A Very Vangelis November

November 1, 2019 6:32 PM

The opening scene from Blade Runner but with shots of current-day Los Angeles. Via Boing Boing.
posted by Cash4Lead (45 comments total)

wow...chilling...or do I mean eerie?
posted by mollymillions at 6:45 PM on November 1, 2019

(for those of us who, like me, were shown Blade Runner at age 13 by a very enthusiastic dad and managed to stay awake for the whole movie but who have since forgotten the memory of its opening scene, here it is.)
posted by ChuraChura at 6:48 PM on November 1, 2019 [11 favorites]

Oof.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:52 PM on November 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'd have to do some digging for links but I know there was a whole strain of Los Angeles Civic planning documents from the late 80s obsessed with making sure Los Angeles would have a brighter future than that shown in Blade Runner. This video is the perfect accompaniment to that.
posted by CostcoCultist at 7:05 PM on November 1, 2019 [3 favorites]

Let us hope that one day they will make a proper adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? set in San Francisco.
posted by Apocryphon at 8:02 PM on November 1, 2019 [10 favorites]

I knew that was going to be a link to Britta’s gallery, Apocryphon!
posted by migurski at 8:06 PM on November 1, 2019

Ah yes, November 2019. A month deeply engrained in my memory. I saw Blade Runner 4 or 5 times the week it was in my local theater. Totally thrilling, utterly ignored until home video, should be seen on the big screen. I've seen every wide release it's had since it came out, and truly truly enjoyed Blade Runner 2049 also. It's a film, like the first, which improves on repeated viewings. Lots of subtlety happening in both of them that is initially overlooked.

For those looking for a longer, more immersive November 2019 experience, I can recommend Los Angeles 2019 [1h18m], an "album" of audio tracks taken from a videogame and the film which are the ambience of Los Angeles in 2019.
posted by hippybear at 8:45 PM on November 1, 2019 [3 favorites]

there was a whole strain of Los Angeles Civic planning documents from the late 80s obsessed with making sure Los Angeles would have a brighter future than that shown in Blade Runner.

November 2019
posted by hippybear at 9:10 PM on November 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Props to the showrunners for Lucifer. They did a hell of a job setting up establishing shots for the final season.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:24 PM on November 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

Also, there's a timeline worked out by the fandom. Nov 20 is the key date.
posted by hippybear at 9:41 PM on November 1, 2019 [3 favorites]

I always knew we'd have the cyberpunk dystopia I just thought we'd have cooler clothes
posted by The Whelk at 9:51 PM on November 1, 2019 [33 favorites]

The Whelk: it's not all about the clothes! Sheesh!
posted by hippybear at 9:57 PM on November 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Like, "people are voluntarily signing up for massive surveillance across their lives in exchange for being the data that is sold to third parties or given to police services in exchange for not having to pay for the services they want" isn't cyberpunk/dystopian for you? And the clothes are the ones everyone is wearing! Wheeee!
posted by hippybear at 10:00 PM on November 1, 2019 [8 favorites]

Black Mirror could do an entire season of variations on this and still people wouldn't GET THE POINT. They don't see this as a dystopia, they see it as the world they live in. And they are correct, but are also ignoring the other correct view.
posted by hippybear at 10:01 PM on November 1, 2019 [13 favorites]

The thing is, they didn't have wildfires in Blade Runner that I remember, and the power was on.

The movie's 2019 has:

Off-world colonies
Superior biotechnology
Cyclopean megacities
AESTHETIC

Basically maybe Blade Runner is now a work of retrofuturist Utopianism, at least for CA?
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 10:06 PM on November 1, 2019 [21 favorites]

And rain. Lots of rain. LA 2019 was wet af.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:18 PM on November 1, 2019 [20 favorites]

The climate crisis was processed as being different back then. If this November 2019 had BR November 2019 levels of rain, the entire scenario that everyone is dealing with now would be different.
posted by hippybear at 10:21 PM on November 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

At least the Bradbury building still exists. I'm disappointed at our progress on housing density though.
posted by scose at 11:33 PM on November 1, 2019 [3 favorites]

also it's nice that all the animals aren't dead
posted by Jon_Evil at 1:20 AM on November 2, 2019 [6 favorites]

Yet
posted by lalochezia at 3:01 AM on November 2, 2019 [10 favorites]

My spouse sayeth:

"We got a different dystopia."
posted by kyrademon at 3:17 AM on November 2, 2019 [6 favorites]

The movie's 2019 has:

Don't forget about the talking Walk/Don't Walk signals. They did get that right.
posted by octothorpe at 4:14 AM on November 2, 2019 [7 favorites]

The climate crisis was processed as being different back then. If this November 2019 had BR November 2019 levels of rain, the entire scenario that everyone is dealing with now would be different.

