Recently, the new trailer for Blade Runner 2049 dropped. My oldest son and I decided to spend our Friday night reacquainting ourselves with the original. He had never seen it, and I hadn’t seen it since I was very young. In fact, the edition that I saw was probably very different from the Final Cut edition that we rented.

It had been so long since I had seen Blade Runner that I frankly couldn’t remember most of it. I actually started to think that I had perhaps only seen it piecemeal, as the entire movie seemed quite foreign to me. However, because Blade Runner is such a classic of the sci-fi genre, I knew what was happening throughout.

Revisiting Blade Runner with the Final Cut edition meant that I was getting the director’s vision through and through. What Ridley Scott wanted to show us was the movie that we saw. I also have to mention that the remastering of this edition was amazing. We rented the HD version and the special effects (dated as they were) looked crisp and beautiful. In fact this entire movie is beautiful eye candy.

Anyone who’s seen Blade Runner knows that the beauty of the movie is in the story, the themes that it presents, and the visual effects. The acting is overall very mediocre, with dialogue that is wooden and often cryptic. Frankly, the best acting scene is the dressing room when Deckard confronts Zhora. That entire scene feels like a moment when the actors were given permission to actually create a character and play them out on screen.

The point of Blade Runner though isn’t the acting, it’s the story of a world in which there are created lifeforms that we consider second class citizens. It’s a world where society has fallen into disarray and large corporations are in control of everyday life. Through the hunt for the replicants we learn about how all life wants to continue to exist, and that it will do whatever it can to survive. When Deckard is killing the replicants you feel sorry for them, because at the end of it all, they just want to survive.

There has been much written about the question of if Deckard is a replicant, and I’m hoping the new movie provides more clarity than what Ridley Scott has said. Obviously we will have to find out the reason that, if Deckard is a replicant, how has he managed to live so long. I’m hopeful that the new movie doesn’t just become a shoot-em-up flick, but delves more into the questions of life and servitude. Thankfully, we don’t need to wait too long to find out.

If it’s been awhile since you’ve experienced Blade Runner, now’s the time to re-watch it and get ready for the next installment. October will be here before you know it.