Why can't a sequel expand on the ideas or reveal a mystery from another film?
A sequel can expand on an idea from an original movie, but a sequel stands alone in that it can't change what was originally done. At least it sure ain't going to change it for me. I know the opinions that I formed when I first watched Blade Runner in the theater back in 1982 won't be changed by later cuts of the same movie. Ridley can delete scenes as he did, and he can add in scenes, but it doesn't change the original movie experience for me. At least he didn't pull a Lucas and make the Theatrical Cut unavailable, and for that I'm glad.
See, I don't believe in an universally connection between movies, movies aren't real to me in that way and my mind doesn't work that way either. But I gather a lot of people do think of movies like Blade Runner as real in some existential way. And I think a lot of the fans who believe Deckard
is and always was a replicant, do so based out of a philosophical or ideological desire.....which is OK, as we're all different and all have different ways of thinking. But it's not how I approach things.
Is it now just going to be Phil K. Dick's input that matters?
No, not really to me. The book is the book and the movie is the movie, just as BR2049 is another movie. While the various edits by Ridley are just variations on the original.
Stanley Kubrick's films are mostly adaptations. Was he just some hired hand with no artistic vision or input?
Good question, does the often panned 2010 change or ruin what Kurbrick did in 2001? No. They should each be judged by themselves as they are works of art.
I don't see what you are getting at here when you claim the be-all, end-all definition of a film is all up to the viewer's interpretation. A viewer's interpretation is important, and sort of a personal thing, but it doesn't define a film, or any other piece of art, for that matter. Why do the artist's intentions not matter?
Because Ridley did not show us Deckard as a replicant in the original film, he edited the Directors Cut to allude to that fact, but that doesn't transcend time backwards and change the original version.
What if Sean Young said tomorrow that Rachel was a human and was pretending to be a replicant to test the validity of the Voight-Kampff? Would you then believe that to be truth? Or would you believe you eyes in what you had originally seen on the screen?
Now what if Ridley Scott said that, would you then believe Rachel had been a human along? That's what I mean about Death of Author, it's a literary term.
One thing I have read a few different people say about the original Blade Runner, and at least a couple of times in the book I mentioned, is that the visual and atmospheric elements were created with a very unique vision that came almost entirely from Ridley Scott at the time. Other people involved in the production of the film said exactly that. I think his input and ideas should at least be considered, yea?
I did indeed say that already,'
The directing part: visuals and staging of the shots and directing of actors, are his
Also, if the "original work" was tampered with before it was released, as is the case here, that should come into play, as well.
Disagree, the movie and the book are two different works and I judge them separately. I never care what a book was, only if I like the movie or not.