There is also the failed attempt of Jodorowsky to make a Dune movie:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky's_Dune

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)#Early_stalled_a...

The documentary is pretty fascinating. Jodorowsky managed to put together a stellar team, among them H.R. Giger, Dalí and the script writer who would later write Alien.

> Jodorowsky

I recently got a copy of this and could only come to the conclusion that they were doing a lot of drugs in the 1970s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Mountain_(1973_film)

If you think Jodorowsky's Dune was weird, you should see his Holy Mountain[1]

Also, millions of people did a lot of drugs in that time, but there is only one Jodorowsky. Drugs alone can not explain his vision.

[1] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qmR0vi0ifzE

Yes. That's the movie the comment you responded to was talking about.

Did you even read the comment before responding?

I see this kind of the comment--legible, complete sentences, no grammatical errors, but otherwise totally missing some basic element in what they're replying to--from time to time, generally only on HN, and I wonder if they're edge cases from some kind of bot school.

Did you have to be rude about it?

Parent obviously read the comment (which doesn't mention any particular movie in its text), but didn't follow the link, assuming it was about Dune (which was the context that started the subthread).

Jodorowsky has said he’s only taken psychedelics once. There’s also overt criticism of drug use and dependence throughout his body of work, including in Holy Mountain itself, so that seems like a self-limiting conclusion to come to.

> only taken psychedelics once

And said that it was the experience of limitation and impotence - "what if I now had to react in front of an emergency".

Holy Mountain is hilarious. I always think about the scene where the President's advisor says they need to kill millions of people to save the economy lol

Truth is stranger than fiction.

I think that was pretty widely accepted? Not sure if total drug use was higher than it is now but especially hallucinogenic drugs were much more popular than they are today.

I don't think the colourful styles of the 60s/70s were a coincidence either, no :)

By the way: the very author of "Golden Brown" stated that creativity is an effect of lucidity - intoxication limits it.

"Golden Brown" is a riddle: how many individuals may have thought (as the original poster supposes) that it takes «lot of drugs» to compose it?

(Of course, "riddles", "artistic work" and "non-literal descriptions" remain distinct. Though for all of them, in general, if you have to suppose a reduction to "fantasies" you probably have not understood them.)

He deplored with disgust that he sometimes had to work with "junkies" - so, they were frequent.

I think it's not uncommon for recreational psychedelic users to have a disdain and aversion to actual junkies, if using the 1970s sense of the word, would literally mean heroin addicts. Big dividing line between the two sorts of drug users.

I cannot remember if he used 'junkie' or 'drogado' or other terms when referring to those actors that had been a dangerous nuisance in the filming process. Surely he was fuming and rightly, commonsensically contemptuous remembering the episodes (one almost killed him and left scars).

Whatever the drug, it is the exact opposite of what that work stands for. The "sleeping intoxicated bum" is the very beginning.

Don’t forget moebius

Moebius and Giger were the Wozniaks, Jodorowsky was a mere Steve Jobs.

Does this mean that theaters should prepare for the Moebius Sweep?

It must be crazy for Jodorowsky to see how his concept art defined so much of space sci fi , at least this was the angle presented in the documentary. But imagine the treasure trove George Lucas must have come across

Jodorowskys Dune is the Xerox Parc of movies.

Most underrated comment

Dune is unmakable. Always will be. It is the definitive book that is too big for the screen. The story and themes are too vast. Adaptations can be good, be entertaining, but every one is a shallow attempt at the impossible.

You should read BotNS That's an unmakable book.

Also one of the best experiences of my life for sure. But I did it by following an podcast chapter by chapter analysis (Alzabo Soup)

I think the TV mini-series is very good.

Yeah, it is thanks to these two movies that modern scifi and its visual development side of things exists basically

They popularized these styles but they existed in other mediums.

