore far more familiar with the band in their post-Wish incarnation, where they were known to have lots of ironic fun with their gloomy reputation. It can be a shock to hear their early records, this one in particular, and realise that the gloominess is very real indeed.

Creepshow (1982)

“Where’s my Father’s Day cake...?”

EC horror comics, although I’m sad to say I’ve never read any, are best known, unfortunately, for being the unlucky victim of that stupid quack, Fredric Wertham, whose genuine achievements in his earlier career were overshadowed by his ridiculous witch hunt against comic books. They are also known, of course, for two British portmanteau horror films by Amicus, one of which I’ve blogged. But this, more than anything else, makes me want to look at the source material. I love the linking comic book stuff by Bernie Wrightson.

He’s not the only “name” though; the legendary George A. Romero directs and Stephen King, no less, has here not only his screenwriting debut but a deliciously scenery-chewing acting role in one of the segments. Other interesting little points are an unusually menacing role from Leslie Nielsen and Adrienne Barbeau as the most annoying woman in the world. The whole thing is splendidly grand duignol and enormous fun, bookended by scenes of a tyrannical father stealing his son’s comic book and getting his comeuppance, setting both the tone and the style.

As ever with a portmanteau film some segments are better than others, although the tide one was a real highlight, but what works well here is the tone and sense of cheerfully grisly fun that pervades thecwjolw thing. This may not be the greatest horror film ever made but it’s thiroughly enjoyable to watch all the way through, and that’s a superb achievement . The spirit of EC lives on.

First Blood (1982)

"We ain't hunting him- he's hunting us!"

Appallingly, I'd never seen this '80s action classic until now. First impressions are that, yes, it's a superb action movie, crammed with sizzling set pieces, yet I came expecting a B movie, and what I got was unexpectedly full of pathos. It's 1982; the Vietnam War ended nine years ago for America. But it seems the returning soldiers were shockingly neglected, materially and emotionally, by their country. And, while this is often seen as a right-wing taking point, Rambo's sobbing breakdown before Colonel Trautman seems to be a rebuke at America's individualistic lack of social democratic institutions.

Anyway, this is an awesome film, and cleverer than it  looks. The initial scene establishes that his only purpose is to find his old friends from the war,  it now the last of them is dead, and he’s alone, alienated, in an America with no place for him. And when Will, a two bit sheriff of a shitty little town in Washington state (those accents are a bit southern, though- is this really accurate?) starts to persecute him for no reason it escalated into a war with a trained and flawless killing machine, leaving things to escalate and escalate with each set piece topping the last and every single minute being utterly gripping. And yet Stallone, playing the macho and taciturn Rambo, never loses sight of the character’s pathos.

The whole thing is brilliantly made, from the brief but shocking Vietnam flashbacks during the early police brutality scenes to the Dukes of Hazzard car chases, and the ever-escalating stakes are completely believable. A much better film, and one with much more of a heart, than I was expecting.

Tron (1982)

"I took a wrong turn somewhere..."

This is a strange film to see for the first time in 2018. It’s groundbreaking. It’s unique. It’s triumphantly of its time. And it’s utter pants.

Oh, it looks great. Unreservedly so; it captures the aesthetics of 1982 vintage computer graphics with perfection but is also, importantly, good to look at and of utility foretelling the story- although characters can be hard to tell apart in cyberspace. Then there’s Jeff Bridges’ rakish charm and David Warner’s desperate baddie.

There’s ever a surprisingly metaphysical side, as the baddies dismiss programs who have faith in “users” as religious fanatics. This line of thought may not be taken very far, but it’s indisputably there. I also don’t mind the total lack of realism in showing 1982 vintage computer programming in this almost proto-cyberspace way. Realism is boring, and this is a fascinating bit of the zeitgeist two years before William Gibson writes Neuromancer.

Unfortunately, though, the script, plot and characterisation are poor, and not even a generally high standard of performance can save them. Yes, the visuals are amazing and the look of the film is justly Famous. But I’m the end what we have is a turd which has been polished to a legendary standard. No wonder the visuals are all that ever gets talked about.

Friday the 13th, Part III (1982)

“How come you never scream when we have sex?"

"Give me something to scream about..."

 I've said it before, and I'll say it again because it's still very relevant; watching the Friday the 13th films after the Scream films is probably not for the best. Once you've seen all those slasher tropes deconstructed time and time again it's a little bizarre to see them played with a straight bat, as they are here. As it happens the film is well made (the hilariously unconvincing popping eyeball aside...), and probably the best so far, but still...

