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From: [email protected] (S.P. Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: From Sourcerer In His Convalescence
Date: 29 Aug 1995 20:42:40 -0400
Organization: The Pipeline
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pipe1.nyc.pipeline.com

In article <[email protected]>, Sourcerer writes:

>And it [Bladerunner] influenced Gibson and Neuromancer, but he did not buy
the
>Chandleresque commentary, instead taking Hammett, I think, as a model.
>That's a colder, tougher style, not given to explanatory and critical
>ongoing commentary.
>
>And Bladerunner was influenced by Gibson's influence, and so we have the
>Director's Cut.

This is a persistent and untrue tumor and/or observation. Neuro was *not*
influenced by BR. Neuro was half-completed (and entirely thought out) when
BR first showed up in the theaters. WG went to see it, lasted about ten
minutes, and ran out of the theater. He realized how close this was to his
project and was afraid to watch for fear of subconsciously losing his own
vision and picking up Scott's. He didn't actually see the movie until long
after Neuro was completed.

Also, Scott's Director's Cut was not influenced by WG. During pre-release,
terrified studio weasels forced the voice-over on RS over his astonished
and vehement objections. They thought that no one would understand the
film without a voice explaining it as it went along. The Chandleresque
voice was an obvious, even cliched choice for those weasels. (They also
forced RS to cobble up that bizarre original ending, a hurriedly tacked-on
bit of feelgood for the kiddies.) In the days before Blockbuster, RS
acquiesced--realizing that they would never release the movie at all unless
he did. All this occured, I repeat, during a period when Neuro was a
half-completed manuscript by a complete unknown--certainly unknown to RS.
When Blockbuster came to be, RS took the opportunity to make a Cut that
simply restored his *original* vision.

I feel this to be an important point because BR & Neuro, IMO, are rare
examples of authentic parallel evolution. The zeitgeist was there, at
least two people were beginning to tune in.

ayebrown

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