What’s fascinating is looking at all the different styles Dune the dune book covers had over time to see how various mediums influenced things. https://www.biblio.com/dune-by-herbert-frank/work/3104

That's a good angle

But that's the thing, jodos dune came as an aggregate of "non-movie" mediums, because jodorowsky was not a cinematographer by trade he was an avant garde theater person, giger, Dali, moebius, Foss, neither of them "were part" of the "movies" medium, they all and the rest of the crew were painters or writers or musicians, comic book artists, not cinematographers per se, in that sense what jodorowsky set to do was not even a movie as we might think of one today, but an agglomeration of different types and styles of art with all their own individual Influences mixed in

I think today, it would be nearly impossible for "works" to exist and not have been inspired themselves in some degree by the downstream effects and inspiration that jodorowskys movie had, just think that starwars itself is inspired by it

But anyhow, it is a quite interesting food for thought

If anyone knows of some niche modern scifi books or works which might not be influenced by this failed dune movie let me know, I love this stuff

Star Wars.

No, seriously. Jodorowksy's concept was widely circulated in Hollywood but nobody would take the risk.

Enter George Lucas, just riffing on the original idea.

Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake seems to derive very little from classic science fiction. Perhaps this is because she’s a woman, and thus less drawn to teenage male fantasies like those found in Dune.

Even without leaving Scott, Alien seems to have been at least as visually influential as Blade Runner. Plus of course Star Wars and Star Trek...

Blade Runner is fairly distinctive even today (outside of Cyberpunk, most other post-82 sci fi that I can think of is definitely more influenced by other things) which IMO is a sign that it isn't as universally influential as other 70s/80s sci-fi films.

Off the top of my head, do any of BSG, Babylon 5, Mass Effect, Jurassic Park, Inception, Terminator, The Expanse, Interstellar, Independence Day, or The Matrix have particularly strong ties to Blade Runner's aesthetic compared to their ties to other early film sci-fi?

And of course Alien got a few things from Dark Star

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Star_(film)

https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/looking-back-at-john-carpen...

Dolittle: What is your purpose?

Bomb: To explode, of course!

Great dialog trumps expensive special effects every time.

Totally! And one of the few English language films I’ve seen that retains the humour perfectly dubbed in German. In fact the bomb is possibly even funnier in German :)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XetTVNtzTW8

And from Jodorowsky's Dune, where O'Bannon also worked

...and Jean Giraud (Moebius) drew the storyboards; that style also influenced the Blade Runner cityscape with all the fine detail and greebles

I don’t wish to detract from your point, which is a good one, but I do think Babylon 5 had some dark neon orientalism going on.

There's an interesting interview with Syd Mead about his work on Blade Runner here: [1]

Mead also worked on Tron (among other films) and George Lucas made the AT-AT based on Mead's art.[2]

[1] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6VPT-Ug-gF4

[2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Mead

I especially like how his cityscapes tend to show a skyline that would be familiar to anyone living in the last century, and then absolutely dwarf that skyline with megastructures, which themselves don't look particularly alien, just beyond our abilities. It's not hard to imagine those structures existing with (sci-fi level) advances in materials and construction techniques.

Can anyone recommend some music that has the same vibe as Blade Runner's synth stuff?

Yeah, Isao Tomita and Tangerine Dream come to mind. Contemporaries of Vangelis (the composer of the soundtrack of Blade Runner) from the 70's. Very similar vibe.

Jean Michel Jarre as well, though he had more of a beat. I like Morton Subotnick and the seminal album "Silver Apples of the Moon" it's more out there and experimental but it definitely it had a similar texture.

I was going to suggest jean J.M Jarre, but hard to get the ambience of Bladerunner as its quite curated.

But as an aside, there was these synthesizer compilations in the late 80s / early 90s that introduced to my to a bunch of Synth artists. Most of them have quite a range of styles they do on synth, some quite bladerunnerish (including Vangelis). Anyways, the albums are "Synthesizer Greatest 1,2 and 3". Spotify has them as a playlists, as do most other music providers.