We get a bunch of teens headed to a cabin by the lake in the woods. We get a weird old man warning them off. People do genre unwise things like having sex, smoking dope and carrying out practical jokes about being gruesomely murdered. There's no subversion of the cliches at all, just constant leaning into them. But, you know what? It works. Well, mostly.

This is the third film in the series and the first to feature (with no explanation) the hockey mask, which is a good idea and rather effective. As, on the whole, are the set pieces. I like the dart in the eye. The characters are a bit generic and blend into each other, but you expect that. But some of them are likeable and, like poor doomed virgin Shelly, some even have pathos. There's sex in a hammock, and a shower scene which probably counts as misdirection. It's an entertaining 90 minutes that holds the attention. But, well, surely in 1982 this had been done a million times or more? Three films in (after a bit of a hiatus) and I'm still concluding that the films are, yes, perfectly decent, but it's hard to understand what makes them so iconic.

Swamp Thing (1982)

"Some of the men say it was one of those abdominal snowmen or something."

I came to this film, in spite of Wes Craven helming it, expecting a so-bad-it's-good B movie. Instead I find a film that's genuinely brilliant- pacy, stylishly shot and very well acted.  I really wasn't expecting that.

The South Carolina location looks amazing; it may not be Louisiana, but the swampy landscape certainly looks like it and fills the production with a great deal of atmosphere throughout. At the start it feels like an early '80s horror film, but it isn't; it's very much its own beast. We're introduced to Alice, the genius Alec Holland and the rest of the crew who will shortly die. We quickly get to know the witty, driven, flirty Holland and his invention, a plant/animal hybrid formula. And then, suddenly, they are all shockingly killed, aside from the captured Alice, by the thugs of the sinister Arcane. Already the characterisation, dialogue and direction are far above B movie standard.

There are little oddities- why is the bloke in charge of Alec and his mates a Yorkshireman? And yes, the Swamp Thing costume indeed looks very obviously latex, as such costumes always do and as is always priced in. I'm also inevitably reminded of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. None of this is a problem.Nor is Arcane's delightful moustache-twirling evil. Sometimes it's fun for a baddie just to be bad for the sake of it, and Louis Jourdan is brilliant; fun but stopping short of being hammy.

I think the moment I fell in love with this film was the slow-motion boat attack, which felt completely A-Team. It's a genuine classic that rises far above B movie status.

Poltergeist (1982)

“They’re heeeere!”

It’s so weird to watch this film for the first time knowing what happened to Heather O’Rourke (she died at 12, seemingly of natural causes), especially given that this is a pretty damned eerie film in any case. It is, of course, a superb piece of cinema. I don’t consider this to be a Steven Spielberg film, on the grounds that he didn’t direct the thing, but he nevertheless co-wrote and produced it. And I have to say that this film exhibits all of Spielberg’s considerable strengths and absolutely none of his emotionally manipulative downside.

It would have been easy, in a film like this, for the main protagonists to be mere ciphers, but they’re not; they’re well-rounded individuals, particularly Steven and Diane, who convince as a baby boomer young couple (how old this makes the film sound!), smoking weed while at the same time being caring parents and natural suburbanites. Heather O’Rourke, of course, steals the show as the oddly creepy Carol Anne, but the whole family feels real.

This being a film set in suburbia, and interior décor being something that quickly dates, every scene is absolutely redolent of the early Eighties. Also, it’s an odd experience to see a film for the first time when that film has so permeated popular culture. The climax of the film, as the house is swallowed up, immediately made me recognise an obvious reference in an episode of Family Guy that I’d seen just a few days before. (Oh, and regarding dating of the film and popular culture, I’m rather afraid I actually recognised that particular issue of Captain America.)

The film, is far less based on the traditional narrative of poltergeists (a strong psychic link to an adolescent girl rather older to Carol Ann, not that I necessarily believe in all that), and is far closer to the more mainstream idea of a ghost. Certainly, the sheer number of poltergeists here, and the apparently demonic nature of the malevolent entity behind all this, does not reflect what I was expecting from the film. But this isn’t an investigation of the poltergeist trope, it’s a big budget Hollywood movie (in marked contrast to most of the other Eighties horrors that I’m blogging at the moment), and so this large amount of spectacle is appropriate.

