Snip:
Twenty-five years ago, the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner became an instant science fiction classic. Set in a sodden, squalid Los Angeles of 2019, the neo-noir masterpiece influenced a generation of filmmakers and video-game designers. Long before I teamed up with Jamie Hyneman to form the MythBusters, I was a special-effects modelmaker, and Scott's cyberpunk gem almost instantly became the most important film in the canon of movies I love.
I'm still such a big Blade Runner fan that I watch it at least once every 18 months. I also own pretty convincing replicas of the "blade runner blaster" wielded by Harrison Ford's world-weary former cop Rick Deckard. The source material was a Steyr Mannlicher .222 target rifle magazine cover, with a Bulldog .44 carriage underneath. I can't get enough of this prop. Now, I want a working one.
Link to "Blade Runner at 25: Why the Sci-Fi F/X Are Still Unsurpassed," at Popular Mechanics, by Adam Savage
Link to the Blade Runner Director's Cut DVD on Amazon, here's a big fat fansite, here's the Wikipedia entry, here's IMDB. (thanks, Matt Sullivan)
Reader comment: Mike says,
To go along with your Blade Runner 25th anniversary story, a replica of Deckard's firearm is currently for sale on ebay with about 1 day left: Link.