EDIT: also The prime thanatos streaming on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P23oE6ekwQ

I fell in love with Tomita's classical reproductions as a child. His sound textures took about 25 years for anyone else to come close. Crazy to think that he played almost every part on his keyboard. All he had were early analog sequencers, and had to multi-track everything because polyphonic sound had not yet been created. If you haven't heard, listen to his take on Pacific 231 by Honegger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjxbwZG20Wc

Nothing against Vangelis of course...

I saw Jarre live in the London Docklands in 1988 - I was a poor student that lived within walking distance (Woolwich) The rain gave it an ambiance that worked, and the location was abandoned industrial location - now redeveloped

The difference between London in the mid 80s to now is stark, but it’s not quite fully Bladerunner

I was in that, on stage! :-)

I remember every detail... even the smell of the diesel generators. And the very-wet synthesizers (it was pouring with rain!), and - carefully edited out of the videos - the different tracks that veered out of sync, seemingly heading for disaster...

Actually Blade Runner is actually pretty much it's own music genre. Hop onto Bandcamp, and you'll find a lot of indie electronic artists (mostly German as far as I can tell) making music that sounds like Vangelis' Blade Runner synth stuff (less so for the non synth stuff).

- https://the-rosen-corporation.bandcamp.com/album/neon-lovers

- https://christopheleusiau.bandcamp.com/album/a-tribute-to-bl...

- https://ogresound.bandcamp.com/album/off-world

- https://siddharthabarnhoorn.bandcamp.com/album/tears-in-the-...

- https://breather1.bandcamp.com/album/the-noodle-bar

Same vibe, no. Vangelis was one of a kind. But somewhere in the same galactic neighborhood:

Maurice Jarre (The Witness, Gorillas in the Mist)

Bear McCreary is mostly orchestral, but the "Cult of Baltar" cue, for example, seems to me cut from some of the same corners of the world/ambient universe.

Cliff Martinez has done a ton of great ambient synth stuff (Traffic, The Neon Demon, Drive).

Other synth soundtracks you may already know, but should check out if you haven't: Wendy Carlos's TRON and Daft Punk's TRON: Legacy; Brad Fiedel's Terminator; Tangerine Dream's various soundtracks.

Kuedo's severant album has a very similar DNA. intense, sleek synth driven but still melancholic and familiar

https://open.spotify.com/track/6tjTQ95h4TOHvB1VzhYvKJ?si=anq...

Not sure why you’re being downvoted; this album and the Kuedo alias in general wears the Blade Runner inspirations on the sleeve.

It’s not surprising he was tapped to help score the Blade Runner short film: https://ra.co/news/40000

Thank you. This is excellent.

Take a listen to Perturbator, Carpenter Brut, and Daniel Deluxe. The genre of "Dark Synthwave"[1] in general tends to have BladeRunner/Cyberpunk vibes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthwave

Second Carpenter Brut, even though i think it is quite different from Vangelis. The album Leather Teeth [0] has some great videos, but they are absolutely NSFW.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wp95itbiAA&list=PL9e7gmweje...

If "more Blade Runner" would suffice, there's a bootleg soundtrack available in all your favorite piratey places that includes virtually all the music from the movie, most of which never made it onto any official soundtrack.

Things you might look for are "Esper" or "Retirement" edition.

Selected Ambient Works II by Aphex Twin

The Hans Zimmer soundtrack to Blade Runner 2049 is quite good. It plays homage to the original, but is definitely its own creation.

My experience of Blade Runner 2049's music was that the only memorable bit was the explicit use of "Tears in Rain" from the original. Everything else seemed very generic and ephemeral.

I'd give at least the next 10mins of this mix a listen imo. https://youtu.be/5vHRUsP20dQ?t=1830 Its a bloody good mix in its own right anyway!

I dont think you would or could find much with the same vibe as Blade Runner, its kind of unique and stands out on its own, but a DJ who could do a mix which is close to a Blade Runner vibe would be Maceo Plex and it would be this mix imo.