The earlier part of the film is suffused with lots of small, scary moments. The level of scariness is quite mild to start with, but there are a hell of a lot of scary things, and for a lot of them you don’t quite k now why they’re scary. It’s not until that scene with the maggots that the gears change. One nice touch, though, is that Diane is not initially scared of the poltergeists, and tries to have fun with them. After all, that’s what I’d do.

The film sort of pre-empts Ghostbusters by having the family consult a bunch of paranormal professionals, led by the charismatic Dr Lesh. But it’s the diminutive Tangina Barrons who is the real star here.

The ending of the film is drawn-out but dramatic; I certainly didn’t feel any indication of “too many endings” syndrome. And, of course, the film just had to fit in a scary clown.

Conan the Barbarian (1982)

"Conan, what is best in life?"

"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!"

I'm a bit OCD when it comes to consuming popular culture. If I miss an episode of a television drama, I can't watch the next one until I've seen the one I missed. I can never watch a film from part way through; I absolutely have to see the start. I wasn't always such an extreme case, though, which means that in my late teens I actually did read some of Robert E. Howards's Conan stories. I'm not sure I could do that now, for those very OCD reasons. What order are the books supposed to be in? Does it matter? Does the stuff written by L. Sprague De Camp count as "canonical"? Is there some sort of overlap with the stories of H.P. Lovecraft whose stories, I believe, were published by the same pulp magazine? Also, incidentally, why are there so very few films based on Lovecraft's stories?

I remember enjoying what I read, but very little about it because, I suspect, it was extremely disjointed. I liked the book covers, though; that I do remember. And this film faithfully recreates that aesthetic of scantily clad, sexy individuals of both sexes, sorcerers in horned headgear, loads of snakes, and really cool armour with even cooler helmets. It's a shame about all the mullets (not Arnie, fortunately), but I believe they were still legal in the early '80s. Still, the whole look of the film is bloody good. I'm now rather interested in reading about this whole world, and when I've finished this article I'll be off for a spot of Wikipeding.

But… it's really rather easy to pick holes in the whole idea of the Hyborean age, isn't it? This made-up epoch between the fall of Atlantis and the beginning of recorded history is pretty much an invitation to look for anachronisms- and here we get concepts such as Valhalla, Vanir and a character called "Thorgrim" with a massive warhammer. The technology level is very much Iron Age or later; the first thing we see is steel being worked, we see corn being ground with a quern early on, and I'm trying to recall if the horses had stirrups. I suppose you can explain some of these things as being lost in some later cataclysm, but it's rather hard to explain the sight of horses being ridden. I believe that horses were fairly light-weight until at least the Iron Age, which is why their use in warfare was pretty much limited to chariots for all but the lightest of uses.

Still, let's not pick holes, fun though it is. A fictional "lost" age is probably the only way you can do this kind of hard-edged, rough and ready sort of sword and sorcery stuff. These characters are neither stupid nor uncultured (they have poetry and philosophy), but there's a roughness to them. Speech is extremely direct. There are absolutely no pleases, thank yous or any other kind of verbal politeness. Characters mean what they say and hat they mean, which doesn't make them in any way shallow, unintelligent or incapable of irony or humour. Their society may be very harsh indeed, but there's an innocent lack of guile to them, and they're perfectly capable of warmth, love and even a kind of articulacy.

Not Arnold Schwarzenegger, though. Of course not. Aside from an ill-advised semi-soliloquy just before the big set-piece fight towards the end he's a man of few words, as befits his command of English at the time. Still, the future Governator was obviously hired for his rippling muscles and required to be more of a presence than an actor, and this is a role he fulfils admirably. And it's quite an achievement to display so much charisma, and to be the undisputed star of the film, while saying so little.

Of course, James Earl Jones is much, much more charismatic, and he does this entirely through actually acting. He has possibly the finest voice in all of cinema; Thulsa Doom is an utterly delicious baddie, but he has pretty much nothing at all in common with Darth Vader in his vocal stylings. He's pretty bad-ass, demanding that his underlings be prepared to face death and "emptiness" on his whim. Presumably this means that they sacrifice themselves for him without question, knowing that their deaths are pointless and they will be utterly forgotten, and in every expectation that there will be no afterlife. Chilling.