If my memory serves (always questionable...) the big environmental concern on everybody's minds was acid rain rather than increases in temperatures.
posted by jzb at 5:33 AM on November 2, 2019 [7 favorites]

Soylent Green from 1973 specifically calls out global warming as a cause of the crisis that world's in.
posted by octothorpe at 5:52 AM on November 2, 2019 [10 favorites]

Exactly, octothorpe tell people that we knew that we had an ecological crisis in the 60's and nothing got done. Most people think I'm making this shit up.
posted by evilDoug at 6:08 AM on November 2, 2019 [4 favorites]

Rivers caught on fire due to the amount of pollution, giant bodies of water were declared too unclean to fish from... The ecology crisis of the 60s and 70s was a giant thing. Woodsy Owl was conceived and brought out as a mascot during this time ("Give a hoot, don't pollute!")

Early warning drums were being beaten about what carbon emissions were doing to the ecology. Nuclear was going to save us all because of no carbon. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House. It was serious shit, and people were paying attention.

And then Reagan got elected.
posted by hippybear at 6:13 AM on November 2, 2019 [26 favorites]

Also, "nothing got done" is a bit of a misstatement. The Environmental Protection Agency (1970) and the Clean Water Act (1972) and the much earlier Clean Air Act (1963) all happened as a result of the 60s ecological crisis. Also the Endangered Species Act (1973) is a part of that same movement.
posted by hippybear at 6:17 AM on November 2, 2019 [6 favorites]

We’ve know about the threat of carbon driven climate change for a looooong time.
posted by vorpal bunny at 6:28 AM on November 2, 2019 [3 favorites]

I always knew we'd have the cyberpunk dystopia I just thought we'd have cooler clothes

I mean, what’s stopping you?
posted by Young Kullervo at 6:41 AM on November 2, 2019 [11 favorites]

Let us hope that one day they will make a proper adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? set in San Francisco.

Oh I would love that. There are so many ideas in the book that didn't make it in to movie script. I think the movie is excellent and wouldn't change a thing, but it's only like 1/3 of what's available in the book. I'd really love to see Deckard's visit to the alternate police station; that's the schizophrenic break in the book, also a key element of everyone's favorite "Deckard is a replicant" theory.

And Mercerism, you could make a whole damn movie about Mercerism. I'm kinda hoping that's what the game Death Stranding ends up being, actually. The idea makes an appearance in a recent sci-fi film, I think maybe Her? But the idea of a religion based on empathy for pain in a multi-player VR environment, oof, I've always loved it.
posted by Nelson at 7:27 AM on November 2, 2019 [6 favorites]

I always knew we'd have the cyberpunk dystopia I just thought we'd have cooler clothes

At least we do have those glowy umbrellas.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:34 AM on November 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

It’s like the ADA, neither the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act have ever been fully implemented - passing laws means nothing if people can just not enforce them or defund them into nonexistence.
posted by The Whelk at 7:37 AM on November 2, 2019 [7 favorites]

They don't see this as a dystopia, they see it as the world they live in.

If you are talking about the fires, California is currently at something like 30% of the yearly burned acreage totals of the last 3 years. We’re actually in a down year, compared to recent history.

And I know the the PG&E and NorCal fires are the reason this stuff gets into the news, but the Los Angeles area gets fires like these every single year. I’ve been here for all by 2 of my 39 years, and this is just how it’s been, forever. That video probably could have been filed during practically any September/October during the last 50 years.
posted by sideshow at 8:06 AM on November 2, 2019 [4 favorites]

this is just how it’s been, forever.