Alot of the German/Berlin industrial vibe would be too extreme or hardcore for a Blade Runner vibe, and whilst it would seem natural to look to a German DJ for a Blade Runner vibe, I think Maceo Plex has pulled a Blade Runner vibe perfectly in this mix.

The album Sanctuary by Infinity Shred evokes similar feelings to the Blade Runner score for me.

The track Jasmine (demo) by Jai Paul has a completely different vibe but a gorgeous Vangelis-like synth tone in the chorus. reply

Great question - lots of good recommendations to look into.

Anything else by Vangelis. He died a few weeks ago but his music will likely live on for a long, long time. Try: Soil Festivities (personal favorite), Spiral, and Jon & Vangelis.

Other artists: Johan Timman, John Kerr (Moon). Brian Eno.

Makeup and Vanity Set

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sOy9VowoLA&list=PL5zdIKeI6k...

Vangelis’ own Chariots of Fire and 1492 are exceptional scores.

Not exactly, but you may like https://youtu.be/QYVmZ0pEPdo.

Arovane's Gestalt (Spotify). Eno's Apollo maybe?

I tried to impress my 11 year old with the opening sequence; flames belching over LA, Vangelis, etc. -- which I've always found aesthetically stunning.

He was not impressed. This made me sad.

Give him 7 to 10 years. It bounced right off me as a kid too. It's one of my desert island films now.

That's the caveat of groundbreaking works. They may hold up over time and still be strong works. But the things they did that were new and jaw-dropping end up riffed upon and will no longer be as surprising to new audiences.

Enjoy this awesome cinemagraph from that opening scene (not my work):

“Los Angeles, November 2019” Blade Runner (1982) IWDRM https://iwdrm.tumblr.com/post/2927811283

The Kinks, Michael Jackson’s music sound “ok” and familiar today. That’s the price of success and being “trend setting”.

I was very unimpressed when I watched it as a kid, blown away when I was older.

also inspiration from Metropolis

https://www.google.com/search?q=metropolis&tbm=isch

and also Things to Come

https://www.google.com/search?q=Things+to+Come&tbm=isch

These links are excellent and I hadn't heard of Syd Mead despite being a long time fan of this film. Thank you for posting.

I will likely never have the talent to do so, unless I retire early, but assuming I do retire (the way the UK is going you never know eh, maybe by 77) or just have some spare time and money I'd love to have some reconstructed miniatures of scenes from blade runner.

I guess someone has probably done this already, but I've never been able to find anything with first-order googling at least.

It's pretty well-known that the french sci-fi comic Metal Hurlant inspired Bladerunner.

Heavy Metal also inspired the 5th element

From the wiki page:

The visual style of the movie is influenced by the work of futurist Italian architect Antonio Sant'Elia.[51] Scott hired Syd Mead as his concept artist; like Scott, he was influenced by Métal Hurlant

So, err, no. Métal Hurlant was 1974, cyberpunk itself started in the 1960s.

It's based on a book from 1968 after all. Judge Dredd first came out in 1977.

It didn't come up with the aesthetic, it popularized it.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here, but it sounds like you're saying "Blade Runner wasn't an enormous influence on 40 years of sci-fi, because it also had influences and we should credit those instead." I don't think that's how it works. At worst, Blade Runner took an aesthetic that had been the domain of some relatively obscure (if excellent) comics and brought it crashing into the forefront of global pop culture.

Also, "cyberpunk itself started in the 1960s" is...pretty questionable. It was certainly heavily influenced and rooted in New Wave sci-fi of the '60s and '70s, but cyberpunk as a literary movement is very much a thing of the '80s.

In any case, New Wave sci-fi and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? were very much textual media. They were a huge influence on the themes and stories of what would become cyberpunk, not so much on the visual aesthetic.

Great stuff. Thanks. Gotta love the data tape reels on the "home" computer.