The film manages the wonderful feat of playing everything straight while slipping in a bit of metatextual silly subtext on the sly. Conan's crucifixion is such overblown and pretentious Christ symbolism that it can only be intentional. My eyebrow was also raised during the sex scene between Conan and the prophetess. As soon as she reaches orgasm she turns into a horrible screeching demon. Hmm. Perhaps just a slight hint of male fear of female sexuality there then. There are also lots of scenes of semi-naked women chained up and on public display, meaning that I couldn't help thinking about the male gaze and all that. But I think the scene where Conan, as a slave in his cage, is allowed to have sex with (well, rape) a female slave in his cage while others watch pretty much has to be taken as evidence that it's being done knowingly. It's still being done, of course. Doing things ironically doesn't actually stop things being misogynistic.

Oh yes, and then there's the scene with the semi-clad woman jumping into a pit to sacrifice herself to a snake, which one can't help noticing is a somewhat phallic creature. Do you reckon there might be a bit of symbolism there? Of course, the snake turns out to be dead. There might be a bit of symbolism there, too. No wonder Thulsa Doom is so humiliated and angry about this later on. And I can't help noticing that the only characters at whom he aims those snake-arrow things are female. What an amazing coincidence…

It's also rather noticeable that Conan's girlfriend, a rather major character, doesn't even have a name, in marked contrast to Subotai, whom I like a lot. A also like Akiro; he's such a fun character. I love the way he narrates the film and then appears halfway through, too. It's a very well-structured script, co-written, I notice, by none other than Oliver Stone.

I enjoyed this far more than I expected. It may not be very deep but it's solidly written, and a lot more fun than it might appear to be at first glance.

Blade Runner (1982)

“Aren’t you the ‘good’ man?”

I should probably say at the start that I watched the Director’s Cut, on one of those old DVD’s with the anti-piracy trailers that you’re forced to sit through. Grr. Also, I’m afraid I haven’t read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Anyway, this is well good.

We get a quick blurb with the backstory; there are replicants, the Tyrell Corporation have an apparent monopoly on manufacturing them. They’re stronger, and at least as intelligent as humans. They’re used as slaves on off-world colonies, but have revolted. They’re banned on Earth, and “blade runner” units exist to track them down. All this by 2019. That’s this decade!

The film has a distinctive look (and sound, all by Vangelis; it works very well). It’s always night, it’s always raining. The architecture in large scale looks like something Sauron might have designed. There’s loads of neon. It’s all stylised, not realistic; while looking impressive, there’s no real attempt to not make the street scenes look like sets, and this works, adding to the claustrophobic and alienating feel. It’s always dark indoors, too, and the lighting is never natural.

This doesn’t at all resemble the pre-existing sci-fi clichés of what the futuristic is supposed to look like. The fashions, and the interior design, reflect the 1930s and 1940s and this, alongside the presence of a hero who basically is Philip Marlowe, gives this a strong noir feel.

We begin with a rather Orwellian test to see if a nervous man is a replicant. His life depends on getting the questions right; the air-conditioning in the ceiling reminds us very much of guillotine blades. Hanging in the air is the question of whether a true human could fail this test.

The interrogator is wearing a 1930s suit and smoking a cigar. It’s the cigar that unfortunately dates this. Off-world colonies and humanoid robots by 2019 I can believe, but smoking in the workplace? Never!

Suddenly, the chap being tested shoots his inquisitor, and we switch to Deckard, played superbly by Harrison Ford, he who yields to no one in his repertoire of angst-ridden facial expressions. He’s reading a newspaper, another activity which seems likely to be archaic by 2019.

Deckard is “arrested”, but it’s soon clear that this is just his old boss’ way of getting his attention. As the hoary old cliché goes, he’s retired from the force but is being forced back because no one else is as good as him, dammit.

The following exposition scene is necessary but a bit awkward; if Deckard is an experienced blade runner then he wouldn’t need telling about the replicants’ four year lifespan. Still, we learn that there are five replicants. Roy is their leader, and we also have Zhora, Leon (whom we’ve already met) and Pris, a “pleasure model” (apparently “standard issue”).

We see a blatant coca cola ad as Deckard is flown away, with the bloke chauffeuring him maintaining the retro look by dressing like a World War Two air pilot.

We’ve established that everyone is dressed like the 1930s, and that Decker is basically Philip Marlowe, so we shouldn’t be surprised to see a femme fatale at this point. Deckard pays a visit to the Tyrell Corporation, where he’s met firstly by an artificial owl and secondly by Rachel, with her ‘40s hairstyle, played icily by Sean Young. Interestingly and, as we shall soon discover, pertinently, she asks whether Deckard has ever accidentally “retired” a human by mistake.

