I saw that Blade Runner was trending on Twitter and quickly checked the stream to see why. Much to my horror there was a news article mentioning that the rights to the Movie, its characters and the intellectual property were being negotiated by Alcon Entertainment.
See an article about it here: http://sciencefictionworld.com/films/science-fiction-films/734-blade-runner-sequels-and-prequels-happening.html
I read a lot of the twitter feeds and most of them expressed the same thing I was feeling. A sequel? To the best stand alone science fiction movie of all time? (That is my opinion and you are welcome to disagree 🙂 not that anyone will) Nooooooooo!!
It is like the horrid sequels to Highlander. If ever a movie didn’t need a sequel it was that one. He had already killed off all the immortals in the first movie, ‘There can be only one’ and there was by the end, only one. How do you make a sequel to that? By ruining it!!
I think if they make a sequel to Blade Runner only bad things can happen. The movie had the advantage of being based upon one of the most profound sf writers of the last century Phillip K Dick. Practically every movie made based on one of his short stories has been successful, if not financially at least critically. Any sequels will be based on lesser mortals doing the work and a heavy reliance on CGI. I just don’t know that it will work. There will be too much interest, too high an expectation that nothing can live up to.
The article mentions that the rights acquisition was inspired by Disney’s doing a sequel to Tron. Well, see how that turned out. A dreary dull movie with no story line, bad acting and extremely bad 3D effects. It has ruined the original for me now. In fact most bad sequels ruin the first movie for me. I cannot watch Highlander without thinking cringingly of the sequels.
I must quickly rewatch the estimable Blade Runner before the sequels ruin it.
The Apathetic Reviewer 