The Blade Runner Experience (Edited by Will Brooker)

If you’re a fan of Blade Runner – and there are many – you may be happy that there’s a new book exploring the classic film. However, if terms such as ‘Intertextuality’, ‘Liminal Space’ and ‘Cyberethnography’ are liable to give you a sudden headache then maybe you’d better check out Laurence Boyce’s review of The Blade Runner Experience before spending your hard earned money.

With weighty subjects such mortality, humanity and the nature of being running through the narrative and a visual style that allows for endless examination, Blade Runner has always been a popular choice within the annals of Film Academia. For such a modern (in terms of academic film history anyway) movie there are reams of writing on the film, which often focus on its associations with post-modernism and humanism. The Blade Runner Experience collects a new series of essays that cover every conceivable aspect of the film, from Ridley’s Scott’s original film and beyond.

The book’s editor Will Brooker kicks off things with an interesting essay entitled Pilgrimage and Liminal Space which examines how fans will actually visit the locations of the movie and attempt to (mentally) transform them into the images they’ve seen on the screen. Examining notions of how the filmed image is interpreted by a film’s audience, it’s a rewarding work that takes in ideas of fandom and the cult. Other rewarding essays include Aaron Barlow’s examination of contemporary Science Fiction movies and how they have been informed by Blade Runner and the work of Philip K Dick and an illuminating piece from Barry Atkins that focuses on the game based on the film.

There are a few misfires such as Judith B Kerman – who edited an excellent book on the film in the 90s – who seems to be trying way too hard in her examination of the film post millennium. Indeed, there are certain points when many of the authors seem to be more showing off the amount of books they’ve read as opposed to making useful parallels to the film. Yet this is a problem often associated with many academic texts so it’s hard to help it against the collection as a whole.

Considering the film is one of my favourites, and I’m in possession of a Film Studies degree, then I have ‘Target Audience’ stamped across my forehead when it comes to The Blade Runner Experience and I suspect that, to get the most out of this, you’d have to be the same. If you’re studying the film, have studied it and want to explore more ideas contained in it and the various spin off projects then this is a book that’s will pique your interest and provoke debate. If you want some nice pictures of Harrison Ford or Daryl Hannah, then I’d go somewhere else…

PUBLISHER: Wallflower Press

ISBN: 1–904764–30–4  (pbk)
            1–904764–31–2   (hbk)
 
PRICE:  £16.99 (pbk)
                £45.00 (hbk)