Tyrell, her boss, insists that Deckard start by subjecting Rachel to the test. Deckard insists they more elsewhere because “it’s too bright in here”(!), and we discover, inevitably, that Rachel is a replicant, albeit a chain-smoking one. She’s an experiment of Tyrell’s, given a set of memories and unaware of what she is. Now she knows. Cue lots and lots of existential angst.

After a scene in which Roy shows us how badass he is by torturing a bloke for information (Rutger Hauer is infinitely better here than he will be in Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Rachel pays Deckard a visit, insisting that she’s not a replicant. But Deckard insists that she is; those vivid childhood memories are not hers, but those of Tyrell’s niece. But then, as soon as he sees tears in his eyes, he takes it all back, insisting it’s a “bad joke”. This is very Marlowe.

We see a lady dressed in a way which, this being Hollywood, leads us to expect her to be a prostitute. She settles down to sleep rough, but runs into J.P. Sebastian, the very man Roy is looking for. J.P., rather than dressing in 1930s clothes like everyone else, is dressed like a civilian from Judge Dredd. He’s something of an innocent geek. He lives alone in a block of flats which seems otherwise deserted, and his only friends are eighteenth-century style automatons which he made himself. Pris is grateful for his hospitality, while she waits for her “friends”…

Deckard has a well weird dream about a white unicorn, I have no idea what this means. There follows a rather cool scene in which Deckard interrogates a piece of footage by zooming in and out, and finds a mysterious woman in a mirror. Pausing only to phone Rachel and ask her to go for a meal, he’s rebuffed, and follows the lead. The mysterious woman turns out to be Salome, and she’s a replicant.  Frankly, I could have done without her donning those pvc “angel wings” as he chases her across town and shoots her in beautifully realised slow motion. Ridley Scott may shoot this film beautifully, but this sort of symbolism is just pretentious.

Having killed the first of the replicants, Deckard is congratulated by Bryant again. He’s clearly been keeping an eye on Deckard, and makes it clear that he knows about Rachel and expects her to be “retired”. A couple of seconds later Leon turns up and starts to beat the crap out of Deckard. Just before he’s about to be killed, though, Rachel saves his life. How very convenient it is that replicants are vulnerable to bullets.

Rachel has clearly been having a long night of the soul. She knows she’s going to be hunted, and needs reassurance from Deckard that he won’t hurt her. She wants to know her incept date; suddenly she knows her life expectancy is very, very limited. And (the killer question!), she wonders whether Deckard has himself taken the Voight-Kampf test. She’s very sad, and very quiet; a long scene follows in which, while together, they are both shown to be very, very alone. Then Deckard rapes her. There’s no way round this; it’s quite blatant.

Sebastian, it seems, is only twenty-five years old, in spite of looking much older. He apparently suffers from Methuselah syndrome; he’s aging very quickly. There’s an obvious parallel here with the limited lifespan of the replicants.  It’s also heavily hinted that the reason he has no neighbours is that most other young people have gone to the off-world colonies. Surely this would have economic consequences?

Roy and Pris are now the only replicants left. Interestingly, though, they get what they want from J.P. through the use of charm rather than force, although admittedly there’s an implied physical threat.  J.P. assists Roy in getting in to meet his creator, Tyrell. The old man, surely knowing that Roy will kill him, meets his fate with calm dignity, expressing surprise that it took Roy so long. It is not possible, it seems, to extend the lifetime of a replicant, something which Roy finds impossible to accept (“It is difficult to meet your maker”). He has burned bright, but must die soon. Roy kills his “father”, horribly. It could hardly have been otherwise. Sebastian’s murder, at least, happens discreetly off-screen.

After a bizarre interlude in which his car is attacked by homeless dwarves, Deckard goes into the spider’s parlour. After shooting dead a screaming Pris, he encounters Roy, and there follows an extended sequence of cat-and-mouse. We get some extremely vertiginous scenes of Deckard climbing unaided and hanging on to the edges of cliffs for a long, long time. There’s absolutely no way a human would be capable of doing this; yes, I saw that episode of Mythbusters. These scenes convince me that he’s a replicant. Not that it matters, of course; the point is that the human / replicant division is arbitrary and meaningless, with even the test being of doubtful validity.

The end is surprising. Roy pulls Deckard up and delivers some poetic last words, before expiring gracefully at his appointed hour. He dies, and everything he has experienced is lost. But it eventually happens to all of us.

It seems the film ends with our rapist hero eloping with his victim. The pilot’s shout of “Too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?” seems to make a certain implication about Deckard, the man with no apparent hinterland. I wonder which replicant will die first?