Why did this bomb in 1982?

Most had to do with the zeitgeist. Everyone was in a hungry Lucas/Spielberg mode and a dark, beautiful sad film like Blade Runner simply didn't fit that bill. Instead of giving the audience easily identifiable entertainment (scary, tense, humour, action), Blade Runner was more of moody, mature and thinking man's sci-fi flick with philosophical themes about identity, death and what it means to be human. In short, it never stood a chance of becoming a blockbuster. Oddly enough, Ridley actually wanted to make a simple and fun movie about a cop chasing androids in a futuristic city, but somewhere along the way it turned into a different beast altogether. It's probably the main reason why it required more than one viewing (for most people) to adapt to it and why it took years for Blade Runner to receive recognition.



Alex

[deleted]

Two reasons.

Harrison Ford was in it, and he was on the poster with a gun. So many people were probably expecting another heroic Han Solo or Indy character. If you're expecting that it's going to be a big let down. Even the studio bosses didn't really know how to sell it, resulting in trailers that just showed a lot of flying cars and other shots that made it look more like a fast paced action movie than a film noir.

And it was around the time of E.T which was obviously a mainstream, upbeat family movie.

But it's a myth that all audiences and critics hated it.

Many critics did call it a masterpiece and predicted it would stand the test of time. And it cleared up at the Los Angeles Critics Association Awards.

And Rutger Hauer said that the screening he went to, people were either in awe of it or downright hated it. No middle ground. I think that's more the case rather than the majority hated it.

As a previous commentator mentioned "E.T" completely blew this film out of the water. People wanted to see Sci-fi in that spirit not dark, neo-punk sci-fi about slavery.

This film was one of the first films to benefit from the Home Video revolution and received a second chance. in this day and age, everyone really waits for the home video revenue with the initial release being the icing. But back then, there was no extended life for a film to gather eyeballs and network TV cut up feature films like crazy for only one showing.

As others have stated, the critical reviews weren't all bad, but several of the major critics in the US gave particularly scathing reviews. Most notably, Pauline Kael of the New Yorker, who was considered the leading film critic in America at the time, Janet Maslin of the New York Times, and Siskel and Ebert on their nationally syndicated television series, Sneak Previews. I don't remember Kael's or Maslin's reviews but I vividly remember Siskel and Ebert's, being from Chicago myself. It's still available on Youtube. While Ebert did praise the special effects both he and Siskel disliked the story, claiming it was cliched, predictable and went nowhere. Paul Sammon goes into all of this in more detail in Future Noir.

So while not all critic's reviews were bad, many of the major ones were. And then as now, many movie goers take the word of the critic over forming their own objective opinion.



Reaction time is a factor in this, so please pay attention.

A film professor told me she was crazy about it when she saw it in the movie theater. Many people couldn't digest it because of the dark tone, I guess. And maybe were expecting a more accesible Harrison Ford movie. But for some it was revolutionary. So I guess film enthusiasts did like it but later became more famous because it influenced dozens of films.

mandrakemovies.wordpress.com

Why did I ever go to watch a movie named "Blade Runner?"

I'm sure I'm glad I did, but it was the only movie running in my local theatre when I had a free date night w/my wife.

We both walked out confounded: i.e., 'what was that?'

Which started my obsession to determine: what WAS that?

I'm so glad I have the dialogue here to help me figure it out.

Impossible is illogical.
Lack of evidence is not proof.
 +  = 

The movie LOOKS amazing, but it's slow, ponderous, poorly constructed and dramatically unsatisfying. Maybe that's why.