After some downtime lately, I’ve moved the site to wordpress.com hosting. All the articles and other content have been successfully moved. What remains is to move control over the http://www.br-insight.com domain to wordpress DNS servers in order to substitute the brinsight.wordpress.com domain. This is being processed right now, but I decided to go public before it was completed. So, hopefully soon now, everything will be back to status quo on http://www.br-insight.com.
Redesign and Recover
This site has got a new “suit”. The new theme is based on one called Ambient-Glo and is designed by Nathan Parikh, I’ve only made some minor adjustments to it (see footer for theme link). The other piece of good news is that I’ve been able to recover all 2007-dated posts which I previously assumed had been permanently lost. Also expect very soon to get a better structure of the analysis articles hosted on this site.
Back Online!
Hello, once again, fellow runners. As some may have noticed, we’ve had a bit of a downtime lately. This is all due to a completely unprofessional and incompetent hosting provider with the name WebHostingAce who have hosted Blade Runner Insight for the past couple of years, but in late november 2007 “lost” all my data and have been totally unwilling to remedy the situation.
As of such, I have now rebuilt the entire site from the last backup I received from this hosting company in question. The backup was dated January 2007!, hence all posts between that time and now have been lost…. like tears in rain (sorry, I just had to write that!)
Mythbusters comments on the effects used in BR
A quarter-century after Ridley Scott’s dark vision of the future changed the face of filmmaking, special-effects maestro and Mythbuster Adam Savage offers an appreciation for Blade Runner. In this interview, in the July 2007 edition of Popular Mechanics, he provides details for various scenes in the movie and explains why he thinks the special effects used in Blade Runner are still, to some extent, unsurpassed.
Source:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4218376.html
Deal with the rain in true BR style…
Ever needed a light source integrated in your umbrella? No, not really you say… but this is still a must-have for a die-hard BR fan; an umbrella with illuminated shaft! It is the online shop ThinkGeek which sells this futuristic piece of technology. Thanks to Phillip for providing this information.
Video frenzy…
I search around on youtube.com for Blade Runner related material, and a wealth of clips was uncovered. Mostly user edited trailers and other simple creations, but still quite fun to explore. Here are some samples of what is available:
Blade Runner The Final Cut Fan-Trailer
“Blade Runner: The Maria Edition” trailer (Expansion Union)
Blade Runner Theatrical Sci-Fi Channel Trailer
Blade Runner (DC) trailer – [My version] (Ed: not mine)
SYNCHRONIZE re-score “Blade Runner”
Rutger Hauer interview, Blade Runner, 1994
Another treat, found on Google Video, is the Channel 4 documentary “On the Edge of Blade Runner” from 2000. If you haven’t already seen it, I strongly recommend you allocate the next 52 minutes to watch it. It is also rumored that it’s going to be included in the upcoming SE DVD release.
The Immortal Game
In lack of Blade Runner related news and updates on the upcoming Final-Cut version, I came a cross this very detailed Wikipedia article on the Immortal Game, the actual chess game which the game between Sebastian (and Batty) and Tyrell is based on. The real game was first played back in 1851 by Anderssen and Kieseritzky, in which Anderssen won. The nick name “The Immortal Game” was given to it four years later.
The chessboards used in Blade Runner are not arranged exactly the same as those in the immortal game, but it is still considered to be the game played due to the symbolism in the situation of the prodigy child and his maker.
The article contains a complete sequence in algebraic chess notation for those interested. It also had this nifty GIF animation of the game, which I included in this posting.
I took the liberty of grabbing this quotation from the BR-FAQ over at BRmovie.com, which transcribes the relevant scenes where the game unfolds..
Roy makes a move. [22.Qf6+]
JF says, “No, knight takes queen, see? Won’t do.” [22....Nxf6]
Roy then does that on the board and sits down to examine the board further.
Later, in the elevator, JF (repeating Roy) says “Queen to Bishop 6. Check.” [22.Qf6+]
Tyrell responds with “Knight takes queen.” [22....Nxf6]
and the response is “Bishop to King 7. Checkmate.” [23.Be7++]
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Game
http://brmovie.com/Downloads/Docs/The_Blade_Runner_FAQ.txt
A decade online…
This month (July, 2006) is the 10th anniversary for Blade Runner Insight. It’s been ten years since this web site was first published on the Internet, and I will do my best to keep it online and updated for many more years to come.
Tor I. Skaar
Blade Runner Insight
Blade Runner Insight
Reviews: The Blade Runner Experience
Recently a new book about Blade Runner was published; The Blade Runner Experience. I haven’t read the book personally yet, however here are two reviews of the book which gives it the thumbs-up. Blogcritics.org writes: “This book seeks to examine the film from a variety of perspectives; the series of essays included here consider not only the original film but the other ways in which the story has been expanded by a PC game and a series of novelized sequels (which seek to build upon the tenuous nature of Deckard’s humanity, simultaneously bringing into sharp relief the question of exactly what it means to “be” human anyway). The book also explores the many ways in which the film has influenced a host of imitators, and delves into the interaction between the film’s fans and the nightmarish future envisioned by Scott and his crew. The authors of the essays found here are a disparate collection of philosophers, film historians, and cultural critics, and the book is a welcome addition to the study of an amazingly influential film.”. Netribution has a review by Laurence Boyce where he writes: “Considering the film is one of my favourites, and I’m in possession of a Film Studies degree, then I have a “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 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.
Vulnerable Electric Sheep
Since I have mentioned the “Electric Sheep” screensaver before, I thought it was prudent to inform users of this software that multiple vulnerabilites was discovered recently. In a posting to the Bugtraq-list the vulnerabilities are described, and may in worst case enable an attacker to execute arbitrary code on your machine. An upgrade to the latest version (2.6.4) should fix the problem.
