Blade Runner White Dragon Cut > Blade Runner > The End of The luminous objects drawn by Syd Mead : Part 2

    The End of The luminous objects drawn by Syd Mead : Part 2

    The luminous objects drawn by Syd Mead

    This is a follow-up to my previous post about the luminous objects drawn by Syd Mead. You can see two luminous objects on the wall of bookstore in the Syd Mead’s production sketch.

    The two iconic object, the luminous cylinder and the sphere, in Syd Mead’s production sketch.
    You can also see the blue object that is the entrance to the Chew’s Eye Factory.
    Mead’s sketch of the front of the bookstore. You can see the luminous objects on the left side of the bookstore.

    It’s a shame that these two luminous objects were not recreated on the movie set, called Ridleyville, and a huge duct was installed instead of them.

    You can see the huge duct in the center of the photo.

    I thought that the luminous cylinder turned into the huge duct finally. My guess is that the huge duct was originally created as the luminous sylinder but in the process of creation, due to budget and strength constraints, it was turned upside down and not became the luminous sylinder but the huge duct.

    Blueprint of Ridleyville from Tom Southwell

    Yesterday, Benjamin Wigley, who is a hardcore Blade Runner fan and has a 1/6 scale model of Ridleyville in “Sketchup”, gave me some valuable material on Blade Runner. They’re blue prints of Ridleyville from Tom Southwell, the production designer of Blade Runner.

    The blueprints of Ridleyville from Tom Southwell

    The drawing on the right is from the front of the bookstore, and the drawing on the left is the left side of the bookstore. You can see the luminous cylinder on the left side of the book store.
    Yes, he was planning to intend to recreate the luminous cylinder on the movie set.

    There’s more!
    Syd Mead’s Los Angeles 2019 that was supposed to be recreated.

    You can see some objects based on the Syd Mead production sketches besides the luminous cylinder in this blue prin

    For example, the four electronic billboards in front of the bookstore are almost exactly as sketched by Syd Mead, although the design has been slightly altered. In the end, they were replaced by completely different neon lights in the film version.

    From left to right: Syd Mead’s sketch, blue print, movie set

    The luminous object for Chew’s eye factory on the left side of the blue print is also almost identical to Mead’s sketch. Interestingly, the entrance that is added in the movie set is already drawn.

    From left to right: Syd Mead’s sketch, blue print, movie set

    Also, the intricate wiring and component groups drawn between the eye workshop and the cylinder objects are depicted exactly as Mead sketched them in the blue prints. Unfortunately, most of them were not recreated in the movie set.

    From left to right: Syd Mead’s sketch, blue print, movie set

    The fact that Syd Mead’s materials are drawen in the blue prints shows that the production design was almost completely based on Syd Mead’s sketches. Unfortunately, most of them were not recreated in the movie set of Ridleyville, probably due to budget and time constraints.
    One of the joys of being a Blade Runner fan is to wonder what the movie scenes would have looked like if Ridleyville had been made exactly as shown in this blue print.

    What if Ridleyville had been built according to the Blueprint?

    Blade Runner White Dragon Cut 5 will be a complete recreation of the elements drawn in Syd Mead’s sketch. Hopefully this will be one of the answers to the “what if” that Ridleyville had been created exactly as blueprinted by Benjamin Wigley.

    Front of the bookstore (production sketch by Syd Mead)
    Front of the bookstore (White Dragon Cut 5)
    Side of the bookstore (production sketch by Syd Mead)
    Side of the bookstore (White Dragon Cut 5)

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