Pretty much. In the last two decades, there have been school closures where I work (Chula Vista) due to wildfires producing so much smoke. The last time, I showed up at work and the Sun looked like the Eye of Sauron. (Yeah, I went to work even though I could have stayed home; public servant on my school district's Emergency Response Team. I had to be there, just in case.)
posted by SPrintF at 9:06 AM on November 2, 2019

Zoning also seems to have played a major role in Real Los Angeles not resembling Blade Runner Los Angeles. Blade Runner completely missed the housing crisis and was instead worried about hollowed out city populations (though the streets were strangely crowded like the densest Asian cities).
posted by srboisvert at 9:23 AM on November 2, 2019 [3 favorites]

I always knew we'd have the cyberpunk dystopia I just thought we'd have cooler clothes

They exist. There is fairly large cyberpunk fashion aesthetic subculture and even Nike and Adidas make clothes in the style. They just aren't mainstream but almost no style is these days except normcore (which is way more dystopian!)
posted by srboisvert at 9:27 AM on November 2, 2019 [2 favorites]

They definitely exist but, unless you want to make your own, they tend to be ridiculously expensive and, depending on where you live, you will stick out like a sore thumb. That could be good or bad but the only reason I haven’t done the full dive yet is because I don’t want to be that weirdo in my mid-sized, south-eastern city where everyone else wears Northface or what have you.
posted by Young Kullervo at 9:37 AM on November 2, 2019

Well, at least in the book, it was post-nuclear war, so the end of the animals and the rain and everyone leaving the planet was because the planet was practically uninhabitable.

We still have a few more years for that.
posted by MythMaker at 9:58 AM on November 2, 2019

this is just how it’s been, forever.

However, I will say that one thing different these days is that mandatory evacuations come sooner and bigger.

My sister owns and lives in my childhood home, and in my almost 40 years, I can think of a half dozen fires that came much much closer than the recent Tick fire, yet last week was the first time that home fell into a mandatory evacuation zone. Hell, my dad lives like a mile away and I've sat in his backyard and sweated from the heat of a fire, and he was under a evacuation order, although the dry Santa Clara River was in between us and the flames.
If the Tick Fire had actually come close enough to matter, it would likely be the worst residential fire in CA (if not US) history. But, better safe than sorry.

My guess is after the Paradise fire (again, a NoCal fire unlike anything the regular SoCal fires we get every year) burned a bunch of people up before they got around to making the evacuation mandatory, the powers that be just go early and hard.
posted by sideshow at 10:31 AM on November 2, 2019 [2 favorites]

I was going to say something about no damn flying cars or standard pleasure model replicants, but god damn, the flying cars were about as common as helicopters are now (ie tools of the police and corporate billionaires) and we are closer to non-consensual sex with semi-sentient machines than I'm really comfortable with now anyway. So good job Ridley Scott and Philip K. Dick and whoever else. Except for some details, you pretty much called the future more accurately than any other popular sci fi. Well, except the Jetsons. They pretty much got it right too.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:54 AM on November 2, 2019 [4 favorites]

And rain. Lots of rain. LA 2019 was wet af.

Having not lived in LA, it never clicked for me that heavy rain was unusual in LA, and quietly signaled that a major climate shift had taken place.
Mind slightly blown this morning.
posted by LEGO Damashii at 12:30 PM on November 2, 2019 [4 favorites]

I always knew we'd have the cyberpunk dystopia I just thought we'd have cooler clothes

I would describe my own personal look as "those convict dudes from Alien 3," so à chacun son goût.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:02 PM on November 2, 2019 [2 favorites]

Still waiting on my basic pleasure model.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:55 PM on November 2, 2019

Still waiting on my basic pleasure model.

You need to sign up for the military and get posted offworld first.
posted by srboisvert at 5:21 PM on November 2, 2019

Having not lived in LA, it never clicked for me that heavy rain was unusual in LA, and quietly signaled that a major climate shift had taken place.
Mind slightly blown this morning

I mean, our “heavy” rain total last year just under 19 inches, which was 4ish inches more than the average yearly total of LA’s recorded weather history (since 1883). If this post happened last year, we’d be talking about Los Angeles’s whopping 4 inches of rain that season.
posted by sideshow at 9:30 PM on November 2, 2019